CFLBF CH 06

“……”

Pitter-patter. The loud sound of rain striking the roof of the carriage echoed all around them.

She really doesn’t mind?

Was it merely a polite word of consolation? Or was she genuinely a little pleased that the two of them had been isolated like this?

The narrow carriage was filled with warm, damp air. Perhaps because the world outside was completely shrouded in mist, the inside of the carriage felt unusually vivid and clear. Cedric could feel the chill from his wet shirt clinging to his body, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off Lavinia sitting across from him.

Suppressing the overwhelming anticipation rising inside him, Cedric tightened his grip on the handkerchief of hers that he was holding.

“Actually, I’m rarely this comfortable.”

After thinking for a moment, she answered with a quiet smile.

“…Really?”

Cedric asked eagerly, his heart racing.

Lavinia smiled gently and nodded.

“Yes. I never expected you to help me like this. Actually, I was a little drunk that day, and I regretted it as soon as I woke up this morning. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, especially since Your Grace…”

“Please call me Cedric.”

Cedric hurriedly interrupted to correct her, as though he couldn’t bear hearing that stiff title in the middle of such a conversation.

Lavinia nodded and continued.

“Yes. Especially since Cedric-nim didn’t seem particularly interested in me.”

As she said that, her gaze remained fixed on him, almost as though she were trying to see right through him. It seemed as if she was trying to figure out what his true intentions were.

She really is a clever woman.

Rather than becoming confused in a moment like this, she was throwing out bait to figure out the person in front of her.

Unfortunately, the bait was poorly chosen.

Cedric knew every word she had said was true, yet he was crazy enough to be hurt by it anyway.

He bit his lip and quietly protested.

“I’m not uninterested.”

“……”

“I know I seemed indifferent in the past. I can explain why. But not now. If you… truly become curious about it, Young Lady, I’d like to explain it then.”

“Pardon?”

“Young Lady, you aren’t interested in me right now, are you? You’re only asking out of courtesy or curiosity.”

“Then are you saying that you’re different?”

“That, too, is something I’d like to answer later.”

His rain-soaked green eyes fixed themselves intently on Lavinia, trapping her like the deep shadows of a forest. They looked heated, as though he might pour out everything inside him at any moment, yet at the same time they seemed fragile and precarious, like delicate glass beads.

Lavinia suddenly realized that she had been staring into those eyes for far too long.

“Ah…”

She let out a small exclamation and turned her gaze away.

Her slender arm, stretched out lazily, nearly brushed against Cedric. Lavinia smiled awkwardly and quietly lowered her arm.

It was because Cedric had suddenly recoiled in surprise at even that tiny movement.

Then, realizing that he had once again behaved so awkwardly, he felt humiliated with himself. He forced himself to straighten his back and sit properly.

It was so obvious that, honestly, Lavinia found it a little amusing.

She asked lightly,

“Then what are we supposed to talk about? While the coachman is fixing the wheel.”

“Ah.”

Only then did Cedric realize the fatal mistake he had made.

He had been so desperate to create a situation where he and Lavinia would be completely alone together so that she would fall in love with him that he had never thought about what would happen afterward.

Now that they were actually sitting inside this narrow space together, he had absolutely no idea what kind of ordinary conversation he was supposed to have with her.

His heart was pounding as though it might burst, and his eyes kept being drawn to her pale fingers.

Cedric swallowed nervously and searched through his memories.

The only topics that came to mind were the painfully obvious questions that the young ladies who had once desperately sought his favor used to ask while pretending to be shy.

Back then, he had thought those questions were unbearably boring.

Only now did he realize that they had been desperate attempts to find something—anything—to talk about.

“What kind of… preferences do you have, Young Lady?”

“Isn’t that a little too broad?”

“I’d like to know what you like. Starting with the simplest things. What color you like, what the first thing is that you think about when you open your eyes in the morning. Or…”

He hesitated briefly.

“…whether you dislike sudden rain like today.”

“I’m not sure. I don’t have a particular favorite color, but if I had to choose, perhaps green?”

“Green?”

Cedric asked again, trying his best not to think too much about the fact that his own eyes were green.

He also did his absolute best to ignore the fact that his eyes had earned admiration from countless people.

“Yes. It’s difficult to see greenery in Barkazar. And as for rain… I don’t dislike it. Especially not rain like today. The rain in Nordiel has something romantic about it.”

“…Romantic?”

