The Serpent of Paradise - Chapter 34

Edenhurst was a fairly large estate in its own right. As Elizabeth had shown him around last time, he thought that if he and Anastasia explored the grounds together, he would be able to walk beside her for quite a long time. But when he suggested a walk, contrary to his expectations, Anastasia hesitated to agree to go with him.

In the end, Mikhail had to bring up his wound.

“Actually, I’ve spent the past week resting so my wound could heal. Igor says walking around now would aid my recovery. But walking alone is tedious, so if you don’t mind, Miss Anastasia, would you accompany me?”

At those words, Anastasia deliberated for a long time before nodding with difficulty.

In truth, just as he hadn’t told anyone else, he hadn’t intended to tell Anastasia about his wound either. He knew she wouldn’t spread his story everywhere like the other Lauderdales, but he saw no reason to tell her what happened to him. Wouldn’t it make him seem terribly weak? Besides….

‘She’ll surely be frightened.’

If she learned that he was accustomed to being attacked on the road like this, he somehow felt she would become afraid of him. He had no intention of telling her, yet he never imagined he would end up doing so just to use it this way.

Mikhail ordered the meal cleared away, then summoned Natasha and told her to prepare Anastasia to go out. Natasha quickly went to her room and brought back a hat suitable for Anastasia. She carefully placed it on her head, making sure not to ruin the hair she had braided into yet another style today.

After descending to the first floor, they were about to leave through the main entrance leading to the garden when Anastasia stopped and spoke with a frightened expression.

“I’m not allowed to use this entrance. Please go ahead. I’ll follow you shortly.”

Wondering what she meant, Mikhail looked at her and saw that she was about to head toward the servants’ entrance at the end of the corridor. Dumbfounded, Mikhail told her it was fine and insisted on leading her through the main entrance. Anastasia didn’t follow obediently. So Mikhail needed to deceive her a little.

He looked down at his side. After spending an entire week lying down and resting, the wound healed well. It no longer hurt. But….

Mikhail deliberately placed a hand over the wound, pretending it was still terribly painful. Anastasia immediately approached him in alarm.

“Does your wound hurt badly? Should I bring Mr. Igor?”

“That won’t be necessary. But… if you don’t mind, may I ask you to support me while we go down the steps?”

At those words, Anastasia looked around before nodding in agreement. As Mikhail forced himself to feign pain, he thought,

She really is easy to fool.

As they descended the steps, Mikhail casually held out his hand to Anastasia. Her expression grew even more tense than when she agreed to take the walk, and she grasped his hand with her trembling one. She trembled so violently that even Mikhail’s hand nearly shook with hers.

Then, each time he descended another step, she gripped his hand tightly with a solemn expression, as though she were saving the world. As if that could truly be considered supporting him.

Mikhail didn’t bother telling her that what she was doing wasn’t helping him at all. He hadn’t actually expected her assistance in the first place. He decided to place significance only on the fact that Anastasia was the one holding him first, and for quite a long time at that.

As soon as they reached the bottom of the few steps, Anastasia quickly pulled her hand from his. Mikhail somehow felt disappointed when she snatched it away as though fleeing, but he said nothing. Even this must have required tremendous courage from her.

As they walked through the garden, Mikhail stopped and looked at Anastasia following several steps behind him. Two weeks had passed since he arrived here. For one of those weeks, he personally took care of her by seeing to her meals. Was it thanks to that? In the meantime, Anastasia had become so much healthier that she was nearly unrecognizable.

Her once-dry hair now shone even without rose oil, and her unevenly colored skin was quickly regaining its natural complexion. Flesh had filled out her hollow cheeks, and the arms and legs that once looked like skin stretched over bone were regaining a healthy shape.

Since her body had survived on very little food for so long, she hadn’t become completely healthy like everyone else. But over the course of two weeks, Anastasia was becoming human again. Looking at her, Mikhail understood how a gardener must feel.

A sprout struggling to grow in dry earth. The feeling of watering and fertilizing it until color returned to its leaves, its stem grew sturdy, and it finally bloomed.

At first, he thought of her as nothing more than a small diversion to relieve his boredom at Edenhurst, but she was entertaining him far more than expected. So Mikhail considered what else he might add to his little amusement.

First, it seemed he would have to summon the madam from the capital’s dress shop again. They could use the finest fabrics from Ils and Flanre that came through Sokolov’s port. Since Anastasia still wore a hat every time she went out, it would be best to have several hats made for her as well. And….

Mikhail’s gaze shifted to Anastasia’s feet, which were slightly visible beneath her skirt. Anastasia wore neat, comfortable-looking leather shoes. But they weren’t the shoes he first gave her.

