Chapter 2.

❀❀❀

Morning.

Angela gathered all three men together.

“You are all gentlemen who sent me proposals. In accepting the invitation to this residence, I believe you must also have wished to spend time with me and come to know one another better.”

She had no desire to look any of them in the face, not when any one of them might be the killer.

“So let us spend time together, one at a time.”

Even so, only one of them was the killer. The other two were innocent.

The person she sat across from might be the killer, or might be a decent person unjustly suspected of a terrible crime.

Could she manage that strange, unsettling contradiction.

“A rather refined way of asking for a date.”

Isaac cut in bluntly, but Angela’s expression did not shift.

He was simply that kind of person.

The one who cleared his throat in mild embarrassment was Ashley.

Cyril’s brow furrowed briefly with something like concern, then smoothed back into his characteristic delicate expression.

“Then the first person to spend time with me will be Lord Isaac Leo Galland, since he was the one who first proposed the idea.”

“So you really were listening to my suggestion. I’m deeply moved.”

Isaac clasped his own hands together with a loud clap.

“Right now, then?”

“I’ll check my schedule and let you know.”

Isaac, however, did not blink. He strode toward Angela and spoke with easy confidence.

“Skipping what needs to be done every once in a while is also something that needs to be done. Shall we go?”

“Please give me time to prepare.”

“Fair enough. I’ll see you in an hour. I’ll have the carriage ready. We’re going out.”

Isaac raised both arms and shrugged.

“Doesn’t it feel stifling, staying in the residence doing nothing but work, work, work?”

“It did not feel stifling.”

Angela answered without a moment’s hesitation, as though the question were not worth reconsidering.

“Mm. Mm. One ought to listen to other people’s advice from time to time. Just as you listened to mine last night.”

Isaac leaned his body toward Angela.

A large man tilting toward her cast a shadow over her.

Flinching, Angela took a reflexive half-step back.

A man’s large shadow falling over her from above.

And……

Angela pressed her hand into a fist to keep from showing her distress. Tension spread through her entire body.

It was only the past.

The past, which she could barely even remember clearly.

It was the middle of the day, and if it was once a nightmare, this was more than enough time to have woken from it.

Swish.

Another man stepped between her and the shadow looming before her, blocking it out.

Angela only realized it was Cyril when lavender hair swept past her line of sight.

The silver eyes behind his glasses regarded her quietly.

“Did you meet with Lord Galland separately last night?”

A sense of déjà vu.

Had someone once stepped in front of her like this before.

“I simply ran into him in the corridor while bringing Lucy back. Nothing more.”

Angela looked at Isaac with cool eyes.

“Lord Galland. Please refrain from remarks that invite misunderstanding.”

“I only stated the facts plainly. The one reacting with sensitivity is the one with a narrow mind.”

Isaac gave Cyril’s shoulder a light tap.

“I thought you were a timid sort, but you’ve got some bite after all.”

However similar their builds might be, the difference in muscle was obvious to anyone. More than that, it was plainly Isaac picking a fight without provocation.

Cyril looked quietly at the hand tapping his shoulder.

His expression did not waver in the slightest. There was not a trace of fear in him, nothing like the shyness he showed around people. If anything, his gaze only grew sharper.

“I knew you were someone without manners, but it seems you lack consideration as well.”

“Ahaha.”

Isaac lowered his voice to a near-growl, close enough to grab Cyril by the collar.

“Right. Everyone gets brave when there’s a beauty in front of them.”

“I have no interest in trading words. Let’s leave it here.”

The one who stepped in between them was Ashley.

Ashley mediated with his calm, affable smile.

“Lord Galland. We are all here in the same position as suitors, so I would appreciate it if we showed one another some respect. The attitude you’re displaying right now does no one in this room any good.”

Isaac took one step back.

“Fair enough. I don’t make a habit of picking fights with people who look like they’d blow away in a strong wind.”

“For someone who says that, you do pick fights rather well.”

“My, Angela, taking Lord Knowles’s side?”

“I am not taking anyone’s side. I simply do not want disturbances in this residence. Please refrain from frivolous behavior. It is quite clear to anyone watching that Lord Galland is the most disruptive person here.”

“Yes, yes. If the queen of this residence commands it, I shall gladly comply.”

Isaac bent his large frame in a graceful bow of apology.

“My apologies if I caused you concern, my queen.”

He made a mischievous face, raised his hand to his own lips, and blew a kiss toward Angela.

“Please stop looking at me with those fierce eyes like you’re about to slap me. I might end up asking you to hit somewhere other than my cheek.”

“Please don’t make me regret choosing you as the first person to meet with.”

Angela’s flat, firm words made Isaac drop his teasing.

“Then I’ll see you in an hour.”

Angela turned and walked out. Emily followed close behind her like a shadow.

❀❀❀

Isaac paced restlessly in front of a carriage so ornate it practically gleamed.

Then, catching sight of Angela in a black dress with a black veil, he let out a groan.

“I had some expectations, but mourning clothes.”

The black only made her pale skin and red lips stand out more sharply, and Angela looked all the more hauntingly beautiful for it.

“The death of a person is something that must naturally be honored. All the more so when it is the unjust death of someone dear.”

If there was something she must not forget, it was Joel’s death.

Even a death with a known cause would take time to release, but a murder with no killer caught was a wound far deeper.

The mourning clothes were armor against forgetting the killer.

Isaac extended his hand to escort Angela.

Angela took it with composure.

“It’s not so bad, though. If I die in some unfortunate accident, you’d remember me like this, wouldn’t you.”

“I would attend the funeral, but that’s something one does for someone close, wouldn’t you say.”

Isaac grinned. His red hair caught the sunlight and gleamed.

“We’ll be close soon enough. So that goes without saying, Angela.”

Angela stopped short on her way to the carriage.

“If you keep calling me by my name, I won’t go today.”

“Then call me Leo if it bothers you that much. When I find a woman I love, I’d like her to call me by my middle name as a pet name.”

“You do live very comfortably, doing exactly as you please.”

Angela pulled her hand away sharply. Isaac caught it just as quickly and leaned in with a conciliatory murmur.

“Don’t be cross, Countess Maister. I’ll call you properly. My lady.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Yes, yes, my queen. Allow me to escort you.”

Isaac’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

Angela had seen countless men fall for her over the years.

Anyone could see that Isaac had fallen for her.

If that infatuation had driven him to kill Joel, she would never forgive him.

I love you. I like you. I don’t think I can live without you.

There was nothing more terrifying than a man who used words like those to tighten his grip around your throat.

Attaching meaning to small kindnesses, wanting to know your every move, and eventually……

Angela stopped her thoughts there. She did not want to go any further.

“Come on, open up. Ah.”

“I am perfectly capable of eating on my own, Lord Galland.”

Angela sighed, watching the man spear a piece of food on his fork and wave it at her.

“The scallops here are truly exceptional, my lady. I know you enjoy seafood. Just one bite.”

“I’ll eat it myself.”

“I’m not particularly fond of seafood, you see. My arm is getting tired, so please just eat it.”

Without so much as glancing at what he was holding out, Angela speared a scallop herself and put it in her mouth.

Her expression shifted subtly for just a moment.

“……It really is delicious.”

Isaac beamed with satisfaction.

“Isn’t it? I heard you like seafood, so I chose this restaurant with care.”

She had never told him she liked seafood.