An Excuse to Break Her Heart
When Kyle spotted Leila walking along the forest path with soft, measured steps, a smile as warm as the evening glow bloomed across his face.
“Leila!”
At the sound of her name called out loud, Leila, who had been watching her own feet as she walked, lifted her head with a start. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. It was a moment Kyle loved more than anything—the way her steps quickened upon seeing him. His Leila, approaching lightly and smiling softly.
“When did you get here?”
“Just a little while ago. I went to the cabin, but they said you’d been summoned to the manor, so I was on my way to rescue you.”
“Rescue?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The reason Miss Brandt called for you.”
“It wasn’t her today.”
Leila smiled as she stepped forward. Kyle matched her pace and began walking slowly beside her.
“It wasn’t Miss Brandt—it was the Dowager Duchess who summoned me.”
“The Dowager Duchess? You?”
“Mm. She congratulated me on passing and asked if there was any gift I wanted.”
“What did you say?”
“That there was nothing. I told her I was already grateful just for being allowed to stay here.”
“A thoroughly Leila Lewellin answer.”
Kyle merely let out a light chuckle at the reply he had already expected. When he gently took her hand, Leila no longer tensed as she once had. That small change only heightened his happiness.
Hand in hand, they walked the familiar path together. The day’s work, the mystery novel in today’s paper, their trivial plans for the summer—intimate conversations no different from any other day followed their side-by-side steps. In the meantime, dusk settled in.
The forest darkened quickly, and Kyle decided to draw courage from that darkness.
He pulled firmly on Leila’s hand. She stumbled, her back coming to rest against a tall tree by the path, and Kyle stood facing her. It had happened in the blink of an eye, yet to Kyle the moment felt like eternity.
“Kyle?”
Leila’s startled voice trembled faintly. Her lips, a vivid rose-red, shone clearly even in the pure darkness.
Kyle squeezed his eyes shut, gathering every scrap of courage he possessed, and lowered his head. Warm skin soon met his lips—but the sensation was not what he had expected.
Opening his eyes, Kyle could only let out a wry laugh. What had touched his lips was the back of Leila’s hand. Her face flushed scarlet, she stared at him while firmly covering her mouth with her own hand.
“I… this feels a little strange, Kyle.”
As Kyle slowly raised his head, Leila mumbled the words.
“When we do this, it almost feels like we’re doing something wrong, and I…”
Unable to continue, she hesitated and quietly lowered her eyes. Her long, pale lashes tilted slowly downward as well.
Don’t you think this is even worse?
Swallowing the retort he wanted to make, Kyle forced another hollow laugh. His own cheeks had grown as red as hers.
“Listen, Miss Lewellin. What would you know about kissing when you don’t even know what one is?”
“Huh?”
“On the train you were so full of yourself, talking as if you knew everything.”
“What are you… ah.”
The memory of the day she had spoken of reproductive acts and made him want to leap from a moving train finally seemed to surface; Leila let out a small gasp.
“That was…”
Rolling her eyes thoughtfully, she searched for the right words and, finding none, swallowed dryly.
“I don’t really know about that.”
That habitual whisper she used whenever she was at a disadvantage had not changed in the slightest since the first day they met.
Kyle’s strength left him in a soft sigh. He felt pathetic for being unable to manage even a single proper kiss with the woman he was soon to marry—yet he did not entirely dislike it. What Kyle wanted most was Leila’s heart. He could not wound it in a rush of passion.
With both hands he cradled her cheeks and stroked them carefully. Then he pressed his heated lips to her smooth forehead. He strained with all his might not to want more, and in the end he kept that vow.
When he slowly drew in a breath, the sweet scent of roses seeped deep into his lungs. It was Leila’s scent.
Having finished his shower, Matthias walked slowly toward the window on the western side of the bedroom.
His daily routine was regular. No matter when he fell asleep, he generally woke in the early morning. Without lingering he headed to the bathroom, showered for a set length of time, and began his day. It was a kind of habit that happened of its own accord, without any special effort.
Perhaps this moment was the same.
Matthias looked down through the open window with a faintly self-mocking gaze.
In his garden, where the roses were in full bloom, Leila was there as if it were only natural. Perhaps because the day of her departure was drawing near, she came out with the gardener far more often than before. She never left his side for a moment, chattering away with great enthusiasm.
There had been a time when he had thought Leila Lewellin a terribly quiet child. Before him or Claudine she rarely opened her tightly closed mouth.
“My lord, it is Hessen.”
At the appointed hour the familiar knock sounded.
“Come in.”
Matthias answered briefly, still standing with his back to the window. The thin curtain stirred in the breeze that passed through the still-open casement.
While reading the newspaper Hessen had brought, Matthias listened to the report on the day’s schedule. There was ample free time until luncheon.
“Now that you have returned, my lord, Arvis finally feels complete.”
Instead of withdrawing quietly as usual, Hessen added a remark.
Matthias set down the teacup he had merely been holding and faced him.
“Grandmother and Mother might feel hurt if they heard that.”
“Pardon? Ah—no, my lord. That is not what I meant…”
“I know.”
A smile touched the corner of Matthias’s mouth.
“I understand perfectly what you meant.”
The brief smile soon vanished, yet the gaze Matthias turned on the middle-aged butler remained as calm as a windless surface of water. Relieved by the absence of any displeasure in those eyes, Hessen withdrew in haste.
