Chapter 50
“Why is there no answer? It would be more comfortable for you than writing troublesome reports.”
Every night.
Agnes quietly overlapped her fingertips.
She liked it.
The fact that she could see him often knocked cautiously somewhere deep inside her heart.
But at the same time, she was afraid.
She had only just realized her feelings, and the fear that those feelings might grow deeper surged ahead of her.
“At night, because of the rehabilitation, the time is…”
“Tell them to reduce the treatment time. Or tell them to move it to another time.”
Lionel raised his head.
His blue eyes, catching the light, reflected Agnes for a moment.
“Is there another problem?”
“……No, there isn’t.”
“Then I’ll take it as an agreement.”
In an instant, she ended up spending the end of the day with Lionel.
With a dazed feeling, Agnes picked up the report she had received back from Kalt.
At that moment, Lionel tapped the desk lightly with the tip of his pen.
“Why don’t you leave that here? Since you’ve already written it.”
Agnes hesitated for a moment before pushing her wheelchair forward.
As she was about to place the documents on the desk, unexpectedly, Lionel stood up first and approached her.
He sat leaningly on the edge of the desk and flipped through the documents one by one.
That sight was familiar.
It resembled the scene on the first day she came to the Duke’s mansion, when she handed over the crudely put-together proposal to join the Imperial Dance Troupe.
Not that much time had passed, but her relationship with Lionel, which had changed quite a bit compared to then, felt new again.
Meanwhile.
Looking at Agnes’s report, Lionel was thinking of the telegram he had received from Agnes while in the North.
That telegram, which strangely resembled the writing style of the letter he cherished.
It was because of that that an impulsive question popped out.
“Have you perhaps sent me a letter before?”
“A letter?”
Agnes realized what letter he was talking about.
He must be asking about the letter she sent, which would still be kept dearly in the drawer of the annex.
However, before Agnes could say anything, Lionel waved his hand lightly.
“No, pretend you didn’t hear that. I asked something useless.”
Lionel did not think Agnes was the owner of that letter.
Because the handwriting was different.
“There’s no way.”
“Why…… are you so certain?”
Agnes asked cautiously.
“You mean the letter in the box that was in the annex, right?”
Lionel crossed his arms and looked down at her leaningly.
“Right. That thing is quite precious to me.”
His voice dropped low.
“It’s what helped me endure that dog-like battlefield.”
And he let out a short breath.
“But, if such a thing came from the hands of Bardo, wouldn’t my last dozen years be too ridiculous?”
Just the assumption that the sender of that letter might be a member of Bardo made his stomach churn.
Bardo, who had pushed him further into the mire when he was already rolling in it. Bardo, who eventually took his younger brother’s life.
That they were the source of the strength that helped him endure that hell?
It was an impossibly disgusting assumption.
The corners of Lionel’s mouth curved up coldly.
It was a bitter smile, a mix of self-derision and cynicism.
“Why. Did you actually send that letter?”
Agnes clasped her hands together.
The emotions contained in Lionel’s eyes were faintly conveyed to her as well.
She felt she now understood what the numerous letters she had sent meant to him.
Just as pointe shoes or the backyard of the trading company were to her, those letters must have been his only sanctuary.
She did not want to break that illusion.
She hoped that Lionel, at least, would not lose the sanctuary that she herself had been helplessly robbed of.
So, Agnes shook her head.
“No.”
“I thought so.”
Agnes lowered her gaze.
Instead of speaking the truth, she quietly swallowed the silence.
Lionel returned to his seat without a word and put on his glasses.
Agnes caught a glimpse of the clock.
Soon, the time for Andrew’s treatment was approaching.
‘I don’t want to go.’
As Agnes bit her lower lip hard, Lionel suddenly threw a word at her.
“I heard the garden maintenance is finished, so how about taking a walk around next week.”
It was an unexpected proposal.
“The flowers will have all fallen, but it will be worth seeing.”
Agnes smiled awkwardly.
“Yes, let’s do that.”
A considerable amount of silence flowed after that.
Even though the minute hand moved several times, Lionel’s order to leave did not fall.
Using that fact as an excuse, Agnes cautiously opened her mouth.
“Could I perhaps…… handle some remaining trading company work here before I go?”
“Specifically here?”
