Chapter 4: The Sharing of Secrets
THE Royal Palace’s library primarily contained reference books. As a result, it wasn’t very popular. Ophelia walked along a row of shelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling, searching for the materials Claudio had ordered her to fetch.
The librarian had fallen asleep at the circulation desk by the front door. The desk was drenched in sunlight coming in through a nearby window, and Ophelia was certain that she’d also feel sleepy sitting in such a pleasantly warm spot all day.
She hadn’t passed a single person on her way there. Feeling that she ought to take advantage of this rare opportunity to be alone, Ophelia opened her arms wide and stretched her back.
“Oh, it might be somewhere around here…” Ophelia muttered to herself, reaching out toward a book on a shelf just above her head.
Almost… there…!
After several failed attempts where her fingertips met nothing but thin air instead of the book she was after, Ophelia gave up and went to retrieve a ladder. Using that, she reached the book, but as she started flipping through it to check its contents, both of her hands inexplicably began to tremble.
“Huh? No way, what’s going on…?!”
Little by little, the shaking worsened. Before long, her knees started wobbling, and when she could no longer stand, Ophelia tumbled right off the ladder, landing on her bottom on the floor.
“…Ahh!”
Ophelia’s butt hurt, but she was more concerned about whether the book had been damaged when she dropped it. If she destroyed a big, thick reference book like that, it would take an entire month’s salary to replace it. She reached for the ladder to drag herself to her feet, but she was still shaking so badly that she couldn’t force her hand to cooperate. Her hand slid limply down the ladder, unable to grasp on, until suddenly someone took her hand in theirs.
“Are you okay?”
Hearing a casual, vaguely familiar voice coming from alarmingly close by, Ophelia jerked her gaze up and found Duke Gian Vigatto standing over her. Just like when they’d met at the Cathedral, he had a cravat tied crisply around his neck and was wearing an obviously expensive and well-tailored jacket. His blond hair was illuminated by a faint ray of sunlight filtering down from a skylight overhead, making him look like the picture of a highly ranked nobleman. Despite the concern implied by his words, he was frowning down at Ophelia with a suspicious expression.
“Ahh!”
When she let out a reflexive shriek, Gian immediately released her hand, causing Ophelia to land on her bottom on the ground again.
“…This is certainly the first time anyone has ever screamed in terror upon seeing my face…” Gian barked out a harsh laugh, his eyes sharp and piercing.
“I-I’m so sorry! P-Please, don’t curse meee!” Ophelia desperately folded her trembling hands in front of her face and bowed as low as she dared without risking falling over again.
“Huh? What do you mean, ‘curse you’?” Gian exclaimed, his eyes wide and voice ringing out loudly in the empty room.
At this, Ophelia threw herself prone upon the floor and began moaning, “Don’t curse me! Don’t kill meee! I’m not ready to die!” while shaking all over.
“Wait, you think I am going to put a curse on you?”
Apparently, that greatly shocked Gian, who grasped his forehead with one hand and took a reflexive step back.
Certainly, with the way she lay splayed out on the ground, shaking in a manner not unlike faint convulsions, Ophelia did look like she was in the throes of a vicious curse. As if feeling his eyes observing her, Ophelia slowly raised her head.
“You’re… not going to curse me?”
“No, not for the time being, anyway.”
“Umm, then I guess you’re really not a ghost after all, huh?”
Gian’s eyes widened again in surprise, and he covered his mouth with his hand to stifle the laugh that escaped. “Pfft! Ahaha, you thought I was a ghost?! Now it makes a bit more sense!”
“You’re not a ghost… Oh, then maybe… Are you some kind of spirit? That does seem to fit a bit better, a fairy perhaps?” Ophelia guessed.
“What are you talking about?”
Gian’s profile, looking down at Ophelia with one hand covering his mouth, was a mesh of inconsistencies; he looked frightening even when laughing and seemed both irritated and amused in equal measure. Still unable to stop shaking, Ophelia remained splayed out on the floor, looking up at Gian.
“I see… Heh, I suppose I am something of a ghost.”
Immediately after muttering this, Gian silently crouched down beside Ophelia, bracing himself with one hand on the ground. He leaned forward until his eerily handsome face was very close to Ophelia’s terrified one and glared piercingly into her soul.
“So you’re Claudio’s lover after all, aren’t you? He must’ve been the one who told you about me.”
“Huh? Wh-What? His… l-l-lover?! Um, what are you talking about…?!”
“How much did he tell you? Probably everything, right?”
Ophelia had lost the ability to form coherent speech and could only flap her mouth open and closed when Gian grabbed the collar of her blouse so tightly she feared he might strangle her.