Even after the bedroom door closed, Matthias remained leaning against the windowsill, reading the paper. Through the strands of hair that had fallen forward, his eyes looked paler than usual where the sunlight touched them.
Having carefully read the article concerning the business of Count Klein, with whom he was to lunch, Matthias finally set the newspaper aside. When he turned slowly, he saw that Leila had come as far as the flower bed nearest the manor. Beneath the straw hat she had once leapt into the river to retrieve, her single braid swayed.
The gardener said something, and Leila answered with lively spirit. Then she laughed. Even though the shade of the hat hid her face, he could tell—she was laughing out loud.
Matthias narrowed his eyes and slowly pushed his hair back.
Would it have been better if I had never returned?
He had thought it from the moment he first set foot on the estate.
His life had been composed of meticulous plans. They were like a staircase leading to a perfect existence—one need only climb it carefully, step by step.
Yet that staircase had gone awry.
Even now Matthias could not readily understand the self who had made a choice that defied the plan.
No. Perhaps it had already been so before the night he tore up the application for extended service. The day he decided to serve one more year and postponed the marriage. The day he was finally swept up by a trivial desire. The day he approached the fallen bicycle. Or perhaps some day beyond the reach of memory.
I still desire you.
Matthias knew the true nature of his feelings well.
Therefore I wish for you to disappear.
He knew equally well that this wish was genuine.
This confusion was born of the gap between a burning emotion and an earnest desire. He could not give a clear answer, yet in the end time would resolve it.
Matthias closed the window and changed his clothes. As he strode with broad steps along the corridor, the shadows of the windows swept across his head.
Dismissing his attendants, Matthias left the manor alone and walked the forest path that led to the river. The brighter the light, the deeper the shadows.
In the deep shade cast by the trees, Matthias stood still for a moment, lost in a daze.
He had never wanted anything, and thus had never known longing. Yet something even stranger than that flashed through his mind.
It was the way of not being able to have what one wanted.
The closer he drew to the gardener’s cabin, the paler Daniel Rayner’s face grew. Though the sun was not yet fiercely hot, his forehead was already soaked with sweat.
“This is madness.”
When the roof of the cabin came into view in the distance, Daniel muttered in despair.
Mrs. Etman had said she wished to hold the university tuition the gardener had prepared for a while. Strip away the plausible wrapping and it was nothing more than theft.
That lofty and elegant Linda Etman had urged her younger cousin to steal—all for the single desire to tear that pitiful child away from her son.
Before he knew it Daniel Rayner had stepped into the front yard of the cabin. He pulled out the handkerchief he had stuffed into his pocket and wiped his face again. The hand gripping the document case kept twitching.
He too had found it regrettable that Kyle had fallen so deeply for a woman beneath his station and decided to marry her. Everyone had expected that a family like the Etmans would take a daughter of the lower nobility as a daughter-in-law.
Yet Kyle had truly wanted it, Dr. Etman had supported it, and above all Daniel himself had thought the girl named Leila not so bad, and so he had accepted it. He had believed Mrs. Etman felt the same. Who could have known that behind that gentle smile she was hiding such a dagger?
“Money is the enemy.”
After a moment of bitter reflection, Daniel seemed to harden his resolve and strode toward the cabin.
Linda Etman had said the house would be empty in the morning. If Leila happened to be there, he need only claim he had stopped by the Etman residence and come to congratulate her on her university acceptance. He and Leila already knew each other, so the excuse would not feel too awkward.
Hoping against hope that the girl would still be there and the plan would fall through, he knocked—but the house was utterly silent.
Tasting despair and resignation at once, Daniel opened the front door. Just as his cousin had assured him, it was unlocked.
But Cousin, if they say the tuition was stolen, someone will appear to provide it in her place. Dr. Etman alone would gladly pay the girl’s fees.
When he had protested in bewilderment, Linda Etman had given a bitter smile.
Do you really think I know my husband less well than you do?
Then why on earth…
The missing tuition is only a pretext.
What?
An excuse to break that child’s heart.
Her low reply had been laced with a sigh.
Daniel could not question her further; he only blinked slowly. If this was a straw he had no choice but to grasp, he did not want to know anything more. Knowing even that would only deepen his disgust and self-loathing.
He was merely helping his cousin hold the gardener’s money for a while. Repeating that rationalization to himself, Daniel Rayner stepped inside the cabin.
It did not take him long to finish his task. Once he left the cabin with the bag containing the money, his heart actually felt lighter. The die had already been cast, and his role in this game ended here. All that remained was to hand this tainted money over to Linda Etman, receive the fee that would save his mortgaged house, and go home.
To avoid any chance of running into the gardener, Daniel Rayner chose the longer path that followed the river. Yet that careful choice only landed him in trouble. He realized it after he came face to face with a young man by the riverside.
Upon spotting Daniel Rayner, the man slowly halted his steps. Without any particular wariness or surprise, he simply stared straight at him.
One of the Arvis servants, perhaps?
He felt a brief relief at the man’s unconcerned reaction—then Daniel Rayner’s face turned ashen.
At this busy hour of the morning there was no way a mere attendant would be strolling leisurely along the riverbank in nothing but a shirt. Moreover, the face of the young man standing opposite him was unmistakably familiar.
It was the face that had appeared countless times in the newspapers, the face he had glimpsed from afar more than once—the Duke of Herhardt.