“Should I still deliver it, even though it’s late? Today is too late for the stagecoach, but I think I could go tomorrow.”

“No, it’s fine.”

The refusal was firm, but the inner agitation was plain to see.

“I’ll call you separately if I need something. You worked hard in the cold.”

Smila turned away without meeting Lisa’s eyes, clearly wanting to be alone.

Lisa deliberately kept her expression neutral so as not to upset the young lady. She also pretended not to notice that the recipient of the letter, the young son of the Servillo family, was about the same age as Smila.

The moment she turned to leave, she found Renato. She didn’t know when he had arrived, but their eyes met through the open door.

He stepped inside at the same moment Smila was putting the letter in a drawer.

“It seems I’m a little late.”

“Oh, no. The tutor finished early today.”

It seemed they had arranged to meet after the lesson, as they had the day before. As Renato approached with his unreadable, unhurried gait, Smila’s barely concealed panic became obvious. She couldn’t move away from the drawer.

“You must be tired. You couldn’t have slept after the accident yesterday. You should rest……”

Smila forced a smile and suggested rest under the guise of consideration. She wanted to cancel the tea. But he took his place beside her as a dutiful prospective fiancé and rested his hand on the chest of drawers.

“I’m fine. The pasture is quite vast, isn’t it.”

“It’s Father’s greatest pride. He carved out several curves of the hillside to create it.”

“Where does the path lead past the lodge where I sheltered from the blizzard?”

Smila’s cheek twitched visibly. It was a miracle she didn’t stammer when she finally spoke.

“If you go straight, you enter the Servillo count’s territory.”

The young lady, whose guileless exterior matched her inner self with perfect consistency, crumbled like a penitent right after confession.

The hand Smila had braced against the chest of drawers went white. Renato watched her sway without moving to steady her.

“You don’t look well.”

“Oh, yes. A little……”

“It seems you’re the one who needs to rest. I’ll see you later, then.”

He added a few words of polite concern and took his leave with the bearing of an impeccably mannered gentleman.

Had he figured it out? In Lisa’s view, almost certainly. If he learned the composition of the Servillo family, there would be no doubt. But Smila let out a long breath and gradually steadied herself. She seemed to believe she had gotten away with it.

They can sort it out themselves. Lisa had no desire to involve herself in matters that weren’t her concern, and she kept her mouth shut.

Working in the study was very easy. A well-bred young lady rarely made a mess, and the room, used only for a few hours of lessons each day, was always tidy.

Today there had apparently been an art lesson, and there were many sheets of drawing paper with only a few lines sketched on them. It seemed a waste, all that thick, quality paper barely touched. The pencils and erasers that needed replacing were less than half used.

They’re going to be thrown away anyway, so can I take them? I’ll take them for now and ask Smila when she’s in a good mood.

She headed to the guest room at the time she had agreed with Mel. Mel had nearly finished her work and was lining up the ornaments on the mantelpiece in a neat row. The story about being criticized for anything even slightly crooked was clearly true. The maid brightened when she spotted Lisa peering around the doorframe.

“You probably won’t run into him. The time I got an earful and cried my eyes out was the real problem. He’s probably reviewing documents in the sitting room by now.”

Anyone who hadn’t experienced Renato firsthand wouldn’t understand Mel. They might think it an overreaction to cry from a simple reprimand from a guest who had only been there a few days. But Lisa, who knew the dark, sharpened edge of his presence, felt it deeply. Being frightened of him was entirely natural. She was too.

Lisa drifted around the guest room with the decorative feather duster, its soft plumes swaying. No matter how she looked at it, there was nothing to fault. She couldn’t imagine where he had found something to complain about.

“Isn’t it all done?”

Mel staggered under the weight of the collected sheets and cleaning supplies.

“Oof. I’ll go ahead, so just check there’s nothing out of place.”

Lisa opened and closed her mouth at Mel’s retreating back. She wanted to say let’s go together, but that wasn’t a luxury she could afford.

Does Renato pursue perfection? She dusted the crystal ashtray that gleamed like a jewel and let her mind wander uselessly.

I need to check quickly and go. She was hurrying when he appeared, like a ghost drawn by her unease.

“Now you’re wandering into my room as well.”

Renato gave a short, incredulous laugh, twisting the corner of his mouth. Seeing her expression of dismay, the cold amusement in his face deepened slightly.

He closed the door behind him and crossed the room in long strides, passing in front of her. He settled loosely on the sofa and propped his feet on the footstool. His long legs, stretched out and crossed, lay before her like a barricade.

“I might start to feel attached.”

Renato rested his chin in his hand and looked up at her with a cool, unhurried gaze.

It was a completely unfounded misunderstanding. And attached, of all things, was absurd.

“I only came to help a close friend for a moment.”

Being pushed into it or not, she got along with Mel well enough. Better than the head maid or Anna, at least.

“You’re friends with that sloppy maid?”

The excessive insult made Lisa’s mouth go tight. His face was faultlessly handsome, but his tongue must have been dipped in poison. Every word out of his mouth irritated her, and she glared at him whenever he looked away.

He kept talking, which made it hard to find an opening to leave. She felt she had already fulfilled Mel’s request to keep him company, and she wanted to go. But his unpleasant gaze wouldn’t leave her, traveling over her outfit, which she had tried to make presentable, and stopping at her apron.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

He nodded toward the rolled-up drawing paper tucked into her pocket.

“Paper Miss Smila used and threw away.”

“Why are you carrying it around.”

“It was still perfectly good…… I was hoping I might have it.”

A brief silence fell, as though time had stopped. Renato narrowed his deep-set eyes and seemed about to draw her into the darkness of his pupils.

A sense of foreboding made Lisa hold the roll of paper still in her hand. She turned the moment over in her mind but couldn’t identify what she had done wrong.

Tension mounted in the quiet. Even the small motion of him shifting his chin to the other hand set her nerves on edge.

“Every time I see you, you manage to irritate me.”

She had no idea what he meant.

“What do you……”

“Eating things off the floor, wandering through a blizzard. Now you’re collecting rubbish?”

“……”

“Are you performing poverty on purpose? If you’re trying to inspire pity, you’ve chosen the wrong audience.”

He furrowed his brow and delivered the words with blunt displeasure. It was the kind of remark that threw someone’s self-respect into the gutter. The insults flowed so naturally that she almost found herself wondering if she really was nothing but a wretch.

Every time she became entangled with him, she was forced to confront the fact that she was living at the very bottom. This man had a precise way of pressing exactly the blind spots she didn’t want to see.

The cruelty with which he had killed Titan was still viscerally real to her, and the feeling that the blade was now pointed at her made it all the more chilling.

“It isn’t like that.”

Lisa had no choice but to offer a feeble defense.

“I was going to…… sketch a little, when I have time.”

The elbow resting on the sofa arm shifted slightly, and he tilted his head to show his skepticism. A vague explanation like “sketch a little” was clearly not going to satisfy him.

“My brother likes it when I draw for him.”

“You can draw?”

“No! I’m terrible at it. But Raoul is happy no matter what.”

The shame deepened to the level of a well that would take a long time to empty. She felt a strong revulsion toward him for making her reveal things she hadn’t wanted to share. Among all the servants living in the same manor, very few knew she occasionally drew, and having to confess it to a guest passing through for a short stay was wretched. It felt like being forced to expose something shameful.