Leonie wants a romance with the Baron - стр. 5

“He’ll bring us some camels,” I replied without looking up from the newspaper.

In truth, there was nothing of interest in the newspaper. I was thinking about the fact that in just a few hours I would be going on a private tour of the castle halls. Until this very morning, you could have called me one hundred percent my mother’s daughter—from the tips of my hair to the tips of my nails. But that morning I decided: I wouldn’t tell her where I was going tonight. I looked at her smile—the very one she likes to say exists because of me and only for me… and I couldn’t believe that some stranger occupied my thoughts more than the person thanks to whom I live and rejoice.

“Who’s going to win today’s match?” my mother asked.

I answered:

“Mmm?”

She repeated the question, and I suggested:

“Ask the Japanese or the Australians. For them it’s already tomorrow—they’ll definitely know.”

My mother, more than anyone, sensed that I was hiding something. She was about to ask, smiling… but the phone rang. It was her brother from Tunisia.

“How’s the weather over there?… Oh, here it’s hot, not a cloud in the sky! Today I came out in just a shirt… Of course, I brought a coat, but I’m not wearing it now… Yes, yes, it’s so warm you don’t even notice you’re back from vacation.”

By lunchtime the rain had started, a thunderstorm broke out. No surprise—it was late May. Neither my mother nor I, of course, had an umbrella. She wouldn’t let me step outside until I agreed to pull plastic bags over my head and shoes. Bags made of plant-based material—we care about the environment.

The streets of London remained lively: crowds of locals and tourists, freshly dressed in light summer dresses, shorts, and sleeveless shirts. Like us, they hadn’t thought to bring umbrellas.

Amid this colorful mass, I once again thought of my long-standing, faint but persistent desire—to stand out from the faceless crowd. Perhaps very soon…

The main door of the castle was always opened by the butler. At the sound of the bell – deafening, like a gong calling warriors to battle (installed at the insistence of the tourist agency that ran tours here) – the elderly man began his ritual: unlocking every bolt and latch.

One day, having completed this entire ceremony, he found two figures on the doorstep: a young man and a young woman. The girl was dripping wet from the rain. The young man – dry, with an umbrella in his hand, which, apparently, he had not cared to share with her. The girl was me, Leonie Smith.

– “You’ve come to Lord Montgomery, Baron George Gérard Étienne?”

– “We’ve come to George,” replied the guide John, as if all those names belonged to different people and he had just picked the one he wanted.

– “Who else would you come to… The place is as empty as a sinking ship,” the old man muttered under his breath, clearly convinced we could not hear him.

– “I’m from the tour company. My name is John Stevenson. I think he’ll agree to see us once he learns the reason is very important… Confidential, in fact.”

The butler shifted his apathetic gaze to me.

– “She’s with me,” John threw in.

– “Very well. I’ll inform the baron,” the old man said, and was already about to leave, but then turned back, waved a limp hand and added casually: “Make yourselves comfortable…”