Chapter 8

“Lord Dwight seems to be a very sensitive individual.”

Late that night in Elwin’s bedroom, Toby prattled away as he smoothed the bedding. Several days had already slipped by since the guests arrived at the count’s estate, marking the sixth night of their stay. Among the household staff, opinions of their three visitors had already begun to solidify.

Naturally, it was hardly proper for a servant to gossip about guests before the master of the house, but Elwin and Toby shared no such rigid boundaries. Toby possessed a terribly loose tongue, and because Elwin required intelligence on their visitors, his attendant eagerly relayed every morsel of gossip.

Incomprehensibly, the servants’ favorite guest was, without question, Leon. He treated the maids with a smooth, teasing gallantry, and they apparently derived tremendous enjoyment from his flirtations. When Elwin heard these reports, he creaked his brow in disapproval.

“Should I reprimand Mr. Leon?” Elwin mused, looking troubled. “What if the innocent maids get their feelings hurt?”

Toby paused his folding to cast a look that clearly said, You are the innocent one, young master. “There is probably no need, sir. Anyone can see he is merely being lighthearted, so the maids enjoy the banter freely without taking it to heart. More than anything, a handsome gentleman is jesting with them. That is rather pleasant, is it not? Pleasure without responsibility.”

A woman’s heart was truly difficult to fathom. If that was the consensus, perhaps Elwin was the sole soul who disapproved of Leon’s rakish behavior. He genuinely found the man infuriating; merely contemplating the return of the handkerchief made him shudder.

Because Selena’s comment about returning the handkerchief with perfume had unsettled him, Elwin had asked the most stylish maid the previous morning to lend him a bottle. He, of course, owned no such fragrances. After hearing the circumstances, the maid had giggled.

“Young master, sprinkling perfume on a borrowed handkerchief before returning it is an expression of romantic interest,” she had teased. “Whose handkerchief did you borrow?”

Good heavens. Elwin, who had nearly been coaxed by Selena into making a grave error, hastily dismissed the maid. Not long afterward, when he encountered Leon in the second-floor corridor, Elwin held out the silk with a dignified air, freshly laundered and nothing more.

“This is the handkerchief you lent me,” Elwin said, offering a stiff nod. “Thank you. I made good use of it.”

“Not at all. I am honored it was of help to the young lord.”

Leon offered his polished courtesy and moved to slip the fabric into the inner pocket of his jacket. Then, as if something struck him as odd, he flinched and brought the silk close to his face. Watching the man inhale the fabric, Elwin inwardly snorted.

“You need not worry,” Elwin said. “I did not sprinkle perfume on it.”

“You did not sprinkle perfume on it?”

“No.” Elwin lifted his chin, asserting his dignity. “Between you and me, Mr. Leon, that seems far more appropriate. Is there some problem?”

He spoke firmly, projecting absolute disinterest. Yet Leon’s reaction was strangely disproportionate. Elwin had expected him to smile like a slippery serpent and deflect with a joke, but the man seemed genuinely flustered, a faint redness blooming on his cheeks.

“Between you and me, Sir Elwin?” Leon murmured.

“Yes. Returning a handkerchief with perfume on it is an expression of interest… is it not?”

The atmosphere shifted into something heavy and strange. Elwin could not tell whether the Alpha was wounded by his blunt declaration of disinterest or if he had committed some other faux pas. At Elwin’s hesitant question, Leon replied with an unreadable smile.

“In relationships where romantic feelings pass between two people, yes, that is usually so.”

“Yes. That is why I—”

“But between an Alpha and an Omega, it carries another meaning entirely,” Leon interrupted, his voice dropping an octave. “When an object kept close to the body is returned without any perfume at all…”

Leon buried his nose in the handkerchief and savored the scent for a lingering moment. In his amber eyes, which gazed steadily at Elwin, a subtle flame seemed to flicker. “It allows one to feel the other person’s scent exactly as it is.”

Selena, being a beta, apparently had not known that crucial detail. Elwin was so startled by the revelation that he nearly forgot to restrain his pheromones, his natural scent threatening to spill out into the corridor.

“Th-that is not what I meant! That is not… Give it back!” Elwin stammered.

“No, this is my handkerchief.”