“In Barkazar, when it rains, it’s practically hell. When rain pours down over scorching volcanic ash, the entire world turns gray, and it becomes difficult even to breathe. But in Nordiel…”

Lavinia’s voice trailed off.

She gently closed her eyes and slightly raised her nose as she breathed in the scent.

The peculiar smell of rain, the scent of wet earth, and the cool fragrance of perfume wafting from Cedric’s damp clothes strangely mingled together.

It was a cold, transparent scent, completely different from the hot, acrid air of her homeland.

Without realizing it, Lavinia leaned toward Cedric to take in the scent.

Cedric’s face turned bright red once again.

It felt as though a part of himself was being drawn into her nose and becoming a part of her.

An indescribable shiver ran through him.

Only belatedly did Lavinia realize that her body had tilted toward Cedric, and she quickly straightened herself.

“What about you, Cedric-nim? What do you like?”

Aware of how close they were inside the narrow carriage, close enough that their knees might touch, Cedric answered very slowly.

“…I like being inside this carriage right now.”

He paused.

“I like it enough to wish the wheel would never be repaired.”

Lavinia’s eyes widened as though she had momentarily been rendered speechless by his blatant confession.

Cedric himself was startled by the words that had slipped out of his mouth and instinctively shrank back.

But this time, he didn’t look away from her.

Then—

Knock, knock.

The sound of someone hitting the wheel came from outside the carriage, followed by the coachman’s voice.

“Your Grace! It’s done! We can move now!”

Cedric felt an overwhelming urge to shut the coachman’s mouth.

With eyes filled with unmistakable disappointment, he turned his gaze toward the closed carriage door.

After that, Cedric truly did his absolute best to court Lavinia.

He had never paid this much attention to another person in his entire life.

Cedric meticulously gathered information about everything—the routes she took, the foods she usually ate, and even the times when she went for walks in the garden of the detached palace.

And then?

“What a coincidence, Young Lady. Truly, what an incredible coincidence.”

Dressed in his finest clothes every time, he would approach her with a surprised expression, pretending that their meeting was completely accidental.

The places varied considerably.

The seat beside hers at social balls and concerts, someone’s private exhibition, a tailor shop, and even something as trivial as the exact same bookshelf section in the library they visited today.

And whenever they happened to meet like that, he would inevitably engineer some minor incident that left the two of them isolated together.

At a ball, he plunged the palace into complete darkness.

On the way back to the imperial palace from an exhibition, he caused her carriage to break down.

At a tailor shop that supposedly accepted only members of the royal family as customers, he deliberately tangled up the reservation system so that the two of them would be summoned at the same time.

Thanks to that, he even discovered that the dress Lavinia would wear to the next ball was blue and changed the color of his own vest accordingly.

It has to look like she matched with me, not Philip.

He repeatedly emphasized this to the owner of the tailor shop, who kept apologizing profusely for accidentally calling both of them in without realizing what was happening.

Thanks to his efforts, when he stood beside Lavinia at the next ball wearing matching colors, he managed to attract quite a few glances and whispers.

Whatever happened, Cedric was willing to do anything as long as he could look like he and Lavinia belonged together that day.

Using magic without permission in the capital was strictly prohibited, but he simply couldn’t help himself if he wanted to create these meticulously planned “coincidences.”

At first, Lavinia seemed to regard their encounters as nothing more than the inevitable result of the social circle being so small.

But later, she seemed to grow suspicious.

She would stare into his eyes thoughtfully, as though trying to read his intentions.

Sometimes, when she spotted him, she would let out a small laugh.

Today was no different.

Cedric spotted Lavinia turning the pages of a book on the other side of the bookshelf and was wondering how he should pretend to notice her when she called out to him first in a low voice.

“Your Grace.”

A moment later, Cedric suddenly appeared around the corner of the bookshelf, as though he had just arrived.

“Oh, Young Lady. You’re here. What an… astonishing coincidence. I happened to become interested in ancient history as well, so I came over here.”

Cedric hurriedly turned the book in his hands the right way around—it had been upside down—and smiled shamelessly.

Lavinia smiled faintly, closed her book, and lightly tapped its cover with her finger.

“What a peculiar coincidence. The book Your Grace was holding just now was about botany.”

“Ah, well…”

Without even looking at it, Cedric shoved the book onto a random shelf.

Lavinia gave a tiny smile that was almost a sigh, then lifted her head.

“So, what’s going to happen this time?”