We're Married, After All - Chapter 33
Was that why? It felt like such a waste that there wasn’t a single colored drawing. The paper, though smudged with use, was of excellent quality. Yet, it had only been used for quick sketches. Even completed drawings were almost nonexistent.
“It’s as if they were done hastily, just to capture whatever scene was in front of them… somehow.”
The other sketchbooks weren’t much different. In fact, the older the sketchbook, the less refined the drawings were, as if they were from an earlier stage of the artist’s skill development.
So, I initially thought it was nothing of significance.
“……”
But my hand holding the sketchbook grew cold. Looking at the early, unpolished sketches made something clear to me.
All of these drawings were of the same person.
With hands now stiffened by unease, I reached deeper into the drawer, searching for the oldest sketchbook at the bottom.
But my hand found something else first. It was a folded sheet of drawing paper, very old, with a crinkled back. Likely, it had been painted on.
Under the flickering candlelight, I laid the paper down. It was the oldest, crudest, yet somehow most painstakingly detailed drawing I had seen so far.
The hair was painted in layers—brown watercolor over pencil, with light brown colored pencil added for depth. The green irises had been painted over multiple times, causing the paper to fray. White colored pencil traced beads of sweat dripping along the jawline.
The face in the drawing stared blankly into the distance, expressionless.
My fingertips turned pale. The face in the drawing—it was familiar.
It was… me.
I stared blankly at the drawing. Despite its crude execution, there was something mesmerizing about it. Perhaps it was because of the emotion poured into the drawing—because it was created by him.
Though I had never seen Danel drawing, I knew instantly that it was his work. The obsessive details in the sketch kept stirring up something within me.
A sudden intuition flashed through my mind. Reaching back into the drawer, I retrieved the sketchbook buried at the very back. Its cover carried the weight of time, weathered and worn.
I flipped through the pages rapidly. One crude drawing after another filled the sketchbook—barely capturing stray strands of hair, let alone a face. They were clumsy, almost pitifully so, as if drawn when the artist had just begun learning.
And yet, every drawing unmistakably depicted Laurea Veloce—or rather, Laurea Temesio.
About halfway through, I came across a page with faint coloring. After countless attempts, the brushstrokes evolved from mere studies to what could be considered true coloring. The forms became refined, clear enough to tell at a glance what the subject was.
Near the end of the sketchbook, I found a drawing of a summer day. It depicted two figures sitting together beneath the shade of a large tree.
I recognized the two people immediately—Petios and me.
On the next page, and the page after that, the two of us stood side by side, season after season, as the sketchbook’s world changed around us.
It made sense. Whenever I visited the Count’s estate, Petios was always by my side.
We had been officially engaged when I was thirteen. From then on, I visited the Veloce County once or twice a year for long vacations, and no matter what I did, Petios was with me.
Danel, who must have picked up a pencil to begin drawing around that time, had been watching us ever since.
“At least, that was the case until Petios fell ill…”
After finishing the last page of the sketchbook, I immediately moved on to the next one.
The drawings returned to black and white. They seemed to focus more on form and shading, as if the artist had been practicing pencil sketching, but none of the drawings reached any level of completion.
Flipping through a few more pages, I came across another summer scene. Under a tree with lush, full leaves, a woman with long, flowing hair stood alone. I remembered it—it was likely the summer I was sixteen.
That summer, Petios fell gravely ill. He became unwell the evening after we had gone boating together, and he spent ten days bedridden. Even the gentle breeze from the lake seemed to him like a fierce storm.
I did my best to care for him. Thankfully, he recovered without any lasting complications, but from that point on, we could no longer visit the lake together.
Afterward, the time I spent with Petios dwindled significantly. When I visited the county, I longed to enjoy the warm, open air I couldn’t experience at home, but he preferred to remain indoors.
In the end, we began scheduling a single meeting each day. I didn’t find it particularly disappointing.
By then, we had been engaged for three years. I already knew not only the entirety of the Count’s garden but also the surrounding area like the back of my hand. With no older brothers accompanying me under the guise of chaperones, I was freer to move as I pleased.
I wandered the estate without even a maid in tow. That was also when I began borrowing horses to explore farther areas.
The drawings in the sketchbook reflected this as well. In all of them, I was alone. There were days when I read books on the terrace, others when I spent half a day horseback riding, and some when I walked through the rain.
It was a detailed chronicle of those long years.
“Hm.”
I murmured softly, flipping through the sketchbook as the weight of the passage of time settled over me.
