Chapter 69
But only for a moment – Riina resumed examining the carpet and answered nonchalantly.
“I see.”
The news of the second son of Count Bartorio’s engagement was merely something that required an appropriate gesture of goodwill at the right time, nothing more warranting response.
However, Einar, who had been watching only Riina, didn’t miss her momentary hesitation.
“That’s not really ‘I see.'”
Einar didn’t beat around the bush, asking directly,
“That young lord, there’s some problem with him, isn’t there?”
“There are many problems. You know, everyone’s sweetheart.”
Though it seemed like an appropriate answer at first glance, both Einar and Riina knew it wasn’t really answering his question.
Therefore, Einar waited for the real answer, and cracks slowly began to appear in Riina’s expressionless face.
“Whatever problems Young Lord Bartorio has, it doesn’t matter.”
Riina deliberately spoke harsh words.
After all, knowing an unhappy future and being able to change it into perfect happiness were completely different matters.
But Einar still waited for her answer.
Silently, without any urging or hurrying, just waiting.
How long had it been like that?
Finally, through slightly parted lips, Riina’s knowledge of Lione’s miserable end flowed out.
“…and the two people who fought that terrible, crazy battle over him…”
“Must be his friend and the viscount’s daughter he’s to marry.”
At Einar’s answer, Riina closed her mouth.
“Yes. When I have a bad feeling, it always turns out right.”
He sighed lightly and brought up his meeting with Lione and his friend.
“In the end, I didn’t say anything. I tried to forget about it.”
He paused briefly and tilted his head.
“But it kept bothering me like a thorn under my nail.”
For his intuition to ring such alarm bells even when he said he’d forget it, it must be something very serious.
It wasn’t a national disaster, or something bad happening to him or those he cared about.
Just…
“After hearing your story, I understand why it bothered me so much.”
Isn’t it an excessively miserable and pitiful death?
Lione was merely there, yet he ended up completely covered in the blood of those closest to him, or rather those he thought were closest.
Einar turned his head sideways to stare at Riina, who was avoiding his gaze.
For a while, she avoided his gaze, and he didn’t take his eyes off her.
How much time passed like that?
Finally, Riina whipped her head toward Einar and spoke.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re beautiful.”
At this answer that came without even time to breathe, Riina’s brow furrowed, and Einar added,
“That’s the first reason, and second.”
He leisurely propped his chin and continued.
“It seems like you want to help Young Lord Bartorio but are holding back.”
Yes. Throughout Riina’s talk about Lione, Einar hadn’t taken his eyes off her for even a moment.
Having taken in everything from her eyes, gestures, voice, and hand movements, he could tell.
“I… never said anything like that.”
At her words, Einar readily nodded.
“No.”
Riina, her throat somehow tight, barely managed to get out her next words.
“I don’t even want to…”
And she closed her mouth without finishing the sentence.
Because she didn’t want to lie to him.
So Riina spoke her truth and true feelings.
“Whatever end Young Lord Bartorio meets, I can’t intervene. You know that too, Einar.”
“So you did consider acting for his sake.”
Einar accurately pinpointed what Riina hadn’t voiced, what she had given up on preemptively.
Finally, she turned her head toward him and their eyes met.
The gray plains and pure blue sky slowly overlapped before blurring into each other.
And Einar approached Riina without hesitation in one breath.
He carefully unwound her fingers one by one from where they were gripping the carpet’s fringe so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
Intertwining his own fingers with Riina’s instead of the carpet fringe, Einar smiled and declared:
“Alright. Let’s pull Young Lord Bartorio out of that miserable end.”
Moving to prevent something that hasn’t even happened yet.
Could there be anything more ironic and amusing?
But Riina didn’t refuse the bait Einar threw.
She too had been constantly thinking, deep inside:
That if she could prevent Lione’s death, she wanted to.
“Let me ask one thing.”
Though Einar was smiling, his gray eyes were shining keenly.
“Is Young Lord Bartorio the only death you know of?”
