| Chapter 14

As if it was an unexpected remark, Kirhin’s eyes widened in the silence. Then he immediately burst into cheerful laughter, patting my shoulder.

“That’s the first time I’ve received such praise! I like you more and more, Lucy. Is it okay if I call you Lucy?”

“By all means. You can even call me a stone or a tree if you like.”

“You have a talent for making people laugh with an expressionless face. If I find a name that suits you better than Lucy, I’ll call you that then.”

Kirhin smirked, close enough that I could feel his breath, and pointed to a carriage parked in the distance.

“Shall we go then?”

I had ridden in a carriage only once in my life. When I was eleven, pushed onto it by my mother without knowing where I was going. That day, I had to suppress the rising nausea from motion sickness several times.

After that, my world was limited to walking distances. But I didn’t really miss it. For me, carriages were a memory so painful it made me want to vomit.

However, the carriage I rode with Kirhin was surprisingly comfortable. The seat was soft, the ceiling was high, and it felt like I could fall asleep if I closed my eyes. In fact, Kirhin lay down occupying one side as soon as he got in, and I was busy looking at the scenery outside, engulfed in darkness.

I was tired and sleepy, but I couldn’t close my eyes for fear that if I fell asleep and woke up, I would be back in that prison. Fortunately, the carriage didn’t run for long before arriving at Mrs. Almon’s house.

As always, silence enveloped the house with all its lights out. Seeing that the window was indeed open, I quickly got out of the carriage. Kirhin, who got out from the opposite side, clicked his tongue.

“To think there’s someone lying alone in a place like that? It’s no different from a haunted house. If it were me, I would have died long ago just from fear.”

Although the time I had spent with him was very short, it wasn’t difficult to notice that Kirhin wasn’t the type to speak carefully. As I entered the house with quick steps, Kirhin following behind exclaimed “Oh my!” and quickly untied his scarf to cover his mouth and nose.

“What’s this smell…?”

“Stay outside. It’s worse if you go into the room.”

“No.”

He seemed to hesitate a bit, but Kirhin, who had stuffed the scarf into his nostrils, unexpectedly muttered solemnly.

“Still, this is where my father’s body was found. I should look around at least once.”

Come to think of it, that’s right. Someone had killed the baron and left his body in this house.

Who could it be? Did they plan to frame me from the beginning?

As I gathered my thoughts and opened the door, the familiar stench poured out. Kirhin, who had wrapped his face with the scarf, shrank behind me.

“Let’s move together. Can you light a candle? Can you see ahead?”

I was so used to it that I could move even with my eyes closed, but I thought he couldn’t, so I looked for a flint. When I lit the candle on the table, Kirhin finally let out a sigh. Though he immediately covered his mouth with the scarf again.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

“I don’t even turn off the candles when I sleep. That’s why I prefer to sleep with women. Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to find lovers to warm my bed. There aren’t many handsome men like me around here, you know.”

Trying to suppress a faint sigh out of courtesy to my benefactor, I hurried to close the window first, but suddenly felt something odd and stopped.

I couldn’t hear the growling breath. It was always an element that filled this space like air, like the stench.

It couldn’t have disappeared. Except for one possibility.

My steps towards the bed slowed. My lips went dry. Mrs. Vino was lying still like a deeply sleeping child. It wasn’t like her.

“Ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m late, okay?”

My eyes immediately drew a conclusion upon seeing her face. Mrs. Vino, with dried saliva marks around her mouth, had her eyes peacefully closed.

No air passed through her slightly parted lips anymore. I quickly pulled up the disheveled blanket to cover her shoulders.

“A lot has happened. A noble lord was found dead in the house, and I was framed as the culprit. I was suddenly dragged to prison, and no matter how much I said it wasn’t me, no one would listen.”

“It doesn’t seem like she’s in a state to hear that…”

Kirhin, who had brought the candlestick, flinched upon seeing Mrs. Vino. I kept talking, fiddling with the blanket for no reason.

“But this person saved me. That’s why I could come here. I was so scared I was going to kill myself, but I thought of you. The weather was nice, so I left the window open during the day, right? But I spent too much time loitering around the temple, and then I was caught like that, so it became night, and surely the cold wind would come in. The doctor said last time when you caught a cold that if you caught one more, you wouldn’t be able to overcome it.”

