Chương 5

Chapter 5

It was an early summer day, lavish with sunlight from morning on.

The garden spread before him, lush and fragrant. Between dense green branches still holding last night's drizzle, flowers of every color were in full bloom. Birds nesting high in the tall garden trees tended their young, and bees darted busily from blossom to blossom, laying in pollen and nectar against the winter that would, in due course, return.

In the middle of that living, breathing garden, a strip of pale blue striped cloth fluttered awkwardly.

"Mama!"

"Over here!"

Two boys, carrying between them a stiff wax-coated picnic blanket, turned and waved. Then they set it down with a flourish — like a cape unfurled in triumph — on the grass, still damp with dew. The scent of crushed green blades rose from the ground.

"You found a fine spot."

Aeroc, walking slowly with Blaine and Seth each holding a hand, smiled at Ray and Jester.

"Mama, sit here."

Aeroc sat on the corner Ray indicated. Ray and Jester each claimed a different corner, leaving the center open. Blaine settled in Aeroc's lap; Seth sat beside her.

"But where's Papa?"

Ray looked around.

"He didn't get lost, did he?"

"I'm sure he didn't."

The anxious tone wrung a rueful smile from Aeroc.

Ever since the day he'd cried, Ray had clung to his father with particular intensity. If Kloff was out of sight for even a moment, the boy couldn't hide his unease. With the move approaching, Kloff had to go out sometimes to quietly settle affairs and assets — and whenever his return ran past the promised time, Ray stood at the second-floor window, watching the distant gate. The moment the carriage turned in, he was the first to sprint to the front door.

The younger children hadn't noticed their eldest brother's change, but the second son — who followed Ray everywhere — was different. He couldn't name the reason, but he'd registered that something about Ray had shifted, and it puzzled him.

"Hyung likes Papa too much."

"That's not it, dummy."

Jester's teasing drew a sharp head-shake and a flare of temper from Ray.

"It is so."

"Is not!"

As boys their age will, they'd escalated a petty dispute into rising voices when a large shadow fell across the blanket.

"You rascals. What are you fighting about?"

"Papa!"

Ray launched himself at Kloff, who appeared with the sun behind him.

"Oh, Ray."

The boy threw himself at Kloff's knees and nearly toppled him — understandably, since one arm held Yohn and the other a large picnic basket.

"Help me out."

Kloff hastily set down the enormous basket Martha had prepared, then appealed to Aeroc. Aeroc quickly relieved him of Yohn. Freed at last, Kloff scooped Ray up and patted his back.

"Why were you late?"

Ray interrogated his father as though affronted.

"You ran ahead first."

"You should've followed faster."

"How am I supposed to run carrying Yohn and a picnic basket?"

Kloff let out a helpless laugh. But Ray's anger wasn't spent; he pounded his father's shoulder with small clenched fists.

"Is hyung a baby too?"

Jester teased. This time, though, even Ray couldn't muster a retort. Instead he slid down and turned away, cheeks flushed and sulky. Seeing that he was genuinely upset, Jester didn't push further and shot him a wary glance.

"Will somebody come help me over here!"

Martha's voice rang from a distance. Kloff was naturally about to rise, but Ray seized his hand and shook his head. So it was Jester who jumped up and ran to Martha instead.

A bustling commotion, and Martha appeared carrying Ivide. Jester bore a small sandwich basket. The household's first alpha boy marched up manfully and set the basket down beside the larger one. Then he looked at his father with a proud expression.

"Well done."

Kloff ruffled the hair that was exactly his own shade. Jester ducked, grinning shyly.

"Lord, I'm exhausted."

Martha deposited Ivide into Kloff's arms. Then she opened the picnic basket and laid out plates, forks, jams, and biscuits. There was a fruit-filled pie, thick ham, and butter. The sandwich basket was crammed with sandwiches too hefty to bite through in one go.

While the capable nursemaid — who was, in practice, the housekeeper who kept the entire household running — set out the food, Kloff distributed cookies and pie as the children demanded. The baby twins each received a small piece of apple.

A kitchen maid brought a kettle of hot water. Brewing the tea was Aeroc's task. The first cup, prepared with the greatest care, was delivered to Martha alongside a generous slice of pie. The next went to Kloff. Last, he filled his own.

It was only tea and snacks, the same as indoors — yet eating outside made everything taste different. Brighter, happier. Even Martha, worn out from the round-the-clock care of the twins, looked clearer and calmer than she had in a long time. A rare freshness lit her tired, round face.

