Chapter 9
Ian had been taciturn and emotionally restrained since childhood.
He could easily defeat just about anyone, so he had never had much interest in other people, either.
Everyone except Annabelle Nadit wanted to be close to him. Because of that, he had never really lacked for anything, nor had there been anyone he desperately needed.
Other people praised Ian for being exceptional, but the Duke and Duchess of Wadeiros knew about the shadows that followed their son’s brilliance.
His indifference and taciturn nature came from never needing anything from others because he was so capable himself.
He possessed all the common sense and refinement expected of a noble, but with that came a coldness that made it difficult for him to acknowledge other people’s shortcomings.
Leslie had never considered any of that a problem, but she had occasionally wondered whether the Wadeiros family might end with Ian’s generation without an heir.
Of course, even if her son chose to remain single until the end of his life, there was nothing she could do about it. It was his choice.
After all, she herself had been an absolute believer in remaining single until she met the Duke of Wadeiros.
But Ian, who always wore the same expression and seemed indifferent to everything, had actually been huffing and fuming like that!
“Mother, why have you suddenly become interested in Annabelle? You never cared about her before.”
“I just thought she was a girl throwing a tantrum because her inferiority complex toward you had exploded. I considered her nothing more than an annoying obstacle in your path.”
“You understand her perfectly.”
Ian gave a hollow laugh and folded his arms.
“And what do you mean by an interesting conversation? What could you possibly have wanted to discuss with a woman who still curses me?”
“Those curses were rather cute, though.”
Leslie teased him.
“I might have to secretly send Aaron in while you’re taking a bath today.”
“That curse really went too far. I absolutely cannot tolerate it.”
Ian irritably ran a hand through his hair.
“Once this swordsmanship tournament is over, there won’t be any reason for us to remain involved with each other. I’ll just endure it until then.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
Leslie slowly sipped her tea, smiling mischievously.
Watching her son get so worked up was amusing, but she had also been slightly touched by Annabelle.
She wanted to defeat Ian more than anyone, yet she didn’t want someone else to hurt him.
It was a thought Leslie herself had never been capable of having when she had been in Annabelle’s position.
The spirit of chivalry wasn’t some distant ideal.
It was right there in Annabelle’s sincerity.
“I like that girl.”
“And?”
“What do you think of her?”
“I’m not some pervert who gets excited when someone insults me. There’s no way I would like Annabelle.”
Ian spoke with uncharacteristic agitation, and Leslie merely nodded.
“I see. Well, it can’t be helped. I suppose we’ll each follow our own path.”
“What?”
“Since when have we interfered in each other’s lives so much? It’s perfectly possible for two people to have completely different opinions about the same person.”
Ignoring the anxiety in Ian’s eyes, Leslie continued.
“She was wearing that gray training uniform again today. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her wear anything else. Not during the swordsmanship tournament, nor when I happened to see her at the training grounds last time…”
Ian said nothing.
Looking at her son’s tightly pressed lips, Leslie realized that this oblivious boy had seen Annabelle almost every day and had never once thought about any of these things.
“And she looked so moved by such a simple course meal… She said she had been eating nothing but frozen Iffer meat every day.”
“……”
“Her father, Marquis Abedes, is completely indifferent to her. And as if having lost her mother wasn’t enough, even her only brother is trying to exploit her for everything she’s worth just to line his own pockets…”
Ian stopped fuming.
He sighed once, bid his mother farewell, and left.
Although it had only been for a short while, Leslie felt as though she had seen an astonishing variety of expressions on her son’s face.
Anger, disbelief, embarrassment, and even a hint of discomfort.
This is fun. This is really fun.
To think I would get to see the emotions of my wooden-doll-like Ian bouncing all over the place.
She happily drank her tea before ringing the bell.
Aaron, who had apparently been waiting nearby, entered with an extremely excited expression.
“Lady Leslie.”
Aaron’s deep blue eyes curved playfully.
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I thought Ian ruined everything by showing up at the very end…”
Leslie grinned.
“But in a way, I think it actually became more interesting. It was the most fun I’ve had with Ian since he struggled and fussed because he couldn’t roll over when he was about a hundred days old.”
She continued seriously,
“After that, raising Ian was certainly easy, but it wasn’t very entertaining. He was good at everything and always did things effortlessly.”
“Congratulations, sincerely, on finally finding some entertainment in your son after all these years.”
“In that case, I’d like to give Miss Annabelle a present.”
“A present?”
“Yes. Could you make an appointment with Mrs. Rainfield for me? I want to get that old gray training uniform off her.”
Leslie remembered how Annabelle had devoured her meal.
Her wavy, pale-purple hair, deep blue eyes, delicate features…
She’d be really pretty if she dressed herself up.
As someone who had once wielded a sword herself, Leslie completely understood why Annabelle didn’t care about such things.
But this was simply Leslie indulging her own desires.
The first time Leslie had seen Annabelle was when the girl was fourteen and had entered her first swordsmanship tournament, eventually facing Ian in the final.
