Where Have You Been, Kiddo?

"George. Then let's hurry back. Kiddo must be waiting! Come on, come on, hurry!"

"Yes, sir. Understood. Please walk carefully—you'll trip again!"

"When have I ever tripped?"

"Last time we went out, you caught your foot on a stone and fell. Your knee was bruised for days, remember?"

"George. How is it that you grow more and more disrespectful by the day?"

"Ah. Isn't that precisely why you're so fond of me?"

"Hmmm. Well, you're not wrong! Hahaha!"

Marquis Berihmen's cheerful laughter flooded the street. Passersby all turned their heads toward the sound, and catching sight of his radiant smile, they found themselves smiling in spite of themselves. His laughter lingered in the air long after he had become nothing but a dot in the distance. It was a delightful afternoon.

By the time the two of them came trundling back in the carriage, leisurely as could be, House Berihmen had already been thrown into an uproar. The servants of the manor rushed about outside in a frenzy, shouting the words master or my lord over and over.

Seeing the soul drained from their faces, George's own went white in an instant. Sitting side by side with the Marquis on the driver's box, chatting and laughing all the way home, he had quite forgotten the people frantically worrying back at the estate. He looked up at the massive front gate once more.

Even the guards who should be manning the gate are gone. They must all be out searching for the master.

What a disaster! It didn't matter about anyone else, but this absolutely had to be reported to the Young Marquis. George regretted it bitterly in that moment.

The hands gripping the reins had begun to tremble. Imagining his young master's reaction, he wanted nothing more than to kick open that iron gate and flee this very instant. But what hope did a powerless man like him have of managing that?

While George swallowed dryly and fretted over his own future, the Marquis Berihmen—wearing, in stark contrast, the guileless face of a child without a care in the world—hopped down from the driver's box, hugging the bouquet in his arms tight to his chest and humming a tune.

The Marquis strode lightly toward the entrance, but when he felt no movement behind him, he turned around. There sat George on the driver's box, looking for all the world like a man contemplating his own funeral. The Marquis tilted his head.

"George! Why aren't you coming? Do you like sitting there that much?"

At those words, George snapped back to his senses and slowly turned his head. The Marquis's voice had been loud enough that the servants calling for their master abruptly froze mid-motion.

They had been rushing about so frantically that they hadn't even noticed the carriage pass through the front gate. And now, the very man they'd been searching for so desperately had appeared before their eyes, leaving every one of them rooted to the spot, eyes stretched wide.

As George scanned their faces one by one and failed to find a certain familiar one, his expression eased slightly. The person George feared second only to the Young Marquis Berihmen was not here yet.

When George continued to stand there dazed, the Marquis Berihmen frowned and walked over to him.

"What are you doing, George? Aren't you coming inside?"

"Ah—no, my lord. Of course, I should come in too. First, I'll just take the carriage to the stables—"

"Sir George. You needn't do that."

A voice cut into their conversation as someone approached without a sound. At the familiar tone, George's mouth snapped shut on reflex. The man who had come near was gentle and mild in appearance, somewhere in his mid-twenties.

But the eyes that were always soft and relaxed now gleamed cold as ice. He narrowed them and glared at George. Utterly oblivious to the strange tension crackling between the two men—a standoff, almost—the Marquis Berihmen tilted his head and pointed at him with his index finger, as if asking who he was.

Unlike the look he'd aimed at George, the man's gaze as he turned to the Marquis was nothing but warm. He bowed lightly.

"My lord."

"…"

"Oh? Your name is… Aha! Right. Daniel! It's Daniel, isn't it? You're our kiddo's friend."

"Yes, that's right. I'm Daniel. But, my lord—where did you go with Sir George? When you disappeared, the Young Marquis searched for you for quite some time."

"He looked for me? Our kiddo did?"

