A Method to Discern His Heart
Maeve turned her gaze to the window as she waited for the boy’s answer. One more hill, and they would reach the ducal manor.
The distinctive clamor of the bustling streets that had followed them for a while gradually faded, and a quiet atmosphere slowly claimed the space. She looked back at Aern. Their eyes met—his still fidgeting, fretting at his fingers for no good reason.
“If it’s difficult to answer right away, you needn’t force yourself. We can think it over carefully together.”
“That’s not it.”
Aern cut her off flatly. Maeve’s brows lifted in mild surprise; she blinked. For a long moment nothing came from his mouth, as if the words simply would not leave him.
“⋯⋯It’s not something I can become just because I want to. There’s no way His Grace would ever want me as his heir, so what’s the point of worrying about it?”
Having heard him through to the end, Maeve barely managed to swallow the sigh that rose unbidden. While the young master was digging himself into this hole, what on earth had the Duke been doing?
The Duke she had seen did worry about the young master, to a degree. He took an interest as well. He simply did not show it openly.
The young master could not trust the Duke. The words live freely were poison to him now.
Outside, the harassment that surrounded him; inside, the helplessness he felt toward himself—both were eating him away. Freedom handed to a boy already adrift was nothing more than irresponsible neglect.
How was she supposed to connect these two parallel lines? Maeve’s eyes narrowed.
“⋯⋯His Grace’s thoughts are hardly something we can know for certain.”
She let out a breath and looked straight into Aern’s eyes. The boy’s round gaze trembled finely.
“A person’s heart is a complicated thing. You can’t just grab someone and ask and expect the answer to come out. So please don’t jump to conclusions like that.”
The carriage drew to a halt before the ducal townhouse.
“⋯⋯It could be a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?”
Aern let out a hollow laugh, half scorn and half air. The tone carried an unconscious conviction that such a thing was hardly likely.
At the same time, though, he rolled his eyes upward, avoiding hers, and tilted his chin slightly as if lost in some private imagining. Watching him closely, Maeve thought he looked like a child who had just regained a sliver of hope.
She opened the carriage door, took Aern’s hand, and led him to the threshold. Then she stepped aside, as if to let him go first. Without so much as a glance at her, Aern simply stared at the ground and climbed down.
The boy walked toward the manor gates kicking at the small stones that lay in his path, broadcasting his discontent with every step of his body.
Maeve followed him out of the carriage and caught hold of Aern as he trudged stubbornly toward the house.
“Young Master, your first lesson is at five o’clock today. I’ll go prepare the materials, so please try to settle your mind a little.”
Aern scowled, looking thoroughly put out. Before any refusal could leave his lips, Maeve pressed on with the words she had ready.
“If what worries and puzzles you is His Grace’s true intent, then today I will teach you a method for discovering it.”
Aern shut his mouth with an expression of clear displeasure, yet he offered no outright refusal. Maeve bowed her head and left the manor grounds, hoping fervently that he would appear for the lesson.
She set her steps carefully toward the commercial district she had seen on the way to the manor that morning. What method could she use to expose the wet nurse’s wrongdoing and clear the misunderstanding between the Duke and the young master?
Walking with her eyes on the ground, lost in thought, she soon found herself on a street lined with market stalls.
At the sight of wildflowers blooming carelessly along the roadside, Maeve paused for a moment. Then, as if something had struck her, she began carefully examining the goods on the stalls amid the noisy chaos of hawkers.
With the weather this mild, they might not even be selling it anymore. Maeve let out a troubled hum. She propped her chin in her left hand and scrutinized the ingredients listed on the products arrayed on the counters.
Tarbec.
Comparing the components one by one, the woman finally found the word she sought and smiled. This would be enough. She paid, slipped the cream into the pocket of her skirt, and turned away.
The road back from the edge of the city was farther than she had expected. If she was to persuade the Duke and speak with the wet nurse, time was already tight. Maeve quickened her pace.
“Oh my, Teacher—you’re here!”
Just as she nearly reached the manor gates, the wet nurse, who had been speaking with the butler inside, greeted her warmly.
“I was terribly rude last time. You must have been quite startled then, weren’t you?”
When the wet nurse suddenly took her hand and asked, Maeve stepped back one pace. She regarded the wet nurse—Hilda—with a professional smile. She was even a little curious now what excuse would come.
