Tea Party 3
Accustomed as she seemed to be to the weight of so many staring eyes, Irene swept the room with that cool, level gaze of hers, then took her place and sat down as casually as if she were alone.
Since Ropena had only come here as her lady’s maid, she slipped away with the other attendants to prepare the tea, and I was left standing there all at once, adrift and unsure, while I looked around at the room.
What were the other guard knights doing?
Only after I noticed the others did I hurriedly find a seat a little distance from Irene. At that, one of the young ladies who had been watching Irene opened her mouth.
“Are you her new guard knight?”
“That’s a face I’ve never seen before. He looks much younger than the one who came last time.”
“Oh, come to think of it, isn’t that him? The Fried family son they call a genius.”
The flood of attention that had been directed at Irene turned toward me so quickly that I had no time to react, and all I could do was stare straight ahead in silence. When was the last time I’d been looked at by so many people at once?
Being watched by women who, despite their age, had rather mature, refined faces, made my own face grow hot for no reason, and I let out a heavy breath. I really hated this sort of attention. I wasn’t some monkey in a zoo.
Tap.
But the uproar scattered in an instant, like mist.
The moment Irene set down the teacup she had been holding, all at once, the chatter died.
“......”
She never said a word, and yet the moment she looked their way, the young ladies’ faces turned blue and they began hurrying back to their seats.
Their expressions were so pale it looked as if they had seen a ghost, and for some reason that was almost funny. I covered the corners of my trembling mouth with my hand and looked back at Irene.
Was I supposed to just stand here like this? I had no idea how long this tea party would go on, but it looked like they could gossip until sunset if they wanted.
Watching the round table grow noisy again as if that cold mood from before had never existed, I let out a faint sigh.
It seemed impossible for Irene to wedge herself into that circle.
The young ladies seemed to be afraid of her, but that didn’t mean they’d stop their conversation just because she was there.
And Irene herself clearly didn’t like them, either.
“...Annoying.”
After watching Irene glare at them with utter disgust, I lowered my eyes. Wasn’t hopeless the word that fit this situation best? Even after going to the trouble of creating a social gathering like this, the next head of House Yuris had no real interest in it.
All I could feel was the growing frustration in my chest, because I wanted to keep her from suffering the miserable fate that awaited her, even a little.
“Evan.”
“Yes.”
At the sudden sound of my name, I looked up. Irene was watching me as she spoke.
“Do I look pathetic?”
“...What do you mean, all of a sudden?”
Pathetic? I frowned, and Irene let out that same flat, dry voice of hers.
The crooked line of her mouth made it seem as though she were condemning herself, and I couldn’t quite bear to meet her eyes, so I lowered my head again.
Why was she saying this to me all of a sudden? Was she mocking herself for being left here, alone and forgotten?
While I was still wondering why she had brought it up, she went on in that cold voice.
“I mean me. Stuck here all by myself, unable to join them. Do I look pathetic?”
“No. Not at all. I never thought that.”
My answer came out more firmly than I expected, and perhaps that was why she looked at me with a trace of confusion. I gave her a slight smile.
Pathetic? How could I think that? I’d known from the moment I read the novel that Irene hated this kind of social gathering.
Hadn’t I already known, the instant I arrived here, that there was a very real chance she would be left out of the tea party?
Because I had expected it from the start, I didn’t pity her situation, nor did I think it was pathetic.
And even if she became close with the young ladies here, she didn’t seem likely to gain anything from it.
They were women who loved gossip, after all.
What she needed loyalty from wasn’t a flock of noisy sparrows like these, but a faithful eagle who served only his master.
“You didn’t come here because you wanted to, did you, Young Lady?”
“...You know me well. I suppose you’re not entirely oblivious.”
After looking at me for a moment, Irene turned her eyes back to the bustling scene ahead and spoke again.
“Does it bother you? Those loud ones seem to be talking about you quite a bit.”
At that, I barely managed to swallow a dry laugh.
So she’d noticed the attention after all, even though she had been pretending not to.
With a body infused by mana, her senses were sharp enough that she’d probably felt the stares the moment she entered this place.
Not just the stares, either, but the sound of them gossiping about me with obvious delight.
And how could she not know the heat buried in those gazes?
Embarrassingly enough, my looks were fairly handsome, so I seemed to have landed squarely in the tastes of young ladies who were longing for a dreamy, fairy-tale kind of love.
Had they fallen for me at first sight?
It was the first time they’d seen me, yet their sticky, lingering attention had made me flinch more than once.
There wasn’t just one or two of those looks, either; with so many of them gathered together, it was hard not to feel uncomfortable.
“I’m fine.”
Perhaps my expression had looked worse than I realized, because a chill seemed to deepen in Irene’s blue eyes as she watched me.
“Thank you for worrying about me.”
That she had been thinking of me at all was moving enough to make me bow my head in thanks.
I’d only assumed she found them bothersome, but had she been considering the fact that those young ladies were talking about me in the first place?