“…Lord Mikhail?”

When Mikhail suddenly stopped and stared downward, Anastasia stopped as well and followed his gaze. Realizing that he was looking at her feet, she hurriedly covered them with the hem of her skirt.

“Why aren’t you wearing them?”

“Pardon?”

“The shoes I first gave you. The ones decorated with daisies.”

Anastasia lowered her eyes without answering. How could she possibly wear them? She told Mikhail before, but they were like a sacred relic to her. Thanks to Mikhail, she now had many new pairs of shoes, but the first pair he gave her was different from the others. Even if she had to go barefoot again, she would never be able to wear those shoes.

‘Will he think I’m strange?’

After receiving a new room in the annex and being placed under Natasha’s care, Anastasia was given things far beyond what she deserved. There were furniture and bedding, of course, as well as more clothes than she could count and even objects whose purpose she didn’t know. Worried whether someone who was a Lauderdale in name only should be allowed to receive so much, she didn’t touch anything beyond the items she had already worn or used once. Then Natasha told her,

“Miss, everything here was brought especially for you.”

“But I don’t need this much….”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Miss Elizabeth and Miss Catherine received several times more than this.”

In truth, that was a lie Natasha told to ease Anastasia’s burden, but Anastasia had no way of knowing that. Only after hearing Natasha’s words did Anastasia begin using the things that had been brought for her. Naturally, shoes were among them. Anastasia was delighted when she saw the new shoes. It meant she truly could keep that pair safe and beautiful without wearing them.

If she hadn’t received any other shoes, she would have hated to appear barefoot before Mikhail and would have agonized over whether she had no choice but to wear them.

“Anastasia?”

At Mikhail’s call urging her to answer, Anastasia brought up something else.

“Is that flower called a daisy?”

“Yes?”

“The flower on the shoes… I didn’t know its name. It didn’t grow in the village where I lived as a child….”

Mikhail fell silent for a moment. Daisies were commonly planted in the gardens of noble estates. Naturally, the garden here at Edenhurst was filled with daisies of many colors and varieties. Yet she didn’t know the flower’s name?

He knew the people of Edenhurst raised Anastasia while neglecting her, but he hadn’t imagined they left her so utterly abandoned that she didn’t even know something this simple. Anyone would have answered her easily if she asked. She hadn’t even had anyone to ask.

Unaware of what Mikhail was thinking, Anastasia murmured the name he taught her under her breath. It was a flower she saw often. Although their shapes and colors varied slightly, daisies were among the first flowers to bloom in the garden. She had been even happier because the shoes she received were decorated with flowers of the same shape.

‘So they’re called daisies.’

At last, she knew their name.

There were many flowers whose names she wanted to know. But who would ever teach her such things? When she met the gamekeeper, the only person who treated her without any particular emotion, she was so absorbed in listening to his explanation of the chapel that she didn’t even think to ask him the names of the flowers.

After murmuring the name as though determined never to forget it, Anastasia asked Mikhail, “I’m sorry, but do you happen to know the name of this flower too?”

“It’s a lilium.”

“And this one?”

“A dahlia.”

“Then what about this one?”

“A poppy.”

The more readily Mikhail answered, the more wonder appeared on Anastasia’s face. Mikhail was dumbfounded. The flowers Anastasia was asking about weren’t particularly rare. Yet merely because he knew their names, she looked at him as though she had met the most intelligent man in the world.

When he casually mentioned the size of his Sokolov residence during a meal, she focused entirely on cutting her steak neatly. Yet she reacted like this because he named a few flowers commonly found in Novgod’s gardens.

Mikhail couldn’t understand what exactly Anastasia found impressive.

Anastasia continued asking their names, and Mikhail continued answering. Then Anastasia strayed slightly from the path and pointed to the flower of a weed the gardeners had failed to pull from between the shrubs.

“What is this one called?”

“That is….”

Where Anastasia pointed, a bluish-purple flower bloomed that, even viewed generously, looked like nothing more than a companion to the weeds. It was a plant that seemed to have barely survived between the shrubs by escaping the gardeners’ notice.

The problem was that Mikhail didn’t know the name of this flower. Naturally. How many people in the world properly knew the names of weeds growing by the roadside? More importantly, this flower had no monetary value. Naturally, it was nothing that would ever interest him.

Anastasia’s eyes were filled with expectation, certain that he would answer her again. Faced with a gaze even more expectant than when she asked about the flowers blooming throughout the garden, Mikhail broke into a cold sweat.