“I thought it would damage the dignity of the ducal house to tell someone who was not yet even a governess that I had not earned the young master’s trust, and so I committed that discourtesy. I am truly sorry for what happened then.”
Hilda put on a woeful face and bowed her head to a woman younger than herself. Maeve had expected baseless rebuttal or an appeal to emotion; the unexpected humility made her flinch slightly.
Had she not met Aern and thus been cut off from information about him, this alone would have been polite enough to make her decide she had overreacted before and simply let it go.
“The young master is very shy with strangers. I hope you had no trouble coming?”
“Yes. Thank you for your concern.”
“I only hope the young master didn’t say anything rude to you on the way⋯⋯.”
Hilda trailed off, watching Maeve’s expression.
“Nothing of the sort. Don’t worry, Nurse.”
“Oh, what a relief. Our young master is so particular, you see—his language can be quite harsh.”
The wet nurse sighed in repeated relief and looked at Maeve with a gentle voice. She patted the hand she still held, smiling as if truly glad.
“Well, he did grow up as a commoner for more than ten years. There are many gaps in his manners and etiquette.”
Hilda twisted her face into a look of genuine pity.
“He’s still learning, so that can happen. Please don’t take it to heart.”
“How could I not! I may not be of noble birth myself, but I certainly know the Evophil family. An old and distinguished house of the East.”
“⋯⋯We surrendered the territory long ago. You’re kind to say so—I’m a little embarrassed.”
Maeve smiled awkwardly. It was true the Evophil viscounty had a long history, yet it was strange that anyone would still know of a house that had fallen more than a decade earlier. Hiding her suspicion, she merely lifted the corners of her mouth a fraction.
“Oh my, and I heard you were top of the Academy as well—how modest you are.”
Hilda spent a long while listing Maeve’s credentials one after another and heaping praise upon her. Knowing even details Maeve herself wondered how she could have learned left an distinctly unpleasant feeling.
It was hard to believe a mere wet nurse could obtain such information. She did not show it, but she filed away in a corner of her mind the possibility that someone stood behind the wet nurse.
“It’s kind of you to take such care even of a governess.”
“You’ve heard, haven’t you, Teacher? That all the young master’s previous governesses left before long. So I’ve been making my own small efforts to look into tutors for him.”
Maeve folded her eyes in a smile as she regarded the slender smile that sat atop Hilda’s warm face.
“But with someone so outstanding, it seems my worries were unnecessary. Now I only worry that the young master might fall short of your expectations⋯⋯.”
As if. Maeve scoffed inwardly.
“And that’s not all. Being late to lessons is the least of it—he refuses to spend any time at all on assignments or study, so I can’t help fretting.”
If the wet nurse had truly cared for the young master, she would not have tried to plant a negative impression of him in a new governess who had not even properly met him yet. Maeve forced herself to ignore the tremor at the corner of her mouth and spoke.
“With a wet nurse who worries about him so much, the young master must feel very secure.”
She thought she had roughly grasped this woman’s methods. She could more or less guess how Hilda had treated the other governesses until they quit of their own accord.
The human unconscious was more deeply involved in life than one might think; the words and actions of those around a person, large or small, inevitably left their mark.
When a governess arrived, Hilda would first use the young master as an excuse to sour the mood, then steadily praise the teacher while belittling the boy in just this fashion.
That way the first impression was ruined, and they came to look at the child through eyes full of prejudice.
On top of that, if she elevated their own worth and flattered them like this, they would soon grow disgusted with the work, wondering why they had to teach such a half-wit.
Governesses in noble houses were often fallen nobles of good education; once such rumors piled up one by one and gathered in society, the present situation was the result.
Once she thought it through, the hostility was so blatant that Maeve felt a slight chill.
Why anyone would be so desperate to ruin the life of a child of barely thirteen was beyond her comprehension at present. A boy so young could hardly have made enemies capable of such a grudge in the first place.
“I should go report to His Grace that the first lesson will proceed. Thank you for your concern.”
“Oh, not at all! Please take good care of today’s lesson, Teacher.”
Maeve inclined her head lightly and turned away. The smile that had sat so naturally on her face vanished in the blink of an eye; her expression hardened to ice.
She toyed with the cream she had tucked into her pocket and thought.
Now all she needed was the help of the Duke and the young master.