The Shape of Sleep
Well, it was only torture for him.
Judging by the way she was sleeping now, Chloe Le David Berk did not seem to find it especially difficult. Perhaps it was thanks to all those years spent huddled together with her siblings in that cramped little house.
Curtis traced the contours of Chloe’s sleeping face with his eyes. Her cheeks were a little thinner, perhaps from the forced march of the past several days. Her nose had a softly rounded tip. Weary breaths slipped through her slightly parted lips.
He reached out as if to pinch her nose shut, then stopped.
It’d be awkward if I got saliva on my fingers.
He clenched the hand he had lifted for no reason.
Had she slept so defenselessly in that house too?
What came to Curtis’s mind was the small house where Chloe had lived.
From the moment Chloe agreed to marry him, the house on Le Martin Street had been guarded in shifts by Curtis’s private soldiers. Once it became known as the Grand Duchess’s family home, there had been no other option.
Her younger sister had once come to him separately and said she would “go back home.” In her own way, she had probably meant not to be a burden to her sister, who had married upward.
“Um, Your Grace… Iris and I should probably go home soon.”
Of course, he had refused.
“If I let you and Miss Iris leave, the Grand Duchess will kill me.”
“I know perfectly well how absurd it is for a married woman’s family to live off her! We can’t use the annex forever. And taking the Berk Grand Ducal House carriage every time I go to school is a bit…”
Leah’s eyes as she said that had resembled her sister’s.
They were the eyes of someone who believed, without the slightest doubt, that she ought to pay the proper price for her own life. They were also the eyes of someone who desperately hoped that every privilege she enjoyed would not wear away even the smallest part of her sister.
“It would be far more absurd if the Grand Duchess’s sisters were attacked while living in that house.”
“Pardon?”
“The windows rattle, and the walls are thin. The roof is old. Well, if anyone climbed onto a beam it would probably collapse at once, so at least there’s no need to worry about assassins coming and going through the roof.”
How flustered Leah had looked at him then.
“You went there yourself?”
“Those are things one can tell without going, but yes, I went.”
Curtis Shan Berk had been to the small townhouse where the Amboise family had lived.
If Chloe heard, she would have demanded, When on earth? in sheer disbelief, but to him, not visiting the home of the woman who had gone so far as to agree to marry him would have been absurd.
At least, to him.
It had been right after Chloe gathered her siblings and swiftly moved into the Berk Ducal Residence. A small, untidy house that shared walls with other tenements. That house had four rooms.
Excluding her parents and her two grown younger siblings, Chloe had almost certainly shared a bed with Iris, the youngest. And there had been a wall beside that bed.
On that wall were traces that made it clear someone had often leaned there.
Who else could it have been?
And now, Curtis could tell exactly how Chloe must have leaned against that bed while holding Iris.
Sleeping with one knee propped against the wall and the arm on that side lifted above her head.
Seeing that carefree posture felt strangely wondrous all over again.
There were plenty of blood relatives in the world who wanted to kill each other.
…Of all the people I know, she’s the strangest. And funny, too….
“No matter who sat on the sofa, you never sit down unless it’s been cleaned first. You never touch the carpet with your bare hands either. Same with tapestries.”
…I think I understand why it isn’t particularly torturous when she enters my personal space.
He had thought it strange, but apparently she had noticed those things and kept track of them.
The man extended the left hand he had clenched and withdrawn earlier.
It was quite impulsive, and he knew perfectly well that he was acting impulsively.
So what?
Curtis Shan Berk had already realized that he had widened his permitted boundaries quite a bit for this woman.
That was probably because his employee was remarkably diligent and quick.
The diligence with which she had looked to him for permission even after the King insulted her to her face.
The way she snapped back at him line by line, yet ultimately did her best to live as that blasted “Grand Duchess.”
Or even the way she adapted swiftly to situations like this.
Any employer would praise such a worker and keep her close… wouldn’t they?
So this was simply goodwill felt by one person toward another.
The man whispered that to himself with some effort and looked at the woman still sleeping peacefully beside him.
Beneath her earlobe, which would surely feel soft if he touched it, a lock of blue-black hair caught his eye. She had braided it neatly—or tried to—but it had naturally come loose as she lay down.
Curtis lightly touched that lock of hair with the tip of his finger.
No one was watching, yet the gesture was exceedingly cautious and furtive.
Just die.
The moment his fingertip brushed that soft, abundant hair, an auditory hallucination came from somewhere.
