The Saintess Hates the Grand Duke (2)
The air around Adele had changed in a great many ways. If I had to put it into words, I'd say she had come to resemble the Adele I once knew in the past. Of course, she couldn't be entirely the woman she'd been back then. In the rounds before this one, Adele and I had already spent a great deal of time together — unless she somehow recalled all of it, this Adele was bound to be different.
Adele touched down lightly from the direwolf's back, and her eyes came to rest on Adrian and me. Still wrapped firmly around my arm, Adrian gave a faint shudder of the shoulders the moment she sensed the Grand Duke drawing near. Adele watched the two of us in silence for a moment, then let out a short, incredulous laugh and spoke.
"Since when have the two of you been close enough to cling to each other like that?"
"Robert is helping me. As you know, I can't see."
"Then surely a light hand would do. There seems no need to be holding his arm like that... like a lover, if I may say."
"...I-It's dark, that's all. It's dangerous."
At the word dangerous, Adele huffed a small laugh, then turned her gaze on me and narrowed her eyes. It was the face of someone displeased about something. And whenever she wore that particular expression, some troublesome situation had a way of unfolding for me.
Left as things were, I had no way of guessing what she might say next, so it seemed wiser to address her first.
"It has been some time, Grand Duke. I never imagined you would come all this way from the North."
"Well, I did expect you'd be doing well for yourself. It seems I've interrupted you doing a little too well."
"Adrian and I are merely friends. I'm holding her like this only to help her walk."
"Friends. A fine excuse."
Jeering as she was, she didn't seem especially ill-disposed toward seeing me again. I gathered that whatever business had brought her this far concerned the letter I had sent — she was simply keeping quiet about it with Adrian present. The grip on my arm had tightened a touch, as though to declare that I would not be taken from her. When I smiled faintly at that, Adele, who had been watching me steadily, twitched a brow.
"Still, there's no need for it to be you doing the helping. Wouldn't you say?"
With long, unhurried strides she came over, lightly pried Adrian off of me, and then — settling Adrian's hand upon her own arm — smiled with a gentle warmth. It all happened in the span of Adrian's flustered "uh, um—", and by the time she realized that what her hand had come to rest on was Adele's arm, her mouth hung open in blank astonishment.
"G-Grand Duke?"
"I will help her instead. A man and a woman clinging to each other like this would hardly be proper for the Saintess either. Isn't it better for women to keep company with women?"
"That may well be, but..."
Displeasure showed plainly on her face, yet she seemed unable to summon a fitting rebuttal. I knew well enough that Adrian found Adele burdensome — the earlier correspondence, among other things, had left her with a wary impression of the woman. Even so, Adele was not as bad a person as one might imagine. Left to spend time together like this, the two of them might even come to like each other.
"Robert? Robert?"
Adrian called out pitifully, but Adele's gaze, fixed unblinkingly on me, was too fierce for her to approach. It was the look of someone promising no mercy to the first hand that interfered. Sorry as I felt, there was nothing to be done. If anything, it might be for the best to hope the two of them grew close.
"I look forward to your kind cooperation, Saintess. After all, we shall be together until the very end of this southern expedition."
"...Pardon? No, wait just a moment— did I mishear you?"
"No. How could you possibly have?"
Adele walked off beside Adrian wearing a bright grin, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. Would "a child with a new toy" be a fitting description? That smile of hers was unsettling, and yet it carried, somehow, a strange sense of reassurance. It was a feeling I had always known in Adele's company. I had assumed it came from being in the North — but perhaps the true source of that feeling was Adele herself.
"You seem to have a gift for wearing people out."
"I do hear that said of me from time to time."
"...That was not a compliment."
Adrian, who had only just managed to free herself, looked thoroughly spent. Clasping Robert's hand feebly, she stroked the back of it and let out a small, weary breath. It wasn't her body that had given out — she was simply worn down by the woman's manner. Adele, for her part, had escorted Adrian quite admirably, all things considered. Her pace, her constant checking lest the blind woman meet with difficulty — was there a single fault to find? It was true she had treated her a touch mischievously, but for two people who had come out to greet her wrapped around each other, it was an appropriate response. It wasn't as though anyone was being mocked — and yet there they'd been, putting on that display the moment they came out to receive her.
She had half a mind to say something to Robert as well, but with the memories she carried in her head, finding the words for him was not so easy. What she had taken for a mere dream had in truth been a memory. Some part of her sensed it was only a fragment, and yet the feelings she had harbored within that memory were much the same as the ones she held now. If anything, they ran deeper — which made the whole affair complicated in more ways than one.
Had Adrian not been standing there, she would have raised the matter with him at once. Instead, Adele's gaze drifted toward the Saintess. She found it doubtful that a woman of such holy standing ought to be hanging off a man in that fashion. She knew Robert kept no female attendants to speak of, but that did nothing to quiet the odd feeling stirring in her chest. Sickly and slender as her face was, forever draped in shadow, it was hardly an unlovely one. No — if anything, beautiful would be the more honest word.
Not that she felt any pull toward that face. But she was well aware that women had been circling Robert with growing frequency of late. The Princess was one thing, and now the Saintess as well? Adele tallied them up and laughed wryly. She couldn't yet claim to know their exact hearts, but instinct was instinct. To think two fish had already been taken in the net Robert had cast — though Adele did not count herself among them. This was less a matter of being snared than of an old emotion rising from memories long buried.
