🌷 🌷 🌷
IN the carriage on the way over to the art museum, Claudio sat silently with his arms folded across his broad chest. Ophelia, feeling awkward in the oppressive silence, did her best to make herself as tiny as she could, pressed into her safe little corner.
“I, um… I’m sorry for causing a commotion back there…” Ophelia said so quietly that it was barely audible.
Claudio’s lapis-lazuli eyes narrowed as he glared at her. “As you should be. I’ve never met someone who needed to be handled so carefully before. Do you always run headfirst into danger like that?”
“Huh?! B-But, um, I rarely go out, and at work my brother always accompanied me…”
“What would you have done if the person who tried to sneak into that building was still lurking somewhere nearby?”
“Uh, um, well… I suppose try to get away…?”
“And you seriously think you could’ve run away from a criminal while shaking so badly you could hardly stand? You have no sense of self-preservation, which is extremely alarming for the people who care about you, I’ll have you know.”
After heaving a massive sigh, Claudio seemed to realize what he’d just said. His mouth twisted in displeasure, and he refolded his arms, then cleared his throat before speaking again.
“…You’re not to do such self-centered things in the future, you hear me?”
“Uh, um…”
“Got it?!”
“Y-Yes!!”
“…But, thanks to you, we discovered those suspicious footprints. Good job.”
Being praised directly after being scolded… was an unusual but strangely effective management style. Ophelia gazed at Claudio with stars in her eyes and was rewarded by the surliest expression she’d ever seen him make.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the art museum. There weren’t many visitors on an ordinary weekday afternoon like this when there weren’t any special exhibits going on. Even so, Claudio made a point of walking just ahead and a bit to the side of Ophelia to block her from the people they passed.
Their visit had been arranged in advance, so the first staff member to catch sight of Claudio hurried over to greet them.
“We’ve been awaiting your arrival, Director. Please allow me to show you around.”
“We haven’t come to look at the art; we’re only here to talk.”
“To… talk?”
The staff member, whose name tag identified him as the museum’s curator, tilted his head to the side in obvious confusion.
Ophelia inched out from behind Claudio, trying to discreetly move to a spot where she could see the curator clearly. Determining the truthfulness of the museum staff’s replies was Ophelia’s primary task today.
“I’ve heard you’ve been receiving a lot of visitors from foreign countries, and I wanted to ask what kinds of people they were,” Claudio said. “And also what they came to see.”
“Visitors from foreign countries… There hasn’t been much increase in the number of visitors who are immediately identifiable as foreigners. However… It’s only a hunch, mind you, but… There seems to have been a drastic increase in those who don’t look much different than our countrymen but who I suspect to be foreigners based on their mannerisms and speech.”
“Essentially, you’re saying that these are foreigners from a very closely related country.”
“I don’t make a habit of questioning our patrons as to their nationality, so I can only surmise based on my instincts, but I believe so.”
“What paintings did these people—”
Before Claudio could finish his sentence, a loud and boisterous group rounded a corner and came into view.
A gaggle of young noblewomen, dressed in vibrantly colored dresses that, despite being the height of fashion, seemed out of place in the subdued, classic environment of the art museum, was walking this way. There was a soldier, presumably a bodyguard, trailing along behind them. The girls were laughing obnoxiously, clustered around one particular young lady with gorgeous, flowing black hair. Once the group got close enough to make out their faces clearly, the black-haired lady suddenly stopped walking.
“Oh, Lord Claudio…”
The woman, who sounded surprised, was Claudio’s fiancée, Stella.
“…Stella.”
“Good day, Lord Claudio. What a coincidence, running into you here. A very happy coincidence, I assure you.” Stella curtsied magnificently, and once she raised her head, her eyes flicked over to Ophelia, who was peeking out from behind the curator. “Oh, and you are… Feeling better, I hope?”
Ophelia rushed to bob an awkward curtsy of her own. “My name is Ophelia Narve. I’m honored you remembered me.”
When Ophelia stiffly rose from her curtsy, one of the young ladies standing behind Stella snorted derisively at her.
“Yes, I’d heard that you were transferred to the Director’s Office as a secretary. …I presume the two of you have come here today on some business for the Ministry of Justice?”
Claudio answered with a simple “Yeah,” then turned to Ophelia. “You go ahead and let the curator show you around the museum. I’ll catch up later.”
“O-Okay.”
Ophelia scuttled backward, as if trying to escape from the eyes of Stella and her entourage. The curator, glancing back and forth between Ophelia and the group of young ladies, finally said, “Very well, then. If you’ll follow me, miss…”
“Yes! Thank you very much.”
Still hesitant to leave Claudio behind, Ophelia obediently turned away from him and followed the curator toward the exhibit hall.
The exhibit hall was gargantuan. The artworks were spaced out with plenty of room between each piece, and a three-seater bench was haphazardly placed in the center of the large room.
The curator, seeing that Ophelia seemed confused about what order the paintings were meant to be viewed in, raised his hand enthusiastically. “You’re free to view the art in whatever order you like, but if you have no particular preference, I’ll introduce everything from oldest to newest. This is the first piece here…”
The curator went on to prove just how qualified he was for his title by carefully explaining each painting in terms simple enough for even an absolute novice like Ophelia to understand and appreciate. His considerate behavior and sincere passion for the arts gradually eased Ophelia’s frayed nerves.
“This is a portrait of an angel delivering a message to Euvtomeus. He is said to be the most beautiful of all Euvtomeus’s angels.”
The angel was striking, with almost translucent platinum hair, skin so white it seemed to have a bluish undertone, and just a touch of vermillion in his cheeks. His beauty was indeed an ethereal sight, but personally, Ophelia thought Claudio and the man named Gian, whom they’d encountered behind the Cathedral, were more beautiful due to the sense of vitality they exuded.
I guess on second thought, Gian wasn’t a ghost after all. He was a living, breathing human. But in that case, it must mean he was lying about something pretty big…
“The display all the way at the end is the focal piece.”
The curator’s voice echoed in the cavernous, empty hall as he called out gently to Ophelia, who’d been lost in her own thoughts. She gave a little gasp, snapping out of her dazed state and hurrying after him.