12. Advice
“Wait, just a moment.”
He stopped in place, caught by my hand.
“Rosie……?”
The moment I heard his voice calling my name, I regained some of my senses after being consumed by the thought that I needed to stop him.
Wait, what had I just done?
Though he treated me well, this person was undeniably the young master of this country’s only ducal family. In other words, he held a position equivalent to a prince in a sizeable kingdom.
I hastily removed my hands from the hem of his clothes I had been clutching.
To my embarrassment, the young master remained stopped where I had grabbed him.
Only now fully grasping the situation, I inwardly reproached myself for my reckless action.
I must have lost my mind. Why on earth did I do that?
If even a single guard had been by the young master’s side right now, I would have no right to complain if I were killed on the spot for touching his body.
“Did you have something to say?”
He asked me as I was mentally berating myself.
His voice was gentle as usual. Though he didn’t sound angry at first listen, I couldn’t know his true feelings.
Perhaps while saying those words, he was inwardly contemplating hundreds of ways to punish me for my rash behavior.
Naturally, I had nothing important or urgent enough to justify stopping him. I couldn’t rationalize my rude behavior with something as trivial as asking to escort him on his way out.
I just wanted to cry from the shame of my foolish action.
In the deep silence, only my breathing seemed audible.
No matter how I thought about it, I had no reason to dare grab him.
The young master’s back view felt unusually unfamiliar. I was a bit afraid of him standing silently before me.
The black air filling the deserted corridor seemed to choke me. Overwhelmed by the suffocatingly heavy atmosphere, I forced my mouth open.
“Actually……”
My voice sounded terribly shaky to my ears.
“……going back from here……is too far……so……”
I barely continued speaking in a voice close to sobbing.
I couldn’t possibly make the disrespectful statement that he might die on his way back. No, in truth, my mind was already too chaotic for proper thought.
“The night road is too cold……and the cold wind would probably be bad for your health……”
The words that tumbled out without being properly organized in my head were incomprehensible even to myself.
To make matters worse, a hiccup pathetically escaped at the end of my sentence.
I was being completely ridiculous.
My face burned as if it might cook through. My feverishly hot face kept flushing, while my fingertips felt as if all blood had drained from them.
I tried to cool my face with my cold hands, but my face only grew hotter, providing no relief.
At that moment, a clear voice came from the darkness.
“Do you dislike me leaving?”
Surprised by those words, I stopped hiccupping.
Though that was indeed what I had meant, receiving it back in such a straightforward tone made me solemn. I was too embarrassed to give him any answer.
“……”
I looked only at the floor with my head dropped. My heart was beating wildly and wouldn’t calm down.
I could see the young master’s feet, which had been facing the opposite direction, slowly turning toward me.
He sighed briefly.
“I can’t help it, Rosie. Let’s do as you wish.”
I felt somewhat relieved at his proposal.
This nuance of going together was indeed what I had wanted. But the direction the young master’s body was facing seemed a bit strange. The tips of his feet were pointing not toward the exit but toward where I had come from.
My head, which had been full of embarrassment, began to fill with a new, different emotion.
I was a bit confused. So I had to ask again.
“……Pardon?”
He took one step closer to me. I flinched in surprise and curled up without even raising my head.
Again, a sweet fragrance spread faintly through the air. My sense of smell, no, my thoughts seemed to be completely numbed.
That fragrance was the same as the one from the shirt I had borrowed from the young master on the day I first met him. Thinking about that threatened to make my already overloaded mind explode, so I deliberately shook my head from side to side, trying to avoid recalling that moment.
Today, he seemed so unfamiliar. He clearly seemed to be the same person I knew, yet somehow not.
But I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding. It would be far better to summon courage again than to become a shameless person like this.
“Isn’t your room that way, Rosie?”
“Eek, young master……”
Something seemed to have been seriously miscommunicated.
My statement ‘I dislike (you) leaving (alone)’ had become ‘don’t go,’ which then transformed into the tremendous suggestion of ‘let’s stay together.’ Especially at this late hour, ‘let’s stay together’ meant…….
No, what am I thinking?
Toward a sick patient?
I vigorously waved my imaginary arms to erase the pervert that had awakened in my mind.
Before I could think of appropriate and polite words of explanation, the young master walked past me and went ahead.
