The Silent Refusal

After sending Natasha away, Mikhail looked at the books on the cart. Every volume in the study had been newly purchased by Yury, so each one was equally pristine.

How much of it has she gone through?

When he picked one up, he noticed the edge of the pages was slightly frayed—the mark of someone who had held and read the book for a long time. Surveying the cart heaped with books, Mikhail drew out the thickest of them. It was the great dictionary Anastasia had truly loved and carried off with her. And yet she had returned even this.

Mikhail set the dictionary on the table. In the middle, one page jutted out as if it had been torn. He opened it to that place.

"Paradise?"

Had his hand slipped while looking at this section? The thin paper used in dictionaries was a wreck.

"......"

Anastasia was someone who normally treated books with the utmost care. He still remembered vividly the worried face she made, fretting that the volumes might be damaged, whenever he carelessly dumped books he had pulled from the shelves onto the table. Yet the dictionary had ended up like this, and she had sent it back through Natasha without a word.

If it had been the Anastasia he knew, she would surely have come to him clutching the dictionary, her face on the verge of tears, first apologizing and then asking how she might restore the book to its original state. And yet… there was not even a single letter. Mikhail continued turning the pages.

The torn section was only the one for "paradise," but other pages bore crumpled marks as if from a gripping hand. Mikhail examined the words on those pages. Being a dictionary, each leaf held countless entries. Among them, certain ones leaped out at him. Lascivious. Wicked. Cunning. Strangely ugly words caught his eye.

After turning pages for a long while, just as he was considering closing the dictionary, his fingertips met a texture different from the smooth paper of the rest. When he touched it, the sheet was wrinkled, as if water had fallen there. Mikhail looked at the word written on the altered portion.

"Mistress…."

A great dictionary for the young, they claimed—yet was it not a great dictionary for the devout? To think that for a single word children were unlikely ever to seek, there would be illustrations and even sentences drawn from various novels.

It was as if the entry itself declared how shameful a thing this was, how sinful, and commanded the reader to remember it well.

"I see."

Mikhail muttered as he closed the dictionary.

Had someone told Anastasia, or had she realized it on her own? Either way, it seemed she had discovered what people thought of her now.

Sinking heavily onto the sofa, Mikhail fell into thought. Not only Catherine, who had tested him by speaking Anastasia's name, but the Countess, Elizabeth, and the servants of the house as well—every one of them must regard Anastasia's place as that of his mistress. Especially Igor and Yury, who had known him so long; they had probably seen it from the start.

He had never particularly meant to hide it. If he had truly wanted concealment, he would never have kept her at Edenhurst in the first place, but taken her elsewhere. To him, Anastasia had been a diversion he could enjoy within Edenhurst, which lacked even a proper hunting ground.

Had she been beautiful from the beginning, he might not have been so drawn. But because the people of Edenhurst had failed to recognize her worth and cast her aside, it had been interesting. Perhaps that was the merchant in him—the superiority and pleasure of being the only one to perceive a value others overlooked.

So he had deliberately put in the effort himself. Until then it had been nothing more than the fresh amusement of doing something new he had never tried.

When he came to his senses, far from toying with her, he was the one being swayed. The greater problem was that even after realizing the fact, he felt no displeasure—he was still enjoying it.

"As if she could be a mistress."

Mikhail smiled bitterly and touched the pen covered in ink stains.

In the first place, Anastasia could not be a mistress. He was not yet engaged, nor married.

The Lauderdale family might claim that a marriage talk had been promised, but that had only been an agreement to discuss proceeding, never a firm commitment to see it done. Moreover, a verbal promise? In Novgorod that held no value whatsoever. What held value was only a document written out and signed.

So if he, bound by no document, kept a woman, she ought properly to be called a lover, not a mistress.

But would he make Anastasia his lover?

"Haah…."

A short sigh escaped him. In all his life he had never pondered so stupid a dilemma. If he chose Elizabeth, he would gain not only the count's title but a perfect wife who could serve as his partner in high society. Elizabeth would be a great help in dealing with the nobles going forward.

If he thought of the future, there was no woman more suited to him than Elizabeth. Moreover, the Lauderdale mother and daughters already submitted to him, did they not?

Compared with that, if he chose Anastasia, what help would she be to his future?

Nothing.

No matter that Anastasia was learning the world quickly now and possessed a brilliant mind, compared with Elizabeth there was nothing about her that could aid Mikhail.

"No. There is one thing."

Mikhail recalled the day he had kissed her forehead and returned.

A childish contact, the sort little children might make. Yet all that day he had brushed his lips countless times. Even as he went to bed, the faint rose scent and soft sensation lingered on and on. The more absurd thing was that even that ridiculous trace aroused him.

