Chapter 56 – Found Out

“I’ll take care of it myself. Please do not concern yourself.”

Ignoring Robert, Sasha forcefully shook off the arm that had seized her. He looked as though he truly did not understand why she was behaving this way.

“Why are you angry again?”

“How could I dare be angry with you, Your Grace?”

“You’re angry at me right now.”

Robert muttered with a displeased expression, as though something about this did not sit well with him.

Sasha was so dumbfounded that she had no words. Had this man really thought he could introduce another man to a woman who had confessed she liked him, and expect her to remain perfectly unaffected?

Ah, so to this man, I am truly nothing at all. He never once seriously thought about the things I said to him that day.

The moment she realized that, what she felt was not so much anger as emptiness. It felt as though he had rejected her once again. Something cold and sharp mercilessly burrowed into her chest. So this is really all I am worth. That must be why the first person I ever liked could reject me like this. Heat gathered at the corners of her eyes with the misery of it.

“I will not ask you to like me. But you could at least respect my feelings. Just because I like you does not mean you have the right to do whatever you want with my heart.”

Robert looked at the woman speaking with a sorrowful face. The clothes he had chosen suited Sasha as though they had been made for her from the beginning. After looking her over with satisfaction, his gaze finally stopped at her transparent green eyes. The reddened rims, as though tears might fall from them at any moment, grated on him like madness. Like a fatal blemish left upon a perfect picture.

Something felt as though it was not fitting together properly. Robert’s instincts clearly recognized that something was going wrong, yet because he could not tell exactly where it had begun to go wrong, unease rose in him. He could not identify the cause. Except for the fact that this feeling shaking him so unpleasantly originated in the woman standing before him.

“Were you two in the middle of a conversation? It seemed the Princess was looking for her partner.”

It was then that an unwelcome third party abruptly intruded upon the silence between the two of them. Robert turned his chin slightly and found Daniel de Regiani, who had likewise come out looking for his partner, who had not returned.

Daniel saw Sasha, who had at last shed the tears she had barely been holding back the moment the Duke of Guienne went back toward the stands. He quietly waited for the partner who had suddenly broken into tears while speaking with another man.

“I’m sorry…….”

Daniel smiled gently to show that it was all right. It was not as though the two of them had become partners because they liked one another, after all. The woman said to be making her formal first appearance in Laurent society that day had an excessively innocent side to her. Was that why, before leaving, the Duke of Guienne’s persistent gaze had circled around her?

Sasha herself, on the other hand, seemed not even to know what sort of look she was receiving from the Duke. When the Duke’s gaze, steeped in possessiveness, passed over Sasha and briefly brushed Daniel, a chill ran down his spine.

The Duke did not ordinarily reveal his true feelings when others were present. Was it merely a mistake that a man so thorough had just shown him such an improper look, or had it been deliberate. Trying to guess the Duke’s intention, Daniel frowned. If it was the latter, it struck him as far too malicious.

After hesitating, Daniel carefully reached a hand toward Sasha’s shoulder to comfort her.

“If you’ve calmed down, shall we go back in now? The race will begin any moment.”

Did she not want it known that she had cried. The woman with the large lovely eyes blinked them several times and slowly nodded. For some reason Daniel felt inclined to do so, and although the distance was short and there was no real need, he offered his arm. Sasha, without any suspicion, placed her hand on her partner’s arm.

* * *

By the time Sasha returned to the stands with Daniel, Robert was already back in a distant seat at Princess Deborah’s side.

“The horses are already out. Number Four certainly does stand out the most.”

Daniel said it casually. Sasha clenched her betting ticket tightly. It was not that she believed Elisha would win. She only hoped the horse might complete the race safely.

If only today did not have to be Elisha’s final race. And if not that, then at least she hoped the mare would not be dragged off to the slaughterhouse. That she would not meet such an unhappy end.

At the signal, the horses burst from the gates and began racing down the track like bullets.

“Run! You damned slugs that know nothing but crawling! Run till you drop dead!”

The gamblers’ shouts from below rang out loud enough to reach the stands. Sasha watched the nerve-racking race in anxious suspense. The horses, their manes flying with a terrifying rush of wind, rounded the track and were suddenly almost at the finish line in the blink of an eye.

There was no upset. Victor, who had surged forward at a fearsome speed from the middle onward, claimed a smooth victory. But the race was not over yet. Sasha waited anxiously for the last horse to come in over the finish line. Please, please.

