Lady Camille fanned herself furiously with her hand, her face burning, and hurried out of the room.

❀❀❀

Completely unaware of what misunderstanding Lady Camille had taken with her, Blair looked at the signed contract with a quietly satisfied expression.

“You said you’d been waiting for this. It seems you’re pleased.”

Kalintz murmured, chin resting at a slight angle.

“Of course. As I said, it took considerable effort to write it without being found out.”

“Naturally.”

Kalintz let out a small laugh watching Blair roll up the contract and make a show of her efforts.

“You seem to enjoy writing.”

The quiet question made Blair flinch slightly.

“You’re making a face that says, how did you know.”

“……Have you learned to read minds or something?”

How he managed to read her expressions so accurately every time was beyond her. Being caught off guard by him like that had a way of nagging at her.

“Have you ever considered that your expressions are simply easy to read?”

“Not in front of others. Only with you.”

That was the truth. She was not sure why, but for some reason her thoughts and expressions came through without any filter when she was in front of him.

“……You say that so easily.”

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

He gave an oddly flat answer and lifted his wine to his lips.

“The comment about writing was based on the contract. The handwriting is clean, and the word choice and phrasing are quite refined.”

Kalintz poured more wine into his empty glass as he spoke.

“It reads like someone who has written a great deal. Not the kind of skill you pick up from scribbling love letters.”

“I give off that kind of…… impression?”

“Anyone would think so.”

His answer made Blair quietly pleased. It had been far too long since anyone had complimented her writing.

She rubbed her cheek for no particular reason and opened her mouth.

“……That man earlier. The one I saw during the procession this morning.”

“The scrawny-looking one? Ned, was it.”

“Scrawny……”

What was that about. Though for someone making such a passing remark, he had remembered even the name she had murmured in passing.

“He’s not scrawny, but anyway. Ned is an actor in a theater troupe. Still a junior member, but.”

“A theater troupe?”

Kalintz furrowed his brow slightly, looking puzzled.

“Yes. I used to send my writing to the troupe through Ned from time to time.”

Blair brought up something she had never told anyone.

“Writing stories is…… a hobby of mine.”

“You mean you write scripts and send them in? Yourself?”

Kalintz asked again with slightly widened eyes, just as she had expected.

“……I know. It’s a pointless thing that no lady my age would ever do.”

As her parents had always told her, writing was a hobby with absolutely no use in finding a good match. At best, a woman only needed to read and write well enough to keep the family accounts.

“Even so, I…… love writing. It’s enjoyable, creating a story of my own. And sharing it with someone.”

Blair murmured it like a confession, then glanced at Kalintz with a vague sense of embarrassment. But he only looked at her quietly without a word.

“……That’s all I’m saying. Why are you looking at me like that.”

His silence stung her pride a little, and she put on a deliberately composed expression and downed the remaining wine in her glass in one go.

Then Kalintz, who had been silent, spoke quietly.

“I don’t think it’s strange.”

“Pardon?”

“And I don’t think it’s pointless, either.”

He’s going to tease me again.

Blair braced herself and looked at him. But unexpectedly, his face was serious, without a trace of playfulness.

“I’m genuinely impressed. Quite a lot, actually.”

“Oh…… really?”

“Sincerely.”

He doesn’t look particularly surprised, though.

Blair narrowed her eyes at him with suspicion, but Kalintz’s expression remained unchanged.

“Ahem. Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

Blair cleared her throat and hid the quiet joy she felt. At her prim little answer, Kalintz let out a small laugh.

“Just glad. You may not realize it, but it is an exceptionally rare thing for me to be impressed by something, Blair.”

“……You seemed surprised by me so often that I assumed that was just how you were.”

Kalintz stared at her for a moment, then broke into a wide, easy smile.

“Fair enough. Come to think of it, you always manage to surprise me.”

Looking at his smiling face made her cheeks burn, almost like the wine had gone to her head all at once.

“Has anything been performed by the troupe yet?”

“No, not yet. Apparently the story needs to be a little more polished.”

“Then someday, something you wrote will be performed somewhere.”

“I…… hope so?”

The thought alone made her heart flutter, and Blair smiled softly.

“When did you start writing?”

“Hmm…… I think I started writing stories when I was around twelve. Back then it was the only escape I had.”

“From your parents?”

The directness of it made Blair flinch and look at him.

“There have been quite a few hints over time. No need to ask how I knew.”

That was true. She had let her resentment toward her parents slip more than once in conversation with him.

And most tellingly, her reaction at the wedding earlier when she saw them. It would have been stranger if he had not noticed.

“Is it all right if I ask what happened?”

“……Haven’t you already asked?”

“Hmm, I suppose I have.”

At Kalintz’s easy smile, Blair hesitated briefly before opening her mouth.

“I had an older sister.”

“Rania Mervish?”

“How did you know?”

This time Blair was genuinely startled, and her eyes went wide.

“You mentioned it before. I told you I pay particular attention to anything concerning you.”

“……I didn’t realize it extended this far.”

Then again, family relations were the sort of thing that turned up with even a cursory look through the noble registry.

“In any case, she was endlessly kind. Kind enough to go without a word of complaint when our parents’ senseless greed married her off to a man who wasn’t worth a thing.”

Blair’s voice dropped low.

“My sister took her own life less than a year after marrying Count Huston.”

“……Huston has a foul reputation.”

“I found out when I saw her body afterward. She had lost an impossible amount of weight in that one year, and bruises covered her from head to toe.”

House Huston was a family of some standing, but the young count who had newly inherited the title was a man with no shred of honor.

Men of that sort tended to be as one would expect. He drank and gambled, kept sordid company with women, and was a vicious man with violent hands on top of it all.

“The important thing was that our parents knew all of it.”

A cold fury edged into Blair’s voice.

“They sold their own child to that piece of filth. For nothing more than the hollow prestige of being in-laws to a count’s family.”

“……What could possibly be worth that.”

Kalintz murmured low, watching Blair clench her jaw.

“I despised them for it. And yet part of me thought, they’ve lost a child too, so the weight of that guilt must be heavy. Hatred and pity all tangled together…… I spent a long time in that confusion.”

Blair cast her eyes downward, turning over the past in her mind.

“If that had been all, maybe I could have healed a little at a time. There was a friend who helped me get through that period.”

“……Allen.”

Blair looked at him with startled eyes, not having expected that name from Kalintz’s lips.

“At the lake, that time. I heard you muttering to yourself. You went on for quite a while, calling out a name. Allen.”

Searching her memory, Blair realized it was the day she had slipped out of the palace alone and been caught by him, and she gave a faint nod.

“That’s right. That friend is Allen.”

The grief rose all the way to her throat. The blue eyes that had always smiled at her were still vivid in her mind.

“A truly precious…… friend.”

“……And now.”

At the question, Blair was silent for a moment before forcing the words out.

“……Gone. He died.”

Sorrow closed around her throat like a hand.

She had thought she was a little better by now. But the wound that had never fully healed still lay deep inside her.

“Blair.”

A quiet voice settled gently over her.

“Don’t dig up what hurts too much. It only makes it worse.”

There was nothing remarkable in what he said. Yet it gave her such comfort, and she did not quite know why.

She simply leaned on his words and let the grief pass through her in silence.