Chapter 8 – Meeting Again 

It was rare for anything to come bouncing up as far as the window of her room on the second floor. Besides, this was an Earl’s house, and the servants were never negligent about security or watchkeeping……

Today was Pietra Feast Day.

It was the day when all the people of the Empire, regardless of rank, ate, drank, and made merry to their hearts’ content.

Of course, it seemed Lariesa had not been able to join the servants’ gathering to share even a glass of wine, because she had been taking care of Irenia until just a little while ago after Irenia suddenly said she was ill and returned without attending the imperial party……

No, perhaps Irenia had heard wrong.

Thinking that she truly should get some sleep now, she lay down, pressing her heated cheek against the softest, most comforting bed in the world.

But then again,

Tototot. Tototot.

A couple of little stones struck her window in succession and fell away again.

No, who would dare throw pebbles at the window of an Earl’s house this late in the evening.

Even if the servants happened to be enjoying a drink and a rest for once, they had Elonzo in the house, so there was no way such a thing should be possible. Elonzo was more loyal than anyone. Yet somehow, without even a sound of Elonzo barking fiercely in warning, someone had secretly approached and dared to throw stones at the window of the Earl’s only daughter.

Unable to resist her curiosity, she got down from the bed, went to the window, pressed close, and looked below.

And there in the darkness, someone was standing with shaggy-furred Elonzo, their heads close together. A man, who had clearly just been throwing the stones, was all but kneeling as he petted Elonzo and fed him something.

“Elonzo!”

She flung the window open and shouted.

What if an intruder had broken in and was feeding him meat laced with poison or some drug so the dog would not bark and warn of danger! The thought was too terrible!

But then, in answer to her cry, sharp as a scream, the one who turned his head and looked up at her was not Elonzo, who was busy wagging his tail and enjoying the food……

But him, with his abundant blue-black hair and deep, dark-blue eyes……

The one she had never been able to forget even in dreams, Martinez.

“Ma…… Martinez……”

They were no longer children, and he was the Crown Prince, and she should not dare call his name so lightly……. Though she herself had truly come back across decades, in any case, in this world she had opened her eyes to again, as the her of today, she had not seen him once in all the eight years since childhood.

The moment she saw those eyes, without realizing it, she could not contain the joy surging up and overflowing in her throat, and she called his name. And he too waved to her. As though they had only parted yesterday, and had secretly promised to meet here tonight without anyone knowing,

“Irenia!”

He called to her warmly. And then, cupping both hands around his mouth, he asked,

“How badly are you hurt? Where does it hurt?”

No, why was he here?

He should have been in the Imperial Palace now.

And we were not supposed to meet…….

It felt as though her whole mind was going faint.

But the moment she saw him, as if enchanted by something, as if drawn helplessly toward him, she forgot entirely that she was still in her nightclothes and dashed out of the bedroom barefoot, ran down the stairs in one breath, and rushed out into the rear garden below her room, the rear grounds of the Earl’s residence.

“You should come slowly, Irenia. What if you tripped and fell!”

Breathing hard, with her fluttering nightdress flying about her as she ran down in a daze, she found him standing there with his arms open as if he meant to embrace her, his sturdy frame spread wide, his face full of joy and tenderness as he spoke.

Only then did she realize that her appearance was a little, no, very much, embarrassing, and she sighed inwardly that she should at least have thrown on a robe, but it was already too late.

“Martinez…… ah, no, Your Highness the Crown Prince, wh-why have you come all the way h-here……?”

Only barely regaining her senses, she opened her trembling lips and somehow managed to say that. At that moment, he stepped close to her in a rush. That cedarwood scent that had always belonged to him burrowed deep into her lungs. She grew dizzy again.

“‘Your Highness the Crown Prince’? Don’t call me that, Irenie. You promised you’d call me Martin.”

As though the childhood when they had made such a promise was only yesterday. Unable to hide his hurt feelings, he said it with the same familiar and gentle warmth overflowing in his voice. And then, without hesitation, he placed that large warm hand against her flushed cheek.

“Do you have a fever? Tell me where it hurts. I was going to bring the Imperial physician with me, but I thought if I did, word might get out and cause a disturbance, so I came alone for now. But if you’re very ill, then come to the Imperial Palace with me at once.”

He caressed her cheek as if it were nothing. But when his touch reached her, it could not be nothing to her.

An excessively soft and tingling sensation stroked her cheek. And then her forehead as well.

