Chapter 7

Countess Presto examined Elena’s appearance.

‘Where is that boy that he still hasn’t come?’

Surely he would have crossed over to the annex the moment he heard a guest had arrived, yet he still had not come.

For this timid-looking young lady to have come all the way here, Maxim must surely have left her some opening.

Elena slowly rose from her seat.

With her hands placed neatly over her chest and clutching the hem of her dress, Elena greeted her elegantly.

“Hello, Countess Presto. I am Elena of the Joseph family. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly.”

Good heavens.

Was there ever such a proper and lovely child?

She was unlike the young people of today.

Countess Presto swallowed.

“I am Hazel Presto. Feel free to call me Lady Hazel.”

Hazel drew up a sense of inner closeness.

“Yes, madam.”

Elena barely managed a smile.

Even when she had come to see Maxim, she had not anticipated meeting the great figure of Rebunto.

No, perhaps she had been trying to turn a blind eye to it?

Perhaps, for this reason alone—leaning on the favor of a man who had danced with her just once—she had come all the way here while trying to ignore everything else.

But Elena believed in the Maxim of that day.

She wanted to believe in the man who, unlike the other crude ones, had been a gentleman from beginning to end.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Elena. May I call you Elena?”

“Yes, madam. Please do as you are comfortable.”

Even her smiling face was pretty.

She was a child who resembled the sunlight of a spring day.

“I heard you came looking for Maxim. That child goes off somewhere and does who-knows-what and does not come, so I came myself. Were you surprised?”

“A little.”

Elena smiled faintly.

“When I heard a guest had come, I simply could not bear my curiosity. You danced with Maxim before, did you not?”

“Yes. That is right, madam.”

So she remembered.

Elena swallowed.

That day, Elena had been no different from a clown.

She had drawn people’s eyes, and within them she had read contempt and criticism.

Surely Countess Presto, too, must have looked at her with the same eyes.

Elena clutched at the hem of her dress.

“That day was…”

“It was a wonderful dance. I thought you suited Maxim very well.”

Elena clamped her mouth shut and opened her eyes wide.

She had never expected to hear such words.

And to say she suited Maxim?

She had not expected that either.

“May I ask where you learned to dance?”

Countess Presto also knew of the Joseph family.

She remembered it had been quite a decent house in the past, but after coming to Rebunto, it had sunk like a capsized ship.

After that, she had heard that the child’s mother was rummaging about here and there.

[She is a vulgar woman.]

[Madam, how can that woman be so shameless?]

[They say she gambled away the family fortune.]

The stories she had let pass came back to her.

For such a lovely child to be under a woman like that.

Heaven was truly indifferent.

“…I learned from my father. My father set me on top of his feet and taught me himself.”

Elena answered with a somehow melancholy feeling.

Memories of that day rose up like droplets of water.

Her childhood self, laughing loudly with flushed cheeks, and her father, gazing at her with eyes full of love.

[Now, Elena. Hold on tightly to Father’s arm. That’s it! That’s how you move.]

A tender voice lingered in her memory.

The longing for her father sometimes came bursting out and touched Elena’s heart.

“…You had a good father.”

“Yes. He was truly a good person.”

Elena smiled brightly.

‘Thanks to that father, she grew up so beautifully.’

Countess Presto clicked her tongue in regret.

If that father were alive, this child’s life would have been a little less arduous.

In any case, the late Count Joseph had planted the child in well-lit soil and raised her, so as far as the child alone was concerned, there was nothing bad to say.

Cecile Joseph was another matter.

‘This is something to discuss later.’

Hazel smiled gently.

“I learned to dance that way too. My father was also a tender person.”

Elena opened her eyes wide.

Hazel Presto was a princess.

Even Elena, living in the outskirts, knew about Hazel.

In truth, meeting her like this was already an honor, and now such personal stories as well.

It was the first time Elena had met a noblewoman so kind to her.

