“Would you ladies give us a moment.”

At the same moment, Carlyle spoke from where he sat. His eyes hadn’t left the magazine in his hands.

The weight of his voice instantly changed the cheerful atmosphere of the dressing room. The staff, sensing the chill, scrambled out.

“Iris.”

Another long stream of smoke drifted from between Carlyle’s lips, and this time her name followed it. Iris flinched and drew her shoulders in, pressing her arms more firmly over her chest.

Carlyle lifted his head and looked at Iris in the mirror. Seeing her eyes trembling as though she were looking at a brigand, a brief exchange from the car on the way here passed through his mind.

‘Is that really all you have to wear?’

‘…… Is something wrong with it?’

‘People will think I’m on a date with a nun.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘……’

Carlyle had not answered her last remark. The pride in her eyes had been too absurd for words. Having spent nearly her whole life in an institution run by a religious order, she apparently couldn’t tell a compliment from a slight.

But what he had bought was a canvas, not a scripture. A canvas was not supposed to preach or assert anything.

“If you’ve been hired as a model, wouldn’t it be better to take some professional pride in the work?”

Carlyle set down the magazine as he finished speaking. The cover read ‘Comus.’

He ground out the short cigarette in the porcelain ashtray and brought his gaze back to Iris. Iris stared at the black, crushed ash at the tip of the white paper stick.

‘…… I told myself I’d be worth the money.’

She lowered her hands in silence. Carlyle rose from his seat and walked toward her. The boutique lights poured from his blond hair down the length of his tuxedo to the sharp toes of his shoes.

He reached the two-tiered cart standing beside Iris and opened one of the velvet boxes on top.

Inside was a necklace. A large octagonal emerald at the center, with diamonds fanning outward like an open shell. Along the lace-like chain, diamonds and pearls were strung in a row, extravagantly beautiful.

Iris’s widened eyes followed Carlyle’s hand as he lifted the piece. His long, straight fingers moved toward her. The closer his scent came, the more rigidly her body locked.

His hand passed before her eyes and grazed the back of her neck. The sensation made her shiver.

The next thing he touched was the pin holding her hair up. The moment it was pulled free, a full wave of curls tumbled down. The hair falling across her neck and chest felt, for the first time in her life, like something unfamiliar.

“Chin up.”

Without warning, Carlyle’s hand entered her line of sight again. His large, pale hand cupped her slightly lowered chin and lifted it gently. Through the thin gloves, there was a faint warmth. Iris’s eyes followed his hand as it withdrew.

Her gaze returned to the mirror only after his hand had left her sight. The blue eyes in the mirror were looking back at her.

Two pairs of eyes met.

“You should be looking at the necklace, Iris. Not my hand.”

The corner of Carlyle’s mouth curved.

“……Yes.”

Heat rushed through her all at once. Iris quickly focused on the necklace. The large jewel blazed at the center of her chest.

The emerald was mysterious and vivid, as though it had drawn all the life around it into itself. The marble statue that was her seemed to exist for the sake of that necklace, or perhaps to have been drained of her vitality by it and turned to stone. With a single jewel of Carlyle’s choosing, she had been layered with an inexplicable story.

Carlyle seemed satisfied. A pleased smile settled on his face as he looked her over slowly.

His gaze moved across her, and everywhere it passed left a burning sensation. Iris was biting the inside of her cheek when Carlyle finally looked away and rang the bell on the cart.

The staff came back in. The order to finish up was given, and it took another two hours before everything was ready.

❖ ❖ ❖

In the car on the way to the department store salon where the party was being held, Iris clasped her hands tightly together the whole way and murmured a prayer.

Please don’t let me make any mistakes.

“……”

Carlyle watched her, eyes squeezed shut, lips moving in a quiet murmur.

Even dressed up, she can’t shake the nun.

Still, the soft pink lips moving ceaselessly, pouring out sacred words in Imperial, were rather worth watching. Iris, looking like a fairy cradling an emerald, was exactly what he had intended. The diamond strand of her hairband scattered light around her with every vibration of the car.