The man flinched and stared into the empty air.
Hm? Curtis… What’s the point of living like this?
The aide’s office in the Royal Guard Building.
It was merely a converted maid’s room, but as if to prove it was still unmistakably part of the Royal Palace, a beautiful ceiling painting occupied the space above.
Curtis felt as though he might suffocate.
He had scraped away every ceiling painting in the Berk Ducal Residence.
After Chloe arrived, not only his room but every ceiling painting in that mansion had disappeared. He knew that perfectly well, and yet when he saw something similar in the dark, anxiety rose in him without warning.
Everyone mourned the ceiling paintings in the Berk Ducal Residence. They cursed him as a bleak Grand Duke with no appreciation for beauty.
No one knew that to him, that bleakness was the very symbol of a refuge where he could finally sleep.
Curtis unconsciously touched his own neck.
Through the thin, soft fabric he wore indoors, his bare skin met his fingers.
There was nothing at all wrapped around his throat, yet Curtis often dreamed of long, fine, wheat-colored hair winding tightly around his neck.
Filthy.
He wanted to shudder and say it, but the sound stuck to the inside of his throat and never came out.
His breathing grew shallow.
Then a familiar scent drifted toward him, and without realizing it, the man buried his face in it—only to startle violently.
Because what he was holding was also hair.
But what lay in his hand was black and blue, different from what he knew so well.
Only then did the man relax slightly and take a deep breath.
A sweet, peaceful human scent.
It was not the floral fragrance his mother had sprayed on herself in irritation, nor the smell of crimson powder she had used to hide the tracks of tears.
And he, too, was no longer the powerless child who had been dragged around by that noose.
“Mm… Iris….”
Her voice was thick with sleep.
The woman, mistaking him for her younger sister, turned over and pulled his head into her arms in an instant.
The man stiffened, startled by the unfamiliar physical contact.
Whether he did or not, the woman patted the nape of his neck with her fingertips.
It would have been proper to shake her off immediately, yet for some reason he could not bring himself to do it.
Just for a little while.
If I get up now, she’ll wake.
She’ll wake up and shout at me, demanding to know what I did to her….
He had conveniently forgotten that this was usually what he did.
While Curtis held his breath, making excuses to himself that did not even make sense, Chloe’s sleep-mumbling continued as she held him.
“You’re cold, aren’t you… Tomorrow, your sister will….”
The rest was too close to a mumble to hear.
Still half asleep, the woman pulled up the bedding and covered him all the way to the top of his head.
It was an exceedingly tender touch.
It seems the prisoners of this country are enjoying luxuries far beyond their station, the man thought.
This cramped bed had been a little uncomfortable at first, but after getting used to it, it was not half bad.
I should cancel the replacement of the aide’s office bed after all. Better to finish the investigation quickly with that time. Once we return to the Berk Ducal Residence, I’ll dismiss Philippe Deltang—no. If I dismiss him, he’ll run his mouth outside with delight. And then….
His thoughts continued endlessly until, at some point, they simply snapped off.
The man fell into an astonishingly deep sleep.
Held in the arms of his fake wife.
Morning.
Noel opened the door to the bedroom attached to the office and tilted his head.
“I’ll sleep in the bedroom beside the office, so strengthen the guard.”
The intention Curtis had relayed yesterday through the sentry had been simple and clear.
It seemed, however, that he had not actually followed through on it.
The broad bed in the office bedroom was, for some reason, a mess. And the person who should have been wide awake as though he had never slept at all, nagging, “The sun is already high,” was nowhere to be found.
“Um, Second Lieutenant Monfis.”
Meanwhile, the sergeant standing sentry in front of the office called to him with cold sweat on his brow.
Noel turned his head. The sergeant he had asked to wake Chloe was standing in front of the aide’s office door, calling him over in a strangely hushed voice.
“Could you please do something about this…?”
He looked oddly desperate. For a moment, Noel wondered if Curtis was in the middle of discussing something with the Grand Duchess and the man simply did not dare interrupt.
Noel narrowed his eyes and poked his head through the door the sergeant had opened.
Then—click.
He immediately withdrew and shut the door.
Rather than doubt what he had seen, he quickly turned around and gave the sergeant an order.
“I’ll be working in the officer lounge. When the two of them wake, send word to the officer lounge.”
“Pardon? Me?”
The sergeant looked ready to cry.
Then should I wake them?
Instead of saying that, Noel smiled broadly.
“And don’t mention that I came by.”