Now, let’s play the memory game.
What was the original reason I decided to come to the Nightfellow villa?
Was it to ask Derek to be my fake boyfriend? No.
It was to learn more about what Duke Kihlgren looked like when he was younger. That’s where we have to start.
I asked Derek if he could show me the portrait of Duke Kihlgren, and thus, hanging before me now was that portrait. We were in a long hallway on the second floor of the villa, and this was one of the portraits that adorned the walls.
For a hallway, it certainly was vacant. Derek probably ordered his servants to keep away. It was just me, Derek, and Klifford, but that was a good thing. It gave me a chance to really get a long look at the painting. I closed Blackfeather and looked up at the large portrait.
I used to walk down this hallway all the time when I frequented this villa, but I guess I always breezed past this painting without giving it a glance… After all, I had no memory of the name of the painting or who it was a painting of. At the time, I probably thought it was just a painting of some random old duke in the family.
The Kihlgren in this painting…how old was he? He died in his eighties, so maybe he’s around that age. And as for the features I would associate with that mysterious young man…the hair and eye color maybe? Definitely not the spitting image of him.
If somebody told me, “This painting is him!” Well…I guess I’d sort of see the resemblance?
“Lord Derek, you never met Duke Kihlgren, I take it?” I asked Derek as we stared at the painting. I remembered him telling me before that he had only seen paintings of the man, but I just wanted to double-check.
“That’s right, I never met him. My father’s the only one who has.”
“Not Lady Lucinda?”
Derek shook his head. “I asked my mother the same question, and she said no.”
Lucinda never met him, either? That struck me as odd. Then again, I hadn’t met Edgar’s parents until a couple days ago. Maybe there was a special reason…
“I think it was my father’s will to keep her away from him,” Derek added, as if he’d read my mind.
“What makes you think that?”
“My father despises any situation that will put my mother in danger.”
Well, of course! He’s a devoted husband!
“Since he wouldn’t let my mother meet someone he knew, it had to be for that reason.”
For…“that reason”?
“He thought it would put my mother in danger to meet Kihlgren, so it was best to keep them apart—that’s the sense I got from it.”
“Are you saying Duke Kihlgren was a bad person?”
“…” Derek put a hand to his chin in thought.
“No. At least, I’ve never heard any bad rumors about him from anybody in the family. King Enoch interacted with Duke Kihlgren frequently before he married. I even heard that the late duke relied on him much more than the former king.”
That…can’t be true, can it?
That was my sincere impression. My father couldn’t have possibly been friends with Duke Kihlgren. If he was, he never would have reacted the way he did…
“What about after he was married?”
Derek shook his head. “I’m not sure. All I know is that they saw each other much less often. I looked into it but could find nothing.”
So they used to be friends, but they had a falling out? That would explain why my father seemed uncomfortable when Duke Kihlgren’s name came up.
But one thing remained uncertain—whether or not Duke Kihlgren truly resembled Rust and that mysterious young man.
“Kihlgren is deceased. Rust Byrne looks like my uncle…your great-uncle. The spitting image of him, when he was young. It was almost…as if he had come back from the dead.”
It all started with that confession from my father.
“Lord Derek, what about the painting of Duke Kihlgren when he was young?”
I remember him saying he saw it once, but that it was gone. He also said he would look for it.
“I haven’t found it yet…” Derek turned just his face toward me and said, “I have a question to ask you. Yesterday, did you say something to my father? Not pertaining to the survey, that is.”
“Yes… I asked him if he knew what Duke Kihlgren looked like when he was young.”
“So I was right.” Derek nodded to himself. I shot him a questioning glance. Then Derek smiled and said, “I’ll amend my former statement. I haven’t found the painting yet, but I do know where it is. I think it’s probably—”
But then he stopped midsentence. He looked at Klifford, then exhaled loudly.
“Princess Octavia—I wish to avoid another junior ball mishap, so could you please tell Alderton not to be on guard?”
Junior ball mishap? Which one? There were so many…
“I will show one of my reserve daggers now, and not with the intent of attacking you, Princess. I need it.”
Oh, so that’s the junior ball mishap! The one where Derek had a weapon and Klifford stood protectively in front of me!
But as far as I could tell, Derek wasn’t carrying a longsword now…
“You arm yourself even at the villa, Lord Derek?”
Isn’t this, like, your home? I would totally just let it all hang out. And wait, he said “one of” his reserve daggers, so that means he’s got two, right?
“You never know what might happen.” Derek gave a cool smile. Too cool, almost?
A glance at Klifford revealed his hand was on his own sword hilt.
All the pieces just came together.
It was okay that Derek was carrying right now. Klifford and I both determined at the junior ball that he was safe. The issue was his reaching to take out his weapon, just like with the guard in the dungeon. And, in the guard’s case, Klifford made him show what he had in his possession.