chapter 30
“Countess, you draw as well?”
What Daniel had discovered was my drawing.
“Ah, yes.”
While Daniel was sketching, I had also been drawing beside him. To be honest, what I really wanted to do was just look at Daniel’s face, but I thought that might make him uncomfortable.
So I figured if I busied myself with something—like drawing alongside him—I could at least suppress the impulse to keep staring at him.
“It looks real!”
“It’s just a sketch so far…”
“Still, it looks exactly like real clover!”
Daniel widened his eyes and stared at my picture. He looked genuinely amazed.
My major had been biology, and I had always had a strong interest in botany. So I had drawn a lot of botanical illustrations. This drawing was exactly that.
“Countess, you’re amazing! You can name any flower I point at, and you draw so well too!”
Daniel clasped his hands together and gazed at me with sparkling eyes. Naturally, I straightened my shoulders with pride at that look.
Who knew my major would come in handy here like this?
At the time, I had only chosen my university and department because I wanted to go to college, needed a scholarship, and matched the grades. I never thought it would turn out to be useful like this.
“I want to draw pictures like you, Countess!”
Daniel said, clutching his colored pencil tightly.
“Really? You mean it?”
“Yes!”
The moment I saw his determined, straight mouth and his eyes shining with enthusiasm, I knew—Daniel’s path in the arts was set.
“Alright! Then I’ll teach you how to draw, Daniel.”
Yes! Now I had a legitimate excuse to spend even more time with Daniel! Of course, it wasn’t “illegal” before either, but now I could actually teach him, watch my adorable Daniel, and even admire his cute drawings. Perfect!
“Are you drawing?”
The deep, familiar voice instantly froze the little version of me inside my head that had been happily tap-dancing.
“Lord Winchester?”
Honestly, at first I thought I was hallucinating because the day was so bright. Like mistaking a mirage or a shimmering heat haze for something real.
But it wasn’t. Walking toward us on those long legs was indeed Lord Winchester. At this hour, of all times, when he shouldn’t even be home.
“What brings you here at this time?”
“I need to head to the palace later, so I stopped by to change clothes.”
“I see.”
As expected. Of course the workaholic wouldn’t just come home in the middle of the day without reason.
Lord Winchester turned his head toward Daniel. A moment ago, Daniel had been smiling cheerfully, but now he gripped his pencil tightly and stared at Lord Winchester with a nervous look.
I thought their relationship had improved a little after the puppet show last time, but maybe that was just for that day. Daniel still seemed uneasy in front of him.
“…”
Lord Winchester’s gaze dropped from Daniel himself to the picture Daniel had drawn.
Compliment him!
I silently shouted inside my head.
Quickly, tell him he did a good job!
I even sent him a desperate look. After all, complimenting a child’s drawing is practically an adult’s duty.
“Daniel.”
Could it be that my silent plea and burning eyes got through? Lord Winchester called Daniel’s name. And if I wasn’t imagining things, his voice even sounded a little gentle.
“Did you sleep well?”
…Excuse me?
Those words, spoken so softly, were completely bewildering.
“Did you sleep well?” Really? It was already nearly three in the afternoon, and he suddenly greeted him as if it were morning?
Well, to be fair, he had left very early in the morning, so technically this was their first meeting today since yesterday. But still—“Did you sleep well” was just not the right greeting for this time, Father!
“Uh… yes.”
Daniel, flustered, blinked a few times before answering belatedly.
“…I see.”
See what?! Lord Winchester even nodded knowingly, as if he had said something perfectly appropriate. Both Daniel and I looked at him with equally confused faces.
“Well then…”
I looked at him, wondering what he would say next—but then he closed his mouth again.
Wait. Was Lord Winchester… nervous? Was that why he had blurted out such an odd greeting?
I glanced back and forth between Daniel, who still clutched his colored pencil tightly, and Lord Winchester, who stared blankly, unable to continue speaking. I tried to figure out the root of this awkward atmosphere.
“Pfft!”
The one who broke the silence was someone unexpected. A laugh, half-suppressed but slipping out, made me turn my head. Standing there was Ethan, Lord Winchester’s adjutant, the same man who had been present at our not-so-great first meeting.
“Ahem, excuse me.”
Coughing into his hand, Ethan tried to straighten up under our stares.
“But why do all of your foreheads… pfft!”
He tried to explain why he laughed, but burst into laughter again.
Foreheads?
At his words, I instinctively raised my hand to my forehead. And I wasn’t the only one.
“Pfft!”
Daniel and Lord Winchester both did the same—touching their foreheads just like me. I couldn’t help bursting into laughter too.
And what a coincidence—it was the exact same spot for all of us. Daniel’s bump, Lord Winchester’s training injury, and the scratch I had gotten from Lady Aytley’s nails—all on the right side of the forehead.
“You look just like a family,” Ethan added, chuckling.
Being called “family” over something like this shouldn’t have been touching at all, but—
“Hehe!”
Daniel?
He was laughing. Daniel covered his mouth with one hand, giggling.
“It’s the same, right?”
Still smiling, Daniel looked up at me.
“Yes. You’re right. It is the same.”
“They said… we’re family.”
Daniel whispered while tugging lightly at my sleeve. His eyes, however, were directed at his father.
“That’s right.”
Lord Winchester smiled faintly and answered.
“We are family.”
His gentle baritone repeated the word once more.
Later that day…
Ah, of course—a bedroom needs at least one piece of art. That’s what makes it feel noble and refined.
I couldn’t hide my satisfaction as I gazed at the framed picture displayed in the perfect spot where it could be easily seen.
“Is that Daniel’s drawing?”
“Yes!”
I replied brightly to Lord Winchester’s question.
“Did you perhaps think it was a professional artist’s work?”
Suddenly, it occurred to me that he might not have realized it was Daniel’s picture.
“It would be an easy mistake to make. I mean, for something drawn by a six-year-old, it’s remarkable, don’t you think? At a glance, it could pass for a piece of deconstructionist art, or even surrealism.”
I tilted my head this way and that, viewing Daniel’s picture from different angles.
“Maybe Daniel’s a genius?”
“…A genius?”
“Yes. The way he uses color, the composition—it feels extraordinary somehow.”
“Well, I can’t say much. I don’t know much about art.”
“Neither do I, really. But Daniel’s drawings give me a powerful feeling.”
I nodded gravely at the picture, and for a moment I thought Lord Winchester’s expression mirrored my seriousness. Or maybe not—he usually looked serious anyway, so perhaps that was just his natural face.
Daniel’s drawing depicted a tall man with straight-line eyes and lips, and a red mark on his forehead. Next to him stood a woman with round eyes and a smile, who also had a red mark on her forehead.
And at the end was a small child with round eyes. The child also had a red mark on his forehead, but unlike the other two, his mark bulged outward.
Anyone could tell—it was us three. The stiff, straight-line expression of Lord Winchester was especially well captured.
“…”
Lord Winchester said nothing, simply staring at the picture.
Growing impatient, I spoke.
“For a six-year-old, don’t you think he captured our features really well?”
I looked to him for agreement. His gaze shifted from me back to the drawing, then returned to me again.
“Just to clarify… that’s meant to be me, Miss Neary, and Daniel?”
“Yes! Exactly! You recognized it right away, didn’t you? That’s why I said he captured the features so well.”
When Lord Winchester identified it immediately, I nodded happily.
“He really might be a genius…”
I murmured in awe, still staring at the picture. Maybe this was beyond what I could even teach him.
“…”
Unlike me, Lord Winchester remained silent. When I glanced at him, he subtly avoided my gaze.
Clearly, Lord Winchester didn’t know much about art after all.
