Chapter 51
As always, Giles Hessen woke up early in the morning.
A faint blue light was slipping through the curtains—it was the dim glow of dawn, just beginning to fade.
Anna was still asleep.
Her hand, which had clung to his since last night, hadn’t let go.
Thankfully, she was sleeping soundly, untroubled by nightmares.
When would she wake? He didn’t want to disturb her before she woke on her own.
Giles had to go to work, which meant leaving without saying goodbye.
Before leaving, he decided to at least prepare a simple breakfast for her.
Carefully unclasping their hands, he rose from the bed.
There were eggs in the kitchen. There were many things one could make with eggs.
He took out a few slices of bread and cracked an egg into a heated pan.
As he stirred it with a spatula, he sank into thought.
Last night’s conversation still weighed on his mind.
If, for any reason, Anna’s position were to become dangerous… Of course, such a thing shouldn’t happen—but she hadn’t been wrong. Pretending not to see the danger was no solution.
The real problem was that Vincent had begun showing a twisted kind of interest in Anna.
He had ignored Vincent’s defiance for too long, treating it with indifference—and now it was coming back to bite him.
Persuasion or threats wouldn’t work.
The only solution was to redirect Vincent’s attention—away from Anna and back toward himself.
He had to make sure Vincent couldn’t focus on her.
If he could deal with Vincent, then Anna would be safe for a while.
No one would ever suspect that Eloise Bismarck was still alive.
The fallen count’s youngest daughter had long been erased from everyone’s memory.
No one would question it. No one would care.
And really, who would want to drag down a brilliant new pianist shining on stage beneath the lights?
The scrambled eggs were done.
They were best eaten warm, but he didn’t want to wake Anna over one egg.
He plated the eggs beside two slices of lightly toasted bread and set the dish on the table.
As he was about to leave, buttoning up his uniform, his eyes drifted toward the one window he hadn’t closed the curtains on.
And he locked eyes with someone.
The moment he realized it, the curtains on the opposite side were hastily drawn shut.
No one was watching them anymore, yet Giles couldn’t move from where he stood.
It hadn’t been his imagination.
They were being watched.
Or rather—Anna was.
Had she noticed too?
Whether she had or not, the truth was clear.
Anna wasn’t safe.
She was being threatened.
Who was it?
The image of that fleeting moment haunted Giles all day long.
Even though he’d only seen the stranger’s gaze for an instant, he couldn’t forget it.
On any other day, he might have dismissed it as nothing—just a chance encounter, locking eyes with a neighbor.
But Anna wasn’t an ordinary person.
It wouldn’t be strange if someone were watching her.
Even if the odds of anyone discovering her true identity were slim, she was still a noble’s daughter. As she herself had said, there was no guarantee that her secret would stay hidden forever.
And if it had been a coincidence, why had that person closed the curtains the moment they were seen?
The watcher hadn’t wanted to be identified.
Would a mere neighbor have been that cautious?
Thoughts kept spiraling endlessly… If the revolutionary army were suspicious of Anna, why wouldn’t they simply arrest her instead of assigning a watcher?
If they had clear evidence, they wouldn’t bother with surveillance. That wasn’t how the revolutionary army operated.
So Giles considered other forces that might bear ill will toward Anna.
He recalled that she had been deeply entangled in the Orient Express operation.
She had been a key piece in that mission.
But she’d betrayed Albert Lehmann for Giles’s sake—and the Beldam Intelligence Bureau’s plan to capture him had ended in utter failure.
If that was why Anna had become their new target?
Or perhaps Beldam had realized Giles loved her, and now refused to let her go?
The thought that something terrible might happen to Anna at any moment made his head ache.
He couldn’t even bear to imagine losing her.
If that day ever came, he doubted he could go on living.
The only reason he hadn’t given up was because of her.
Someone knocked on his office door.
Pacing near his desk, Giles sat down and answered,
“Come in.”
To his surprise, Vincent Monaghan stepped in through the doorway.
His face was blank and cold as always. He gave a stiff, formal salute before closing the door.
Vincent handed him a document.
It was a request for interrogation authorization.
“Still got more to ask those Beldam agents?”
“What can I say? If you hadn’t personally sent that Lehmann bastard to his grave, I wouldn’t still be stuck cleaning up this mess. Spare a thought for my troubles, will you?”
“Their deportation date’s not far off. What do you expect to gain at this point?”
“You make it sound like you don’t want me questioning them, Captain.”
Giles didn’t reply.
Truthfully, it made him uneasy.
He couldn’t explain why, but a part of him wanted those agents gone—back to Beldam as soon as possible.
And the fact that Vincent was the one in charge of interrogating them made him even more uneasy.
He couldn’t shake the thought that Anna might somehow get dragged into it.
He’d even wondered if Vincent’s fixation on her had started because of that very operation.
After all, Anna had boarded the train in cooperation with Albert Lehmann.
“Why do you assume I want to go easy on them? The case is already closed. Those who tried to infiltrate Beldam will be deported—that’s the conclusion.”
“There’s still time left.”
“The deportees include those agents. Beldam wants them returned alive.”
“I’ll leave their arms and legs intact, don’t worry.”
He clearly wasn’t going to give up.
Whatever more he wanted to know, Giles didn’t like it.
After what had happened that morning, even this simple authorization request felt like another potential threat to Anna.
But he couldn’t refuse it.
He had no grounds to deny the request—and if he did, Vincent might make trouble with the higher-ups.
With a reluctant sigh, Giles picked up his pen.
“…No torture.”
“That kind of thing’s long out of fashion.”
The unexpected response made Giles look up sharply.
Vincent accepted the signed document, a faint smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“By the way, about what happened last time—I owe you an apology.”
“What about it?”
“For being rude to Miss Anna. To her, and to you, Captain.”
“There’s nothing more to say about that.”
“What’s the harm in letting me apologize properly?”
Giles was too exasperated to even respond. He was about to dismiss him when—
“Do pass my apology along to Miss Anna as well. Tell her I’m sorry for doubting her, even for a moment.”
He turned to leave.
What did he mean by that?
Giles couldn’t just let him walk away.
“What do you mean by that, Monaghan?”
“As you know, Captain, Miss Anna wasn’t entirely unrelated to the incident. Quite the opposite, in fact. I simply had to clear every lingering doubt.”
“You mean you investigated Anna?”
“I just wondered whether she might have planned to defect to Beldam along with the passengers.”
“Monaghan.”
“She did start clinging to you right after that case, didn’t she? Suspicious timing, I thought.”
“Anna was never a subject of investigation.”
“Well, neglecting duty would only come back to bite me later.
What if she’d tricked you—pretending to defect with Lehmann, only to crawl back to you when things went wrong and play innocent?
Who would take responsibility for that, Captain?”
His anger cooled into something icy.
Giles couldn’t tell if Vincent truly believed Anna was innocent now—or if he was just baiting him, using irony to test his reaction.
But the worst part was that Vincent’s speculation wasn’t entirely wrong.
Anna had boarded that train to flee abroad.
She hadn’t known it was Beldam, but she had cooperated with Albert Lehmann.
“So every time you saw her, you were thinking that?”
“No harm in a little suspicion.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me from the start?”
“I wanted to be sure before saying anything. Besides, since you were involved with her, I had to tread carefully. Anyway, now that I know she’s clean, I suppose I can rest easy.”
He started toward the door again, then turned back once more.
“Tell me something, Captain. Do you really love Miss Anna?”
“Get out.”
Vincent only shrugged, not bothering to protest, and stepped out of the office.
The door closed behind him.
