Chapter 59
“I’m sorry, Your Grace. It’s Eleonore Béarn.”
Thump.
The clear voice coming through the crack in the firmly shut door made his quiet heart start pounding again.
His arms and legs, which had been hanging limply over the edge of the sofa, began to stir a little.
Thump
.
It wasn’t because of the whiskey he’d drunk earlier. Dmitri often enjoyed a drink, so he could say with certainty that this pounding was something else.
Uncomfortable, and yet…
This pounding in his chest, thrilling enough to ache, was nothing like the effects of alcohol.
Thump
.
The black-haired man, who had been lying half-sprawled across the sofa, slowly sat up. Frowning as his disheveled bangs pricked at his eyelids, Dmitri roughly swept them back from his forehead and took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure.
Phew.
The young lady… Why had Eleonore come looking for him in the middle of the night? No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t guess.
Could it be because of the conversation he’d had with Albris earlier? Had that bastard sent his younger sister over to lure him in?
When his thoughts reached that point, Dmitri shook his head hard from side to side.
Get a grip, Dmitri. Would a man of House Béarn pawn off their youngest daughter like this? Not even if the world turned upside down.
“Uh… Is he already asleep? It looks like the light’s on in the room…”
Her voice sounded again. That clear, pure voice brought order to his jumbled thoughts, and Dmitri sprang to his feet. Before he knew it, his body had reacted before he could stop it.
He shouldn’t have stood up. He should have let her go. To meet a young lady alone in the middle of the night… even if this was House Béarn’s estate.
But unlike his thoughts, his body was already heading for the door. The closer he got, the harder his heart pounded, and the more clearly he sensed her presence, the heavier his breathing grew.
Before he knew it, he was turning the doorknob.
Before him stood the petite platinum-haired young lady, her back turned as she started to leave.
Looking at her neatly arranged platinum hair falling below her shoulders, Dmitri found his lips moving without thinking.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
#.
Even after knocking a couple more times, she got no answer. Eleonore gazed ruefully at the firmly shut wooden door and let out a small sigh.
Honestly, it had taken a great deal of courage just to come this far.
Eugenie, her only female friend, had declared she’d help, even thumping her chest—but she’d fallen asleep, overcome by fatigue. So Eleonore had spent a long time agonizing alone in her room before finally managing to step out.
She’d thought that handing him the handkerchief in front of other people might lead to needless misunderstandings.
And now she had to go back so pointlessly…
Well, it couldn’t be helped.
Like a child whose homework check had been postponed by a day, Eleonore smiled faintly despite her disappointment and turned to leave—
when she felt the firmly shut door behind her slowly open.
Then a man’s low, resonant voice sank into her heart, insistently making its way inside.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
His voice was a little more brusque than usual. Yet somehow, it also sounded a little excited. Hearing the contradictory emotions in Dmitri’s voice, Eleonore gracefully turned around to face him.
Leaning at an angle against the doorway, Dmitri looked a little different from usual. His tousled bangs had been roughly swept back from his forehead, and for some reason, his face was flushed.
He was dressed differently, too, wearing nothing but a loose shirt and wide-legged trousers—a more comfortable outfit than usual.
Dmitri took a step toward Eleonore. The sweet scent of whiskey wafted from beneath his disheveled collar, around his nape.
At the sight, Eleonore lowered her head.
“I-I’m sorry, Your Grace. I hope I haven’t disturbed you while you were resting.”
She had done it to sincerely convey her apology, but in truth, she was trying to hide her flushed face.
Then Dmitri’s voice reached her.
“I just came back from speaking with your brother. You weren’t disturbing me, so please don’t worry about it.”
Dmitri answered brusquely. As expected, he was acting very differently from usual.
Until now, wherever they were, Dmitri had always been kind to her, if a little mischievous. At the imperial palace where they’d first met, at his estate, and even at the mine just yesterday.
Now that he’d suddenly become so brusque, she couldn’t help feeling a distance between them.
“So, what brings you here at this hour?”
“Ah…”
The white handkerchief in her tiny hands, clasped politely in front of her waist, trembled.
Before leaving her room, she’d steeled herself, but her frozen body wouldn’t move so easily. All she could manage was to lift her head slightly and look into his pitch-black eyes.
Was it because he was acting so differently, so brusquely? Or was it the whiskey’s sweet scent lingering around them?
Her sky-blue eyes, searching for somewhere to settle, offered excuses like that. Her tumultuous thoughts were doing nothing but rationalizing her behavior.
“My lady? Eleonore?”
Only when her name slipped from his moist lips did Eleonore finally come to her senses.
“Ah… Your Grace. I, um, have something important I’d like to give you…”
“Wait!”
