Chapter 47

Chapter 47

This year’s New Year’s ball offered plenty to look at. What drew the most attention, by far, was the announcement of the engagement ceremony date between Duke Angel and Lady Greenwood.

Those in the know had known already, but the fact that the ceremony had been set for two months hence made one guess just how eager both House Greenwood and House Angel were to hurry this engagement along.

People put their heads together, whispering, ear to mouth.

“When on earth did the two of them grow so close?”

“I wonder, truly. Seeing them stand together, there’s quite a different air about her now, Lady Greenwood, I mean.”

Standing beside the most handsome man in Laitenia and still giving off a quiet presence of her own, Ines looked so changed that one had to wonder whether she was truly the same woman as before.

Considering her past, when she could never join the crowd and would spend the ball in some corner before leaving, the change was nearly impossible to believe.

“They do look close, it’s true.”

One lady watched Ines with eyes in which envy and jealousy were mixed. The story that the two had slipped out of the banquet hall to stroll through the winter garden alone had already spread far and wide.

The sight of her wearing even Duke Angel’s coat plainly showed how dearly he cherished Ines.

“Let’s stop this dull talk.”

Another who stood beside her changed the mood.

“Yes, let’s talk about something else, shall we?”

“They’re nothing to do with us anyway. When would lower nobles like us ever get the chance to exchange so much as a proper word with His Grace, Duke Angel?”

The woman who said this let her gaze drift, discreetly, toward one side of the banquet hall. There Adrian, in a black formal suit, was conversing with a group of elderly noblewomen.

If the first spectacle had been the announcement of the engagement between Duke Angel and Lady Ines Greenwood, then the second was the ‘unknown painter’ they had only heard of through rumor.

A painter of common birth, Adrian.

The formal suit, as black as his hair, bore no ornament at all. Paradoxically, though, it was precisely his plain attire that made his looks stand out.

His face was so fine that, had they not known he was a painter, they might have taken him for an opera actor, or some noblewoman’s paid companion.

His pale-seeming face and high bridge of the nose were especially striking.

His thin lips made him look a little lacking in confidence and delicate, but that could be read as the charm of a sensitive artist.

Yet what could rightly be called the crowning glory of the man’s handsome looks was, of course, his eyes.

Filled with light, Adrian’s eyes glittered as passionately as red rubies.

“He’s truly magnificent.”

“You mean the painting, of course?”

A girl beside her teased in a playful tone at the lady who had muttered the words without realizing it. The lady blushed and nodded.

“Of course. 〈The Golden Wheat Field〉. I meant that the painting is truly magnificent.”

He had first gained notice by word of mouth thanks to Duke Angel’s patronage, but the successful debut at the New Year’s ball was something Adrian had earned through his own skill.

Outstanding looks, and talent just as outstanding. The nobles each stepped forward to praise 〈The Golden Wheat Field〉 with enthusiasm.

“To think that a pastoral scene like this could become a work of art. What a fresh perspective.”

“Who could disagree? It’s such an unfamiliar subject for us nobles that it feels all the more new and beautiful. I’ve come to want to see a golden wheat field in person.”

“This summer, I shall have to travel to see that view before the wheat is harvested.”

Among the nobles who praised him until their mouths ran dry, Adrian smiled as if pleased. A touch of nervousness showed, yet he did not lose his composure.

He had truly become a famous figure in the blink of an eye.

Until he unveiled his painting at the New Year’s ball, no one had properly known whether he was even attending.

Since so many people were present at the event, most had taken one look at his plain attire, decided he was some insignificant lesser noble from the countryside, and not so much as glanced his way.

Now, however, there were countless nobles on all sides itching to exchange even a single word with Adrian. Each of them wanted to commission a work from him.

“I was truly startled. To have such a noble and elegant bearing, and yet be a commoner. You must surely be from a good family. Isn’t that so?”

One young lady, more interested in Adrian himself than in his skill at painting, asked a mischievous question.

To such a lady, Adrian only smiled, saying nothing. But his heart was filled with joy.

One month.

It had been barely a month.

After visiting House Angel and presenting 〈The Golden Wheat Field〉, Adrian had undergone harsh training in etiquette.

There would be only one chance.

