“You should have just gone on without me!”

The brightness in Iris’s expression crumpled into an apologetic grimace.

“I figured you weren’t coming, so I said we should just go watch the rowing race, but Dad……”

Eden’s small feet had barely touched the ground before he grabbed Iris’s hand and looked up at her.

“The r-rowing race! There’s a rowing race today!”

Daniel suddenly raised his voice. Iris startled and pressed a hand to her chest, blinking her wide eyes.

“S-sorry. I got carried away too. Today is the derby between Ashbourne and Lurgen.”

Daniel rubbed the back of his reddened face with some embarrassment and simply moved on to guiding Iris along the path.

The area Iris usually went to was off-limits because of the race. Daniel offered to show her a spot where the view was beautiful even if the water was narrower. As an associate professor at the university, he knew every good vantage point across the vast campus. The spot near the rowing venue had been one he had recommended.

“There’ll be plenty of waterfowl today. They’ll all have fled from the racecourse.”

“I spotted a fox here not long ago.”

Ashbourne University, one of Lafreia’s most prestigious institutions, was known for its beautiful campus. Daniel grumbled that the buildings kept expanding and the distances between lecture halls had grown too great, though a single bicycle would have solved the problem.

The late spring campus was warm and alive, and the lush leaves, wide lawns, and old buildings looked nothing short of romantic to Iris’s eyes. She wondered whether Henry was studying somewhere like this, and her lips curved softly.

The spot with the small chapel that Daniel had mentioned didn’t appear until they had walked far enough that the noisy crowd was out of sight. Just as he had said, a narrow stream branched off from the main river. A grove of trees rose over a gentle slope, and a stone bridge was visible in the distance.

“Oh……”

Treading the green grass, Iris smiled broadly. Her wheat-colored hair, tied back in a loose bundle, caught the sunlight and sent it rippling every time the wind moved through it.

“Do you like it?”

Daniel looked down at Iris’s eyes, which held a clear amber gold in the light, and couldn’t quite hide his own smile.

“Yes!”

On that bright answer, Iris quickly claimed a spot and opened her sketchbook.

“What are you going to draw today, Miss?”

“How about a goose the size of Eden?”

The Dupree father and son settled in beside her. Eden took out his own sketchbook, and Daniel pulled out a book.

The associate professor’s concentration, however, lasted only until the moment he opened it. He spoke again almost immediately after sitting down.

“How is the picture book coming along?”

“Hmm…… honestly, I’d say I’m still in the practice stage.”

“For practice, your skill is quite impressive. I hope you’ll illustrate my novel someday.”

“You won’t even tell me who the culprit is!”

“Ha ha ha, how could I tell you that!”

The fact that he had been serializing a mystery novel in the newspaper under a pen name had come out because of Eden’s loose tongue. It had been embarrassing at first, but now the memory made her smile on its own.

It had started out of genuine concern for the boy. Eden talked about his homeroom teacher far more than he talked about his friends. Worried about his social life, Daniel had started visiting the school often, and through that he had come to understand what his son saw in her.

Iris seemed like someone shaped from golden sunlight. Yet for all her warmth, there was a wall around her that couldn’t be crossed. It was plain she kept a certain distance from parents, and Daniel respected that. It was shameless enough for a single father to feel this way about her in the first place.

His feelings had shifted the day Iris was the first to bring up his novel, starting a conversation about him rather than Eden. Her dream of writing a picture book someday had given Daniel an opening.

“Dad won’t tell me who the culprit is either.”

“Really? You’ve been reading the novel, Eden?”

“No! He won’t let me read it!”

“It’s too gruesome for Eden!”

“Is, is my novel really that gruesome?”

Smoke drifted down over the heads of the three of them, deep in conversation and oblivious to time passing.

❖ ❖ ❖

The highlight of the rowing regatta, the derby between Ashbourne and Lurgen, ended in Ashbourne’s victory. Carlyle offered his congratulations to the youngest prince, who had rowed as part of Ashbourne’s crew, and left immediately.

“This way, sir.”

Ruben, who had been waiting behind the racecourse, stepped forward the moment he spotted the President. The path he led ended at the black car. Carlyle swept a glance around and climbed into the back seat.

“Right, the article coming out on Monday.”

The moment Carlyle sat down, Davis, who had already been waiting inside, handed him a few sheets of paper. It was the draft of the article about Iris set to appear in Comus.

While Carlyle reviewed it, Ruben took a brief look around and got into the driver’s seat. The car pulled away.

“Printing starts tonight, so if there’s anything to fix, say it now. I’m already late because I put so much into it.”

Davis held a cocktail glass from the VIP section to his lips and spoke with exaggerated self-importance. The cucumber and berry garnish inside gave off a fresh, bright scent.

A lovely young lady from Volterra. The emerald fairy embodying Larochelle. A symbol of the educated new imperial woman. Beneath those words was an illustration of the necklace, drawn to match Michel’s catalogue exactly.

“Nothing to fix.”

It took Carlyle only a moment to read through the full article. He handed the draft back to Davis and looked up.

Davis took it back and drained the rest of his cocktail in one go with his other hand.

“Iris Mora was a great pick. Having nothing to her name makes people more curious than they’d be about an entertainer. And her face is decent enough.”

Davis’s voice was bright and satisfied, punctuated by the crunch of cucumber between his teeth.

Carlyle didn’t particularly respond. His gaze drifted to the window on his side of the car.

“When I saw her at the café she looked completely blank, but that turned out to be the advantage. You really can’t know a person’s worth until you look closer.”

“……”

“You’ve raised her value, so she might even make a decent match. A twenty-one-year-old orphan with a money-eating monster attached, she’d have had to give up on any good prospect. A second wife at best, right?”

A match.

Carlyle tried to picture Iris in a white wedding dress, blushing shyly. Somehow the word seemed entirely wrong for her.

Perhaps because she was a teacher, the image of her as some child’s mother came more naturally. As someone’s wife, well. If that meant a back-room remarriage to some middle-aged widower, she might be better off without it.

“Is tomorrow’s first print run ready?”

“Yes, sir. It’s been brought to your residence so you can read it as soon as you arrive.”

Carlyle finished his brief thoughts about Iris and moved on to business with Ruben. Davis, meanwhile, had turned to look out his window.

“This is a lovely spot. There’s even a family out for a stroll. Like something out of a painting.”

Carlyle glanced idly past Davis toward the window.

Three people sat together in a pastoral scene, just as Davis described.

“……”

“……Isn’t that Iris Mora?”

As the car passed along the road behind them, both Carlyle and Davis recognized the woman laughing.

“Who’s that man? Don’t tell me she’s actually seeing a widower. She doesn’t seem unhinged enough to carry on an affair with a child in tow.”

“……She was seeing someone?”

“Not as far as I know. It’s not exactly a new thing for your women to go looking elsewhere while they’re with you.”

From the start, those women had been nothing more than a mutually beneficial arrangement. They had brought considerable advantage to Carlyle’s fashion magazine and department store ventures, and Carlyle had provided the prestige of being a style icon. Most of them were from the entertainment world, and even after parting from Carlyle they were flooded with offers.

Each party knew what they wanted and what they were exchanging. It was an unspoken rule not to involve themselves beyond that. It required some initial investment of his time, but Iris Mora’s ending would surely be the same.

He pays, she provides the blank canvas, and that’s that. So why does this feel irritating.

“Pull over for a moment, Ruben.”

Carlyle’s voice settled calmly over the sound of the engine.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to insert yourself over there.”

Davis’s baffled face snapped toward Carlyle. It was an unexpected move, unlike the President.