Where Fish Can Grow
Tick-tock.
The second hand of the clock scraped across the quiet room. Delfina could only stare at the fishbowl, unable to answer. Cesare carefully opened his mouth.
"Young lady?"
"Ah—"
Only then, as if she had finally woken, she let out a low sound of surprise.
"Does the gift not please you?"
"No. I like it very much."
"Then—"
Cesare's face brightened. But before he could say anything more, she seized the words from him.
"Would it be all right if I accepted only the thought behind it?"
Delfina bowed her head and looked into the fishbowl.
"Pardon? Accepting only the thought... what do you mean by that?"
His face looked confused, unable to grasp her meaning.
If only the inside of the fishbowl were as free as the ball of light cast upon the ceiling when the sun poured down, she would have raised it.
But I can't.
In this life the fish had not died. She had released it by the lakeside before it could be poisoned.
"It still looks like a fry."
"So I've heard."
It felt as though the conversation had shifted onto an entirely different subject, yet instead of pressing her he answered diligently.
"Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Fish grow in proportion to the place they live."
"Is that so."
"So even of the same species, they say the ones raised in a fishbowl and the ones that grow outside differ greatly."
"...I didn't know."
"And I hope this fish grows well."
"......."
Strange, Cesare thought. Beneath a roof that shut out the sunlight, with only a cool breeze drifting through, his thoughts before her strangely grew sluggish, as if waterlogged.
"What had you originally planned to do today?"
"...I apologize."
He had thought of nothing but delivering the fishbowl as quickly as possible.
"Will that be all right with you?"
It was a question of whether it was acceptable to waste their meeting so carelessly when the number of encounters was fixed. Most suitors, limited in how often they could meet her, tried to cram as much as possible into each one.
Once she had gone out before the sun rose and returned only after it had set.
"Is there something the young lady would like to do?"
"...Me?"
Everyone looked at the fortune that stood behind her. If not that, they saw only the beauty that would brush past her for a moment and be gone.
"Yes. I'm curious what the young lady would like to do."
He offered the excuse that he was by no means so lazy he could not decide where to go.
She knew it was no excuse.
It was a question possible only because he saw her wholly. He himself might not realize it, but she did.
Because she had never once been given such a thing, it struck her all the more clearly.
"My birth mother, while she lived, liked to float a rowboat on the lake nearby."
"The lake near the mansion, you mean?"
Delfina gave a light nod. It was a lake one could not help but see on the way to the mansion.
Given the lake's broad expanse there were several villas nearby, but the stretch that bordered the forest was private land of the Pignatelli Mansion, and so only a single villa stood there.
"If Mr. Appiano doesn't mind... would you like to go together?"
"You mean now?"
It was a place she had never once taken anyone.
The memories of Delfina's birth mother coming and going there before she died remained intact. Most of the mansion had been overwritten by the new Lady Pignatelli, but that place alone she had never bothered to make known.
So she had forgotten for a while. There was no chance it was properly maintained. Being near the forest, the moment it was left unattended wild animals would come and go, and moss would take hold.
"I haven't been in a long time either, so I'll need to check the state of the rowboat, and it might be a bit dirty... it might be better not to go."
To get carried away by memories and think of inviting him to an unprepared villa.
Her cheeks burned at the thought that she had brought up something unnecessary. Just as she lowered her head, unwilling to let him see that look—
"Then this would be a good opportunity to put it in order."
He spoke in an unconcerned voice.
"Pardon? But we might go and end up unable to do anything and simply come back."
"We won't be unable to do anything."
He pointed with his finger at the swimming fish.
It meant that at the very least they could release the fish and return.
Lady Pignatelli was a cunning woman.
Even if she neglected the way the servants treated Delfina poorly, she actively prevented any neglect of hospitality when guests were present that might reveal the mansion's true state to the outside world.
Especially of late, news that Delfina had borrowed money from the bank had been circulating on other people's lips, so Delfina fully expected her to be even kinder whenever someone else was around.
She's extremely sensitive about her reputation.
As expected, the moment she announced they were going out, the whole interior of the mansion erupted into a flurry of activity.
"If you'd given me advance notice I would have prepared everything properly."
Lady Pignatelli sighed, clutching her cheek as if genuinely regretful.
"We only decided to go out just now, so please don't trouble yourself over it."
If anything, it was for the better.
"You've barely been eating lately—I wanted to pack something proper for you."
"I'm truly fine."
As long as a guest was present no poison would be mixed in, but even so she had no desire to take along and eat food prepared by servants who disliked her.
After refusing several times their insistence that they would prepare something if she would only wait a little, she came out.
"Today... a carriage, is it?"
"I left the car in for maintenance."
"Ah."
He gave maintenance as the reason, but she could not fail to know it was out of consideration for her.
The condition of that car had been bad enough that no one could have missed the hint.
Neigh—.
The horse that had been resting while eating hay rose, shaking out its body.
"The coachman who came with me said he has business and will only arrive in a few hours."
Someone cut across Cesare's words as he spoke.
"I'll call a coachman."
Before the madam who had followed them outside could emerge, the servant she had first sent to find a coachman returned alone, bowing his head as he spoke.
"He doesn't seem to be at his post just now. I'll find him at once."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Appiano."
"No."
Cesare studied Delfina's complexion for a moment, then soon stroked the horse.
"If it's all right with you, would it be fine if I drove in place of the coachman?"
The coachman was the madam's man. That was why she did not want him taken to the place they were going today. But hearing that Cesare had not brought a coachman of his own, she had thought there was no choice.
"Pardon? Mr. Appiano?"
To the madam who asked back as if fretting over her daughter out of affection, Cesare added an explanation.
"When I was young I even ran a private carriage service, so you needn't worry."
"I'm fine with it."
Delfina said promptly.
With the servants' help they prepared the horse and quickly finished hitching the small carriage. Delfina, who had taken the fishbowl and was still holding it, spoke on impulse.
"May I ride beside you?"
"It would be more comfortable inside the carriage. Will you be all right?"
"Yes."
And so only the fishbowl, fixed firmly so that it could not move, was loaded into the carriage itself.
She had thought the coachman's seat would be much like the carriage.
But it was completely different.
It jolted far more than the carriage, so that her seat ached, and the view was higher than she had expected, so that she was afraid she might fall.
She held her hat with one hand lest it fly off. Her soft dress rustled whenever the wind blew.
"Wow...!"
But more than all of that, the scenery was beautiful.
The scent of wildflowers she had never known looking only through glass windows, the coolness of the wind, the height of the sky—all of it touched her skin as if she were feeling them for the first time.
Jolt.
This time it seemed they had hit quite a large stone. The moment she thought she felt the carriage briefly lift into the air, he pulled her by the waist and fixed her firmly against him.
"Th-thank you."
"I'm sorry."
He had acted on pure reflex, so the thought came only afterward. If she had been an ordinary young lady it would have been something for which he could not complain even if she slapped his cheek for treating her roughly.
"You did it to help me."
"It's a rough road."
"Indeed."
He hurriedly withdrew his hand, yet the gap between the two of them had closed.
It was close enough that she could even feel him flinching his thigh in fluster.
Their bodies bumped whenever they moved.
"We're almost there."
"Yes."
In the midst of that, if either of them deliberately rose from their seat to put distance between them it would only make plain how conscious they were of it, so they stiffened their bodies to minimize the range of contact and carefully swallowed each breath.
They both pretended not to know, yet there was no way they could forget.
They could not forget the distant sensation as if only the two of them had been left in the world, skin pressed so close that each other's heat transferred.
It had been a moment far too intense to simply evaporate.