In an instant, his broad chest filled Eleonore’s sky-blue gaze. His rough, warm hand came to rest over her lips.
Eleonore cautiously raised her head. Above his sharp jawline, Dmitri wore a tense expression as he looked from side to side, checking the corridor behind her.
Her hot breath hit his chest and bounced back toward her. Beyond his slightly open collar, the pale skin of his well-defined chest came into view. At the sweet aroma of whiskey wafting from him, Eleonore felt drunk despite not having taken a single sip.
That brief moment seemed eternal to Eleonore. The scene before her overlapped with her memory of the previous night, layering itself into a new memory.
His embrace had been so broad, warm, and comforting—and it had smelled sweet.
Only after confirming that the suspicious presence in the darkened corridor was nothing more than a cricket did Dmitri gently move away from Eleonore.
“It wouldn’t do to keep standing in the hallway like this. Why don’t you come inside?”
At his words, Eleonore snapped back to her senses and asked in a startled voice.
“I-Inside?”
No matter how much of a clueless innocent Eleonore was when it came to romance, she knew exactly what this meant. Entering a man’s room in the middle of the night? In modern terms, that was basically asking him to sleep with her.
“It’s quiet now, but if someone happened to see us like this, it would be a headache for both of us.”
But his voice had grown a little warmer than before.
The sweet scent of him, gradually fading away.
His face, now smiling at her as he usually did.
They were gently drawing Eleonore into Dmitri’s room. Caught up in their closeness, her hesitation vanished.
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‘Hey, Dmitri. Are you insane? You let the young lady into your room? Why? If you’re going this far, why not just devour her tonight!’
Watching Eleonore’s back, dressed in a pure white dress beneath a beige knit cardigan, Dmitri secretly shook his head.
Of course, he was the sort whose body acted before he thought. Thanks to that, Daphne had given him an earful on various occasions when he was in the North. Most of the time, she’d been scolding him.
But that had definitely been intentional on Dmitri’s part.
Dmitri had no choice but to play the fool when dealing with the capital’s nobles and act like a damned beggar. In the capital’s den of intrigue, there wasn’t a single sucker who’d give alms to a clever beggar.
Turns out, I really was a fool.
Whether or not she knew how he felt, Eleonore took in the room with mild curiosity, despite being in his own estate. Now she’d let go of even the wariness she’d still had and was staring blankly at the two swords laid on the table.
“Are those Your Grace’s swords?”
Her voice had changed, too. Unlike a moment ago, when it had been full of tension, it had returned to the voice she used when talking with Dominique and her maid.
And Dmitri had heard that voice once before.
Right, that’s it. This was what Lady Eleonore was like.
“The swords we mainly use in the North are a little bigger than this one. This one’s a bit too flimsy for chopping up magical beasts and monsters.”
“R-Really? But yesterday, you sliced through that huge spider’s legs so easily. You were trying to save me…”
Perhaps the memory had returned. Her face began to flush again.
She’d been trembling with nerves, then thrilled like a child, and now she’d returned to normal. Lady Eleonore really was an unpredictable young lady.
That platinum-haired woman, blushing as she did, had made her way into his heart.
Thanks to her, Dmitri was the one who relaxed. Smiling at her adorable, flushed face, he slowly approached her.
“Those Shilobs look a little nasty, but they’re not all that strong. Their poison is a bit of a nuisance, of course. You know that well enough from experience, don’t you, my lady?”
With her face still red, Eleonore quietly nodded.
“So, what brings you here?”
“Ah… Um, you see, Your Grace.”
Dmitri’s eyebrow twitched faintly. For some reason, he didn’t like being called Your Grace. He heard that title all the time, but hearing it in her voice made it sound so stiff.
Unaware of Dmitri’s feelings, Eleonore held out the white cloth she’d been carefully clutching.
“I don’t think I properly thanked you… for saving me.”
A neatly folded white handkerchief rested on her tiny palm. In one corner, her initials had been embroidered in small black stitches.
“I’m not very good at speaking to men, so I wanted to express it this way.”
Thump.
As he looked at her face, red enough to burst, Dmitri’s heart grew restless once more.
“I’ll treasure it. But there’s one more thing I’d like to ask of you.”
Her small, soft hand was as hot as her face. As he accepted the handkerchief, Dmitri unconsciously drew her hand gently toward him.
“Y-Your Grace?”
Dmitri took another step toward her, meeting the sky-blue eyes that looked up at him in bewilderment.
“That title, I mean. I’d like you to call me Dmitri instead of Your Grace, my lady. Eleonore. No—Eli.”
At the end of a long, long hesitation, Dmitri finally offered her the best he had to give, speaking in a low voice.
#9. Echoes of Hesitation (7) End