In truth, the two of them had been impossible to compare from the very beginning.
Ian was the heir to House Wadeiros, born to two famous swordsmen who had dominated the era.
From a young age, he had learned swordsmanship directly from his father at the training grounds and led the knights.
Annabelle, on the other hand, was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and had learned swordsmanship at a makeshift training ground, constantly having to switch instructors.
When Ian defeated Annabelle, no one thought it strange.
Even Leslie had merely thought that it was impressive enough that Annabelle had managed to place second despite growing up in such circumstances.
In particular, Leslie had never liked Annabelle’s mother, Caitlin.
At the tournament, Caitlin had dressed herself up in all sorts of jewels and expensive dresses while coldly looking down at the young Annabelle in her worn-out training uniform.
She hadn’t even told her daughter that she’d done well. Instead, she had merely sighed.
As though Annabelle had no value whatsoever unless she came in first place.
After Caitlin died, it seemed Rieard had inherited everything and continued abusing Annabelle in exactly the same way.
Still, even by their standards, feeding her nothing but frozen Iffer meat was too much.
For Leslie, who hated being hungry more than anything and hated eating bad food second only to that, it was absolutely horrifying.
That was why Leslie had begun to worry about Annabelle.
“Tomorrow would be perfect. I’ll have some clothes fitted for her and have another meal with her.”
At those words, Aaron awkwardly scratched behind his ear.
“Ah, tomorrow might be difficult.”
“Why? Is everything booked up again? Surely you can make an hour available if I ask.”
“No.”
Aaron answered with an unusually serious expression.
“Tomorrow is the anniversary of my older sister’s death.”
Leslie let out a soft “Ah” and clasped her hands together.
“Then, of course, we’ll have to schedule it for another day. Naturally.”
Oscar and his wife had had a daughter who passed away shortly after birth.
If she had lived, she would probably have been the same age as Ian.
So tomorrow is her memorial day.
Leslie toyed with her teacup.
Ian stood in the shower with his lips tightly pressed together.
He was doing it to make sure he didn’t accidentally hum or sing.
If his mother were involved, she was more than capable of sending Aaron over.
And if Aaron were involved, he was exactly the sort of person who would teach the lyrics Ian happened to hum to the squires at the training grounds, form a choir, and make them sing it as a round every morning.
After carefully finishing his shower, Ian was especially cautious around the threshold, walking lightly on his toes.
What on earth am I doing?
He hadn’t cared even when Annabelle had hurled much worse insults at him.
But lately, her words kept circling around in his head.
“Oh, you scared me.”
Wearing his robe, he saw a pigeon sitting on the windowsill and inexplicably became irritated.
“Get out of here right now!”
The pigeon stared at him as if he were ridiculous, flapped its wings, and eventually flew away.
Ian lay down on his bed and sighed again.
In the end, he hadn’t been able to ask why she had warned him about the danger at Hibiscus.
His conversation with Leslie had caused the matter to get brushed aside.
“…It’s unfair, isn’t it? Because I’m Ian’s only opponent! The only person who should be allowed to hurt that damn Ian Wadeiros is Annabelle Nadit!”
Did she really feel that way?
Could someone hate another person so much that they didn’t even want someone else to hurt them?
He thought about it seriously before letting his imagination take him in another direction.
The person Ian Wadeiros hated the most was, naturally, Annabelle Nadit.
If he didn’t hate that woman, then he wasn’t a normal person.
But suppose Annabelle Nadit were injured by someone else.
Suppose she got caught up in some pointless terrorist attack and suffered a serious injury…
“…No.”
Annabelle would be seriously injured.
Then she wouldn’t be able to fight him properly.
For example, just as he hadn’t been able to target Annabelle’s back when she was injured.
Ah. I see.
Ian easily accepted the conclusion.
People really do need to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Believing that he had perfectly understood Annabelle’s psychology, Ian was about to settle comfortably into bed when he heard something tapping lightly against the window.
It was another pigeon.
“No, that damn pigeon again…”
He irritably opened the window to chase it away, but the pigeon looked at him with an expression of utter disdain and extended one of its legs.
Ah.
It wasn’t an ordinary pigeon.
It was a carrier pigeon.
And there was only one person who would send him a carrier pigeon like this.
Prince Robert.
“Be sure to bring Miss Annabelle to our next meeting. We should probably change the location. I’ve made a reservation for Table 3 at the Red Brick House.”
Ian read the note several times.
The pigeon pecked at the back of his hand as if asking why he wasn’t writing a reply.
He bit his lower lip and wrote one.
“I’ll see you then. Annabelle Nadit rarely listens to anything I say, so I don’t know whether I’ll be able to bring her. It would probably be better to assume that I won’t be able to.”
After tying the reply to the pigeon’s leg and sending it away, he irritably lay back down on his bed.
He continued to feel uneasy.
Come to think of it, he had probably felt this way ever since Annabelle had saved him during the High Priest’s escort.