Because he knew better than anyone that everything would be decided at the New Year’s ball, Adrian had changed everything with the feeling of scraping himself down to the bone.

His easily cowed nature, his stooped posture, even the way he walked.

“That’s right. There’s something about you that’s similar to Duke Angel. It seems the bond between the two of you is quite exceptional.”

“Ah. Do you truly think so?”

At Adrian’s delighted reaction, he who had only been smiling softly until then, the lady blushed and nodded.

Her praise that was not quite praise was exactly what Adrian had most wanted to hear.

His etiquette teacher had taught Adrian, who had to change his bearing in a short time, one method.

That the best way to learn a noble’s manner was to imitate, as if before a mirror, someone he wished to resemble.

That if he thought and acted like that person, then someday it would become second nature.

This advice his etiquette teacher had given him was the heart of his dazzling progress.

Cedric Angel.

A man who lived a life entirely different from his own.

Unlike himself, born a lowly commoner who had lived worrying not only about what to wear but even about what to eat each day, here was a man who stood at the pinnacle of noble society at nearly the same age.

That Adrian thought of Cedric upon hearing his teacher’s words was the natural course of things.

Though it was also because, in truth, apart from Duke Angel there was no noble man whom Adrian had properly met.

A man who could have everything he wanted. A man who would even carry out his engagement to Ines Greenwood as a matter of course. To say Adrian envied him was too feeble a word; he had become an object of longing and admiration.

* * *

As the ball was winding down, Adrian approached to bid farewell to Ines and Cedric.

Cedric welcomed him with a smile.

“Adrian, congratulations on your successful entry into noble society.”

“All of this is owed to Your Grace’s kindness.”

At the refined way of speaking, which humbled himself without being servile, Cedric raised one eyebrow.

“You seem to have worked harder than I expected. Not a trace of your old habits remains. Don’t you think so, Miss Ines?”

Cedric asked Ines. At that very moment, Adrian’s expectant gaze turned toward Ines.

“I saw your painting. Congratulations, truly, Adrian.”

“Thank you. Truly… I worked very hard.”

To win the commission for your portrait.

I have no ambition to become the finest painter.

But if I must stand at the very top in order to paint your portrait, then I will gladly work even harder than I have now.

Pressing down thoughts he could not bring himself to say aloud, Adrian bowed to Ines once more.

“Thank you, Lady Greenwood.”

Adrian’s intense gaze would not leave Ines. Unconsciously, Cedric took her hand and shielded her slightly from the front with his own body.

“I think it is about time we were going.”

“Ah… Yes.”

“You have done very well today. At this rate, the portrait of the Duchess that you spoke of before will naturally fall to you.”

“Truly, Your Grace? Thank you, thank you so much.”

Adrian’s eyes sparkled. Before him, gripping Ines’s hand even more firmly, Cedric spoke.

“Indeed. Personally, I hope you will be able to take on House Angel’s family portrait as well.”

At Cedric’s sudden words, Ines was startled and looked up at him.

“F-family portrait?”

Seeing Cedric behave as though he had utterly forgotten the talk of breaking the engagement they’d had before returning to the banquet hall, Ines was thoroughly flustered.

But Cedric lightly kissed her hand and said,

“Once we are engaged, and then married, I suppose we will have a child between us. When our first child is born, I thought a family portrait would be nice.”

It seemed an off-the-cuff remark, but it was not. Ines realized at once that it had been brought out strategically, after a great deal of complicated calculation.

Cedric was testing her now.

‘Ah.’

Ines bit down hard on her lip. And at her reaction, Cedric, too, became certain that he had found the right answer.

A child.

Once again, it was ‘a child.’

Cedric seemed to have caught hold of a clue. A child was the only word at which Ines, who kept pushing him away, revealed an emotional weak point. Every time he spoke it, Ines became helpless, like someone facing an enemy bare-handed, with no weapon at all.

Watching Ines, who could not hide her agitation at the casual mention of a family portrait, Cedric grew certain that his assumption was correct.

‘Why, though?’

He could not tell the reason. It was strange that Ines, who had not even been engaged, let alone married, should be so singularly fragile over that word that she sobbed without a sound, but at least one thing was certain.

If she had a circumstance she could not speak of, it was surely connected to ‘a child.’