“You must be thirsty. Shall I bring you something to drink?”

“I’m all right. Please go ahead.”

Daniel smiled as he looked at Sasha, who was still speaking without taking her eyes off that white horse.

“I was speaking of you, Miss Vinoche.”

At those words, Sasha glanced at him in embarrassment. She looked apologetic.

“Well then, anything is fine for me. Thank you for being considerate.”

“Not at all. It is only what one naturally ought to do.”

Daniel looked at his partner, who was watching the already ended race with a fervor he could not understand, and turned away. He meant to bring something to drink for Sasha, who seemed worn out from being too deeply absorbed in her first race.

“Aah! The horse has gone mad!”

Just as he was about to step out of the stands, a sharp scream pierced his ear. Elisha was charging at a furious speed toward the place where the mocking spectators stood. As though she knew that when this race ended, she herself was fated to be shot dead at once.

The jockey, having already lost control, had long since let go of the reins and been thrown off. While the crowd that had been gathered like clouds screamed and scattered quickly in all directions, Sasha remained frozen, unable to move as though her feet were stuck fast to the ground.

The people who noticed Sasha too late let out screams. She would be mercilessly trampled to death beneath the hooves of the charging mad horse. Foreseeing a horrific tragedy, people shut their eyes tightly.

‘I’m scared.’

With her mind bleached white, Sasha thought of that in the last moment. She was so seized by fear that she could not even close her eyes. At the instant she sensed the pain of the mare rushing right up before her, someone hooked a hand like a claw around her waist and rolled with her across the ground.

Almost at the same time, a gunshot rang out. Held so tightly in the arms of a man she could not identify that she could hardly breathe, Sasha heard several shots fired in succession.

At last, with the murmur of the people around them, the commotion began to die down. Only then did the man, who had been holding her tightly so she could not slip from his arms, let her go. The tall hat he had been wearing lay far away, rolling along the ground covered in dust.

A strange silence fell over the people watching. Upon spotting the frozen Sasha Vinoche, the Duke of Guienne had rushed in before anyone could stop him. Had he been even a little later, or had the stable hand’s bullet come a little later, the two of them might both have died.

“Why…….”

It was a voice whispered so that only he could hear. Sasha was held motionless by Robert’s eyes, where fierce emotion seemed to writhe as though about to explode at any moment. Her head felt as though it might burst.

“Miss Vinoche! Are you all right?”

Daniel, arriving belatedly at a run, hurriedly took off his coat and draped it over Sasha. A raw smell of blood drifted into her nose. The bloody scent given off by the animal that had been shot.

Wrapped in the coat of Daniel, whom she had only met today, Sasha watched Robert’s back as he rose, catching his breath. He did not look back. He did not give her so much as a glance. At the end of the path he walked stood Robert’s original partner, watching them with cold, chilled eyes. Only when the Duke of Guienne had returned to his proper place did Deborah finally withdraw that cold gaze.

They left the stands as though nothing at all had happened. The other spectators, who had been whispering among themselves, also gradually slipped away after the Duke and the Princess. The aftermath of the accident belonged to the racetrack. The stable hand would likely be dismissed for failing to keep proper control of the horse.

“What will happen to the foal? It lost its mother.”

Sasha murmured it almost to herself. Perhaps because she was still too shocked, she was speaking of something entirely out of place, but Daniel answered her as faithfully as he could.

“It will probably be raised at the racetrack. It is pitiful, but that sort of horse is hardly the only one in the world.”

Still apparently not recovered from the shock, Sasha took the hand Daniel offered and barely got to her feet. By then, the stands were already empty except for the two of them.

“No one could take it away and raise it?”

“If one did not own an estate suited to raising horses.”

Daniel shook his head.

“If not, then realistically it would be difficult.”

“You’re right. That was too obvious, wasn’t it. Please don’t mind me. I wasn’t speaking seriously either.”

He looked at the woman as she rose awkwardly, dusting off her skirt. She had said she was not serious, but it did seem the foal was on her mind. Does she like horses. Then perhaps next time they met, he might suggest visiting a nearby ranch. Daniel considered it for a moment. It was unlike him to think of a next time with a woman he had only just met, when nothing had yet been decided.

“You must have been terribly frightened today. May I escort you back to the hotel?”

Still, first things first, ending today properly. Sasha hesitated at his offer to take her back in his carriage, but in the end she nodded. Having obtained her consent, Daniel escorted Sasha to the carriage he had arrived in.