A Gift of White Daisies
Cecilia silently gazed at the woman’s form rippling across the surface of the water.
Lush golden hair, amber eyes, and an air that felt sacred beyond mere beauty.
As the eldest daughter of the Weberdin family—the empire’s greatest holy house—Cecilia Weberdin was a being called the empire’s Saintess, befitting both her appearance and her station.
Her restricted freedom to go out, her confinement to a marquisate far from the capital, the careful handling as if she were glass that might shatter at any moment—all of it stemmed from this.
Yet no matter how noble the Saintess she appeared on the outside, her insides were, regrettably, those of a twenty-first-century Korean who had grown up seeing every filthy side of the world.
Sweeping back the golden hair that shimmered in the water, Cecilia firmly shook her head.
“Melanie. You don’t know. The true terror is inside me.”
“Pardon?”
What I mean is, it’s a good thing I didn’t kidnap that man.
She swallowed the words she could not utter. She felt sorry for the worried Melanie, but she fully intended to draw closer to the “stranger.”
Preferably into a very private, very deep relationship.
The next day.
Melanie, still unable to shake her worries, had nagged and fretted until bedtime, so today Cecilia would quietly rest in her room… as if.
The moment Melanie stepped out, Cecilia—who had been waiting for the chance—threw off her indoor clothes.
Then, tucking under her arm the cat that seemed to have noticed the temporary butler’s outing and was trailing after her, she dashed out of the room.
Thanks to her fluffy companion, perhaps, reaching the wall by following her memories proved quite easy.
The problem, however…
What excuse do I use to barge into the house next door?
The worry did not last long.
The little troublemaker, as if it had never been quietly held, suddenly raked its claws across the back of her hand.
“Ah!”
Startled, she let go, and the cat landed nimbly on the ground. Then, as if to show off, it leisurely slipped through the hole in the wall.
Well, can’t be helped.
She had no choice but to go after it before the cat ruined someone else’s flower bed again.
As if she had been waiting for this convenient compromise, Cecilia passed through the hole once more.
The cat’s cute little footprints that continued from the entrance of the hole stopped abruptly in the lawn.
Cecilia crossed the lush green lawn just as she had the day before.
Past the long, high hedge of evergreen trees lay the western garden.
I hope the cat isn’t ruining the flower bed again.
Belatedly worried, she quickened her steps a little.
And what she found at the end was not yesterday’s ruined garden, but a flower bed filled with white daisies.
The blossoms swaying freely with the wind looked just like the foam of waves.
In the midst of the fresh spring scent rushing in, Rien stood tall as if by some miracle—wrapped in a dark, gloomy robe that did not match the surroundings at all.
Shouldn’t he be standing here like a picture in a picturesque scene? Then the heroine falls for him all over again—that’s the cliché, right?
As she looked disconsolately at the blemish on the perfect picture, he noticed her as well and strode over.
“Lady Weberdin!”
As expected—since he had been heading toward the western garden—a white fur ball nestled in his arms.
“I’m sorry. The cat escaped again… It seems to like this garden. This little one didn’t ruin anything this time, did it?”
“No!”
When she asked worriedly, he hurriedly shook his head.
Only then did Cecilia’s face brighten with relief.
“That’s a relief. I was worried it might have caused another accident like yesterday… Oh, the garden has become even prettier overnight. It’s just like magic!”
Cecilia clapped her hands and offered praise—half sincere, half impure intention to close the emotional distance.
Rien flinched as if he had heard criticism and hung his head low.
“Th-thank you.”
Hmm, that doesn’t seem like a shy reaction.
Because of the robe, she could not check his expression.
Tsk. As Cecilia was clicking her tongue inwardly, Rien suddenly bent at the waist, plucked a few daisies at his feet, and held them out.
“Here. I thought you might like daisies…”
Cecilia blankly looked down at the unexpected gift.
She preferred plain wildflowers that bloomed naturally in the wild over flashy blooms that had undergone artificial improvement.
But more surprising than the fact that he had accurately hit her taste was that he was gifting flowers at all.
What, is this him asking me out right now?
As she seriously glared at the gift, his hand began to tremble finely.
“If… if you don’t like them…”
Belatedly coming to her senses, Cecilia quickly accepted the flowers.
“No. I like them too—very, extremely, beyond measure!”
She tightly grasped the fresh stems and shouted.