“But I was not good at it. Actually, I think I was clumsy, so I had no talent for it. So after I married, I almost never stood on a dance floor.”

Hazel winked.

By the time Hazel had finished sufficient probing through her conversation with Elena, Maxim appeared.

Maxim looked at the two with a slightly furrowed brow.

“Oh my, Maxim. What on earth were you doing that you only come now? Don’t you know you should not keep a lady waiting?”

Having lightly scolded him, Hazel rose from her seat.

Hazel tapped Maxim on the shoulder.

“She seems like a good child. I like her.”

At the small whisper, Maxim let out a sigh.

What exactly did she like?

Because Countess Presto kept clinging to him and would not let him return to the capital, he was still staying in Rebunto.

Thanks to that, he had been handling urgent documents that had arrived by telegram when the head butler made a fuss and dragged him out.

[If you stay so relaxed, you may find yourself dragged to the wedding hall tomorrow, young master.]

And that had not been an exaggeration.

If it was Hazel, she had the remarkable ability to make even the impossible possible.

Maxim gritted his teeth and pushed Hazel’s back.

“My aunt must be getting old. Seeing how she meddles in others’ affairs like this.”

“Oh my, our Maxim has grown up. He even worries about his aunt now.”

The two exchanged words in low voices inaudible to Elena, then met eyes.

Hazel narrowed her eyes and smiled.

“Treat her well.”

Maxim slammed the reception room door shut.

Elena flinched and placed a hand over her chest.

As Elena tried to rise in a fluster, Maxim threw a question at her.

“What brings you all the way here?”

It was a thoroughly unkind question.

Was this the same man who had taken her hand that day?

While Elena sat unable to greet him or answer, the seat across from her became Maxim’s.

Maxim picked up and set down the teacup with his long, thick-knuckled fingers.

It was a meaningless gesture, yet when Maxim did it, it seemed both savage and elegant.

Elena swallowed.

Having taken a deep breath, Elena slowly brought out her belated answer.

“You have saved me twice.”

“And?”

“And yet you have not demanded any price for your kindness.”

“Because I did not need one.”

Despite the cold, short answer, Elena gathered her courage and continued.

What she was about to say was, even by her own estimation, utterly absurd, and it was only natural that Maxim would not accept it.

But Elena was driven into a dead end, and this was the only choice she could make to save herself and Leana.

Elena’s fingertips trembled.

Please, God.

You have never once listened to my prayers before.

Please, just this once, be on my side.

Elena prayed earnestly.

Her prettily shaped lips parted.

* * *

The values her father had planted in Elena were not about selling herself to an old man.

So she believed her father would understand abandoning her mother.

Elena decided to abandon this house and her mother.

Elena did her utmost to dilute her own guilt.

Elena opened Leana’s door and secured the bag slung over her shoulder.

Leana was curled into a ball, breathing raggedly in her sleep.

“Leana.”

Elena shook her younger sister’s small hand.

“Leana.”

At Elena’s repeated calling, Leana opened her tightly shut eyelids.

The clear, large eyes revealed reflected Elena.

“Wake up, Leana.”

“…Sister…?”

Elena lifted Leana and dressed her.

Carrying the good younger sister who asked nothing on her back, Elena slipped out of the shabby house.

The wooden floorboards that creaked when stepped on and the floor so rotten one could fall through were things she could avoid even with her eyes closed.

Having draped the shawl further over Leana’s body, Elena walked through the dawn, before even the day had broken.

In Elena’s small bag was a single calling card.

It was a calling card with Maxim’s name written in splendid gold leaf.

He would have already left Rebunto, but his trace remained like this.

[…If you need it, go to Countess Presto.]

She was curious what on earth the man’s identity was that he could invoke the name of Countess Presto, who was shaking the economy and social circles of Rebunto.

Still, if it was Countess Presto, whose name stood high in honor…!

Elena gripped Leana’s hand tightly.

So that she would not lose her.