Chapter 17
“No, you idiot! Not there, over here!”
“What, idiot? Pel, you bastard. You want to fight?”
“Hey, will you be quiet?”
Letricia’s eyelashes fluttered at the faint murmuring sounds.
“Mmm…”
Her eyeballs moved several times beneath her translucent eyelids.
Finally, Letricia’s tightly closed eyelids slowly lifted.
“Where am I… the Count’s mansion?”
As Piril had said, her vision loss was only temporary – unlike last night, focus had returned to her eyes.
However, her sight hadn’t fully recovered yet, so Letricia had to narrow her eyes to see her surroundings clearly.
She then made a troubled expression at the dazzling sunlight pouring through the large window.
“Haa… how long was I unconscious this time? Brother will make a fuss when he finds out.”
Letricia, who was about to make the bed before Isis could storm in angrily, stared blankly at the ceiling.
Then she flopped back onto the bed again.
“How bothersome. Let him get angry if he wants…”
Still half-asleep, Letricia listlessly pulled the blanket close.
As her foggy mind gradually cleared, Isis’s harsh words from the banquet hall slowly replayed in her head.
Though it wasn’t anything new, she felt like she had once again realized how much Isis despised her through yesterday’s events.
“Why did I live trying so hard to be considerate when Brother would have hated me no matter what I did…?”
As Letricia buried her face in the blanket from listlessness, someone outside the door shrieked.
“Ah! There’ll be trouble if His Highness finds out!”
Startled by the commotion, Letricia pulled the blanket closer.
“His Highness?”
Still in a daze, Letricia repeated the words she heard, then suddenly sat up.
“Right, Grand Duke…!”
As her foggy senses gradually returned, Killian’s whispered words from before she lost consciousness struck her like lightning.
“Your eyes. You can’t see.”
“He knew that I couldn’t see. How in the world did His Highness know that?”
Wondering if her blindness had been that obvious, Letricia stood up.
Now she noticed this wasn’t her room either.
Then she stopped in place at the sound of something crinkling under her foot.
“Hm? What’s this?”
Letricia picked up the notebook Killian had dropped last night and turned it over.
The luxurious cover had Braille dots engraved on it. Letricia withdrew her hand after absently tracing the bumpy Braille.
Though she was sure she’d never seen this item before, for some reason it made her feel queasy.
Finally taking her hand off the notebook, Letricia approached the door as more murmuring sounds were heard.
“What should we do? Should we keep waiting? Should we just go in?”
“How many times do I have to tell you no, Pel? Are you that eager to have your head cut off by our lord?”
“Ah! Then should I keep holding all these things? Wait a moment. Let me at least knock to see if she’s awake…!”
Just as the person called Pel outside the door was about to knock.
Bang! Letricia turned the doorknob and opened the door.
“Uh… uh…!”
As a result, Pel found himself facing Letricia with his fist raised toward empty air.
His young, freckled face turned bright red, apparently quite flustered by the sudden encounter.
“Ah, good morning! Good noon- no, good morning!”
“…Crazy fool.”
The knight beside him shook his head, seemingly embarrassed by Pel who was bowing with his fist still raised after fumbling his words.
“Oh? You’re the servant I met in the forest yesterday… right?”
“Yes! You remember me!”
Pel swayed his large frame from side to side, apparently delighted that Letricia recognized him.
Each time he swayed, the wolf emblem embroidered in silver thread on his knight’s uniform sparkled.
“So you were a knight, not a servant.”
“Haha, yesterday was due to circumstances… Let me properly introduce myself. I’m Pel Dotro of the Silvano Knights! Please just call me Pel!”
Pel scratched the back of his head with a silly grin, his arms full of packages. However, Letricia couldn’t return his smile.
“The Silvano Knights… you mean His Highness’s knights? Then this is…”
“Ah, this is His Highness’s townhouse!”
“What?”
“Huh? You don’t remember? Our lord carried you here like this.”
Pel demonstrated by cradling his packages like a lover and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I suppose you might not remember. You didn’t look well yesterday.”
