Gentle Madness

Kasika turned her head to look out the window. With no one seated beside her, neither pane obstructed her view. Clouds veiled the sun. In the brief dimming, her own reflection surfaced in the glass.

Her coiling auburn hair, her bloodless face, her pale lips all came into focus. Kasika brushed a thumb across her mouth. For an instant she thought she should have applied something to them, but even that thought did not linger long.

The streets of the capital spread out before her—once familiar, now strange. Dry dust rose and vanished over the paving stones of the old quarter. Beneath shadowed awnings, people stood holding baskets. Where the street grew too narrow for a carriage to pass with ease, pedestrians and children could be seen slipping out of its path.

So that's why he lent me the small carriage. She never ordinarily rode a carriage to this part of town; had she come in her usual one, she would have been quite helpless. And if she hadn't known better, she would have arrived in the large one. In trifles like these, Kasika could feel the difference between herself and Lambroise.

Elena, for her part, was absorbed in the sights, so different from the new quarter. Linen strung along clotheslines that stitched together the narrow, winding buildings swelled like sails in the wind, then fell slack. Behind the men clustered at the mouth of the alley, cigarettes in their mouths, a dangerous glint of eyes was visible.

The deft hands of women and an old man seated before the umbrella-mending stall beneath the café sign flickered past the carriage window.

Yes. I grew up watching things like this.

Never elegant—unable even to read the shifting colors of the forest from hour to hour, drowned in the hush of dusk: the sound of servants' footsteps on stone floors, the distant tolling of bells. The sunlit canals and reservoirs gleaming like platinum had never been hers to enjoy from the beginning.

What she knew was this: blinding streets, fabric billowing with a rasping rustle, the wind funneled between buildings, and a nameless restlessness she could feel even among the leisurely crowds.

Kasika had been one of them.

Her title as a noblewoman notwithstanding, she had walked these streets at a brisk pace, dressed much like the people around her. And all the while, how venomously she had coiled within herself—swollen with the pride of her rank and, at the same time, with the humiliation of being unable to enjoy what other nobles enjoyed. Always as though she were being cast out.

Kasika thought that if she hadn't been so harried back then, she would never have treated Noah the way she did—though in truth, she could hardly remember how she had treated him at all.

The carriage stopped in front of the boutique.

Summer in the capital was dry. The sun burned hot while the ever-present clouds kept the sky dim. The wind blew hard enough to make taming one's flying hair a struggle, and it threaded through her clothes to settle gooseflesh at the nape of her neck instead of jewels.

In the boutique's window stood life-sized wooden mannequins, heavy and solid, dressed in pale sky-blue dresses that carried the feel of the season. Suddenly the clouds parted, and the scenery reflected in the shop glass. The sky-blue dress overlapped with Kasika's reflection.

"Shall we go in?"

Noah said, stepping out to open the door for her. A warm, dry fragrance rushed in—the scent of parched sun mingled with candle wax. Elena and Kasika went inside.

Perhaps because a reservation had been made in advance, everything proceeded without a hitch. Whether Lady Lambroise had already discussed fabrics with them, the dressmaker promptly whisked Kasika away to the back rooms.

Noah surveyed the interior. He had never set foot in a place like this himself—his clothes had always been fitted by tailors summoned to him. Countless bolts of fabric hanging from the ceiling half hid the chandeliers. Stocked in such quantity, they must mean the shop drew a considerable clientele. His gaze traveled down to a brass-framed mirror, in which he caught his own reflection. His face looked worse than he'd expected—perhaps the aftermath of a sleepless night.

Just then, his eyes met Elena's in the mirror. Elena, who had been admiring the dressed mannequins, called out the moment their gazes locked. "Noah."

"What?"

"You do know it's a breach of etiquette for men to accompany women shopping for dresses, don't you?"

The tone implied he had intruded between them.

"If I'm the one paying, the situation changes."

"What about mine?"

"Take that up with Cay."

Money spent for others was no hardship—except money spent on Elena. Quite apart from that, he knew perfectly well that buying a dress for another man's fiancée would earn him a white glove across the face. As if she'd expected exactly that answer, Elena pursed her lips and said, "I like Lady Lamplis."

"She is beautiful."

Liking someone, of course, was a separate matter from becoming family. A mistress could never be family in the first place. But getting along well was another thing entirely. Marriage was a transaction conducted with a suitably matched party—and at times, one could grow closer to a mistress than to a wife. Elena's gaze shifted toward the door Kasika had disappeared behind.

