Chapter 69
Following the meeting with Lucian, Agnes was no longer able to go out to the trading company.
Rest is needed.
You must focus on rehabilitation.
Under such pretexts, Agnes’s outside world gradually narrowed.
“……I couldn’t even say goodbye to Lucian.”
Agnes muttered while sitting in front of a large window.
Lucian was one thing, but it particularly weighed on her mind that she could no longer meet Kain.
Since she couldn’t see Kain, there was no longer any way to track the whereabouts of the merchant knight he had mentioned.
The matter regarding Castia trading company was the same.
Adrian was still under investigation and the outside was noisy, but no information reached Agnes’s ears.
Agnes slowly swept the windowpane with her fingertips.
The air outside was cold, but the air inside the glass was too static.
It felt as if her time alone had stopped.
It was strange.
The window was so large, yet why did it feel so stifling?
Just then, while she was lost in thought, a cautious voice was heard from behind.
“Where should I put the jewelry the Duke sent?”
When she turned her head, a servant with an unfamiliar face was standing there.
Agnes stared at that face for a moment.
Recently, the number of strangers in the mansion had increased.
Jessie, who had been relatively kind, disappeared one day without leaving a trace, and new maids began to fill the spot one by one.
Why Jessie suddenly disappeared was also never explained to Agnes.
It seemed as if the only thing required of Agnes in this mansion was to simply sit quietly inside this room.
Agnes tried to ignore the servant’s gaze, which felt as if it were observing her.
Inside the case the servant was holding, a brilliant necklace was sparkling.
After she started staying only in the mansion, Lionel often gave her such items.
Exquisite ornaments.
Silk dresses.
Hairpins and jewelry crafted in silver.
But that wasn’t what Agnes wanted.
She simply wished for Lionel to stay by her side a little longer.
She wanted to exchange even one more word and hoped he would look at her day, even for a moment.
However, Lionel’s touch always reached her only for a brief moment allowed by his time.
After a fleeting warmth, Lionel disappeared again as if nothing had happened.
Like a child who plays with a cherished toy and then sets it down without lingering regret.
Lionel was busy as always, and his world overflowed with things more important than Agnes.
However, unlike Lionel, Agnes’s day became increasingly fixed within the small room.
During Lionel’s absence, Agnes’s time was held entirely under the names of ‘treatment’ and ‘lessons’ by Andrew and Nora.
Thanks to that, a single habit formed in Agnes’s monotonous daily life.
Once the treatment was over, she would always cover herself with a blanket, block her ears, and count numbers to suppress her ragged breathing.
Then, on days when she particularly couldn’t calm down, she would go into the bathroom, turn on the cold water loudly, and cover the pounding of her heart with the sound of the water.
After enduring such a long day, she could finally see Lionel at the very end of the afternoon.
That was Agnes’s day.
As the time she spent wearing newly tailored splendid dresses and sitting quietly in front of the window where nothing happened increased, Agnes felt as if she were gradually turning into a useless being.
She thought an unstable affection would be enough.
Will I really be okay like this? How long will I be able to endure this life?
Such reflections weighed down on Agnes.
“Lady Agnes? Where should I put the necklace?”
When Agnes didn’t respond, the servant cautiously asked the question again.
Agnes answered dryly without even trying on the necklace.
“Just…… put it in a suitable place.”
It was truly strange.
As the items Lionel gave her piled up in the room, a corner of her heart kept becoming empty.
***
“What did you do today?”
Lionel, who was taking off his jacket after returning home, slowly approached and stroked Agnes’s cheek.
That touch was strangely a mix of warmth and coldness.
Agnes leaned her face more against that palm with her eyes slightly lowered.
“I didn’t do much. I received treatment and read a book for a bit.”
“A book?”
The space between Lionel’s eyebrows narrowed.
Then, as if remembering that a novel—said to be popular these days—was included among the items he had sent, he raised the corners of his mouth.
“It seems that book was to your taste.”
Lionel’s thumb slowly scanned around Agnes’s eyes.
A shadow lingered beneath her once-fresh eyes.