She had not recalled everything of the time she had spent with Robert. Only a few of the heavier pieces remained, and even those she did not know down to the finest detail. They were memories stirred loose by his letter, and she had come all this way on nothing more than a vague conviction that she had to face him.
...And yet, now that she stood before him, she could not think what to say first. It was good to see him — but there was far too much to say. What the memories she had recovered meant, what the words in that letter signified, what on earth he had meant by telling her not to meet the Crown Prince. The trouble was that, from first to last, none of it made sense. Robert carried too many secrets that belonged to him alone. It had always been so, and even within her own recovered memories the secrets remained plentiful. But surely he could tell her a little more by now. The two of them were hardly ordinary acquaintances.
"I hear the reason you came all this way was Robert."
The voice scattered her thoughts. It was the Saintess, who had been watching her with particular care for some time now. It was because of Robert, that much was true — still, she would need some manner of excuse. Adele had not forgotten the expression Robert had worn as he looked at her earlier. He had seemed faintly troubled, which suggested her letter was the source of it. She had known the thing read bluntly even as she wrote it, but there had been no call to make him uncomfortable.
She knew perfectly well why the Saintess had come here. Something about dealing with the mages in the South, if she remembered rightly. The North had its own stake in that matter, so it would be a stretch to claim she was entirely uninvolved.
"If I must be precise, it is because I have need of investigating the mages. They exist in the North as well."
"...Then the letter?"
"Robert has business with me as well. I simply neglected to write down either matter."
The excuse proved sufficient. Adrian, who had been studying Adele's face, soon gave a small nod, as though satisfied. In truth, she had no real need to press further. Even if the Grand Duchess had come to see Robert, it was no concern of hers. And yet... she was curious. Why, out of all the people gathered here, had Adele singled Robert out by name? Adrian was likely the only person alive who had read Robert's past. Having witnessed the bond between Adele and Robert within that memory, she knew as well that the two were entangled by far more threads than anyone might guess. It would have been easier if she could see faces — gazing into a person's inner self alone revealed little in the way of detail.
She had scarcely sunk into that musing when Adele turned her lips toward Robert.
"Could I see you for a moment later? There's something I want to say."
"That's quite all right with me."
"I don't intend to drag it out. There are just a few things I'd like to ask — you can come by my room."
"As you say."
Robert, carried along by the conversation's effortless flow, didn't seem to notice — but Adrian took no small dislike to the way Adele spoke to him, as though issuing orders. She understood the difference in their stations. Even so — before, and now alike — was Robert not at her side at this very moment? Was it truly right to handle him like some adjutant of hers? This was no simple surge of righteousness on her part; it was a question of right and wrong. She knew as well as anyone that Adele and Robert each found the other's company easy — she had read it in their hearts, felt the quiet steadiness that settled over the two of them whenever they spoke.
Before she knew it, her brow had creased, and a curt voice slipped out between those small lips.
"Robert is not a thing."
She startled even herself with the words. Never in her life had she spoken in such a voice. The tone that was always gentle, kind to everyone, had come out edged with steel — and aimed at Adele alone. Yet she felt no particular urge to take it back. Robert was her friend. And in Adrian's view, if someone treated a friend that way, it was only right that anyone should step forward as she had.
"...Ha ha."
It was Adele, naturally, who burst into laughter at those words. Robert regarded Adrian with a somewhat bewildered look, but her expression was grave enough that he could tell some misunderstanding had taken root. She had evidently concluded there was a problem with Adele's conduct. The instant he moved to say as much, Adele raised a hand to stop him and spoke slowly.
"I hardly think of Robert as a thing. I am merely curious what it was you saw, that you would say so."
"I am aware you have spoken to Robert as though giving orders, ever since you sent that letter. He may have served as your adjutant in the North, but here he is my friend and a comrade of the Paladins, and I would ask that you acknowledge as much. Grand Duke though you may be, you may not treat a friend of the Saintess with such disregard."
"I see. Friends, is it."
As Adele gave a slow nod, the smile caught at the corner of her mouth filled Robert with a nameless unease. What, exactly, was that smile meant to convey? Chuckling softly, Adele turned her gaze upon Adrian.
For some time now, it had grated on her to hear this woman style herself and Robert close. She wouldn't go so far as to call their positions alike... but surely there existed a pecking order among women, all the same. Friend — well, fine, a convenient word to hide behind. Because what she and Robert shared was something a shade too near to be called mere friendship. Summoning her own memories as proof, Adele revived what Lotos had babbled a few days prior and parted her lips.
"It is true that Robert and I are not friends."
"I'm glad you know it. If you would simply extend Robert a little more courtesy—"
"We are something a little closer than that, in fact. Not long ago, my subordinates were going on about the relationship between Robert and myself. Now, what was it they said... ah."
The corners of her mouth traced a soft arc, settling at last into a smile more bewitching than any she had worn before. It was the expression she always put on in the moments before saying something troublesome. As light as a prank, her lips parted beneath that perfectly unbothered smile.
"Robert is — now, what was it — my lover, was that it?"
Clack. In that instant, the teacup in Adrian's hands rattled violently against its saucer. Even those eyes, forever closed, cracked open a sliver, and in their transparent depths — pupils that could hold not so much as a glimmer of light — a single unmistakable emotion took shape. For that emotion was, unmistakably, consternation. Adele, cradling her own teacup all the while, smiled faintly.