"A butterfly!"

"Where, where?"

Jester's eyes went wide as he stared at the sky, mid-biscuit. Ray rose to his knees and asked where.

"There!"

"Wow!"

The two brothers leapt up, their quarrel forgotten, and chased after the butterfly. Seth scrambled after them, outraged at being left behind. Blaine, lacking the confidence to keep up with her fleeing brothers, stuck out her lower lip.

"Our little princess wants to see the butterfly too."

Kloff tucked Blaine under one arm, set down his teacup, and headed into the garden after his sons. The bustling picnic blanket was suddenly left to the babbling twins, Aeroc, and Martha.

"It feels like yesterday that Master Ray and Master Jester were newborns, their faces all red, keeping me up with their screaming — and now look at them, running like that. Children grow up too fast."

The old woman's eyes softened with a distant wistfulness as she tilted her cup.

"I wouldn't mind if they grew a little more slowly."

"That won't do. The faster they grow, the sooner my mind will be at ease. The move preparations are nearly finished, too."

Martha drew a firm line.

The dependable nursemaid was too worn for life in a remote countryside. Kloff had arranged a small two-story house for her in a lively but not too noisy town just outside the capital. Along with a generous pension, he'd taken out a separate insurance policy so that if she ever fell ill, she could seek treatment without a moment's hesitation.

The other servants leaving the manor with the move would receive ample compensation as well. Even so, the Viscount Bendyke's considerable fortune would scarcely feel the dent.

When Aeroc actually contemplated life without Martha, dread and emptiness welled up. However cold she was to him, she was the loving nursemaid-grandmother to the children and the foster-mother figure on whom Kloff could lean for everything.

How they would manage without her was, frankly, terrifying — but if even Kloff hadn't been able to bend Martha's iron resolve, Aeroc stood no chance.

Frrrrr.

A small bird swooped down from the crown of a distant garden tree. At first he thought it was hunting the bees around the flowers. But what the bird's small, sharp beak snatched was a tiny caterpillar struggling in a spider's web. The bird swallowed one on the spot, plucked a second, and fluttered off to its nest.

"Revolting."

The law of nature notwithstanding, Martha scrunched her nose and shuddered at the sight of the many-legged caterpillar meeting its fate.

"This used to be a beautiful, spotless garden. Look what's become of it. There's supposedly a groundskeeper, but he can't make the roses bloom properly. When it comes to roses……"

Martha stopped mid-sentence. She turned her teacup in her hands, paused for a beat, then drained the rest and set it down.

"The other day, when I went to King's Road to buy curtains for my new house."

The abrupt change of subject drew Aeroc's eyes. Martha's gaze was still fixed somewhere far away.

"I saw a familiar face."

"A familiar face?"

"That stiff, unyielding old man — with a face like no needle could prick its way in — looked exactly the same even after more than ten years. I recognized him at a glance. Not a nobleman himself, yet carrying himself with more dignity than any noble — the shopkeepers all know him. Apparently no ordinary goods can satisfy the old man. But whatever he approves of sells like wildfire among the aristocrats."

Oh. He froze, stunned. Could Martha possibly be talking about him?

"Could it…… be?"

A question he couldn't bring himself to finish. Instead of answering, Martha looked at Aeroc in silence. A brief, bittersweet smile flickered and vanished — and in it, he knew. His eyes burned.

"I don't know where the old man lives, but I know the tea shop he visits regularly. If you write a letter on moving day, I'll leave it there for him. You've been raising six children on your own, wearing yourself to the bone — but that old man looks hale enough to last another decade easy, so he can shoulder a bit of northern country housekeeping."

The moment the cool words ended, a clear tear dropped.

"But not yet. I'm still here. Until moving day, I am the housekeeper of this house. I don't want to spend so much as a single hour with that insufferable old man."

"Th…… thank you, Martha…… truly, thank you."

Moving day was near. A small act of spite from an old woman who'd sacrificed so much for these children — that much he could accept, and gladly. No — this wasn't spite at all. She'd told him Hugo was alive and well, and had offered, unprompted, to deliver a letter. For that alone he could have smothered Martha in kisses. The gratitude was boundless.

"I truly loved her. She was delicate, and gentle, and absolutely lovely. No one knows how much I looked forward to her first baby."

