A Night of Bright Moonlight
Unlike the day she had stormed off after her sharp-tempered outburst, Leila appeared looking every bit the demure young lady. Matthias watched her from where he lounged on the sofa.
“I apologize most sincerely for the discourtesy of calling on you so suddenly, Your Grace.”
Leila began hesitantly, bowing her head as if to avoid his gaze. Her thick, straight eyelashes were remarkably long. The way she gently lowered her eyes seemed particularly striking because of them.
“I am sorry, but there is something I wish to ask you.”
After her lips moved several times, Leila finally managed to continue. Just then, the telephone began to ring.
Matthias rose slowly and brushed past Leila, who startled and stepped back, to pick up the receiver. It seemed to be a business call; they discussed a complicated contract.
Leila watched Matthias on the phone with slightly surprised eyes. He guided the conversation with skill. Even amid the brief smiles he occasionally offered and his courteous manner of speaking, one could sense the overwhelming power and dignity that cowed his counterpart. It was a bearing close to the perfect Duke of Herhardt whom everyone in Carlsbard never ceased to admire.
So then… surely not.
The suspicion that this man might really have taken her glasses suddenly felt far too absurd.
I feel like I’m doing something foolish… Then it must be the crows after all?
Estimating how many crow nests there might be in this forest, Leila offered a silent farewell toward the duke who was still on the call. Unexpectedly, he covered the mouthpiece and turned his body toward her.
“Wait.”
That short command sounded like the words of an entirely different person from the perfect Duke of Herhardt of a moment ago.
Leila stopped in an awkward posture. Matthias returned his focus to the call as if nothing had happened. Watching him, Leila came to realize a new fact.
Even in the midst of the most sociable conversation, the Duke of Herhardt’s eyes remained utterly still. The moments when he smiled were little different. Yet his posture was invariably straight and elegant. Though the person on the other end of the line could not see him, he never once let himself slacken. It was probably a habit that had seeped into his very body.
When the call, which continued for several more minutes, ended, he returned to the table and jotted something down. Leila clasped her fidgeting hands behind her back. Just as she began to suspect that he might have forgotten about the presence he had detained, Matthias’s gaze finally turned to her.
“Speak.”
“Pardon?”
“What you were going to say.”
Finding Matthias’s direct stare burdensome, Leila gently lowered her eyes.
“Ah… that is, my glasses. I was wondering whether, on the day I fell into the water… you might have seen my glasses at the dock.”
“Hmm. I don’t think I saw them…”
Matthias rose slowly from the sofa and approached Leila.
“And I think I might have hidden them.”
“Wh… what?”
Leila was so startled that she lifted her head without meaning to.
“Did Your Grace truly hide my glasses?”
“What do you think?”
“I do not think you would have done such a thing.”
Leila answered, frowning slightly.
“Why?”
Matthias tilted his head as if amused, the black hair above his forehead swaying like a crow’s feathers.
“That is… Your Grace, that would be far too wicked.”
Leila planted her feet firmly so as not to retreat.
For several days she had searched crow nests with Kyle before finally mustering the courage to come here. Even if he was someone she disliked, the duke was at least a person with whom one could communicate. She had thought it best to ask him outright and eliminate at least one of the two suspects—the crows or the duke. But now she was no longer sure. Whether the Duke of Herhardt, who only deepened the confusion with his riddle-like words, was truly someone one could talk to.
The two of them gazed into each other’s eyes for a long while without speaking. If the butler had not returned with urgent telegrams and mail, that moment might have lasted much longer.
Leila withdrew to the window, her cheeks slightly flushed.
After conversing in low tones with the butler for some time, Matthias at last raised his head at an angle to look at Leila. The distance was considerable and without her glasses she could not be certain, but it seemed his red lips might be slightly curved.
“Um…”
She squeezed out all her remaining courage to open her mouth, but Matthias cut her off by jerking his chin toward the door.
It was a concise and cold gesture informing her that there was no longer any place here for Leila Lewellin.
“A bird? What kind of absurd hobby is this all of a sudden?”
Riette looked at the birdcage with an incredulous expression. Inside the beautiful golden cage sat a bird as beautiful and golden as the cage itself.
“Are you going to raise it yourself now so you can shoot it later?”
At Riette’s joke, the people gathered in the sitting room of the suite all burst into laughter. Matthias, too, gave a light snort of amusement. As expected, no reply came. While Riette added a few more idle remarks, the servants who had brought champagne entered.
After the dinner party celebrating the gathering of all the relatives spending the summer together had ended, the younger set had moved here. The seating had been arranged in the sitting room of the master suite, which was especially Matthias’s space, at Claudine’s somewhat petulant request. Judging by how readily Matthias, who rarely permitted others into his space, had agreed, he seemed quite indulgent toward his fiancée.
The engagement between Matthias and Claudine was already as good as settled among the relatives. The reason the Countess of Brandt brought her young only daughter to Arvis every year, and the intention of the Herhardt family in conspicuously welcoming that Countess of Brandt, were both obvious.
It was simply that the inevitable had at last become reality, so none of them found this engagement surprising. If Matthias had chosen some other candidate for duchess, that would have been the shocking thing.
“It seems that bird has no idea what kind of person the Duke of Herhardt is.”
When the bird flew through the open cage door and settled on Matthias’s shoulder, Riette burst into cheerful laughter.
“A bird that loves a master of bird hunting. Should one call it foolish, or pitiful?”
When Matthias held out his hand, the bird transferred to his finger as if it had been waiting.
“Claudine, what do you think?”
At Riette’s question, everyone’s eyes turned to Claudine.
“Hmm. Well.”
Claudine glanced at the bird chirping on Matthias’s finger.
“How about we call it a foolish yet pitiful bird?”