That day he had had to swallow Anastasia's name down his throat many times. Each time he called her name, desire was painted thicker across the palm of his hand.

Mikhail looked down at his lower body, which throbbed merely from thinking of it again. What he could gain for his future if he chose Anastasia—that was fullness and pleasure.

He wanted to roll about lewdly from morning until night. What would it feel like to take every meal in the room, never setting a single foot outside, tumbling like a beast?

Mikhail recalled the last image of Anastasia he had seen.

She had accepted the dictionary, confirmed it was easy, and then greedily gathered an armful of books. It was a will and attitude worthy of praise, yet at the time his attention had been drawn elsewhere.

As the days grew warmer, Natasha had dressed Anastasia in thinner clothes. Anastasia herself had grown less averse to garments that revealed her body, and wore the fashionable pieces from the capital as they were. But that day, of all days, she had worn an indoor dress that exposed more of her upper chest than usual.

Anastasia had greedily hugged the books she meant to carry to her room. Because of that, her breasts, pressed by the volumes, were pushed up even more. Mikhail had desperately had to avert his gaze. Otherwise he would have stared only there like a fool.

What if Igor had not called him then, saying urgent business had arisen? Anastasia, her hands occupied with the books she hugged, would have been unable to use them. Then even if he kissed that round, small forehead again, she would have had no choice but to accept it without being able to run away.

That was why he had needlessly taken out his irritation on Igor after leaving the study.

Mikhail placed Anastasia and Elizabeth on the scales in his heart. A position with which to check the empress dowager, and a foothold in high society. Enjoyable, amusing hours spent together. Which of the two would mean more to him?

He thought at once that the scales would tip toward Elizabeth. Comparing them in the first place was absurd.

But his scales would not move at all. It was ridiculous. Mikhail looked at Anastasia standing on the scales in his heart. She smiled that clear smile as if gazing upon the most reliable and trustworthy person in the world.

The smile he always wanted to ruin and yet wanted to protect.

Mikhail recalled Igor's words from that morning.

"Why not do one good deed?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If you're agonizing over it, I meant just let her go."

Even without naming the subject, Mikhail realized Igor was speaking of Anastasia.

Perhaps because he had occasionally examined her. Igor seemed to have noticed that Mikhail had not yet taken Anastasia.

"This is the first time you've ever looked after someone like this, isn't it? Now that she's coming to know the world to some extent, and though it's only a shell she bears the Lauderdale name, and with her fine looks, she could find a decent marriage prospect. Think of it as doing one good deed before the wedding."

"Shut up."

At Igor's words, Mikhail spoke without the slightest hesitation. Sensing the abruptly menacing air around him, Igor did not open his mouth about Anastasia again after that.

Recalling those words once more, strength entered Mikhail's fist. A decent marriage prospect? What nonsense was that.

After he had taken over Edenhurst, Anastasia had been his. That was why he had fed her, clothed her, and taught her himself. He had put in the effort over a long time because she was his property—and he was to send her to someone else?

"Don't make me laugh."

A twisted, rough voice leaked out. The nature he had rarely revealed since coming to Edenhurst was crawling forth bit by bit.

Had there been anything he wanted that he could not have? Even the matter with the empress dowager, he had chosen the troublesome method only because he wanted to end it quietly; if he had meant to sweep everything away, Mikhail could have started a war again at any time. If he could topple a country, what was one country girl.

Even thinking that, Mikhail could not bring himself to rise. His gaze remained fixed on the books and things Anastasia had sent back.

She had returned the things she had loved so much, and cried looking at the word "mistress." Then….

Is it a rejection?

At the meaning Anastasia had quietly conveyed, Mikhail remained unmoving for a long time, gazing at her belongings. Dark clouds that had been gathering from far in the sky covered the heavens over Edenhurst.

Whooooosh.

Rain poured down as if a hole had been punched in the sky. With the sudden summer storm accompanied by wind, the servants of Edenhurst Manor could not even think of stepping outside the house.

"Why is it so cold?"

"I know. The rain is unusually cold."

The raindrops were so cold it was hard to believe they were summer rain, and for the first time in a long while a fire was lit in the fireplace. The gardeners fretted restlessly as they peered outside, worried that the gardens they had worked so hard to cultivate would be damaged. Just as one thought the air had grown cool enough that he ought to close and latch the door leading to the garden—

"Huh?"

Suddenly a woman in white clothes brushed past them and ran out into the garden. The startled gardeners were looking to see who on earth it was when Natasha shouted from behind.

"Lady Anastasia!"