Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Sophia looked down at her gently folded hands.
The cold hands and feet she'd suffered from since childhood.
Her pale fingertips were cold as if she'd just dipped them in the river outside, yet the warmth rising from deep within her chest seemed to melt that chill away today.
'It had been comfortable.'
Sophia's red lips curved into a very gentle smile.
Pleasure, after all,
was an emotion that could bloom only when built on comfort, something she knew well from a lifetime spent fighting illness.
That was also why it had been so long since Sophia had truly felt pleasure.
Because her days were always filled with the discomfort of other people's gazes and the limits of her own body.
And with the fear that she might collapse at any moment.
Even that morning, up until she finished getting ready in front of the mirror, she hadn't expected much.
A restaurant full of smiling people chatting away.
A meeting there with a man she'd never met before, one who had recently become the center of everyone's attention in social circles.
How could she possibly feel at ease, let alone truly enjoy herself, under tension like that just from imagining it?
Please, let this rare outing not end in nothing but a disastrous failure that would make her brother lose face.
With only that desperate wish in her heart, she'd taken her heavy steps forward.
Her twin had arranged this forced meeting to drag her out into the world.
She knew all too well how tender Lucius was.
And yet, somehow.
Today's meeting had been an unexpected succession of events, as if mocking every worry and resignation she'd carried all day.
"..."
When she closed her eyes, the face of the Farne young master who had seemed languid at the sunlit second-floor window seat earlier floated up before her.
He had rough edges if you looked closely, but there was definitely a feather-light delicacy hidden between them.
Every moment she spent observing him and talking with him was filled with a thrilling excitement Sophia had never felt before.
Swoosh.
Sophia carefully brought a hand to her chest and gently gripped the collar of her dress.
She couldn't stop an inexplicable greed from slowly creeping up from one corner of her heart.
'Could I... meet him again?'
It was a very unfamiliar thirst—the desire to face that man one more time.
* * *
At the same time, the lavish Rohanna estate.
Creak, creak.
Lucius was pacing nonstop across the wooden floor of the first-floor lobby.
'By now, the blind date should be over.'
After checking the time, Lucius waited anxiously for Sophia to come home.
Thinking rationally, there wasn't much to worry about.
If anything had happened to Sophia, even the slightest thing, a report would have been sent at once from the family's shadow guard assigned to her.
'The fact that no message had come until now meant, fortunately, that she'd gotten through the schedule safely without any trouble.'
Lucius silently watched the second hand of the clock move.
Human greed really was endless.
The moment he could feel in his bones that his sister had finished her date safely,
he immediately found himself hoping for a good result.
"Greed, huh."
Just as Lucius was about to shake his head and laugh dryly at his own silliness,
"Miss Sophia's carriage has passed through the front gate."
At the butler's report, Lucius's gaze turned outside.
A carriage came in, crossing the garden.
Lucius immediately turned to the head maid waiting beside him.
"Prepare both warm tea and a bath right away. Pay attention to the water temperature."
After giving the order, Lucius immediately went out to meet her.
Creak.
As the carriage door opened, Sophia could be seen carefully stepping down with the coachman's support.
Lucius, tense, quickly checked his sister's complexion first.
And then.
'...Thank goodness.'
He was relieved that his worry had been for nothing.
'Looks like it went well.'
Because a lovely glow had returned to his sister's cheeks.
"Lucius."
When Sophia spotted Lucius waiting for her, she approached with gentle steps and said,
"I'm back."
"......Right."
Lucius hid the worry he'd been carrying all along and gently put an arm around his sister's shoulders.
"Do you want to bathe first? How are you feeling? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. And......"
Sophia gave a small nod, and a smile touched her lips.
"I think I can take my bath a little slowly. I'm not cold, and I'm not tired either."
"All right. Then let's go inside first."
* * *
Clink.
In the quiet study of the Rohanna mansion.
On the table between the twins sat herbal tea meant to warm them up.
Looking at the teacup with warm steam rising from it, Lucius carefully began speaking to Sophia, who was seated on the sofa opposite him.
"So."
"......"
"What happened? For someone I was worried about until you left, you look pretty cheerful."
At Lucius's cautious question,
"You see, I…"
Sophia wrapped both hands around the warmth of the teacup, then let out a shy smile before she could finish speaking.