Maybe that was why the disgust in her eyes had grown so strong.
“...There’s no need to thank me. I only asked because I heard them speaking like that.”
Then she took her eyes off me and lifted her teacup again, her expression once more unreadable.
The coldness lingering in her eyes still hadn’t faded, and I could only watch her with growing unease.
What on earth was she thinking?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
What a pitiful bunch they were. Every time I looked at them, they were so trivial that a sneer nearly escaped me.
Even if someone had sculpted them as dolls made to contain all the world’s futility, the talk drifting through this room would still have nothing of value in it.
I’d known it from the beginning, and I should have excused myself from this place under any pretext I could find.
That regret was still gnawing at me when, as I drank the tea in front of me in silence, I heard something that shattered my wandering thoughts and made my chest feel even more tangled.
“Come to think of it, wasn’t that the Count’s daughter’s new guard knight? He is rather handsome.”
“Yes, the moment I saw him, my heart started fluttering.”
“Isn’t that what a knight should look like? My own guard knight is excellent in skill, but his looks are really... well...”
“Ha.”
A derisive laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
My chest grew tight again at the sudden appraisal of Evan, and with each fragment of thought creeping in, I found myself staring at those women as they talked so happily.
They were speaking as if he belonged to them.
Apparently they thought they were far enough away that he couldn’t hear, and that habit of theirs—whispering as though they were being discreet—was enough to make me dizzy with annoyance.
He would hear them, of course. His own guard knight was undoubtedly hearing every word.
And then it occurred to me that he might be watching me sitting here all alone.
What, exactly, would he think of me? I found myself wondering what those green eyes, which always seemed to waver when they met mine, were thinking now.
“Do I look pathetic?”
Perhaps that was why the words had slipped from my mouth.
A question I didn’t need to ask—one that sounded almost like I was asking him to understand me—had come out instead.
My fingers tightened on the skirt of my dress.
I shouldn’t have asked something like that. He would definitely think I was strange.
How ridiculous was it to ask, out of nowhere, whether I looked pathetic?
“No. Not at all. I never thought that.”
But his answer came back firm, and I found my eyes widening a little at it.
No—more precisely, I was surprised by those green eyes of his as they met mine.
Unlike before, they neither wavered nor held any clearly defined emotion.
They were telling me, with quiet certainty, that his answer was the truth.
“You didn’t come here because you wanted to, did you, Young Lady?”
I’d thought he might hate me.
Maybe I’d even imagined that he really did think me pathetic.
The things I’d said that night had probably been nothing but pretense, a fleeting illusion, and I had believed that. And yet...
The feeling in those green eyes still hadn’t changed. He didn’t hate me, and he didn’t resent me, either, and looking at that gaze, guilt rose suddenly in my chest.
Had I perhaps stored away those cruel things I’d said to him? Had I, without meaning to, said something too harsh?
It bothered me. No, more precisely, it got under my skin.
Like a thorn lodged in my mouth, it was something I couldn’t force myself to ignore, and yet it kept remaining in some corner of my heart, making me aware of it all the same.
His words, the strange emotions he carried, even those forest-deep green eyes that seemed to soften whenever he looked at me—they kept returning to my mind.
So I had wanted to push him away. I had wanted to make him give up his post as my guard knight of his own accord.
But now I no longer thought I could do that.
No matter how harshly I behaved, it wasn’t him who broke. It was only my own heart that became more uncomfortable.
Maybe I wouldn’t be able to drive Evan Fried away after all.
As I chewed over that name, the other young ladies who had been chattering over his appearance came to mind.
And when I unconsciously turned my eyes that way, I saw Evan’s face, oddly clouded with gloom.
Was it because their wild speculation was making him uncomfortable, too?
Watching the strain in Evan’s expression, some faint emotion stirred in my chest. It was probably irritation.
I had asked him if it bothered him—if those idiots, who were appraising him like an object, made him uncomfortable.
But Evan only gave a faint smile and shook his head.
“I’m fine.”
Thank you for worrying about me. It felt as if those words were knocking at my chest.
The way he spoke, so carefully keeping a line between us, made me frown for no clear reason.
And yet, when he said it and lowered his head, the emotion that flickered in his eyes was unmistakably gratitude, wasn’t it?
“......”
Come to think of it, this might have been the first time I’d asked Evan anything at all.
He was always the one who asked first, and I had always brushed him off without mercy.
Regret suddenly surged up inside me, and my chest went tight. I let out a heavy breath, as if something were closing around my throat.
In truth, there was no reason for me to feel this way at all. So why was I reacting like this?
The question kept trailing after itself, again and again.
Yet Evan Fried kept coming into my view, shattering my thoughts every time, and my gaze on him grew steadily colder.
“...Should I step back?”
After looking at Evan, who was watching my mood carefully, I nodded after a moment.
What I needed was time to think calmly.
And as I watched Evan’s back disappear from view, the emotion that rose in me was a little guilt.