Still avoiding my gaze, Rastan soon spoke again.
“I am glad to hear that you have been doing well. More importantly… I actually came because I had some business.”
“What kind of business?”
That said, this man hadn’t started with that at all when he arrived. He had started with things like asking me to hold his hands and saying he missed me.
‘Then was that actually the real business?’
Contrary to my suspicion, though, it was true that he had another matter.
“It is about the task you gave me earlier, recruiting the actors.”
Ah, right. I remembered what Lis had discreetly told me the day after I entered the Lansval mansion.
“My Lady, His Grace said that the arrangement of the actors has been completed.”
I should have responded right away, but I had been busy for several days and had forgotten.
“My goodness, I am sorry. I should have answered you sooner… Did you really come all this way just to pass along that message, when you are so busy?”
“I came while attending to other matters as well. Being able to see your face like this, I am rather pleased.”
Rastan smiled at me brightly, like a boy, as he looked me in the face.
“If your schedule allows, I will have those actors waiting just outside the back gate at this time tomorrow.”
I remembered him saying that, since they were people who would be carrying out an important task, he wanted to personally verify them.
“Alright. Thank you, really.”
Rastan smiled lightly as if it were nothing and brought up another topic.
“I heard you have been using the potions well. Is there anything else you need? Additional potions, clothes, money, anything at all.”
Goodness. At this point, it wouldn’t be strange to mistake him for my own mother.
“No. What you have already prepared for me is more than enough.”
“I am uneasy. It feels as though I have left you alone in enemy territory…”
“I said it is fine. Ris is here too.”
I answered calmly, but Rastan’s eyes were already full of worry, like someone who truly believed I might die in this place at any moment.
“Then at least let me send you some more of the stamina potions you are currently using. Stamina is useful in any situation.”
At this point, he clearly intended to give me anything and everything, so refusing any further would only end up wasting his precious time.
As we talked, we moved over to the sofa. I naturally tried to sit facing him, but before I could even offer him a seat, he came straight over and sat down beside me.
“Uh…”
When I asked him the reason with my eyes at the awkward choice of seating, he answered as if it were nothing.
“Did we not agree that you would warm my body?”
Though Rastan said it in an ordinary tone, I ended up gaping.
“When did I ever say that?! No, that was the situation, but that wording is way too strange—”
As I stammered in embarrassment, Rastan’s voice softened subtly.
“What is strange between friends?”
As he said that, he firmly took one of my hands and placed it together with his on his knee. At that moment, I suddenly realized that his hand was warm.
“Uh, your hands are warm now. You are not cold anymore, are you?”
As if he had been expecting me to say that, the corners of his lips lifted.
“Thanks to you holding them, my hands have finally warmed up. But look. My knees are still cold.”
Sure enough, his knee and thigh touching my hand were still cold.
‘But aren’t knees always cold?’
“Then I will go get you a blanket for your knees—”
I tried to stand up, but the hand he was holding didn’t move even a little, so I hesitated awkwardly and ended up sitting back down.
When I glanced over, the curve of Rastan’s lips, which had been lifted, had stiffened slightly at some point. Something else must have displeased him.
“Did I not tell you earlier? If you are holding me, that is enough, Evelyn.”
He placed my hand on his knee, then covered its back with his large hand, which had somehow already grown warm.
‘If that’s the case, he could just warm his knee with his own hand.’
Having learned through our conversations that there were certain things he wouldn’t easily back down on, I decided to let this trivial matter go.
“Alright… use my hand however you like.”
At that, Rastan looked quietly at my hand held in his, then formed a faint smile whose meaning I couldn’t discern.
“I would like to use it freely, but I will restrain myself.”
Wondering what on earth he meant by that, I looked at him, but he naturally changed the subject.
“Has anything unusual happened over the past few days?”
“You must have already heard about the morning greetings through Ris… Ah! There was one unusual thing. It is so trivial that you might not be interested.”
As I was about to speak, I glanced at him cautiously, wondering if I was bothering a busy man with something too insignificant.
But Rastan replied as if it were obvious.
“There is nothing related to you that is trivial to me.”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. But I pretended it was nothing and cleared my throat.
“Have you ever seen a crow with purple eyes in your life?”
At that, a rare crack appeared on Rastan’s face, which had been softly smiling.
“Why do you ask…?”
With a question like that, wouldn’t the answer usually be something like “I have” or “I have not”?
His response felt a little strange, so I asked.
“What do you mean, why? Is that strange? Like, some kind of omen of bad luck?”
I had lived in this world for over twenty years in my past life, but I had never heard of such a thing.
“No, it is not that. But why are you asking about a crow?”
I told him about the crow that had even come all the way to my room.
I only talked about how fascinating and cute it was, yet Rastan’s expression grew darker and darker.
Then, in a voice that had clearly dropped lower than before, he said,
“That thing was being quite shameless.”
“What?”
“Widening its eyes, tilting its head, even coming all the way to your room.”
It was only a story about a cute animal, yet his reaction was strangely sharp.
“It seems like quite a wicked creature, so from now on, even if you see it, pretend you did not.”
“But what if it is coming because it is hungry?”
I timidly protested, but for some reason, Rastan was firm.
“Evelyn.”
He turned his body slightly toward me and looked me straight in the eyes.
“You need to be more careful around men. Whether they look cute or kind on the outside, men are all the same. Even male animals, at the very least, keep them all at a distance.”
That much? And besides, I didn’t even know whether it was male or female.
“Why?”
“How can you know what those fellows are thinking inside? No matter how cute they look, do not let them into your room so carelessly.”
It sounded like advice an older brother would give to a much younger sister, but there was a flaw in his statement.
“By that logic, Rastan, you are in my room right now too.”
“Ah, I am… ah.”
He looked flustered, then suddenly, as if something had occurred to him, his expression brightened slightly.
“What you just said means… that you see me as a man?”
There was even a subtle hint of expectation in his eyes. I couldn’t follow this train of thought at all.
“You are a man, though? Uh, were you not…?”
“No, I am. But what I mean is… haa.”
He opened and closed his mouth as if choosing his words, then eventually let out a sigh and roughly swept his hair back.
The soft black hair fell back, fully revealing his handsome face.
Whether he knew or not that I couldn’t take my eyes off him, Rastan sighed again and continued.
“Anyway, do not brush off what I said. No matter how sunshine-like or cute a man seems, inside, they are all men. You should not easily be kind to them, meet them, or let them into your room.”
“For my safety?”
I offered what seemed like the obvious reason, but for some reason, Rastan’s answer came a bit late.
“…Of course.”
“Hmm. Alright, I understand for now. But I am here at the Lansval estate as an engaged woman, after all. Realistically speaking, would I even have contact with another man besides Gerald?”
The moment Gerald’s name was mentioned, a vein bulged along Rastan’s jaw.
“All men are like that, but Gerald Lansval in particular, that bast—no, that man—is the most harmful of them all, so be careful.”
I knew it because I had lived with that man in my past life, but the fact that this man had already figured it out as well.
I was newly impressed by his information-gathering ability.