The reproach continued, but the joy of hearing news of Hugo was so enormous that his body simply shook. Teardrops born of joy and guilt dropped one by one into the clear liquid pooled in the floral-patterned teacup.

"But what can I do? She's already gone, and the ones in my arms aren't her children. I'm old now, and the young masters and misses are too dear to me. Even hating has become too much work. That doesn't mean I'll forgive. Until the day I die, I'll remember what happened."

The old woman, steeped in fury, looked at the same time deeply sorrowful and exhausted. The fierce set of her lips — which had vowed to hate the one before her for the rest of her days — softened at last into a thin, reluctant smile, directed at the two babbling babies gnawing contentedly on their apple slices.

"I'm no saint — I can't bring myself to wish the two of you happiness. So I'll leave that to the insufferable old man. I'll speak to the master myself, so don't worry. Even he doesn't expect a sickly wife and all these children to be managed by one person alone."

Aeroc swallowed the heat and nodded.

The breeze was drying his tears when, somewhere in the middle of the garden, the children and their father broke into a noisy run.

"Papa, over here!"

"Where are you, you rascals!"

"I'm here!"

The butterfly chase had become a game of tag at some point. After tearing through the gloomy yet beautiful garden to their hearts' content, the four Bendykes came charging toward Aeroc as though by unspoken agreement.

First by a mile was Kloff. Long legs eating up the ground, Blaine tucked under one arm, he strode across the garden. After him came Jester. Then Seth, straining with everything she had, and close behind, Ray. The gentle eldest had deliberately held back so that his third-born sister, who hated being last, wouldn't cry.

"Papa wins!"

A grown man, crowing about beating small children. Blaine, bounced to dizziness by her father's sprint, looked thoroughly disoriented. Aeroc caught the wobbling toddler, and Kloff flopped down beside him.

"I'm second!"

"I'm third!"

Jester, then Seth, thrust their hands in the air.

"Hyung's last."

"Darn it!"

Ray, who'd started his final sprint too late, didn't slow down — he flung himself straight into Kloff's arms.

"It's wrestling! Papa's the enemy!"

"Me too!"

In the manner of children, the game changed without warning. Ray's lieutenant Jester and Seth joined the rebel ranks. Buried under two sizable children and a third whose contribution was chiefly an earsplitting battle cry, Kloff rolled dramatically across the grass as though in agony.

"I surrender. Papa loses."

"Papa's last!"

He threw both hands up in unconditional defeat for no particular reason, and the children dissolved into cackling laughter before scattering again. Being outdoors for the first time in ages had filled them with inexhaustible energy. Keeping them cooped up in the playroom all that time was something to feel guilty about.

"Starting to run out of steam."

Flat on his back, Kloff wiped the sweat beading his forehead and grinned broadly at Aeroc.

It was the first time in recent memory. A bronze-skinned, powerfully built man, baring white teeth in a full, unguarded grin. He looked twenty years younger; the mischievous smile was radiant.

Aeroc's heart swelled. He wanted to kiss the man who'd found his smile again. The reckless young self who'd charged headlong at every desire would certainly have done so.

But even though they touched and explored each other's lips in the dark of the bedroom where no one could see — under the bright sun, he could not dare whisper of peace and joy. The sun was too pure, too brilliant for that.

Instead, Aeroc laid his hand over Kloff's.

After a moment, long, straight fingers threaded through Aeroc's thin ones. That was enough.

Two people who had traveled a very long road watched, each through their own eyes, the innocent children at play.

* * *

The hedgerows that divided the storied manor's garden had grown wild for want of pruning. In every untouched corner, countless spider webs tangled with the husks of trapped insects. The roses, thorns and all, had shed their petals in last night's rain. The fallen leaves of every color were blackening at the edges, rotting from the rims inward.

And yet — where the night rain had fallen, small new buds were opening. Over the soft, crumbly soil, insects crept busily along. Even in this ruined garden, flowers bloomed, birds came, and bees gathered their honey.

The secretive family would leave, and the manor would be locked. And then, visited by no one, it would stand in silence, gathering dust, enduring the years.

Until someday, in a distant future when the secrets had been forgotten.

Until someone carrying the blood of the fallen count and the viscount who felled him returned, bearing a rusted key.

Until that day when, amid the tangled rose vines, on the crumbled earth where the cottage once stood — lovely once, and lonely once — new life bloomed again.

Fin.