Episode 58
Damian leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Having seen it so many times, even with his eyes closed, that face still floated before him.
Odile’s face. To be precise, the face of the child named Swan.
‘I’ve never met her.’
Even just through the portrait, he could sense what kind of personality she might have had.
Surely she must have been lovely. The sunlight shimmering in the still life was enough for me to feel it.
Moreover, the child in the painting was very beautiful. Looking at Odile now, she might have been stunning, but Damian had no interest in that girl. He was curious about only one thing.
‘When will Lillie give up?’
He thought he had truly overcome it this time.
Unconsciously, Damian slowly clenched his empty right hand. It felt vividly recent as if Lillian’s hand had just been in it. At that moment, Damian read the trembling pupils of Lillian. Surely in them, there must have been a desire to confide everything to him and to find comfort. And rightly so, as Damian had been perfectly assuming the role of an ideal comforter.
But in the end, Lillian ran away beyond the line. Swan was the one holding the line. Lillian might think Damian knows nothing, but Damian knew everything.
‘Was this not enough?’
Damian rolled his eyes slowly and finally closed them.
‘If only you had worn the bracelet, Lillian…’
I’m tired of waiting now.
* * *
The next day.
Lillian and Theo stood in front of a building.
“Hey, do we really have to do this?”
“Yeah.”
“I feel like we’ll get into big trouble if the Duke catches us…”
“If you’re scared, you can go back.”
“Then I’ll get twice the scolding alone, damn it!”
Theo muttered curses under his breath, but Lillian didn’t bat an eye.
“So are you going or not? Are you going to say something?”
“I’m going! I said I’m going!”
“Good.”
Lillian pulled her hunting cap down firmly. The two of them were disguised. As nobility and a servant.
Except this time, Lillian wasn’t a noble. Theo was the one disguised as a noble.
Theo wore expensive shoes to match. All stolen from Cedric’s belongings, of course, thanks to Lillian’s initiative. How on earth did this kid get so used to stealing from noble ladies’ houses? Theo was puzzled, but upon reflection, he remembered that even when Lillian left the orphanage, she had rifled through the director’s office, concluding that she had been different from the start.
“I’m not sure if this is right, I…”
“Why? It suits you perfectly.”
“Well, yes, but…”
Even in Theo’s eyes, he looked very handsome in Cedric’s suit. With such a good physique, he looked good in any clothes, but wearing such an expensive suit for the first time left a deep impression.
The problem was that this was Cedric’s clothes. A squire stealing his master’s clothes!
“How on earth did you steal this?”
“I said I wanted to give Dad’s clothes as a gift. It’s hard to check the measurements one by one, so I just asked for a set up to the shoes. So all I have to do is wear them and put them back as they were.”
“Hey, you’re smart…”
Is this how a lady behaves too? Theo genuinely admired her.
But Lillian remained expressionless, adjusting her clothes.
“How do I look? Does it look natural?”
Lillian tied her long hair and wore a loose shirt to look like a boy.
“If you modulate your voice a bit, you might look like a boy.”
“No, I don’t think… I won’t look like one.”
Too beautiful to be one.
He couldn’t bring himself to say anything further. Who on earth would see such a pretty girl as a boy?
But Lillian had long ignored Theo’s opinion.
“Enough, let’s go in. You’re Philip Kyeong, and I’m Joseph. Got it?”
“Yeah, Joseph.”
“Our goal is to sit at the table with Count Napier. Either you or me.”
“Got it, got it.”
“Let’s go.”
With Lillian’s firm words, the cheerful jingle of the shop’s bell rang out.
Amidst the noisy atmosphere of the shop, a shop assistant approached and politely asked,
“Hello, sir. Which table can I escort you to?”
“Blackjack.”
This was a gambling den.
Lillian came here to meet Count Napier.
***
Agnes Napier Maynard.
Or, Lady Maynard.
Lillian came to a conclusion after careful consideration.
‘Lady Maynard, you must have known something.’
She was sure she would provide a clue to solving this problem.
In fact, Lillian had been thinking that Lady Maynard might know something for a long time. As she had noted in her diary, there were many suspicious points about her that couldn’t be simply ignored. Why did she tell them not to look for the child? How could she alone have known that the child had been kidnapped?
‘Perhaps Lady Maynard knew something after all.’
If she knew why the child was kidnapped, then telling them not to look for her would make sense.
And in the current situation, there was only one way to find out about Lady Agnes.
That was to visit her father, Count Napier.
Lillian had no intention of leaving all the searching to Damian.
‘I can’t trust Damian.’
Distrust. That was the reason why Lillian didn’t confide everything to Damian and decided to act on her own. There were parts of Damian’s behavior that Lillian couldn’t fully understand, such as why she couldn’t trust him. Perhaps it was for reasons like this.
‘Damian might lie for my sake, out of concern for me.’
She didn’t need white lies. She needed someone who would bring her the truth, even if it meant risking their own life.
In that sense, Lillian couldn’t trust Damian, and ultimately, it meant she had to act on her own.
So Lillian decided to visit Count Napier herself.
Until now, there had been no relationship between Count Napier and Maynard, but fortunately, when Count Napier appeared at Lillian’s birthday party, Lillian had a chance to bring up the topic of Count Napier.
This time, the target of her strategy was Stefan.
“Stefan, there’s talk about this Count Napier who came to my birthday party. He’s supposed to be my grandfather. Is it true?”
“…On paper, yes, but he’s someone you won’t have anything to do with. Don’t worry about it too much.”
“If he’s my grandfather, why wouldn’t I have anything to do with him? What do you mean?”
“That man is a very despicable person. He’s just a Count in name; he squandered the estate on gambling and hasn’t come to his senses, losing everything at the gambling table. I’ve heard he even goes up to the capital and still lives bound to the gambling den. So, you won’t have anything to do with such a person.”
Stefan seemed quite shaken by the accumulated resentment towards Count Napier. Thanks to this, Lillian was able to obtain some trivial information about him. From stories of him being absorbed in blackjack and squandering the estate, to the fact that his reappearance this time was undoubtedly another scheme to obtain gambling funds.
“Thank you, Stefan.”
Thanks to him, Lillian was able to easily find the gambling den where Count Napier was staying.
The problem was what to do next.
How to naturally extract information from Count Napier once approached.
In the end, after much consideration, Lillian’s chosen method was to gamble directly. If she became a gambler, she could naturally approach Count Napier.
Fortunately, Lillian had enough money.
“Even though I had to break my piggy bank…”
Lillian received one gold coin per month. And she had saved and accumulated it as much as possible. Someday, when all the truth was revealed, she had thought to hand over the money she had saved as a minimum repayment for the debt she had incurred here. And ten percent of that had just been devoured by Theo.
“Philip, you’re really bad at blackjack.”
“…It’s difficult.”
“Haha, sir, you’re very generous.”
Thanks to Theo’s help, the dealer who won against him and took his money was smiling happily.
Lillian glanced to the side. She had purposely chosen a seat right next to Count Napier, but he seemed uninterested in this side, perhaps because he wasn’t doing well in the game, and focused solely on his own game.
This isn’t good.
After hesitating for a moment, Lillian spoke up.
“Can I give it a try too?”
