Chapter Ten

“I will escort you to the next celebration,” Ethen said. “We should start discussing the date of our engagement ceremony next year. It wouldn’t do to leave my fiancée alone because of work.”

I tried to put him off. “Why, I attend so many events. Could you escort me every time?”

I replied in a way that he couldn’t detect subtle sarcasm in my reply. He must have thought that the Mary Bell couldn’t use that kind of utterance, so he seemed to interpret my words directly.

“Maybe not every time, but I’ll be by your side as much as I can.”

I recalled the scenes of the novel with Mary Bell. Because she attended every party she could, she and Aria mostly saw each other at various social events—and Ethen was almost never by her side. If he had been, he would never have let her act so recklessly.

“Really? I’m glad.” I smiled brightly.

Judging by Emperorhow things were going, receiving a gift from the Emperor caused some problems with the storyline. Ethen, who should have shown no interest in Mary, had now come to visit her right after the party and even vowed to fulfill his duties as her fiancé from now on. I could only assume the Duke had something to do with this.

“My parents are coming home next week,” I said. “I’m planning a small soiree at the mansion to celebrate their return.”

“If you tell me the exact date, I’ll do my best to attend.”

He clearly didn’t want to come. I kept smiling straight at him, and he struggled to hide his troubled expression while returning my gaze, as though he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Every noble in the empire knew that Marquess Bell took frequent business trips, but throwing a party to celebrate his return must have seemed strange.

I widened my eyes and smiled as gently as possible. “Since you said you’d come, I’ll be waiting.”

I’d been engaged to this man since birth, but he would never be mine. Soon he would fall head over heels for Aria. That love would make him disobey his own father to be by her side. I had no intention of stopping the predetermined storyline, but I couldn’t break the engagement for no reason. I couldn’t risk something else going wrong. He was a man I shouldn’t covet, and I had no desire to do so, but there was nothing wrong with enjoying the sight of him. So for however long I had left in this engagement, I was going to enjoy his handsome face.

He nodded slowly. “I understand. Oh, and—” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small box, and handed it to me.

I looked up, puzzled.

“Open it.”

I carefully opened the lid. Inside the box was a ring adorned with a ruby as red as Mary Bell’s hair.

A ring? I looked back up with blank eyes.

This was obviously not the reaction he’d expected. He looked disconcerted. “You like rubies, do you not, Lady Bell?”

A smile spread across my face. Was this what the world of nobles was like? Gifts of jewelry for no reason at all? “So you’re suddenly giving me a ring?”

As I looked down at the ring, I realized my mistake. The real Mary Bell wouldn’t react this way to jewelry. “Ah, of course. I love rubies, red and sparkling. Don’t you think they resemble me? After all, they say red was a symbol of nobility from ancient times, ha-ha.”

“They look nice on you.”

Once the fuss over the ring was done, the cold atmosphere returned. Now it was not only cold, but it was also awkward. After a long stretch of quiet walking, it was Ethen who broke the silence. “I should head back now.”

Of course. The Duke’s heir would naturally be busy. I desperately wanted to escape this suffocating silence, so I let his words lighten me up, and I nodded in agreement. “Then I’ll see you next week at the mansion.”

“I’ll see you then.”

I sent him off with a smile, then straightened my face as soon as the carriage was gone.

The maids misunderstood and assumed that my conversation with Ethen had not gone well. They began to eye me nervously.

Annie carefully suggested a refreshment to lift my mood. “My lady, ah, today’s refreshment is one of your favorites: lemon sherbet.”

A lemon sherbet? Good. “With such fine weather, it will be nice to eat something sweet.”

My big smile hid nothing. What was there to feel bad about? I didn’t expect anything to happen with Ethen. My goal was to break the engagement off as quickly as possible by mutual consent. I wasn’t jealous, and I wasn’t going to beg him to love me. If I managed to stay in the capital with the family fortune, then I’d consider my life here a success.

“Of course.” Seeing that I was in a better mood than she’d thought, Annie rushed to the kitchen in relief. “I’ll prepare and bring it here quickly.”

How did the original story play out from here? I walked around the garden one more time, thinking that I’d take my time to consider my next move over a nice sherbet.

***

Ethen arrived home musing that something had been different about his fiancée today. What could have made him feel so strange?

