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The fourth was Emma. Even amidst the white chrysanthemums, as bright and noble as a wedding bride, Emma's beauty was exceptionally striking. Bowing her head with a nervous expression, Emma finished her greeting and slowly stepped backward; just as she was about to vanish from sight, her eyes met mine. Seeing her utterly delighted smile made me feel as though my boredom was lifting slightly.
“Of the Nikitin family…”
Up until the tenth person, it was quite interesting. No, looking at it long-term, it would have been enjoyable up to the twentieth. However, the moment the fortieth woman entered, I felt like I was going crazy with the urge to fidget.
After the fiftieth turn passed, the seventieth woman withdrew. It was then that my mother’s lifeline descended.
“Let us take a break for twenty minutes.”
The moment the doors to the audience chamber closed, I sprang up from my chair and stretched. If I had sat there for one more minute, my soul would have escaped.
How long had I been sitting? About three hours? I've never sat this long even during class!
“Come to Mother, Lara.”
“I want to, but I'm exhausted. I think I got a cramp in my hand from massaging my legs.”
“Oh dear.”
Clicking her tongue, Mother approached and picked me up. As she sat me on her lap and gently massaged both my hands, her face looked perfectly fresh, unlike mine. I suppose not just anyone can be the Empress.
“Our baby's hands have grown so much. It feels like only yesterday they were small and curly like a little starfish.”
“You said that last year, too.”
Mother's hands were larger than mine, but there wasn't an overwhelming difference in size as there was with Valentin or Vasily.
[Looking at you now, you really have grown a lot.]
[I believe you've been in contact with your mother quite regularly.]
Suddenly, the voices of Valentin and Tatyana echoed in my ears.
“Mother.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Did I ever meet Valentin—I mean, Count Valentin—when I was little?”
Mother answered without stopping the massage of my hands.
“Whether you've met? Of course you did.”
…Huh?
“We met? Really? You mean we had a connection significant enough to be called a 'meeting,' not just passing by each other?”
“I suppose you didn't know. Haven't I told you about it often?”
Unable to close my mouth in surprise, I shook my head firmly.
“About Count Valentin? Not once. You know what my memory is like.”
“That can't be. Though it was for a very short time, there was a period when he acted as your knight.”
Knight? Somehow, that opening sounded familiar. I definitely heard a similar story…
“It's a story from when you were still sleeping in your cradle. There was an incident where a candle flame caught the curtains of your room and almost turned into a massive fire… It's an anecdote that still makes me dizzy to think about. The one who put out that fire wasn't a servant or a maid, but a little guest. It was our Count Valentin, who was only six years old at the time.”
I didn't need to hear any more. I had heard it a few times in my childhood, and thanks to that, the anecdote was etched very clearly in my mind!
‘No way. That count was Valentin?’
It was about eleven years ago. It was a time when the nanny who had raised Vasily, Tatyana, and Ivan fell seriously ill and returned to her hometown, leaving the position of nanny for me, Princess Larisa, suddenly vacant shortly after I had entered the world.
Since it was the task of selecting a nanny for the Princess, an exceptionally rigorous interview process was underway when the incident occurred. A maid, who was guarding my room in place of the nanny, had fallen asleep from the exhaustion of unfamiliar childcare; the candlestick, bumped by the maid's tilting head, fell beneath the curtains and ignited.
The deep-sleeping maid only realized the fact the moment the door to the room, thick with black smoke, swung wide open. The person who entered the Princess's room without permission reportedly picked me up from the cradle, woke the maid, and escaped the room.
Fortunately, the fire was extinguished quickly, and a new, experienced nanny was found the very next day. It was a moment where the existence known as Princess Larisa almost vanished from the world before she could even learn to read.
“The person who helped me then, the ‘wonderfully brave count’… was Count Valentin?”
“Yes, I'm sure I told you a few times. It seems you remember now.”
Flabbergasted, I grabbed Mother's sleeve and shook it back and forth as I replied.
“No. I always remembered it. But back then, Mother, you clearly described him as a ‘wonderfully brave count,’ so I naturally assumed he was someone twenty years older than me!”
“Oh, my… Come to think of it, there was room for such a misunderstanding! Count Valentin had already succeeded to the countship at the time. When he was five, his biological mother, Duchess Dmitriev, and his grandmother passed away in succession, and he inherited the title of Count Nariyan, which had been one of his grandmother's titles.”
“Let's grant that. But whenever I asked about him, you always just said he wasn't in Ohalla, and you never mentioned he was a six-year-old brat, nor did you even utter the ‘Val’ of Valentin's name!”
“That is…”
With a visibly troubled expression, Mother whispered to me.
“He wanted it kept a secret, so there was nothing I could do. He is the benefactor who saved my daughter, so it's only natural I should grant a request to hide his name, right? Even if the party in question was a six-year-old brat.”
“…Then is it okay to tell me now?”
“Hmm. I'm not sure myself. Actually, the moment I told you just now, I thought, 'Oops.' It's because it's a story I haven't brought up in so long. I beg of you, please keep the fact that you know a secret from Count Valentin. Even if I've kept it well for eleven years, a promise is a promise.”
Was my brazenness a trait inherited through blood? I nodded with vacant eyes.
I had not forgotten the events of that time for a single day. Isn't the past where an adult I didn't know personally saved me from a crisis a wonderful story to reminisce about for years as I grow older?
‘But to think the protagonist was Valentin.’
To think that a Valentin from a past I didn't know had existed around me.
[You should never have been born.]
The owner of that voice, of all people…
Recalling the voice of the past, which had now become distinctly faint, I slowly caught my breath. How should I describe this feeling?
“Are you perhaps disappointed?”
Mother scanned my face with cautious eyes. I scratched my perfectly fine cheek and answered.
“I'm too surprised to be disappointed. But I thought he would be a more cool… sophisticated and mature middle-aged gentleman.”
“Oh dear. But except for the middle-aged part, those are descriptors that fit Count Valentin perfectly. Even if you are disappointed, the fact that he saved you does not change.”
“I told you, I'm not disappointed.”
If anything, I might have come to see him in a new light. I even felt a bit ashamed of myself. I had pulled every bit of rank as a Princess and demanded to be treated as a superior by the benefactor who saved me. Where in the world could there be such a disgraceful display?
To overcome the wave of shame crashing over me, I moved to Tatyana's lap. Tatyana admonished me in a soft, calm voice.
“Nothing will change even if you look at me with those eyes. He is still a zero as a candidate for your husband.”
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