“N-no, no. I don’t have a fever.”

She barely managed to say that, then stepped back half a step, pulling her face away from his hand. At her quick movement, he paused for a moment, then showed a faint look of confusion.

And seeing him like that made her immediately feel sorry again.

“I’m sorry if I startled you. I was only worried about you.”

“No, Your Highness.”

The gaze with which he looked at her as she answered only that, politely, grew even deeper and heavier.

“Don’t call me that……. And that formal way of speaking of yours makes it feel as though there’s far too much distance between us. You promised you’d call me Martin.”

More than the way she had subtly shaken off his touch and stepped back, he seemed hurt by the way she kept insisting on calling him ‘Your Highness’ and trying to place distance between them, and his expression plainly showed his disappointment.

At moments like that, he truly looked exactly as he had when he was eleven or twelve. Though people said that before others the Crown Prince rarely revealed any disturbance in his feelings, and had been that way since he was very young, before her alone he had always been honest about his emotions.

“I can’t call you that anymore. I’ve come of age now too.”

“That’s right, Irenie. In the meantime, you’ve grown this beautiful.”

To her answer that she could no longer call him by name, he replied with something that sounded like a non sequitur. And yet the tone in which he said it was somehow so wistful. At the same time, in the way his gaze traveled over her, she could feel so clearly his praise and admiration for something truly beautiful, and his hot passion as well, that she took another half step back, no, a full step.

“But Irenie. It’s me, Martin. I call you Irenie. Before I am the Crown Prince of the Empire, I am always your Martin.”

So gently, so familiarly.

Though they had been apart for a long time, the moment they looked at each other, it was as if all those locks and barriers fell away, as if it were only natural to touch each other’s cheeks without hesitation, and call each other by the pet names given by blood family.

He, who should have been in the Imperial Palace, was standing in the rear garden of her home, acting as though such an unreal situation were nothing at all, urging her again and again to treat him just as before.

“No. Your Highness the Crown Prince. I am merely Irenia del Tieri, so if you wish to call me Irenia or Irenie, Your Highness, that is of no consequence…… but I cannot dare call casually like that, Your Highness.”

When she resisted like that to the very end, he strode toward her, one step, then two, his face set.

She could no longer step back.

Because merely seeing his hardened expression made her heart sink endlessly downward and then pound wildly, leaving her shaken through and through. She was devoting all her mind simply to struggling not to be swept away by the storm inside her.

“To see you, I asked for the imperial banquet to be held today. In the common towns, they still celebrate the Pietra festival, but the Imperial Family hasn’t especially marked that feast day. But I wanted to call you to the palace, so the moment Father recovered his health, I specially asked that a banquet be held to invite all the nobles.”

And then he took another step toward her.

“But you didn’t come. I told them to plant even more delphiniums thickly all through the rear garden so I could show them to you. And besides the delphiniums…… I wanted to show you too. How much I’ve grown in all this time.”

As he said that, he deliberately spread his broad, solid chest as though to show it off. He truly had grown several times larger in build, and so tall she had to lift her head to look at him, yet his eyes still looked unmistakably like those of a young boy deeply hurt and disappointed.

At that moment, he seemed rather adorable to her, angry because he had wanted to show her how well he had grown and had not been able to. So despite all her tension, she almost smiled.

“Yes. I was truly hurt that you didn’t come. So I asked the Countess after you, and when I heard you weren’t feeling well, I was so worried that I came running straight here……”

Now that she looked, his famous horse Pegasus was tied to an elm tree in one corner of the rear garden.

He had wanted to see her that badly, and when he couldn’t, and then heard that she was ill, he had grown so worried…… that despite his position as Crown Prince, he had broken through the strict security of the Imperial household, ridden here himself, and come all the way in secret…… her…… Martin.

And when her faint smile briefly broke across the bridge of her nose, he forgave her for hurting his feelings.

“But since you’re smiling, and you say you don’t have a fever, I’m relieved. Even if you insist on calling me only ‘Your Highness the Crown Prince,’ I can see you still have the energy for that. Yes, it’s all right. Everything’s all right. So, Irenie……”

Only then did his expression soften beyond measure again, and with that gentle smile like the edge of a feather-light cloud, the one he had shown only to her in childhood, he opened both arms wide and said,

“Will you hug me just once? And call me Martin just one time. If you do, I think I’ll be able to sleep soundly tonight.”