Having been caught out by verbal blunders several times already, I couldn’t carelessly say just anything. Fighting against the vain delusions trying to awaken within me, I had no choice but to follow behind him.
We walked silently down the corridor where shadows of window frames drawn by moonlight were spread out. Why did this short distance, which I had run in one breath earlier to find him, now feel so long?
Was it because it was night? His back view looked unfamiliar. He seemed like a different person.
His attitude toward me was kind as usual, but somehow it felt dangerous.
Was this really just because of the darkness?
Though I was surrounded by a familiar space and person I knew well, it felt like being in a place I had never been before with a stranger I had never seen. I couldn’t breathe properly due to tension and pressure.
I walked behind the young master like someone whose soul had left their body.
As I moved forward in this daze, something heavy and cold settled on top of my head. It stroked my head very softly and gently.
When I came to my senses and looked straight ahead again, I saw expressionless emerald eyes.
The young master had somehow turned around and was standing facing me.
“I’ll wait in front of this room until you fall asleep.”
I finally understood what he had said and done earlier. He must have misunderstood my words as asking him to escort me to my room.
“N-no, that’s……”
But it was also somewhat shocking that he had interpreted my words that way.
Could it be that he had been seeing me as such a shameless person all this time?
No matter how I thought about it, it was too uncivilized a request for a fake fiancée connected by shallow interests. Moreover, the young master was a seriously ill patient who might not last much longer. Making such an unreasonable request to him was completely inappropriate.
I felt I needed to clear up his misunderstanding quickly before committing any more disrespect toward him.
“Absolutely not! I absolutely didn’t mean it that way!”
It seemed there was a serious flaw in my way of speaking. I had caused the young master to misunderstand so greatly. Perhaps learning how to speak accurately was more urgent than tea-drinking etiquette or maintaining a proper gait.
“So, what I meant wasn’t that……”
Contrary to my desire to salvage the situation, my next words were also disorganized.
To such a mess, the young master didn’t get angry but simply gazed at me with unchangingly calm eyes. In fact, perhaps the young master was desperately holding back his anger.
“Rosie, calm down and close your eyes.”
Though I didn’t understand why he was suddenly saying this, I felt I had to follow his words unconditionally due to my guilt toward him.
As he said, I obediently closed my eyes.
Then ice-cold fingers touched my lips. The moment my lips parted in surprise, something colder than his hand wedged between them.
“Sleep well, Rosie.”
He said in a gentle voice. Though his tone was soft, it somehow felt like a command. Because of this, I reflexively swallowed whatever cold thing had touched my tongue. I could feel it spreading a cold chill as it descended down my esophagus.
The next moment, my head felt a bit dizzy.
With his affectionate whisper touching my ear, my consciousness faded.
❀❀❀
The closed door of the room slowly opened.
The pure white moon visible outside the window had already tilted slightly westward.
The room was completely dark except for the faint moonlight.
Into that darkness, neat, shod feet stepped soundlessly.
In Young Master Riverton’s arms was Rosaline Brienne, fallen into deep sleep.
Despite the added weight of Rosaline in his arms, his gait didn’t waver. As if the added weight meant nothing, he walked gracefully.
His posture, which had been powerless until just before, had also changed unrecognizably.
The slightly staggering steps he had always shown in front of Rosaline now had adequate strength in them. His elegant footsteps, advancing with minimal movement, were like a work of art carefully crafted by someone.
Without wasting a single step, Young Master Riverton walked straight to the bed in that room and carefully laid down Rosaline, whom he had been carrying in his arms.
The moment she was placed on the bed, Rosaline frowned and stirred.
Young Master Riverton pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed, covered her up to her chest, and then sat beside her.
The bed rippled slightly as his weight was added. This caused Rosaline’s body to shake a little as she lay there, but Young Master Riverton didn’t bat an eye at the sight.
His attitude was as if he were certain she wouldn’t wake from her deep sleep for a long time.
A cold, pale hand extended toward Rosaline’s forehead. The paper-white fingers slowly stroked her round forehead. As if the touch was cold, Rosaline’s tightly closed eyelids twitched slightly.
Watching this, Young Master Riverton’s eyes gleamed coldly.
“Rosie, it’s troublesome if you try so hard.”
In the deep darkness, he whispered kindly to her, who was unconscious.
“Let’s just stay like this, us. So don’t try to find me.”
