‘You haven’t done a single thing worth praising. I have no reason to hold you.’

Ricky’s face flushed scarlet, as though those words had wounded him. My heart tore, but I kept my face cold and gave nothing away. When I stayed still, Ricky looked up at me, then turned and ran to his room.

Keep your head cold. This was simply one step in the process of making Ricky perfect.

April 9th

With Ricky past ten and still without a single friend, I began to feel that his lack of social skills was my fault for coddling him when he was small. A mother who was already not warm had turned cold, and it must have been hard to endure. But hard as it was, harsh and unfeeling as it seemed, he had to bear it. Only by bearing it could he grow into someone great.

‘My lady.’

‘What is it.’

‘There’s something that will please you.’

My headache had grown severe. I’d called the doctor in the morning and spent the whole day flat in bed. I had summoned the stable hand I’d assigned to keep watch over Ricky, since he had something to report. I managed to sit up, straightened myself, and drew back the canopy. The stable hand stood with his hands folded politely, and beside him Doosi, the maid, was smiling with a proud look on her face.

‘Young master Ricky came home late. He lost track of time playing with the village children.’

‘Ricky?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

The throbbing headache that had been pressing down on my head vanished at once. I wanted to confirm it for myself, so the next day I dragged my ailing body out to see Ricky off in person.

After submitting his homework to the tutor and asking to be excused, Ricky set off with life brimming in those green eyes. He mentioned that he and the children had made plans to go to the goat farm and have a running race, and my heart began to pound.

‘Ricky.’

‘Oh, Mother.’

My kind, sweet Ricky came running over to tell me not to come out when I was unwell. I wanted to stroke his cheek, but I shook my head and straightened my back. I didn’t want to show the child any weakness.

‘Ricky. Next time, don’t play at the farm. Invite your friends here instead.’

‘All of them?’

Ricky made a face that somehow said he wasn’t pleased. It was an expression I’d never seen from him before, and I tilted my head in surprise.

‘Is there a child you don’t want to invite?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many do you want to invite, then?’

Right then I watched with my own eyes as Ricky’s face turned as red as a beet. He answered in a small, almost apologetic voice.

‘One.’

I told him then and there to invite that child today. I had hoped for a friend, but now that there apparently was one, I worried whether it might be some strange child. I could only hope it was an unfounded fear.

I watched Ricky’s back as he ran off, excited to bring the child. Sighing at how far he was from a composed heir, I heard the stable hand, a Port Mary native through and through, take off his hat and speak.

‘Young master Ricky seems completely taken with Cincy.’

‘Cincy?’

‘Cincy Restin. Anyone in Port Mary who doesn’t know Cincy is considered odd.’

The stable hand gave a few more details about this Cincy Restin. She seemed to be from a reasonably well-off family by Port Mary standards. They owned a horse farm and had a fair amount of farmland as well. He added that come spring, workers from other countries came to the Restin farm.

I was relieved the family wasn’t without standing, but the stable hand’s word ‘completely taken’ lodged in my mind like a grain of sand in the eye.

* * *

Doosi remembered this too. The stable hand Paul had a habit of doing things carelessly, so she couldn’t fully trust him to keep a proper eye on young master Ricky. She had followed Paul wherever he went because of that. As she recalled, it was the day she first saw Mr. Restin’s daughter, who raised horses on the meadow below the villa. She was feistier than she looked.

‘You can’t ride? Then I don’t want you joining us.’

Young master Ricky rode at an impressive level. With a court-trained instructor handling his lessons personally, his horsemanship was nothing to be embarrassed about. The problem was that he had gone silent when asked whether he could ride.

‘Want me to teach you?’

It was a proposal that caught the young master’s attention, just as he was digging at the ground with his toe in shame. Doosi had been about to advise him not to be rude, but the young master clearly liked the look of the spirited Restin girl. He sat behind her as she rode a lap around the meadow, and the sight of it was something to see.

‘You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you?’

Standing with the sunset behind her, Mr. Restin’s daughter smiled with her eyes. Doosi nearly fell over in shock. The young master was completely helpless before this girl in her undignified trousers. The stable hand’s words about him being ‘completely taken’ were no lie. What had started as a casual walk for a change of scenery had ended with him making a firm promise.

Doosi read on through the diary, old memories rising fresh to the surface.

* * *

April 10th

The next day, to meet Ricky’s expectations, I invited Cincy to the villa. I had the staff set up a table in the garden where modest roses were in bloom. It was a garden that had taken months to restore after the previous owner left it in a shameful state. To think its first proper use would be for a young girl.

Ricky, who ought to have been composed, wore an expression I had never seen from him before. He kept loosening and retying his tie. Folding and unfolding his handkerchief. Rising and sitting back down as though his chair were on fire.

He finally managed to stay seated after I told him to stop, but his restless gaze roamed the dining table like a horse without a bridle.

‘Hello.’

Ricky froze the moment he saw who walked into the garden. Cincy Restin. One look was enough to tell me she was the spitting image of the roses blooming in that garden. I hadn’t expected to find such a beauty in a small backwater like Port Mary. I had thought of it fondly as modest and quiet, yet I’d been carrying a bias all along.

Cincy had pink-tinted eyes and a charming flush on her cheeks. Her hair, dark as black, gave her a cool edge. She had the warm look of any Port Mary girl, but there was nothing soft or easy about her impression.

‘My lady.’

The man removing his hat in greeting was Mr. Restin. He said he couldn’t bring himself to send his daughter alone to a villa up on this hill, so he had come to see her there himself.

‘She might get lost on the way, after all.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry about getting her back. I’ll have the carriage take her.’

‘Thank you.’

Mr. Restin, who had been raising his daughter alone since his wife’s passing, was a dignified man. Like everyone in Port Mary, his unease at the mention of the Milo family villa was plain to see. Even after removing his hat, he spent a good while trying to explain just how ill-mannered his daughter was and how unsuited she was for this occasion.

‘I raised her without a mother, so I never managed to teach her the manners a young lady ought to have. She grew up talking to horses, so she’s practically a tomboy.’

‘I understand completely. Today I only intend for her to share a simple meal with my son.’

He seemed worried his daughter might get tangled up with the wrong sort of nobles and come to serious harm. Mr. Restin, who had arrived on a brown horse, took his hat in hand and stepped out through the villa’s front gate.

Cincy gave a small wave to her departing father. Their gazes met and held in the air for a long moment. Even after Mr. Restin had gone, Cincy kept her eyes on the slope below for a long time, watching to make sure he didn’t stumble. The wind blowing across the hill thick with white daisies seemed to be seeing him off.

Cincy had been gazing at the daisy-covered hill with curious eyes when a maid’s call made her turn around. She came trotting through the front gate with a scrunch of her nose, wearing a blouse with a striking red dot pattern and a yellow skirt.

‘Shouldn’t you greet the lady first?’

The stable hand who had come out to meet her also served as the villa’s butler, which was why he had come along. I had been told I needn’t come out myself, but I wanted to see with my own eyes what kind of child this Cincy Restin was before the meal.

‘Hello, my lady. Thank you for the invitation.’

She had decorated a Port Mary-style straw hat with wildflowers she’d picked herself. Removing it, Cincy gave a shy little nod. It was perfectly ordinary behavior and speech for a girl her age. I smiled in welcome and gestured for Cincy to come inside.