In the brief pause while tea was being poured, a silent reconnaissance unfolded. So this is Smila’s type. She was his prospective fiancée, but it felt like someone else’s business entirely.

He felt no particular jealousy. If the engagement went through, he simply hoped they would sort out their relationship on their own. He had no strong feelings for Smila and was being pushed into the marriage itself, so all he wanted was for this unavoidable rite of passage in his life to proceed without unnecessary complications.

It would be wise to give them both a gentle warning in advance. After some weightless small talk, he raised the matter lightly.

“I understand you and Miss Smila are personally quite close, Mr. Servillo.”

“Our estates border each other. We’ve visited back and forth since we were children, and Count Maldini has always been very fond of me.”

“Oh, the count as well?”

“The count and my father are close friends. They’ve even pursued business together as joint investors. They built a pasture on the hill that spans both territories.”

“I’ve been there once. Quite extensive, and the facilities were modern. So they’re partners.”

Marsimo let a hint of pride show as he shrugged. The family name might not be widely known, but by that measure they were comfortably well-off. Renato’s thoughts, however, had drifted elsewhere.

Count Maldini had claimed the pasture was solely his and that he was among the top names in the dairy industry. Whether the ownership was shared or undivided was something that needed to be verified.

Through all of this, Smila had her gaze fixed on the rippling surface of her tea. A woman who cultivated an innocent image with oversized bows and curly hair while carrying on something behind the scenes. He had already suspected that her exterior and her interior might not align, and this confirmed it. Not long ago, Smila had been present when the count was boasting about the pasture and hadn’t shown a flicker of discomfort. Even now, hearing Marsimo’s contradictory account, she kept her mouth shut like a clam.

Once the contract channeling Trieste Bank funds into the Maldini household moved forward, the true scale of their assets would come to light regardless. But watching the young lady’s duplicity play out in front of him left a bitter taste.

Those who enable a situation through silence often justify themselves by saying they didn’t do anything wrong with their own hands.

Isn’t that self-serving hypocrisy?

On the surface, Renato sipped his tea without betraying a flicker of reaction.

“If your families are that close, Miss Smila must feel like a little sister to you?”

He had no interest in hearing more about neighboring estates and joint ventures, so he went straight to the point. If even a question this blunt failed to register, there was something wrong with the man’s intelligence. Marsimo finally exchanged a glance with Smila and tempered his expansive manner somewhat.

“When we were young, perhaps. That’s all in the past. I won’t give you any cause for concern.”

Every excuse the man offered was feeble. Smila was hardly a grown adult, so how far back was this supposed past of his?

His goal was simply for them to exercise some restraint on their own, so he didn’t push further. Marsimo conveniently changed the subject with easy confidence.

“By the way, how have you been spending your leisure time? I know a forest that’s excellent for fox hunting. We should go together sometime.”

So the many hunting dogs he had noticed around the manor were for fox drives.

“Hunting sounds good.”

He had no intention of belittling the man on first meeting, but Marsimo’s soft build seemed at odds with any physically active hobby. The thought of him holding a rifle brought to mind the risk of an accidental discharge. A fox drive without firearms seemed the safer option, which was why he agreed readily.

Once active sports came up as a topic, Smila seemed to take it as her cue and finally lifted her head.

“Would it be all right if I excused myself? Please take your time, both of you.”

The hem of her dress as she hurried out looked like a red fox’s tail. The count, knowing nothing, had probably hoped his daughter would help the two men get along, but her contribution to this meeting had amounted to nothing more than flinching with a guilty conscience.

If things continued in this direction, who exactly would end up as the prey? His preference was for large game, so foxes held no appeal.

Marsimo was the kind of person whose mouth moved faster than his head. His hand showed itself quickly after only a brief conversation.

When he mentioned being the third son, a competitive resentment toward his two older brothers and an inferiority about his smaller inheritance came through subtly. The mention of socializing at a country club some distance away painted the picture of a man of leisure escaping the eyes of his family elders to indulge himself freely. The occasional references to women and drink suggested a considerable history with the former.

Even if he fell short by Renato’s standards, he wasn’t entirely without substance. His talkativeness suggested he had a decent circle of friends, and his influence in the local community was not negligible.

Whether he could actually go hunting with the man was another question. Spending time with his prospective fiancée’s secret lover had a certain absurdity to it. It felt uncomfortably like using cunning to gather evidence of an affair.

The feeling of being used and made into a victim by someone else was quite unpleasant.

A victim, of all things. A perpetrator, perhaps, but not a victim.

* * *

Raoul, worn out from the hard day, was snoring softly.

Lisa usually went to bed as quickly as possible after returning to the quarters, to save on lamp oil. Being called out and scolded by the head maid every time she went to refill the lamp had made it a habit to sleep when it grew dark. Raoul had long since fallen into a sleep deep enough to sleep through anything.

Any other night, Lisa would have pulled the blanket over herself in her worn-out bed. But tonight she couldn’t sleep.

Nine o’clock was coming. If she listened carefully she could hear the grandfather clock in the main hall, and she had already counted eight chimes to herself.

She sat on the edge of the bed and pushed her cold feet into her shoes.

The phantom echo of Renato’s commanding voice rang in her head. The words telling her to come to his room that evening were nothing like his actual voice, which had a low, resonant depth; in her memory they sounded like the mournful wail of a ghost drifting through another world.

She counted the shackles around her ankles. At least two. Or perhaps three or four. The price of a spirited stallion alone would exceed a maid’s wages for a lifetime, so what was the point of tallying the rest. The weight Renato had loaded onto her was too terrible to dismiss as merely having a weakness exploited.

The steady, drowsy breathing pressed against her back like dense, wet earth. The weight of responsibility sometimes crushed her, but Raoul was what kept her going day by day. In a heart as meager as the last dregs of lamp oil, her brother was a small flame she could hold onto.

If something happened to her, both their lives would fall apart at once. Defying that man would be foolish.

Lisa forced a breath up from where it had sunk deep, as though she were submerged in a swamp. She shook out her wrinkled skirt and rose unsteadily.

The creak of the worn, rusted hinge as she pushed the door open fed the anxiety already gnawing at her.

Lisa looked exactly as she had when she was getting ready for bed.

Her tightly braided hair had been undone and combed out, and over her nightgown-style dress she had thrown on only a coat. Above her shoes, folded down at the heel, her ankles showed white and thin as skewers.

She carried an empty tin water pail in her hand. She rarely had reason to be about at this hour, so it was a ready excuse if she ran into anyone. No one was likely to pay attention to someone as invisible as she was in this manor, but if she were questioned, she planned to say she had come out because she was thirsty.

She passed through the kitchen and came out into the open hall. She kept to the shadows as she circled the outer edge. When she reached the polished staircase, her heart shrank to the size of a pea.

‘From here, there’s no excuse I can give.’

If she were caught, it would be catastrophic. She looked quickly left and right and scurried up the stairs like a mouse. The moment her movement was exposed in the moonlight, a resonant chime rose from the floor up through her feet.