At that sight, Lucius was rather startled.
He wondered what in the world had happened with Cassian for his sister to be making that kind of expression.
But he didn't show it on his face.
If he looked too shocked, Sophia might get embarrassed and clam up.
"Yeah. Go ahead."
Once Lucius put on an attentive expression,
she lowered her flushed face slightly and whispered in a ticklish voice,
"If that's not possible, I can't help it, but... could I see that person one more time?"
"......One more time? Why?"
"Somehow, I don't think his personality is the kind that would suggest another meeting first. ......So that's why."
At the reason she added with a small sigh, Lucius's brain started working furiously.
He had indeed stormed the Farne mansion yesterday morning and made the half-crazy request that Cassian "seduce my little sister."
To be fair, he'd been clinging to the slim hope that if it was that man, who was constantly surrounded by women, he might actually pull off that request quite well.
However.
The astonishing result of getting his sister to ask for another meeting in just a few hours
left Lucius not just amazed, but with a strange, unfamiliar fear.
'I didn't expect him to do this well.'
Just how sincere had he been about repaying that debt?
A man burdened by a sense of obligation could be this terrifying.
"Lucius?"
Seeing no answer from him, Sophia blinked anxiously.
"Is it... difficult?"
"Ah, what are you talking about? Of course I'll do it."
There was no reason he couldn't.
"Sophia, if you were happy enough to smile that brightly, what's the big deal about setting up another meeting?"
In fact, it was a big deal.
It had only barely been possible to drag that man out once, a man who preferred living lazily rather than strutting around on the reputation of being the Great Mage's disciple, and even that had cost precious reagents.
And now he was supposed to call him out to eat again?
He could vividly picture Cassian cutting him off flatly, with a rotten expression as if possessed by the demon of annoyance: "No. Are you crazy?"
But.
If his precious little sister could keep that miraculous smile going just a little longer, just a little more,
he'd kneel, squander his entire fortune, do whatever it took.
In the first place, the reason he'd gone so far as to make that absurd request to Cassian to seduce his twin sister had been nothing but that desperation.
"So, how was the blind date, Sophia?"
Lucius smiled, lacing his fingers together over his crossed legs.
"If talking about it feels a little uncomfortable, you don't have to."
"No."
Carefully setting down her teacup, she shook her head, her eyes clear.
"I want to tell you."
"Really? Why?"
"Something keeps tickling inside me... I feel like I have to tell somebody right now."
Lucius listened to his sister in silence.
With flushed cheeks, Sophia began carefully laying out every moment of her meeting with Cassian by the riverside at noon today, along with the kindness he'd shown her.
"When I first entered the lobby of Grand Asteria, hearing that it was the 4th-floor VVIP section made me so tense I could hardly breathe."
Lucius nodded.
Of course.
That place's atmosphere would be poison to her.
So how had today's result been possible?
"But......"
His sister then began to spill out what had happened at Grand Asteria.
Starting with the fact that he'd moved the reserved seat from the 4th floor to the 2nd because of the scent of the greenery outside.
And how, when she seemed burdened by the menu, he'd politely asked if he could recommend some dishes.
And how, when he noticed she'd hesitated because she couldn't eat cilantro, he'd used his own hunger as an excuse to ask for the next dish.
Lastly,
"He said the river's shimmer was beautiful, had the carriage turned back, and suggested going to a quiet cafe nearby instead. He must have thought that would be better for me than riding in the carriage."
"......"
Once Lucius learned the whole story,
he was at a loss for words.
'How could he do that?'
'Does that even make sense?'
This wasn't the sort of thing that could be done by preparation and planning alone, was it?
Even as he listened, he couldn't help doubting it.
'So they say it's a family from the intelligence bureau, but does the Farne family make you practice toying with women's hearts or something?'
Even so.
'I heard he stayed cooped up in some backwater on the edge of his hometown. Who exactly was he practicing on out there?'
Did he rack up enough experience by utterly ruining the marriages of about a hundred local young women and somehow become possessed by the god of romance?
Thinking of that indifferent genius who had breathed vitality and curiosity into his sister,
Lucius bit his lip without realizing it.
'Cassian Del Farne... you really are.'
It was true that he'd wanted him to seduce her.
It was true.
For some reason, though, irritation was starting to rise in Lucius.