Hepatica
Mikhail watched Anastasia turn slowly at his words. Wonder he had never seen before shimmered across her sunlit face. Was this the expression a believer wore when meeting a god? He smiled at the sight of Anastasia lost in awe before the study.
I knew she'd like it, but I never expected this much.
He remembered the first time he had brought Anastasia here. Beside the unconscious girl he had left a book of which he had not turned a single page. When she woke, Anastasia had been clutching that unread volume to her chest. There had been any number of other things she might have held, yet she had chosen that small book.
Later, when the people the Countess had summoned arrived and they changed her quarters, Anastasia had stared longingly at the book she had set down even as she left. That was not all. At breakfast, too, she would glance again and again at the books and documents he had stacked on the side table.
Mikhail approached the bookshelves. In a short time his loyal servants had arranged the place to resemble the study at the Sokolov mansion. Of course the Sokolov study was more than ten times the size of Edenhurst's, yet the Edenhurst study now did not fall far short of those in other noble houses.
Mikhail found the book he wanted among the shelves. Soon he drew out a volume and approached Anastasia, who still stood motionless.
"Here. Look at this."
He spread the book open on a nearby desk and took her hand. She flinched briefly but offered no resistance, moving as he led her until she stood before the desk. Mikhail turned the pages one by one. The book he had brought was a flower encyclopedia.
Most noble estate libraries kept at least one such volume. An illustrated guide with delicate detailed drawings and explanations, it cost more than common folk could easily afford. That was why it had become fashionable, when visiting another noble's study, to leave a plant encyclopedia open to some page on a wooden book stand.
And sure enough, such a book was here as well.
"Here—these are the flowers we saw earlier in the garden."
As if recalling the blooms outside, Mikhail read them out one by one. Lilium, dahlia, poppy.... Anastasia's gaze followed his hand as he slowly turned the pages. Yet her eyes remained only on the large letters that were clearly the flower names, unable to move farther down.
Mikhail's hand, which had been turning pages for some time, stopped. Just as he had expected, the weed they had seen in the garden was illustrated in the book. Anastasia recognized it too; her face brightened with joy. Her gaze settled on his lips. Mikhail rather liked that look, so he deliberately did not open his mouth.
"......"
Her eyes grew more earnest, filled with pleading. He considered drawing it out longer, then noticed the shadow falling across Anastasia's face. He knew that expression. It was the face she had worn when seated at the table, forced to confront her own ignorance. The instant he realized it, Mikhail spoke.
"Hepatica."
"......"
"Hepatica. That was the name of that flower."
At his words Anastasia's gaze returned to the book. Before he knew it her hand was moving. Her fingers traced the bold letters that were clearly the flower's name upon the desk. Again and again, over and over.
Mikhail said nothing, waiting only for her to finish. When she finally stilled her fingers and looked with regretful eyes at the dense writing beneath the name, he said what he had originally intended.
"Anastasia, can you not read?"
"...Yes."
Having already once shown the depths of her ignorance, Anastasia answered without tears. Even so she could not help feeling shame, and her head hung low of its own accord.
"Then would you like to learn?"
At the words that followed, Anastasia hurriedly lifted her head.
"What?"
Learn to read? At the unbelievable proposal she could say nothing for a long while, then turned her gaze to the book spread before her—the one Mikhail had just read from. She saw the letters. Hepatica. The name of the only flower that blooms even in winter.
But she could read nothing of what was written beneath. That place was still a dark world to Anastasia, like the outside of Edenhurst, where she knew nothing.... She ought to have felt fear. But....
I want to know.
In the past she would have shaken her head that it was unthinkable and closed the book. Not now. Anastasia recalled the table manners she had learned from him. Mikhail did not simply instruct her; he taught etiquette by sharing stories of when he himself had first learned, or incidents from dining at other noble houses.
She could not perfectly imagine the things he spoke of, yet for the first time Anastasia heard that the world outside Edenhurst was not as terrible a place as she had feared. People lived even in places that were not paradise.
The city beyond Edenhurst. The capital. Sokolov. The mansions of nobles. The people at the port. The wide plazas. The markets where goods were bought and sold.
The flood of information made her feel nauseous even standing still, as if she had ridden long in a carriage. But it was different from the feeling she had known when first coming to Edenhurst. It was as if her body floated on clouds—a thrill of swaying softness, as though she could ride the wind anywhere. Learning new things felt like that.
