Chapter 124
“So, what is that something you have to say?”
Rubica asked first now that she had food in front of her. However, Edgar didn’t reply. He just poured a glass of fruit juice and gave it to her. He was taking a really long time, even when he was the one who wanted this conversation.
She glared at him, but she still drank the juice. The juice was made of orange, mandarin, and grapefruit. It was sweet and pleasantly sour.
“What kind of man was Arman?”
Oops.
Rubica spewed the juice as she didn’t expect he would ask that. Edgar instinctively took out a handkerchief and handed it to her.
‘Oh, no.’
However, it was the handkerchief he had just put in his pocket in secret.
Rubica didn’t notice how startled he was and used it to wipe her face and hands. She didn’t check the handkerchief and just put it on the table.
“Why are you asking about him so suddenly?”
She asked back carefully. She was afraid he might know something, that he could have heard about the ring she was keeping in secret.
“... just asking.”
Edgar mumbled while looking at the handkerchief. He had to get it back before she noticed it. He didn’t care whether it was soaked in juice or not. Then, he spotted the initials at its edge. They were his initials.
He felt like he was flying up in the sky. She had embroidered his initials on a handkerchief. She must have put a lot of effort into it as its every corner had been embroidered. It had been done very neatly. How long did it take her? Had she embroidered it while he was at the king’s castle? She must have thought about him, right?
“...., are you?”
He was a little out of his mind and missed what Rubica was saying. He then managed to come back to reality, but his lips kept trying to curl up towards the sky. But for now, he had to hide the handkerchief to seal the crime. He casually took it, hid it behind his chairs, and pretended to be innocent.
“Yes.”
“Really? You’ll really find him for me?”
He realized what kind of mistake he made only then. Rubica had asked him if he was thinking of finding Arman for her, but of course, Edgar wasn’t going to do that at all. Even if he found him first, he would promise to him he could make Rubica happy and beg him to disappear. He could even give him enough money.
However, Rubica was so delighted and hopeful that he couldn’t say no to her.
‘Plus, thinking about it, I do want to find him.’
He wanted to know what kind of charms Arman had for Rubica to like him so much. He himself had everything. Power, rank, all of it. Still, when he proposed to her, she tried to refuse him just because she loved Arman.
‘Is he even more handsome than me?’
Rubica liked pretty faces. That wasn’t entirely impossible. The chance of a man more handsome than him existing... before, he had hated his handsome face, but now he really liked it. She liked handsome people, so he wished to be the most handsome man of all.
“What are the colors of his hair and eyes?”
The question immediately startled Rubica.
“That’s...”
The Arman Rubica knew had white hair, but he was only three years older than she was, so he had to be 25 years old by now just like Edgar. However, she didn’t know the actual color of his hair.
historical
“I don’t know the color of his eyes.”
“You don’t know what color his eyes are? How is that possible?”
“Arman... was blind.”
That made Edgar immediately shut his mouth. He knew he just sounded as if he was scolding her, so he needed to change the topic.
“Eat.”
He cut a piece of smoked duck and put it on her plate. She also wanted to escape the conversation, so she ate it, smiling like she was all fine.
“And this, too.”
Edgar thought eating only meat couldn’t be good for her health and gave her some asparagus and beans. But then, there were too many vegetables. He cut some well-roasted lamb and beef and put it on her plate. And then, he added roasted pineapple pieces. In no time, food started piling up on her plate.
Rubica didn’t know what to say. Was he trying to turn her into a pig?
“What about you? You’re not eating?”
She said that because she was irritated, but he happily smiled. He had been smiling quite often now. Why on earth was he doing that? But again, his mind had always been hard to understand.
“... why did you like Arman?”
That question almost made her choke on the food.
“Why are you asking that?”
“That information is needed.”
“You can find Arman by knowing that?”
At this point, Edgar decided to be bold. He lifted his chin high and spoke arrogantly.
“Yes. You know that I’m smart, right?”
Rubica had to give up protesting since Edgar was indeed smart. That was an undeniable fact, but he didn’t have to say that himself.
“He was always at my side and comforted me when I was tired or stressed. He never refused to take the hard work... once, I was sobbing because I was so sad, but he went out to make a bouquet for me.”
“A bouquet made by a blind man? It must have been pretty.”
Edgar lost all of his appetite, but Rubica didn’t care. She looked at the vase on the table and smiled.
“It wasn’t pretty. It was made of wildflowers on the roads. Compared to the flowers in this vase, they were small and plain. But that is why it was all the more special.”
The light of the mana stone lamp in the middle of the room was reflected in her eyes, making them sparkle.
“He must have fumbled through bushes to check and pick flowers one by one for a long time to make that bouquet. It would have taken less than an hour for anyone else, but... it took him more than three hours. He did that only to make me feel better, to make me smile. And he couldn’t even see me smiling.”
A drop of tear was formed at a corner of her eye. It made the light sway, distorting the iris’ line and light. It glared in red and then sparkled clearly again. It made Edgar stare at her in a daze.
She was so lovely.
Who could he ever love if he didn’t love Rubica?
“Oh, sorry. I was too emotional.”
Edgar shook his head. He had asked her first, so she had no reason to apologize.
“No, you were not. It’s fine.”
Rubica looked for the handkerchief she had put on the table to wipe her tears, but it wasn’t there. So, she lifted up the basket to look for the handkerchief she had embroidered, but it wasn’t there, either.
‘Huh?’
Where was that handkerchief that she had worked on carefully but without much effort? Had it fallen on the floor? Rubica started to look around for it, so Edgar quickly asked the next question.
“When did you feel love for him?”
The question wiped Rubica’s mind clean and she forgot about the handkerchief.
“When, when I felt love for him?”
“Yes.”
Edgar looked way too serious.
Rubica used her hand to wipe her tears and took a sip of the juice. Where was she supposed to start? She didn’t know. It required a lot of courage to confess your love about a man to someone else. Plus, in this case, that someone was the man who had just been kissing her.
“Do you really have to hear that?”
“Yes.”
Rubica moistened her lips.
“Since when I started to fall in love with him... well, at first, I just thought he was a really nice man. He couldn’t see at all, but he didn’t blame his fate. He said he was happy as he had two strong legs and could walk all day. It looked so great. It made me think, ‘I should look at the bright side of the situation just like him.’”
Edgar had a habit of being sarcastic about everything, so he really couldn’t understand that man.
“Then, before I realized it, my eyes were looking at him and my ears were trying not to miss a word he said.”
“There are many positive people in this world. There’s nothing special about him...”
In the end, Edgar messed up with Rubica’s recollection.
“But I’m ordinary too. What’s wrong with an ordinary woman liking an ordinary man?”
“You’re not ordinary at all.”
“I am. I have plain brown hair and auburn eyes that are nothing special...”
“They’re the most beautiful eyes in the world, so don’t say that!”
Rubica shut her mouth in surprise. Edgar couldn’t hold back his anger and brutally put his glass on the table.
“Your hair is not plain brown. Do you know how pleasant is the scent of your hair? And you describe your eyes as ‘auburn eyes that are nothing special’? Have you ever looked into a mirror? They sparkle under the light and sometimes make me wonder if there are jewels more beautiful than them!”
Edgar’s face turned red. He also wanted to praise her soft milky-white skin and her red lips, but he gave up because he knew it would make her slap his back.