Chapter 32
The New Piano Teacher (2)
“Anyway, I’ve decided that I will personally teach you.”
“Eh?”
Personally? Anze, doubting her ears, asked blankly.
It wasn’t until she noticed the dowager’s furrowed brow that she realized her rudeness and quickly composed herself.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that your offer is so unexpected and… humbling.”
“Don’t speak words you don’t mean.”
The gavotte the dowager played with one hand on the keys was breathtakingly beautiful.
After a moment, she looked at Anze with a gaze that seemed to ask what she would do as she placed her other hand on the keys.
Understanding the gesture, Anze quickly placed her own hands on the piano. Still, she hesitated, worried that she might ruin the dowager’s exquisite playing.
“Hurry!”
At the moment when the fast, lively passage ended and a slow, lyrical section began, Anze pressed the keys almost instinctively at the dowager’s urging.
Contrary to her worries, Anze gradually became absorbed in the music. It was as if she had traveled back in time to when she first learned piano from her mother.
“You play well.”
After the performance, the dowager praised Anze, who was still in a daze.
“I haven’t played piano in a long time, so I’m lacking. But thank you for the compliment.”
“That’s already excellent. Even now, there are some who, unable to read music at all, memorize only one piece and play it at every banquet. But you—you can read the sheet music, right?”
The dowager hesitated for a moment and then pointed to a section of the sheet music.
“Could you play this part again?”
“Eh? Yes.”
Had she made a mistake there? Anze looked puzzled for a moment but then started pressing the keys again.
“Huh?”
One of the dowager’s eyebrows lifted.
Though it was an old dance piece and thus familiar, there was also a warm familiarity in Anze’s playing, reminiscent of an old friend.
“…Wait. Go back and play that part again.”
After playing the same passage about five times, the dowager finally signaled to stop.
“Did I make a mistake…?”
Although she said this, Anze felt confident that this was the most skilled performance she had ever given of a piece she had played countless times since childhood.
Sure enough, the dowager, leaning her chin on one hand and tapping her cheek with her index finger, shook her head.
“It’s not that.”
There was something different in the dowager’s tone and manner toward her.
Perhaps the warmth in her voice was merely a trick of fatigue.
“Then… why did you have me play the same part repeatedly?”
“This is hard to explain. It’s not exactly wrong, but…”
She paused and pointed again at a part of the sheet music.
“You have a habit of playing this part slightly faster than indicated.”
“Ah!”
Anze finally understood the dowager’s instructions and nodded with a smile.
It was a habit she had unknowingly picked up from her childhood, practicing by copying her mother’s playing when she couldn’t read sheet music.
“My mother played it that way. When I couldn’t read music, I must have learned by listening and copying her playing.”
“…So Mrs. Beaufort must have been an excellent pianist. But Baroness, were you born and raised in Belf?”
The character was a fictitious creation by Eliot and the duke for Anze’s fake identity—there was no real Mrs. Beaufort.
What should she do about this?
After a moment of thought, Anze nodded. Although things were getting complicated, it wouldn’t be a long-term relationship with anyone, not even the dowager.
“Has your mother ever been to the capital?”
Why would she ask that?
Puzzled, Anze shook her head.
“My mother has never left Belf. I heard she met my father at a small gathering, fell in love at first sight, and got married.”
“I see… that must be the case. It couldn’t be otherwise.”
Anze tilted her head at the dowager, who muttered something incomprehensible.
“Is there a problem…?”
“No. It’s late today, so let’s stop and continue tomorrow. You’ve done well.”
The dowager wrapped her arms around Anze’s shoulders and hugged her warmly while sitting on the piano bench.
Caught off guard, Anze was embraced for a moment before being released, and she watched the dowager leave the room with a slightly bewildered look.
It was a kindness that seemed completely different from the stern, cold woman who had warned her to focus solely on her duties just moments ago.
* * *
“What about Hildegarde? I heard from the Duke of Saide that she rejected him. She didn’t even have a formal engagement with me, yet he insisted on marriage documents. So, is Hildegarde planning to cancel the marriage with the duke?”
Detecting the sneer in the emperor’s voice, Marquis Crow frowned.
“Your Majesty…”
The emperor’s murmured words sounded somewhat harsh, but he quickly burst out laughing.
“Ha! It seems the Duke of Saide holds you in such regard. I heard Hildegarde decided to accompany the handsome Count Martin.”
“Accompanying someone briefly at a banquet isn’t a big deal. Everyone knows that Count Martin has been squandering his fortune abroad for a long time.”
“So?”
The emperor sipped his whiskey and propped his chin on his hand, his eyes glinting.
Marquis Crow was a meticulous negotiator but generous in other matters. Unlike the Duke of Saide, who was prickly, he didn’t mind drinking in the middle of the day.
“Do you think my granddaughter would be taken in by such a man? Hildegarde must have a plan—good for the count, good for Crow.”
The emperor narrowed his eyes as he spoke. He only hinted at something, avoiding specifics, which made him suspicious.
“You can’t tell me what it is?”
“It would ruin the fun if I did. Why would I hide anything from Your Majesty?”
“Fun?”
“Yes. Count Martin may be reckless, but at least he’s handsome, isn’t he?”
“Hmph! True enough.”
The emperor leaned back on the sofa, showing a disdainful acknowledgment.
His limbs grew heavy, his mind felt unreal, and the alcohol was taking effect.
“He supposedly went to the kingdom under the pretense of study, wandering ports daily, indulging in women, gambling, and entertainment, leaving him tanned as ever. Women fall for him simply because of his exotic appearance.”
“People always like something new, whether men or women. It keeps trade active, doesn’t it?”
Marquis Crow, with a serious face, compared Count Martin to a commodity.
“By the way, I heard a strange rumor.”
“A strange rumor?”
The emperor raised an eyebrow.
“They say the Grand Duke has returned. I thought he was dead.”
At the mention, the emperor poured whiskey into a large glass and downed it in one gulp, not even pausing to breathe.
‘That strong liquor… such a terrible drunkard.’
In truth, Marquis Crow despised men like Count Martin, who could not control themselves with alcohol or women. For the same reason, he despised the emperor—but the emperor was the one who had placed him in his position as marquis. Not for free, of course.
Even so, if it weren’t for the current emperor, Schmidt Crow, who once sold salt at the port, would never have been called Marquis.
Thus, Marquis Crow wished for the emperor to maintain his position for as long as possible. He was willing to do anything to ensure it.
“I thought the same.”
The emperor mumbled with slurred speech, brushing his face.
“If it weren’t for disease, it would have been sepsis, falling from horses, carriage accidents… so many ways. And yet, he returned alive. Why? Why? Does the marquis know?”
Marquis Crow averted his gaze and clicked his tongue inwardly. He should have prepared when the emperor kept downing whiskey earlier. This nonsense had happened because he indulged the emperor’s whims.
“How would I know?”
The emperor snorted as if he had expected that answer.
“Everyone is incompetent. Someone capable, like the Duke of Saide, won’t stay by my side…”
Slurred, the emperor’s complaints turned into drowsy blinking.
“Let’s continue this conversation another time. You may rest now.”
Sighing, the marquis headed to the door but stopped, turning back.
He gazed at the emperor, appearing asleep, and finally spoke.
“Shall I handle the Grand Duke?”
“No.”
The emperor, thought to be asleep, spoke with surprising clarity.
“It’s too late now that he’s returned to the capital. Do you remember how chaotic it was when I just ascended the throne, with the consecutive deaths of the princes? It’s only just settled. And since he promised to live quietly, why intervene?”