"When I was young, I wanted hair that dark. It looked intelligent. Blonde always seems so frivolous, doesn't it? If I looked like that, I imagine people wouldn't dismiss me quite so easily."

"A far too generous outer shell for your character."

"Right back at you."

At first, Elena's attention had gone more to Noah than to Cayden—he was closer to her own age, and seemed kinder than Cay. But that had been a mistake. That boy knew exactly how he appeared to others, and wielded it skillfully. He was cunning to the bone. Which was precisely why she could give higher marks to Kasika, for having put such a man through his paces.

"And her eyes are far more striking, aren't they? Like a thin golden mist spreading just before dawn. Mine are like the sky right before rain."

The sky at exactly this time of year. Charitably speaking, it was blue-ish; honestly, it was plain gray cloud. Kasika's eyes, on the other hand, were like aged honey—though at times they flashed like a golden predator's, the eyes of a beast of prey. They often looked so cold that one might find oneself falling into them, and to that observation, Noah had said, Don't look at her so carelessly.

"Why? Afraid they'll wear out?"

They did seem in danger of wearing out. It was as though countless gazes had already chiseled away pieces of her, stealing them piece by piece.

"You get jealous even of another woman?"

"I do."

Having answered so, Noah looked at Elena. Where she had expected denial, his admission left her at a loss for words.

"What did you two talk about?"

"That you're fond of my lady?"

"I'd imagine she already knows that."

At his words, Elena thought, Does she? Kasika, for her part, wore the expression of someone hearing it for the first time.

"You didn't tell her I plan to use her for all she's worth."

"Elena Gamov."

At the low, sunken voice, Elena faltered. It meant: touch that subject no further here.

"If you say such things, I won't be recovering your money."

"What I invested in is partly your responsibility too."

"In what way?"

"You were the one shouting Elperts, Elperts, every chance you got. And you're the one who took in a Count who'd been cast off by the Grimualdis and left penniless."

"The Elperts I was shouting about wasn't Cesare Elperts—it was Kasika Elperts."

"You mean Kasika Lamplis."

She had set aside the name Elperts long ago. She was now the one and only Lamplis. And Noah frowned. He did not care for the surname Lamplis attached to Kasika. The people who knew this avoided calling her by it.

Lady Lamplis.

He hated Marquis Lamplis. Hated the man who might have claimed everything of Kasika's. And he did not care for Elena speaking in that manner, either. The instant Noah's lips parted— the door opened. Kasika emerged in her changed clothes. A proper garment it was not yet, but the pieced-together fabrics had taken on a promising shape.

"Wipe that look off your face," Elena said.

"Her Ladyship doesn't know what kind of person you are."

"Cay doesn't know what kind of person you are, either."

"No—Cay knows exactly what I am. That's why he's marrying me."

Well, he surely knew on paper, but knowing a thing secondhand and watching it firsthand were different matters. Noah decided not to go that far. He rather looked forward to watching Elena crumble as Cay grew disillusioned with her. On occasions like these, he was freshly reminded of his own ill-tempered nature—expensively educated, yet rotten at the core. Not that it mattered, so long as he wasn't caught.

Poor Noah Lambroise.

Poor Elena Gamov.

"Keep up the act. You're doing marvelously."

Likewise.

Elena approached Kasika, telling her the dress suited her beautifully. The tailor's chalk used for taking her measurements had left a mark on the nape of her neck; she rubbed at it with her hand as she stole a glance at Noah. The two of them looked intimate enough that Noah narrowed his eyes as he watched.

"I think it's ready to be basted as it is. You'll want matching accessories as well. I didn't book anything, but I know a place I can vouch for. As it happens, they've just brought in some lovely jewels from the Southern Continent—shall we go together?"

As Elena stepped forward with those words, Noah's gaze followed her. And Kasika's gaze followed Noah's.

There were, no doubt, many circumstances behind Noah's seeking her out. The pretext of a mistress existed to conceal something. Kasika had assumed that something was connected to the Elperts. That possibility still seemed the likeliest. But there might be another truth besides.

For instance—

"Yes, let's be on our way."

That he might be parading someone else in order to hide the one he truly loves. Isn't that the most classic device in all of literature?

The only puzzle was that he had spent far too much money for such a scheme. Yet it was precisely because of that expenditure that Kasika felt she could afford to let herself be deceived a little, if Noah was indeed hiding something.

It was as though an invisible piece had snagged in her hand.

Too much money.

A piece that yielded no clue as yet—Kasika turned it over and over, engraving it into herself. Too much money. Until another piece surfaced, she would keep it carefully stored away, waiting for the day she could fit it into place.