A monotheist fairy.

A breath of air escaped from between Carlyle’s lips.

“Welcome, sir. Miss Mora.”

Staff waiting outside the department store came forward to receive them as they arrived.

The driver took the car away, and Ruben checked over Carlyle’s tuxedo, while Iris’s vacant eyes remained fixed on a god no one else could see.

“Iris.”

Only when Carlyle finally said her name did Iris come back to herself. She looked at the arm he extended for a moment, then slipped her hand through it with some reluctance.

“……Don’t forget you’re my lover from here on.”

“……”

Iris answered with a small nod.

What would a lover do in a moment like this. She thought about it briefly, then her hand pressed deeper into the crook of Carlyle’s arm and wrapped around it.

Only after confirming that her composure had improved did Carlyle begin to walk. Whispers trailed in their wake wherever they passed.

Their destination was a salon behind the department store building, shaped like a vast glass greenhouse. From the far end of the corridor leading into the salon, a chandelier blazed like a great sun. The overwhelming light seemed to announce that this was not a place anyone could simply enter.

But if the chandelier were to grant its light to only one person, it would be Carlyle Berthheimer, Iris thought. The moment its brilliance touched his golden hair, every gaze in the room turned to him as a matter of course. Iris, the one adorned with lavish jewels, came second.

Reading the eyes that moved all at once like a swarm was not difficult for Carlyle. The crowd’s attention passed over Iris’s face, paused on the emerald at her throat, and only then rose back to her face. A faint smile touched his lips.

“……”

What felt like hundreds of eyes swept over her in an instant, and Iris didn’t even notice her own grip tightening. Time seemed to pause briefly in that short moment. Perhaps it was the glow of the red-tinted lamps or the perfume saturating the air, but her head felt hazy.

“Iris.”

Again, it was Carlyle’s low voice that brought her back. Iris blinked. People were moving toward them.

‘Henry.’

She turned her brother’s name over in her mind. A soft smile settled on her lips as well.

“Is this the one……?”

People in all manner of dress approached Carlyle and asked the same thing, one after another. Each time, Carlyle smiled as though mildly reluctant and gave a single short nod.

“Hello, I’m Iris Mora.”

Everyone spoke to her as though they had already seen her somewhere, though Iris had no idea why. Even so, she smiled pleasantly, the way Carlyle did, and let the conversation flow.

When people complimented her on how beautifully the necklace suited her, she blushed with a shyness she hadn’t planned. She simply had no immunity to that sort of thing. It seemed to strike people as refreshing, and every time she ducked her head in embarrassment, those around her were charmed. The middle-aged noblewomen found her endearing, and the young ladies couldn’t take their eyes off her necklace.

“That must be the President’s new lover who appeared in Comus this week.”

“What on earth does she do? I don’t think I’ve heard of the Mora family.”

“Mr. Berthheimer never dates noblewomen. A singer, perhaps? Her voice is lovely.”

“I’ve never seen the President bring someone this unknown before. Did he buy her that necklace?”

Curious eyes moved busily over Iris, wondering who Carlyle’s new woman was.

“Look at that coy expression. She might be an actress.”

“His taste has changed.”

There were of course those who looked at her with less warmth. Every woman who had ever been named Carlyle’s lover had been touched by the light of society. They were always the protagonist, and protagonists always drew enemies.

On top of that, the new woman had a quiet, sweet quality about her, but she was not the sort to claim the place at his side over every other woman in Lafreia.

Carlyle Berthheimer might not be a chaste man, but it was self-evident that he was the most eligible bachelor around. He had no title, yet he had the power and wealth to put his name among the closest circle of the royal court. Even if the Duke despised his bastard, the opinion that he would pass the title to Carlyle for the sake of the family name came up from time to time. In every respect except bloodline, the bastard was already beyond comparison with the Duke’s legitimate heir.