“No.”
When Riina shook her head, Einar also shook his.
“I thought so. So tell me.”
His rough fingertips caressed each of Riina’s knuckles.
“Why Young Lord Bartorio among countless others?”
“Well, because we keep running into each other.”
It wasn’t that she had suddenly developed feelings for Lione or was drawn to him.
It was just that Riina was human too.
Even if she declined burning love or hatred like before her regression, she wasn’t a cold-blooded person devoid of emotions.
Therefore, having repeatedly seen Lione’s face by chance – someone who would meet one of the most miserable deaths – she couldn’t just let it pass.
“Is it pity?”
“And sympathy too.”
Riina answered decisively and asked back.
“Did you need a reason?”
“No.”
At his answer, Riina’s eyes narrowed, and Einar very naturally brought his lips lightly to her knuckles.
After a brief kiss, he whispered:
“I thought you might be planning to save everyone.”
The “everyone” he meant didn’t literally mean ‘everyone.’
Probably he meant those who would meet deaths like Lione’s.
Riina looked down at her hand intertwined with Einar’s and spoke.
“I have no such intention.”
“Good.”
“It would be foolish. Running around trying to save countless people you couldn’t even count on both hands, for things that haven’t even happened.”
“Yes.”
Einar never denied her words.
At his clear answer, Riina couldn’t help but laugh softly.
“Still, I want to save Lione Bartorio for now.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“You’ll help me?”
“I was waiting for those words. We’ll definitely save him.”
Einar still had no intention of saving or helping everyone.
But Riina wanted it.
In that case, he would gladly extend his hand to everyone.
Because she wanted it.
Since getting to know Riina, what he wished for hadn’t changed.
If Riina wanted something, whatever it might be, he wanted to do his utmost to make it happen.
His unspoken true feelings crept up to Riina’s heart and knocked thump-thump.
Her insides tingling, Riina unconsciously pressed her chest and parted her lips.
“May I say something?”
Though she asked, it seemed she wasn’t seeking an answer as she immediately added:
“Einar, you’re really unlucky.”
At her words filled with nothing but sincerity, Einar smiled with crinkled eyes and carefully raised Riina’s hand.
Kissing her hand, he whispered:
“For your sake, I’ll gladly be an unlucky man.”
* * *
A few quiet days passed after Riina decided with Einar to change Lione’s fate.
During that time, their engagement ceremony day quickly approached, but both the imperial palace and the Bolshevik residence remained quiet.
Naturally so, as the engagement’s principals, Riina and Einar, had directly expressed their clear wishes.
‘I don’t want it to be noisy. Since we won’t have much preparation time anyway, let’s keep it simple.’
‘Keep the scale as small as possible. We don’t have much time, right? Minimize the guest list too.’
Moreover, since both His Majesty the Emperor and Duke Bolshevik had completely entrusted the engagement ceremony to them, who could dare speak out of turn?
While the engagement preparations quietly proceeded smoothly, Smith’s courtship, or perhaps lingering attachment, steadily continued.
“I can’t meet her today either?”
Only Riina was thoroughly ignoring it.
It was only because he had imperial blood that he could enter the Bolshevik residence without an appointment.
Furthermore, Sebastian, the family’s head butler, personally bowed to him.
“I apologize, Your Highness.”
It had been several days since Smith had come directly to the Bolshevik residence to meet her and been refused with the same answer.
“I see.”
Now Smith no longer shouted like before or glared at Sebastian in anger.
He just nodded and rose.
Leaving the reception room without saying or doing anything, Smith’s face was expressionless.
As he walked down the quiet corridor, his expression gradually crumpled until finally it twisted like a grotesque mask.
Though news that he had become a broken kite had spread far and wide, because everyone had that ‘what if’ feeling, his power base hadn’t completely collapsed.
And that very thing was both a source of power and a symbol of humiliation for Smith.
He truly needed his own power base without Riina, no, without the Bolshevik family.
Sometime in the past, Riina had whispered words to him…