“You are always tired after a visit to the Marquess’ estate,” observed Heint, the Duke’s secretary. “How are you today?”

“Mmmph.”

It was this sound that made Ethen realize what had been different. Today’s Mary Bell had been too quiet. It wasn’t that she had seemed docile or that she’d only said a few words, like Don’t you think so, too? or I went to the dressing room yesterday but couldn’t find anything that I liked, or even These are my new earrings. Don’t you think they go well with the dress you gave me?

Mary Bell usually relished talking about herself. She went on and on about all sorts of things that he hadn’t even asked about and gave him such a headache that he preferred working to visiting with her.

“She was a bit quiet today,” he allowed.

They had spoken about various things, but she hadn’t brought up any stories about herself. She’d even waited quietly until he asked her questions.

“This is the first time your fiancée has attracted attention for something positive, young lord,” Heint said with a chuckle. “Maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe she’s finally growing up.”

Maybe that was it. After all, as a debutante, Mary had attracted the attention of others many times, but never for anything positive. At her debutante ball, she ignored the order of the group dance and caught the eyes of many people by remaining in the center. This could have been considered an act of cute defiance from such a young lady, but the following year she was responsible for a terrible mess, and to this day, she claimed she’d done nothing wrong.

Everyone knew that people whispered behind each other’s backs at parties. It was an unspoken rule of high society that those whispers were to be ignored and that everyone should act friendly in front of the other person. But Mary Bell did not conform to such rules. If she heard that someone had said bad things about her behind her back, she immediately went to that person to make them pay.

An unknown lady with light pink hair had endured the humiliation of having a chunk of hair pulled out in the middle of a party hall, but Mary claimed the lady should be the one apologizing for talking about her behind her back. The story of how she’d shaken off her twin’s hand in anger had made its way to Ethen in less than a day. Even the Marquess and his wife, known to dote on their daughter, had scolded her harshly for the incident. After that, she was careful not to make trouble of such magnitude, but she remained the topic of many rumors.

“Last year, she spilled trash on Lady Lorain’s dress,” Heint said. “And a few months ago, she made a fuss accusing Lady Rita of stealing her earrings. She said they were all supposedly mistakes, but who would believe her?”

Heint shook his head in disapproval. Even the Duke, who was excited about the wealth the union would bring, was seriously thinking about breaking off the engagement.

And it was for these reasons that this news was so surprising. When he had first heard about what happened at the Emperor’s celebration, Ethen was sure he had misunderstood. He would’ve had no trouble believing she’d spilled wine on someone’s dress. But not only had she overlooked being humiliated by someone else’s mistake, but she’d also gone so far as to give the other victim a gift. For a moment, he considered the possibility that she may have applied poison to the dress she’d given Aria.

“Maybe she truly has turned over a new leaf this time,” he mused.

“Maybe she has grown up.”

The old Mary would have put the ring on her finger as soon as she got it and boasted how good it looked on her. Even when she was sulky, a gift was enough to excite her. But not this time.

“At this rate, maybe you won’t need to break off the engagement.” Heint grinned at Ethen.

It was true. But Ethen did want to break the engagement. Even with his father’s advice, he didn’t think he could handle Mary. He’d wanted to break off the engagement countless times before it became public.

“Don’t speak so lightly.” It was a brisk answer, but if Mary truly had grown up, then he wouldn’t need to worry about breaking the engagement. “The Duke seemed ready to set a date.”

Actually, Mary Bell was a fine woman if you overlooked her... character. But that’s who she was. Still, she had looks, came from a nice family, and was extremely wealthy. If Duke Frangert had known beforehand that the Marquess’ daughter would grow up to be such a lout, he would never have agreed to the engagement. But now, although he had considered breaking the engagement due to Mary’s personality and reputation, the Duke seemed to have changed his mind after hearing what had happened at the Emperor’s celebration. He’d decided Mary could be fixed.

Ethen didn’t think on it longer. It was still too early to decide. “There’s still one year left until official marriage discussion begins. There’s no need to make a fuss this soon.”

Marquess Bell and his wife were due to return in six days. If he was to visit the Bell estate that day, he first had to take care of all the paperwork piled up on his desk. “I’ll know more once I’ve spent more time with her.”

With a determined expression, he reached for a quill.