“Answer me. What did he tell you?”
“N-Nothing. The director didn’t say anything about you…”
“Then why are you so afraid of me?” Gian used his free hand to harshly press down on Ophelia’s trembling legs, then he tightened his grip on her collar even further. “Depending on your answer, I’ll—”
“Your Grace—”
Ophelia abruptly shut her mouth in a panic the moment she realized she’d spoken at the same time as Gian, but he gestured with an almost imperceptible jerk of his chin for her to continue.
“Your Grace… Why are you lying?”
“What do you mean, ‘why?’”
“Ah!”
When Ophelia’s head suddenly jerked up in surprise at his question, she accidentally banged it directly against his forehead, hard. Gian recoiled, clutching his forehead with a pained expression.
“Eeek! I-I’m so sorry! I d-d-didn’t mean to…!”
“Tch… It’s fine. Go on.”
“Um, I think some part of your body might not be doing so well!” After shouting that, Ophelia placed one hand against her cheek and began muttering to herself introspectively.
“It might be that some part is so unwell that it’s unable to perform its intended function and is no longer working. I’ve heard some organs don’t show obvious signs when they’re failing, leading them to be dubbed ‘silent organs.’ If that were the problem, it would explain why he doesn’t seem to be aware of it and why I’m shaking so badly. This really might be it! If so, it would be a first for me, but it seems like the likeliest option!”
After muttering that under her breath, Ophelia pounded her fist emphatically into the palm of her opposite hand. In response, Gian, who’d been watching her dubiously the entire time, braced himself for whatever was about to come next.
“Um, I think you should go for an examination at the hospital as soon as possible.”
“…What are you going on about…?”
Glaring at Ophelia while clutching his reddened forehead, Gian finally loosened his grip on the collar of her blouse. Now that she could breathe easier, Ophelia gulped in huge gasps of air, causing her shoulders to bob with each breath she took.
“Um, I… I’m very, er, perceptive, I suppose you could say. There’s a possibility that you may be seriously ill, Your Grace. Please… I’m very worried about you, so please go to the hospital.”
“You’re worried…? About me?”
Gian’s harsh gaze softened ever so slightly, and he made this remark with a look of confusion. Gian’s eyes traced from the serious set of Ophelia’s eyes as she tried her best to convince him, along the tangled strands of boring brown hair that spilled haphazardly around her shoulders and down her back, and finally down to the ground. Then, whispering the word “Worried…” once more, he slowly raised his gaze to look directly into Ophelia’s eyes.
“Hey, what are you doing?!”
Gian, who’d reached out his hand as if intending to touch Ophelia’s hair, turned in the direction the voice had come from and found Claudio standing there with a menacing glare. Claudio scooped Ophelia up, thrusting Gian out of the way in the process, and then he cupped her cheeks with both hands, forcing her to look at him. With those lapis-lazuli eyes filling her field of view and blocking everything else out, Ophelia’s shaking abruptly stopped.
“I told you to stay away from him!”
Faced with Claudio’s enraged expression, Ophelia sucked in a panicked breath that sounded an awful lot like a mouse’s squeak and squeezed her eyes shut, not daring to breathe out again.
“Claudio, you spilled my secret to your lover, didn’t you?” In a stark reversal of his earlier shaken demeanor, Gian glared at Claudio with piercing eyes.
“I already told you, this is my employee. And I haven’t told her anything about you besides your name,” Claudio answered unflinchingly.
Gian’s voice rose in volume as he answered without so much as blinking, “Then why does she seem so afraid?! It’s strange, you have to admit it.”
“Emotionally unstable and suspicious behavior is the norm for her, I’m afraid.”
“How could this possibly be ‘normal’?!”
Wearing an expression that conveyed he was entirely unconvinced, Gian nonetheless took a step back and looked Ophelia over from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He grasped his chin for a moment, seemingly considering the issue, and then, without another word, Gian turned and walked away.
Once Gian was out of sight, Ophelia finally took a deep breath. “Phew! Director, thank you…”
“We’re leaving. Come on.”
Claudio roughly grabbed Ophelia by the arm and pulled her to her feet, then turned and stormed out of the library with her in tow. Once they’d put the library a good distance behind them, he suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
“Ophelia!”
She heard a loud SLAM! and when she gathered the courage to stiffly force her head up, she found Claudio’s arm resting on the wall just above her head and his face only inches from her own.
“You! You didn’t even manage to retrieve the materials I ordered you to go fetch!”
“Eeek…! I-I’m sorry…!”