Her compromise drew another round of laughter.
Having known one another for long years, the atmosphere among them was intimate. Familiar names, a shared world, common interests continued amid intermittent laughter.
“That bird—what is its name?”
Claudine, who had been gazing at Matthias’s face as he looked at the bird, offered a tender question.
“If it does not yet have a name, shall I give it one?”
“It is not a matter of sufficient worth for you to do so, my lady.”
Matthias turned his gaze to her and smiled. It was a face little different from a moment ago, yet the feeling was subtly altered.
“A bird is merely a bird.”
His answer was cold, in stark contrast to the gentle eyes with which he had regarded the bird singing on his hand.
“Indeed, a foolish and pitiful bird.”
Clicking his tongue briefly, Riette looked at the bird as if in pity.
“To love a hunter who will not even grant it a name!”
The group, laughing and chatting over champagne, left the suite only deep into the night.
Brushing past the servants who had come to tidy the sitting room, Matthias set out alone for a night stroll. His face, which no longer smiled, was as quiet as the night.
The trap has been set, so now it is time to check. She is not a complete fool, so she will have noticed, and once she has noticed she will not be able to give up.
So she will take the bait.
Matthias walked through the rose garden, carefully turning over the answer he already knew. As he passed through the forest and drew nearer the river, the wind grew cooler still. His steps halted at the boathouse by the riverbank where moonlight poured down white.
Entering the sitting room, Matthias approached the console and opened the drawer. The glasses lying quietly there sparkled as they reflected the moonlight.
Cradling them gently as one might hold a bird, Matthias stretched his languid body out on the sofa.
What is it that I hope to gain with this bait?
Looking at the glittering glasses, Matthias thought. It was difficult to settle on an answer, yet he felt no impatience. Once he caught her, he would know.
As he repeatedly tossed the glasses lightly into the air and caught them again, the night grew deeper and deeper.
It was a night of bright moonlight.
This is madness.
Leila was clearly aware of it. Sneaking into the duke’s boathouse was not something one would ever commit in a right mind.
“Right. Let’s just sleep.”
Pacing her room, Leila flung herself onto the bed. She wrapped her body in the thin quilt and squeezed her eyes shut.
“My glasses…”
But once again she could not fall asleep after all.
The duke hid my glasses.
Leila could now be certain. She could not understand why he would do such a thing, but he clearly had.
So I must find the glasses.
With a face of firm resolve, Leila sprang to her feet. He would not have taken them all the way to the main house, so they must be somewhere in the boathouse.
The place was secluded, and it was now deep night nearing midnight. So if she went quickly and left no trace, it might be all right. It was a night when the moon was so bright that the darkness was not very frightening.
“Yes. It will be fine.”
Muttering as if to persuade herself, Leila opened her door. The cabin filled with clear darkness was silent. The snoring that drifted from Uncle Bill’s bedroom was the only disturbance.
Taking the lace shawl hanging by the door, Leila hurried out of the cabin. Whenever she felt like turning back, she thought of the countless berries she had gathered to buy those glasses and the hours she had spent stirring jam until her arms nearly fell off.
“They’re my glasses anyway.”
As the glittering Schulter River came into view in the distance, Leila suppressed her anxiety with another mutter to herself. Her soft golden hair, falling past her waist, rippled in rhythm with her quickened steps.
But the more she thought about it, the stranger the duke seemed.
Walking along the dock that connected to the boathouse, Leila suddenly thought.
Could it be that he likes shiny things like a crow?
As she repeated the question mixed with irritation, Leila arrived before the boathouse where the glasses were hidden. Only then did she realize she had walked the night path in her nightclothes, but it was the dead of night with no eyes to see her anyway.
Drawing a deep breath, Leila took a large step that erased even her last hesitation.
As expected.
This time as well, Leila Lewellin’s actions did not deviate from his expectations.
As the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs drew nearer, Matthias’s breathing grew slower. Though he had left the door open for easy entry, Leila paced outside for a long while before finally opening a window in the corridor.
She is a girl who never strays from expectations yet always adds a touch of the unconventional.
Leila Lewellin came in over that window. Matthias, still lying on the sofa, listened to the signs of her. After the light creaking of the corridor floorboards came the sigh of relief Leila exhaled.
Matthias snorted silently and lowered his gaze from the ceiling. Before long Leila entered the sitting room. After looking around with a rigid posture, she took cautious steps. It seemed she would start searching by the windows first.
Matthias’s eyes, already accustomed to the dark, captured Leila’s form at once. Moonlight flowing through the open-curtained window illuminated Leila standing before the table.
As Matthias’s eyes narrowed, Leila moved to her next destination in front of the cabinet. Following the stealthy steps she took only on tiptoe, the hem of her skirt that wrapped her slender calves swayed. The white dress of fabric thin enough for her body to show through was probably her nightgown.
What is it that I hope to gain with this bait?
Matthias carefully stroked the slender temple of the glasses in his hand. Along that cold, smooth sensation his consciousness grew clear. In the meantime Leila had now moved as far as the console opposite the sofa where he lay.
Matthias shifted his gaze again toward Leila’s back, which the moonlight illuminated.
That woman.
Matthias readily accepted the reason he had set this pathetic trap and waited.
That woman who is no longer a little girl—Leila.
“Looking for these?”
Matthias parted his lips as he slowly waved the glasses in his hand.
Leila, who had just placed her hand on the console drawer, whirled around as if about to faint. With trembling hands she clamped over her lips and staggered backward. Though all that achieved was to be blocked by the wall.
Matthias slowly raised his body. As he sat leaning against the sofa, moonlight settled also upon his face, which had been submerged in darkness all along.
In the bright moonlight, their eyes met.