Lionel’s head tilted to the side.
Agnes hastily listed the reasons.
“I don’t have a separate desk to look at documents. I’ll stay quiet so as not to be a disturbance.”
The safest place in this mansion was by Lionel’s side.
Thus, like a lie, even though she had wanted to leave quickly until just a moment ago, she now wanted to stay here.
Because this was the only space where she could hide from Andrew and Nora.
Since her body felt chilly from being exposed to the cold morning wind for a moment, she did not have the confidence to endure Andrew’s harsh rehabilitation today.
“Do as you wish.”
Fortunately, Lionel gave up a corner of the office.
Agnes sat quietly at one side of the desk and organized her papers.
Occasionally, only the sound of the pen tip scratching the paper and the sound of the clock’s second hand tapping the wall filled the room.
How much time had passed?
Agnes’s upright posture faltered, and her head gradually dropped down.
Lionel’s subtle scent lingered in the air.
A scent that was warm yet strangely distant.
The moment she felt that smell, Agnes’s mind was at ease.
Then, her eyelids slowly grew heavy.
The sound of her blinking seemed to get slower and slower, and before she knew it, her transparent light-grey eyes completely vanished behind her eyelids.
Lionel raised his head when the sound of turning pages stopped.
Agnes, who had fallen asleep with her head leaning against the back of the wheelchair, came into his sight.
“Heh.”
After looking absurdly at Agnes, who had fallen into a peaceful sleep, Lionel approached her.
Carefully picking up her light body, he laid Agnes on the sofa and roughly covered her with a blanket.
Then, sitting on the head of the sofa, he checked the remaining documents.
Then, he stared quietly at the paper Agnes had been organizing.
As expected, no matter how many times he looked, Agnes’s handwriting and the handwriting of the letter were distinctly different.
“Right, there’s no way the sender of the letter is you.”
But that simple discrepancy, strangely, made his heart feel empty.
Even though it was the conclusion he had desperately hoped for.
With a feeling of stuffiness rising up his neck again, Lionel unfastened a couple of the top buttons of his shirt.
His blue irises turned toward the sleeping Agnes.
Agnes’s right leg, revealed beneath the blanket, was subtly twisted.
It looked uncomfortable.
As soon as that thought occurred, his hand moved first.
Lionel picked up a cushion and carefully slid it under Agnes’s knees.
Only then did her posture look much more comfortable, so Lionel twitched his eyebrows in satisfaction.
And then, Lionel continued to process the remaining work.
Until dawn,
Until Agnes opened her eyes with a start and left the room as if fleeing while repeatedly apologizing.
Lionel still did not move from Agnes’s bedside.
A few days later, a small commotion broke out in the Duke’s mansion.
The servants moved busily from the morning carrying furniture, and the maids were frantic replacing new bedsheets.
It was none other than because of Lionel, who had ordered Agnes’s room to be moved.
“Is it really okay for me to use this place?”
Agnes looked around the new room with a dazed feeling.
The room Agnes had been using previously was for guests, but it was a sufficiently good place.
However, the scenery of the room unfolding before her eyes was incomparable to that place.
A large window with an open view, curtains holding a soft light, and even tapestries woven with high-quality yarn.
Everything felt too excessive for her.
“I am fine staying in the place I used originally. This place seems too much for me to stay in.”
“I heard that you decided to spend time in His Grace’s office every evening.”
Simon skillfully relieved Agnes’s burden.
“It was His Grace’s command to move you to a nearby room so that you can go to and from the office more comfortably.”
However, Mrs. Nora, standing nearby, had an expression that could not agree with Simon’s words.
This was a room with a clear view of the garden, a place the former Duchess had especially cherished.
Mrs. Nora was extremely displeased with the reality of Agnes taking over such a place.
It was Mrs. Nora’s only consolation that the Duchess’s actual main bedroom was on the second floor, so Agnes was not using that spot.
But she could not dare to express such dissatisfaction.
Because Lionel, in comfortable attire, was leaning lazily against the threshold.
“How is it, do you like the new room?”
Agnes hesitated for a moment and then nodded.
And in that fleeting moment, Mrs. Nora’s gaze shook strangely.
Once again, the air of the mansion was changing little by little.
In a different direction than when Lionel had been away.
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