Delphine seemed so focused that she failed to notice Brando approaching her. He looked at the Chancellor's daughter's slender neck, exposed as she bent over, where a layer of fine down reflected the firelight.
She held a charcoal pencil and was drawing a map in her diary. The Chancellor's daughter certainly lived up to her status as a noble lady. Her artistic accomplishments were remarkable: she excelled at sketching and oil painting, could even sculpt, and knew something about murals. She wrote poetry and had a profound literary education. She was also extremely talented in music and religion. It was said that she had even joined the temple choir in her youth and earned Vala's admiration.
Yet this person was almost perversely twisted inside. Brando could only sigh at the fact that no one in this world was perfect. Or perhaps she had left herself with this flaw precisely because she pursued perfection too relentlessly.
He stood silently behind her without saying anything. He knew Delphine had noticed his arrival long ago. He had not deliberately concealed his presence, and the Chancellor's daughter never relaxed her vigilance toward her surroundings. She was a woman as sensitive as a cat.
Speaking of which, the diary in Delphine's hands was the one he had returned to her. The charcoal pencil paused on the page. "I thought the lord would sneak up behind me and give me a fright. What a pity—I had already prepared a look of panic."
"Am I really that mean-spirited?"
"This is romance, my lord. You really don't understand a young girl's heart at all."
Brando stared at Delphine, but he truly couldn't see where she had anything resembling a young girl's heart. Scheming from head to toe, perhaps. Anyone who actually treated her as an innocent, ignorant girl