"Yes," Daniel nodded. At the sight of him, the Marquis's sunny expression stiffened for the first time. That blank, expressionless face looked remarkably like the late Marquis Berihmen in the enormous portrait hanging on one wall of the house. The current Marquis was, without question, a beautiful man with gorgeous, radiant features—a far cry from the late Marquis's dignified, ruggedly masculine face—yet whenever he wore this particular expression, an immense gravity seemed to settle over him.

Daniel found himself tensing without meaning to. The Marquis turned his head this way and that, as though searching for something.

"Where is kiddo right now?"

"The Young Marquis is in the garden behind the house at the moment."

"The garden?"

"Yes."

Daniel nodded. Without asking anything more, the Marquis set off with long, purposeful strides. Watching that graceful, dignified gait, Daniel couldn't help swallowing a sigh. The Marquis had been raised in pampered nobility from childhood, and now that a terrible shock had regressed his mind to that of a child, Daniel never ceased to ache for him.

As Daniel moved to follow the Marquis's retreating back, someone gave his shoulder a light knock. He turned with an irritated expression. George, having at last climbed down from the driver's box, had attached himself to Daniel's side.

"Would you kindly step back? It's rather warm."

"The Young Marquis? Is he very angry?"

"That's your question? Right now? The Young Marquis doesn't anger easily."

"Really?"

At Daniel's answer, George's face brightened in a flash. If Charles wasn't angry, then everything was fine. George walked along with his hands clasped behind his back, grinning ear to ear—anyone could tell from his back alone that he was in an excellent mood. Then one sentence from Daniel drove that good mood straight into the ground.

"Though he did give strict orders that the moment you returned, Sir George, you were to receive exactly one command."

"Hm? What was it?"

"Go to the stables and wash Tommy."

"Wh-what did you say?"

When George stammered in shock, Daniel felt a small, private satisfaction. Watching George's face crumple by degrees, the corner of his mouth curved up in something close to glee.

"You heard correctly the first time. Perfectly clear."

"I—I can't do it! You know how finicky and terrifying that beast is!"

"Oh, I know."

"Last time I washed him, he kicked me with a hind leg and my back still aches. And now you're telling me to do it again? I won't do it!"

At the sight of him—ashen-faced and shouting as if he'd sooner die—Daniel shrugged with an air of understanding.

"Oh. Is that so? Very well then, I'll pass your words along to the Young Marquis exactly as spoken: that Tommy frightens him so badly he'd sooner die than wash him."

"Right! I'd sooner die than—! Wh-what are you saying, Daniel? When did I ever attach the words 'sooner die' to it?"

"Hm? Did you not? That's simply how your expression looked to me, Sir George."

When Daniel said it with a perfectly innocent face, George found himself at a loss for words. Daniel, with an air of sympathy, reached out and patted his stiff, frozen shoulder.

"Don't worry. I'll explain things properly to the Young Marquis."

"N-no, wait. Explain things properly? You're not about to repeat those exact words to him, are you?"

"Oh, come now. I'll explain it very well. So there's no misunderstanding."

"Daniel? You will stop right there. We still have things to discuss, you and I. Daniel? Stop. I said stop!"

As Daniel slipped straight through the entrance doors, George scrambled desperately after him. There was no way he could let Daniel repeat that words verbatim!

Meanwhile, in the garden, father and son stood locked in a long standoff.

Arriving at the garden, the Marquis Berihmen spotted his son Charles and stopped dead in his tracks. Then he studied his son with grave attention. Sitting in a chair beneath a canopy, leafing leisurely through a book, Charles looked nothing whatsoever like a man searching for his father. Faced with a scene like a beautiful masterpiece come to life, the Marquis rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. For a moment, he felt as though he had stepped inside a painting himself.

Hearing the footsteps, Charles—who had already registered his father's presence in the garden—lifted his gaze from the book and raised his head. Those clear, limpid eyes turned toward the Marquis. Marquis Berihmen walked slowly toward his son.

"Father."

"Mm. Kiddo. Did you cry because you missed me?"

"…Excuse me?"

"Mm. You weren't crying because you couldn't see your father? That's what your friend told me."

"Daniel did?"

"Yep. That boy."