Flustered, Elwin lunged to snatch the cloth back. But that infuriating man took one long step backward, wearing a slick, shameless smile. Elwin wanted nothing more than to retrieve the damned handkerchief, soak it in every perfume in existence, and shove it back into the rake’s hands, but Leon showed no sign of surrendering it easily. Breathing hard, his face flushed crimson, Elwin delivered one unconvincing command before fleeing.

“Then throw that handkerchief away! You must!”

How ridiculous must he have looked, scurrying off as if his tail were on fire? Even thinking back on it made Elwin’s mind go faint. Ever since the guests arrived at the manor, he seemed to keep committing one loose-screwed blunder after another. Now that he was attempting to leap into the romantic battlefield—a realm he had ignored his entire life—everything creaked horribly out of alignment.

He wished there existed a book that explained, in exhaustive detail, the subtle matters between people. If it were something one could learn from a text, he would not be wandering so blindly.

Forget what has passed. It would be better to keep as much distance from Mr. Leon as possible. He really does seem strange.

Elwin forcefully erased Leon’s existence from his mind.

After Leon, the guest most liked by the servants was Selena. Though somewhat capricious, she was cheerful and friendly, earning from the maids the assessment that she was so easygoing one could forget she was a noble. Even Elwin, who had initially worried about her relationship with Dwight, had grown rather fond of her over the past few days. The reason was none other than his beloved younger sister, Eleanor.

That afternoon, following a piano performance in the drawing room, Eleanor had visited Elwin’s office, her face unusually serious.

“Um, Brother. I have something to tell you. It is important.”

In Elwin’s eyes, his little sister still looked like a baby toddling on uncertain feet. He smiled fondly at her. “Yes, Eleanor. What is it?”

“May I invite Miss Selena to my room?”

Elwin was greatly shocked. His younger sister, who until the day before yesterday had seemed like an infant, was now requesting to issue an invitation like a grown lady. When he stared blankly, unable to answer, Eleanor shifted, almost stamping her feet.

“Please allow it, Brother. Miss Selena said she would like to come.”

Astonishment layered upon astonishment, Elwin asked, “You have already discussed it with Miss Selena?”

“…Yes. I am sorry I did not tell you first.”

“No, the part I am curious about is how you succeeded in inviting her.”

To invite someone to a social gathering entirely on her own! Perhaps his little sister was the member of the House of Count Ravenwell with the greatest social finesse after all. When Elwin asked for her secret, Eleanor answered shyly.

“Miss Selena asked whether we had a harp in the house. So when I met her in the corridor earlier, I told her that although I do not have a real harp in my room, I have a pretty music box that sounds like one. I invited her to come for tea next time.”

Elwin’s mouth fell open in even greater surprise. He nearly cried, Eleanor, you are truly talented! His little sister had worked so hard. How could he possibly refuse? He granted permission and extended the same invitation to Selena. Afterward, Selena visited Eleanor’s room a couple of times, spending long stretches chatting with the girl. Since she had become a companion for lonely Eleanor, Elwin could not help but feel grateful.

Leon was a handsome man whose lightness was enjoyable, and Selena was a surprisingly easygoing young lady. In the end, the guest the servants found most difficult was Dwight. This was partly because he would eventually become the master of the manor, but it was also unavoidable when he remained utterly silent from beginning to end, wearing nothing but a frigid expression.

If Toby was bringing the matter up, something must have happened again between the staff and Dwight.

“Why? What did Mr. Dwight do?”

“It was nothing serious.” Toby smoothed out a wrinkle in the sheets. “Apparently, he became angry with the maid who went to clean his room. Until yesterday, he had explicitly asked for a water bottle to be placed on the side table, but today he snapped, claiming it was dangerous to put a glass bottle there.”

“Ah…”

“They say he was extremely irritated. Oddly enough, before he went to the drawing room in the afternoon, he seemed to be in an unusually good mood. I wonder if something happened in between.”

At those words, Elwin’s heart gave a guilty jolt, but he kept his mouth shut. Toby, sharp-eyed as ever, caught on without needing an answer.

“Young master, were you not sitting across from Lord Dwight in the drawing room during teatime today?”

Elwin remained stubbornly silent.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Young master, you made Lord Dwight angry, didn’t you?”

Just as Toby suspected, Elwin had caused the entire affair. But there had been no malice in his actions whatsoever. Just as his father had once given his mother flowers for one hundred consecutive days, Elwin had simply wanted to discover what Dwight liked and accommodate him.

***