It was because the period of losing sleep at night had lengthened due to Andrew’s treatment being burdensome.
“Simon says you haven’t been able to sleep well in the evenings lately.”
“It’s just tossing and turning a little.”
“Still, talk to Andrew. Insomnia isn’t good.”
Agnes swallowed her breath.
She considered brushing it off with the excuse of being tired, but fearing he might tell her to receive treatment from Andrew for this as well, Agnes shook her head quite hurriedly.
“I don’t need Andrew’s help for that.”
“Hmm. Then look for something that might help you fall asleep. Is there such a thing?”
“There is such a thing, but……”
Something came to mind.
It was none other than the piano performance occasionally heard from the annex on nights when she still couldn’t sleep.
But would it be okay to mention this?
“What is it?”
“The sound of the piano.”
Lionel’s touch, which had been wandering over her skin, stopped abruptly.
“Sometimes in the evening, I hear the sound of a piano coming from the annex, and then my mind feels at ease and I feel sleepy. That…… it was Lionel playing it, right?”
For a moment, a long silence passed.
“By any chance, could you…… let me hear you play the piano? If you do, I think I’ll be able to sleep well today.”
At Agnes’s request, the corners of Lionel’s mouth went down.
Was it a reckless request after all?
Indeed. To her question on their wedding night asking if he still played the piano, Lionel had said: Did she think he lived in a fairy tale like someone else?
So, there was no reason he would want to play the piano for her.
However, Agnes’s expectation was neatly missed.
“It probably won’t be a performance worth listening to.”
It was because Lionel quietly unfastened his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.
“But if it’s okay with you, listen.”
***
Agnes hesitated at the threshold of the annex.
It was because the image of Lionel being angry at her for entering this place without permission came to mind.
“Why aren’t you going in?”
Lionel pushed Agnes’s hesitant wheelchair into the annex and set it down by the piano.
Then he sat on the chair and lifted the piano lid.
As his long fingers slid over the white keys, a calm melody began to build up one by one inside the annex.
It was a delicate and deep pitch that did not suit a man with a fierce impression.
Even though it was a song she was hearing for the first time, Agnes felt a familiar sense of déjà vu.
Every time the notes shook the air, a sensation brushed by as if she were returning to the moments of laughing and chatting with Lionel as a child without any worries.
In that drowsy sense of relief, Agnes’s breathing gradually slowed, and her head tilted quietly to the side.
When Agnes’s presence diminished, Lionel stopped his hands and looked to his side.
The sight of Agnes asleep with a defenselessly relaxed face, as if she were in the safest space in the world, gave him a strange sense of exhilaration.
Lionel quietly closed the piano lid and leaned his body over it.
To think he would press the keys again in front of Agnes.
He thought such a thing would never happen even until the day he died.
Because of a single phrase—‘I think I’ll be able to sleep’—he was playing like he had become a music box without any dignity.
“Agnes, is it that you are incredible, or am I crazy?”
Pfft.
Lionel, who let out a deflated laugh, quietly tapped the piano lid with his long fingers.
Simon’s words lingered in his ears.
“Lately, it seems Lady Agnes feels stifled staying only in the mansion.”
“Stifled, you say……”
He hadn’t originally intended to keep her locked in the mansion for this long.
He planned to allow her to go out as soon as the dangers that needed to be cleared were handled.
But Adrian’s interrogation was taking longer than expected. Because of that, Jerome’s subordinates were roaming every corner of the city daily, claiming they would find related clues.
Well. That won’t last very long either.
“It will probably be sorted out before the Eve festival.”
He had taken measures so that there was nothing uncomfortable for Agnes in her mansion life.
Being confined might be a little uncomfortable for Agnes, but she should be able to endure that much stifling. Lionel believed so.
Quite arrogantly.
Lionel buried his profile in his arms and closed his eyes to the rhythm of the sleeping Agnes’s breathing.
He knew he should slowly confirm the truth about the train heading South with Agnes now.
However, today as well, Lionel simply let Agnes fall into the hands of the sleep demon.
Just one more day.
Along with that murmur.
Without knowing what that one day would change.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