“Lucy.”

Even with the hand gently grabbing my shoulder, the words didn’t stop.

“I was going to make soup with pumpkin tomorrow. You like that more than peas, right? And tomorrow is the day we’ll wash your body, so I was going to heat water from the morning, and also…”

“Lucy, stop. She’s already passed away.”

My trembling voice broke at Kirhin’s quiet words. My eyes were still fixed on Mrs. Vino’s closed eyes. Even the black spots spread across her wrinkled face seemed to have faded in color.

“…Is it because I left the window open?”

A crackling sound came from my throat. It feels like the smell of blood is rising. Instead of tears coming out, my body was trembling.

“No. It was probably just her time.”

Kirhin clicked his tongue like a sigh and pulled up the blanket to cover the lady’s face. He added as he turned my body, which had stiffened like a statue.

“Without your care, it would have been difficult for her to live until now. You seem to be the only one who cared about her condition.”

Pointing out Mrs. Almon’s absence, he looked around. The shadows wavered in the flickering candlelight. It looked as if ghosts who had come knowing of the madam’s death were dancing.

“I’ll have to send someone to deliver the news of her death. Do you have anything you need to take?”

“…No.”

Not only could I not think of anything, but I didn’t have anything I would miss anyway.

There was a cookie tin in the drawer where I had saved the wages I received from Mrs. Almon every year, but I didn’t want to take it. Nothing from here.

Kirhin nodded as if he understood and turned to leave the room. I slipped my hand under the blanket and gently grasped the madam’s hand.

Her fingers, having lost their warmth and become stiff, felt just like twigs that had fallen long ago. I felt like a small hole had been punched in a corner of my heart.

She was the person I had spent the most time with over the past few years. I can’t call her a friend. I never had a proper conversation with her.

But she was my job, where I needed to be. Ridiculously, I relied on her and grew attached to her here. That’s how I was able to live.

She was the only person who would listen to me without complaint anytime, anywhere. Even when I made the soup too thin or burned the bread, she didn’t beat me or throw things. She just growled and silently accepted my touch.

“If I had died earlier, we would have met.”

The thought suddenly struck me, and I smiled crookedly. Maybe we died at the same time.

If I had met you there, I would have been glad. If you happen to meet my dad, my older brother, my older sister, or my younger sibling, please say hello and that you know me.

That thanks to me, your life was a little less lonely and a little less solitary.

…Goodbye.

I turned away, letting go of the hand of the departed soul. The wind that blew in through the window I couldn’t close seemed to painfully scratch my skin as it passed.

* * *

The Bickman family’s building was unprecedentedly splendid. It was perhaps natural that the wide and magnificent noble house looked intimidating to my eyes, whose range of activity was limited to the house, forest, and marketplace.

I felt like I might lose consciousness at any moment from fatigue, but on the other hand, my whole body was sensitively excited, making my mind hazy. Kirhin, who got out of the carriage, was greeted by the butler and threw off his scarf and coat.

“Brook, throw these away immediately. They’ve absorbed a foul smell. Prepare bath water.”

“Young master, this child…”

Butler Brook’s wrinkled face looked haggard. With the family’s master meeting a shameful death, he must have had a lot to worry about all day.

I tried to recall one by one the stories I had heard about the baron’s family.

Long ago, after the baroness died of illness, Baron Bickman had many lovers, but the position of the lady of the house remained vacant. In such a situation, most household affairs were usually handled by the butler and the head maid, so there were many rumors about the haughtiness of Nina, the head maid.

If the Bickman children had been useful, their hardships would have been less, but Bickman’s two sons were not very useful at all. The eldest son rarely showed his face outside due to a congenital limp in one leg, and the second son, famous for his good looks, was a well-known figure in social circles but, like his father, only chased after women.

It could be said that they had neither talent nor interest in governing the territory. Yet, the baron’s family fortune was not small, so everyone was amazed and envious.

“Ah, introduce yourself. This is Lucienne Gwynter. I pulled her out of prison where she was locked up on charges of killing my father.”