Anastasia reached out and turned a page of the book. There was a picture of a flower she had never seen, and letters she still could not read.
If she learned to read, could she know this flower's name? Could she read all these letters that seemed to explain it? She had heard that every flower held a beautiful legend. Could she learn those stories?
Anastasia lifted the book with the flower picture and hugged it to her. Then she answered Mikhail.
"Please teach me to read."
Looking straight into his eyes, in a firm voice that did not falter even once.
Flutter. Beyond the window came the sound of a bird's wings taking flight.
Please teach me to read.
The green eyes that had looked straight at him would not easily leave Mikhail's mind. Quite some time had passed since he sent Anastasia back to her room, and even now, as darkness fell, that voice kept repeating in his ears.
How did it come to this?
Him, teaching someone something. Mikhail had never once thought of teaching anyone, nor had he ever considered himself qualified to be a teacher. And reading, of all things. That was not something that ended in a single lesson.
To think he would be the one to first propose such a troublesome task.
This had been purely out of curiosity. He had heard she was stupid—that even living to this age like this, she could not hate anyone, did not know how miserable her lot was, and thought this rural estate was paradise. That she lived without knowing letters or numbers or the laws of the land, following the empty rules of scripture.
But when he handed her a fragment of knowledge, Anastasia absorbed it in an instant and made it wholly her own. Had he ever met anyone who learned so quickly?
Mikhail wanted to see how far the little lamb he had brought from God could surprise him.
Knock knock.
At the knock, Mikhail woke from his thoughts.
"It's me."
At Igor's voice from outside, Mikhail told him to come in.
"What are you doing without even lighting a lamp?"
Igor, entering the room, asked curiously at the sight of Mikhail sitting alone in a chair in the dim room. It was not a question expecting an answer, so Igor stated his reason for coming.
"They say dinner is ready."
"You came just to tell me that?"
This was servants' work. There was no need for Igor to come.
"What do you want to say?"
Igor looked at his master, who quickly discerned why he had come.
"I did tell you to rest, but you still have work to do."
"......"
"Are you not going to marry Elizabeth Lauderdale?"
"I will."
"Then proceed quickly. Yury is worn out by the Countess's hysterics, and I as well...."
"What. Are you worried?"
"......"
"That I'll get so tangled up with Anastasia Lauderdale that I'll forget about getting the count's title and settle down in this countryside?"
"...I never said that."
"Looks like that's how it seemed."
"......"
At Igor's silence, irritation rose in Mikhail.
"Light the lamps."
Igor moved quickly at the command, lighting the lamps placed around the room. Light flooded the space in an instant, and Mikhail could see his reflection in the mirror. Though dinner time was near, the man in the mirror sat still in the clothes he had worn that afternoon.
Mikhail slowly rose from his seat.
How many hours had he wasted? He had sent Anastasia back to her room a little past noon. To have sat like this from then until the sun set. Ordinarily he would have handled a great deal of work in that time. Even as he sat here at Edenhurst, the port of Sokolov was bustling, and the Dowager would be moving, however slowly.
Mikhail slowly rolled his neck. His body, unmoving for so long, made rough cracking sounds. As he drew a breath, the muscles beneath his thin shirt rippled. It was like a predator waking from sleep and stretching.
"Igor, I'm changing the schedule."
"Changing...?"
"I had planned to stay until the end of summer, but I'll return to Sokolov before that. It would be easier to respond if I'm in the capital before the Dowager returns. And handle the annoying documents before she arrives."
"When do you plan to return?"
It was now June. Originally he had planned to spend three months until the end of September.
"Around Saint Remigius's Day would be good."
The day honoring Saint Remigius, who was said to have first spread the word of God in Novgord, was the third Sabbath of August. Igor's face brightened as he counted the remaining days. Roughly two and a half months left.
"I'll send word to the Sokolov mansion."
The loyal ones remaining would prepare everything to match the date of Mikhail's return.
"Yes."
Mikhail removed his thin shirt and changed into a thick formal one. Buttoning the cuffs, he said,
"Tell them to prepare a room for my wife."
At that order, Igor's face brightened further. The time left was now a month and a half. Far too little for Anastasia Lauderdale, who had only just begun to look human, to bewitch his master.