Chapter 97
Agnes was staring at the red bouquet placed upon her lap for a long time.
“They are camellias.”
It was a quiet voice.
“They bloomed a bit early this year.”
Lionel, finishing his words, naturally clasped his two hands together.
It was to hide his minutely trembling fingertips.
For a moment, tranquility settled inside the room.
“I am on my way back from meeting the grandson of Lucian.”
Even while bringing out those words, Lionel could not look straight at Agnes.
Because he, too, knew that it was a combination that would not look fitting to anyone who saw it—Kain and himself.
However, Agnes did not ask.
Why he met him, what kind of story they shared.
She did not show any curiosity whatsoever.
Therefore, Lionel opened his mouth first.
“According to his words, they say Lucian plans to create a dance troupe to mount on a new theater stage.”
“Is that so.”
Agnes’s answer was calm.
“……And he said he wishes for you, Agnes, to stand on that stage.”
Lionel, while holding his breath, scanned Agnes’s face.
Even if she did not rejoice, he had thought that at least she would show some sign of being surprised or shaken even for a moment.
However, Agnes merely placed her gaze briefly upon the camellias, then soon after only turned her head toward the open window outside.
Exactly as if this story were news of a distant country that was entirely unrelated to herself.
Lionel placed strength into his clasped hands.
“How do you wish to do it?”
“Well. I wonder if a dancer who cannot dance can mount a stage.”
“I heard the dance of the troupe Lucian will create will not be a method of dancing while moving around the stage.”
“…….”
Agnes’s lips closed slowly.
Lionel, inadvertently, leaned his upper body forward.
Exactly as if he could look into Agnes’s heart if he approached just a little closer.
However, Agnes was still looking outside the window.
Because it felt as though that gaze did not reach anywhere, Lionel received a sensation as if a heavy stone had been set down upon one side of his chest.
It was too early.
To the current her, the story of the stage might have been nothing more than words that touched a wound.
He was composing his breath, unable to continue his words any further.
It was then.
“I will think about it.”
Agnes’s voice dropped above Lionel’s head.
Lionel’s head was raised reflexively.
Even while knowing that it was nothing more than a formal answer, Lionel inhaled a small breath as if this single word from Agnes were mercy granted to him.
“……Right.”
The conversation that had been connecting at least barely was snapped off thoroughly.
Lionel, finding this silence difficult to endure, flung words after agonizing. In order to catch and hold Agnes’s gaze, which was still fixed outside, toward himself even for a moment.
“Is it very stuffy?”
“Inevitably, since I am only inside the room.”
“If so, how about going on an outing with me.”
At those words, for the first time in a very long time, Agnes’s light gray pupils directed toward Lionel.
It was a gaze clear and straight like a glass bead.
Lionel, inadvertently, swallowed a long low groan.
By this single momentary eye contact alone, it felt as if electricity passed through from his fingertips to his toes.
The prominently jutting Adam’s apple of Lionel moved up and down.
“There is something I want to show you.”
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Even after setting out on the outing, Agnes barely spoke.
It was the same inside the carriage as well.
She was quietly looking only outside the window.
He had not known.
That a day would come when he would feel this anxious and thirsty from failing to receive that gaze.
Since Agnes’s gaze had always been directed toward him, after all.
It felt like a matter of course, like the fact that summer is hot and winter is cold—Agnes looking only at him.
Did someone say so. That there is nothing as a matter of course in the world, and that it is only after losing it that one comes to realize that it was not a matter of course.
Lionel keenly felt those words.
If it were a case where he had not received it from the very beginning, it would be different.
Once the affection he had experienced vanished, Lionel became parched. It was a burning thirst he had not experienced before.
‘I would be glad if she likes it, by all means.’
Lionel quietly rested his chin on his hand and looked outside following Agnes.
The thought arose that he wished Agnes’s mood would be unraveled even a little at the sight she would soon see.
As he was staring at the landscape turning into a familiar road, Agnes also tilted her head a little only then.
The place the carriage headed to was none other than the Bardo trading company.
Exactly as he had done previously.
Lionel familiarly unfolded the wheelchair outside the carriage that had stopped, and supporting Agnes, led her to the backyard.
Contrary to the final appearance that had been broken and ruined by Chloe’s hand, the backyard and the buildings there were neatly restored.
The cracks on the walls, the railings that had collapsed, were all gone without exception.
Exactly as if it had returned to the most peaceful days of some ten-odd years ago, it was cleanly groomed just like the appearance that remained inside the memory.
Lionel looked only at Agnes’s profile amidst that scenery.
“How is it. Do you like it?”
He spoke while covering the blanket he had brought in advance over Agnes’s legs.