“Good heavens…”
Letricia covered her mouth, too shocked to speak. At this gesture, Pel’s mouth rounded as he noticed the notebook in Letricia’s hand.
“Oh? Why do you have our lord’s notebook?”
“I found it fallen under the bed.”
Letricia answered while unconsciously fingering the flower drawing on the notebook’s surface.
“Really? He’s usually someone without any oversights, I wonder why he dropped something.”
Pel pursed his lower lip curiously and wrinkled his nose with a sniff.
“Please give it to me. I’ll return it to our lord.”
“No, I’ll return it myself.”
Letricia gently shook her head as Pel extended his gloved hand.
Then she fiddled with the ring still on her ring finger, which she and Killian had exchanged before the Emperor.
Though it had been a series of quite shocking situations, she still had things to discuss with the Grand Duke. Now that things had come to this, it seemed better to meet him directly.
She could return the notebook and also apologize for unexpectedly imposing on his hospitality.
“Oh… if that’s what you want? Our lord should be at the training grounds right now…”
“Is that so? Thank you, Pel. Which way are the training grounds?”
“Huh? You’re going right now?”
Pel bounced as Letricia tried to pass him with a light word of thanks.
“The gifts! You should check the gifts first!”
“Gifts? What gifts?”
Letricia looked up blankly at Pel, who had blocked her path like a quick weasel.
“What else? These things our lord sent for you!”
Pel proudly spread his arms and stepped aside as he handed over the boxes he was holding to Letricia.
Then the things that had been hidden behind his body were revealed.
From an easel to premium paints and palette, and more besides.
Letricia’s mouth fell open when she discovered the items piled on the floor in front of the room.
“All this… His Highness really sent all this for me?”
“Yes! You must really like painting! How is it, do you like them?”
“But I don’t paint…”
Letricia’s expression became distant at the mountain of overflowing items.
To think the Grand Duke had prepared these things to give to her. She couldn’t understand the reason at all.
When she was very young, before being adopted into House Esta, she had enjoyed painting. But since being adopted, she hadn’t painted at all, and in her past life, she only started painting again after going to the Grand Duke’s castle.
To the current Letricia, Killian’s gifts seemed completely out of place.
“There must have been some misunderstanding. Surely he wouldn’t give such gifts to someone he just met yesterday?”
“Huh? But you haven’t just met – the reason our lord headed to Lotus Forest was because of you… oops!”
Pel belatedly covered his mouth after speaking without thinking.
“What do you mean by that, Pel?”
* * *
Clang!
As soon as she entered the training grounds, the sound of blades clashing violently vibrated through the air.
“Um… we’re here. This is the training ground.”
“Thank you, Pel. You can go now.”
“Ah, well…”
Pel, who had guided Letricia to the training grounds at her request, scratched his chin.
Instead of his earlier bouncy demeanor, he seemed somewhat dejected.
“What’s wrong?”
“I made another mistake, didn’t I? Well… I’m like that. I talk too much and sometimes can’t distinguish between what I should and shouldn’t say. I’m always getting scolded by our lord for it too! Ugh.”
Pel ruffled his hair as if trying to tear it out and bowed his head deeply.
He was being cautious because of Letricia’s serious expression after learning that her meeting with Killian in the forest had been planned.
“If I said anything that might have offended you, I apologize! Whatever it was!”
“No, I wasn’t offended. I just have some things to think about.”
Letricia relaxed her facial muscles before Pel could go bald.
At this, Pel’s cheekbones rose up from their previously drooping state like wet cotton.
As his cheekbones rose, he timidly stuck close to Letricia’s side, and quickly caught her hand when she almost tripped over a stone.
“Really? Then I’m truly relieved. Ah, be careful! There’s a stone ahead!”
Thanks to him, Letricia avoided falling ungracefully. She gave him a slight smile and surveyed the training grounds with her blurry vision.
She was looking for Killian.
Surely she would be able to spot that brilliant silver hair at a glance even with poor vision.
As she kept looking around for Killian like this, a hand suddenly thrust between her and Pel.
“Step away from my wife, Pel.”