This time, as if sincerity had finally registered, the corner of his mouth visible beneath the robe curved roundly.
It must be a smile as beautiful as these flowers!
It was simply a pity that his face remained hidden by that damn rag.
Should I just pretend not to know and yank it off?
As she seriously sought a way to remove that rag, the smile vanished from his mouth as if by a lie.
“…Hand.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve injured your hand!”
Only then did Cecilia glance at the back of her hand.
The scratch from the cat’s claws was redder and more distinct than she had thought.
“Ah, it’s a rather assertive little thing.”
She answered nonchalantly, lightly tapping the nose of the cat that was yawning briefly without the slightest awareness of its own fault.
It stung a bit, but well—it wasn’t as if her hand had been cut off. Just a scratch.
Rien, however, seemed more startled than the person involved. Biting his lip tightly, he suddenly seized her hand.
The hand covering the wound felt somehow a little hotter than an ordinary person’s body temperature.
“Rien?”
When she called him at the unfamiliar sensation, Rien hastily pulled his hand away.
“S-sorry. I was so surprised that I…”
Thinking he had committed a great rudeness, he fretted and guided her to sit on the log bench near the garden.
“Please wait here for a moment. I’ll bring medicine.”
“You don’t have to worry about a wound this small… Rien!”
Before her words finished, he hurriedly left.
Cecilia blankly watched his receding back, then lowered her gaze to the back of her hand.
Whether it was a misunderstanding or not, she felt almost no pain.
Is it because it’s a light wound?
Around the time she further lost any sense of needing treatment, Rien—who had vanished in an instant—returned at an astonishing speed.
He poured out a small glass bottle filled with liquid, bandages, and the like, roughly plopping down at her feet.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Hesitantly holding her fingertips, Rien opened the lid of the bottle containing pink liquid and poured it straight on.
Just like when her hand had been grabbed earlier, a hot sensation rose—and soon the wound healed without a trace.
“Is this… a potion?”
In this other world there were ordinary medicines prepared by pharmacists, but there also existed holy water and potions that guaranteed immediate effects.
Mainly the former was produced by priests, the latter by mages, and both were extremely expensive.
In short, it was not medicine one used for a mere scratch.
“There’s no healer in the mansion… I’m sorry.”
Interpreting her astonished question as something negative, his broad shoulders drooped.
For the man who looked dejected even after treating someone, Cecilia demonstratively clenched and opened her hand.
“See. Thanks to you, Rien, it doesn’t hurt at all now.”
“But…”
“Come on, don’t sit on the ground like that. Sit here.”
She grabbed the wrist of the man sitting at her feet and pulled him up to sit beside her.
Placing the warm cat on his grass-stained knees, Cecilia asked while caressing the fresh wildflowers.
“Do you tend the garden yourself? Are you the gardener?”
It was a question she brought up wondering whether she ought to treat him in the gardener position for now.
After quite a long pause, the moment he hesitantly nodded—
“Master!”
From the mansion side, a man dressed in a suit that clung tightly to his large build came running in a fluster.
He was a butler so large that from afar one might have mistaken him for a knight.
The butler was holding several small bottles presumed to be other medicines, but upon belatedly discovering the guest next to “Master,” he stopped dead in his tracks.
“…Where did this go? Haha.”
Then he began to back away with extremely unnatural movements.
Only after the butler disappeared beyond the building did Cecilia stare up at the man beside her.
Rien, stiff as a board, had even his breathing thinned from tension.
With such sloppiness, it’s hard even to pretend not to know.
“You’re better at lying than I thought. Master?”
“It’s not like that.”
Leaning close, he urgently shouted.
He was so flustered that his body heaved greatly, startling the cat into jumping off his knees, and the hem of the robe flipped back slightly.
“I—I never had any intention of deceiving or tricking Lady Weberdin…!”
“Whoa, calm down. I’m not angry.”
Cecilia raised both hands high to soothe him.
The purple eyes she finally faced were wandering like those of a child who had done wrong.
“But…”
“Really. Do I look angry?”
“…No.”
She had already noticed long ago that he was not a gardener.
With that face, a mere gardener?
In a romance-fantasy world where appearance was proportional to power, it was an impossible thing.
The reason he bothered to lie must be because there’s another reason to hide his identity.
But he seemed to have embraced all the guilt in the world over a single lie.
Staring blankly at the still restless man, Cecilia suddenly came up with a good idea.