“If you wish, you may come and go at any time. Because this land is your possession.”
“At any time?”
Agnes clamped her mouth shut tightly once with a face whose thoughts could not be known, then parted her lips again.
“It is a bit uncomfortable to come and go alone though……. Could I perhaps stay here instead?”
It was the Bardo trading company that she had so wished to leave.
However, Agnes felt that it might be better to enter this hell again instead. If only she could leave Lionel’s side.
However, what returned was a firm refusal.
“That cannot be.”
Lionel’s hand unconsciously gripped the handle of Agnes’s wheelchair forcefully.
As if otherwise, Agnes would slip away between his fingers like sand.
“There is no need to worry about coming and going. Since I will accompany you every time.”
“…….”
“Or else, I can give this entire trading company to you altogether. Yes, that would be good.”
Lionel nodded his head as if having handed down the answer by himself.
“If the entire Bardo trading company becomes your possession, whenever you wish, we can stay together here for days at a time.”
“Together……. Why by all means?”
Agnes raised her head and looked straight at Lionel.
“You are busy. Yet why do you try to be together with me?”
“……Because we are husband and wife. It is a matter of course for a husband and wife to be together.”
It was a matter of course, then.
For a husband and wife to be together.
If he had known that, why did the Lionel of the past not do so.
A somewhat impulsive question squeezed out and protruded past the corners of Agnes’s mouth.
“If so, until when do we have to be together?”
“……What?”
However, right away, Agnes shook her head from side to side.
“No. Act as if you just did not hear the words of a short while ago.”
It was a useless question.
It felt as though it would be better not to hear Lionel’s answer.
Because whatever answer returned, it felt as if even the deadline of her own making that she had established would become meaningless.
Without knowing what kind of emotion was floating inside Agnes’s heart, Lionel walked in front of her and bent one knee to match her eye level.
To the current Lionel, only the goal that he must hand over the things Agnes likes was clear.
In order not to repeat the mistake of having handed over luxury goods and being satisfied.
The things by which she could truly become happy.
Therefore, Lionel failed to notice what was changing inside Agnes.
“Since you like doing the work of the trading company, it would be fine to start the work again once your body is completely recovered.”
Agnes deeply inhaled the cold air dryly.
Her lungs became stinging from the cold temperature.
You do not remember.
‘I clearly said that I do not want a position like the master of the trading company though.’
Since it was not even a novel thing, she did not feel the necessity to enter into arguing over right and wrong.
Agnes stared at a single bird that was sitting on the railing of the newly built building.
The bird tilted its head for a moment, then soon after flew up, *flutter*, into the sky.
Agnes’s gaze went up slowly following that trajectory.
She unconsciously caressed her right leg covered by the blanket.
Unlike herself, she envied the bird that could leave for anywhere it wished at any time.
“Cough.”
Just because she had inhaled that little bit of cold air, her coughing was causing trouble yet again.
A vertical line formed between Agnes’s brows.
At that moment, Lionel’s face froze frighteningly.
“We shall speak regarding this matter again in the future, and it would be good to return for today.”
“Already?”
As Lionel tried to turn the wheelchair, Agnes gently pushed his hand away.
When she thought about being locked again within the pouring gazes, her entire body tightened as if entering a small coffin.
“Could we…… stay a little more before returning?”
“Then it would be good to go inside the interior.”
“No, not the interior……”
Agnes turned her head and scanned the backyard once more.
Although it was cozy, one side was blocked by the building and the other side by the wall.
Clearly it was the outside, yet this place too was felt as no different from the bedroom of the Duke’s mansion.
“I want to go to a wide-open place.”
Agnes opened her mouth impulsively once again.
“A high and wide-open place where the surroundings are not blocked, that kind of place.”
“A high place?”
A venue that corresponded exactly to the place Agnes desired flashed through Lionel’s mind.
If it were that place, the camellias that bloomed sparsely throughout the capital would also come into view at a single glance.
If it were Agnes who liked flowers, it was also a place sufficient to refresh her mood.
However, somehow Lionel was reluctant to take Agnes to that place.
It was a reason that could not be explained logically.
Merely, a discomfort that could not be pointed out specifically made Lionel’s steps hesitate.
But at the same time. Agnes’s question asking until when they had to be together stung the inside of his throat like a thorn caught in his windpipe.
Because that sounded exactly like a cry that she wanted to leave him, Lionel could not dare to go against Agnes’s will.
Lionel, after placing his outer garment upon Agnes’s shoulders, pulled up the blanket and covered Agnes’s thigh that had been slightly revealed.
“As it happens, there is a suitable place.”
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