There are many ways to restore a family whose fortunes have fallen, but the story changes when the only child left to carry that burden is a well-bred, carefully raised daughter. This was also the story of Lionette Wagner.

The only daughter of the distinguished Wagner count family, she had been raised with one purpose: to conquer high society and bring home the perfect match. The trouble was that her nature was entirely at odds with her parents’ ambitions.

“Ah, Miss Wagner. It’s been a while.”

“Didn’t we see each other at the last ball? I wouldn’t say it’s been a while.”

“Oh, right…… I suppose so. Haha.”

Lionette Wagner was a woman who had been born lacking tact, or perhaps social grace.

Part of the reason she turned out this way was the late countess, who had kept Lionette close all her life, insisting she would grow up to become an empress or a duchess. As a result, Lionette developed a manner of speaking that was too blunt and incapable of softening anything, and rather than conquering high society, she became a wallflower, sitting at a corner table counting the pleats in her dress.

The countess would have beaten her chest raw if she’d known, but what can the dead do to pass their wishes on to their children? And so Lionette reached the age of twenty without ever having gone on a proper date with a young nobleman.

Count Wagner believed the late countess’s approach to raising Lionette had been wrong, yet he took no particular steps to change anything.

His hobby was bringing home fair-faced commoner women and making them his concubines, something he considered the greatest fortune those women could ever hope for. In much the same way, Count Wagner believed all his problems would be solved the moment his daughter married some wealthy provincial nobleman.

“So it’s all useless, they say.”

Lionette muttered quietly to herself. She must have looked like she was cursing something from her corner with a grim expression, because no one sat on either side of her.

Maintaining a distance safe enough to survive a plague, Lionette observed a brief moment of silence for her late mother. Then she said a prayer for herself, a woman who, despite all her mother’s efforts, had ended up not as an empress or a duchess but in a position where even finding a decent man and starting a family felt nearly impossible.

She had pretended not to mind the arranged marriage her father had orchestrated, but she couldn’t stop the storm churning inside her. She had few friends in the capital as it was, yet now she was supposed to abandon even the maids who had been with her all her life and be married off to a completely new place, sold away like goods. And on top of that, her intended was a viscount nearly as old as her father. It wasn’t even funny.

Lionette found herself, for the first time, understanding why a princess in a fairy tale would sell her soul to a devil just to escape marriage. Too bad I don’t know any devils.

She left the seat she had been occupying, looking ready to hold it until the banquet ended, in an instant.

She felt a little suffocated. It was probably not the air but her chest that had seized up, but regardless, Lionette quietly slipped out of the banquet hall. She planned to take a lap around the imperial palace garden.

The imperial palace garden was, true to its owner, adorned in full splendor. The garden bloomed with cherry blossoms in spring and lilacs in summer, and now, in early summer, it held roses in abundance.

Red, pink, and sunset-hued roses of every variety filled the space, and the sight was like a painting come to life.

Lionette smiled for the first time in a while and walked along the soft grass path. This friendless woman’s first hobby was reading, and her second was admiring gardens. Since bringing a novel to a ball was out of the question, she often, or rather frequently, came to admire the imperial palace garden. She did so even knowing that the garden, which made the gardeners’ efforts feel a little sad, was typically used as a meeting place for secret trysts.

But that didn’t mean she was entirely unbothered by stumbling upon a couple so openly turning the pages of their own love story right in front of her. Lionette held her breath. She had the feeling she was about to witness the end of something between the two people before her.

The man’s neatly swept platinum hair shifted under the elaborately dressed woman’s touch, then stilled when the man caught her hand. He held her wrist and said something, and whatever it was must have struck a nerve, because the woman’s hand trembled. And then, good heavens. She slapped him.

Only then did she get a clear look at the man’s face. At that moment, Lionette let out a soft “Ah…….”

Because the man she had been half-suspecting from the moment she saw the platinum hair turned out to be none other than Duke Siegfried.

Dante Siegfried, the empire’s only duke and a distant cousin of the reigning emperor. Platinum hair with just the faintest trace of pure gold melted through it, as though to announce his imperial blood, and eyes so deeply red they seemed to pull you in.

The reason Lionette knew his face was simple. When she was young, her mother had pointed to a face in the newspaper and said, “He’s no longer with the imperial family now, but he’ll be a distant relation of yours someday,” and had quizzed her on it so many times she had the face memorized.

And now that distant relation of hers was getting slapped and apparently broken up with. Well, whether he had been broken up with was not entirely certain, but the woman who had slapped him was the one who walked away first, so this must be what novels called a “breakup”……

Lionette craned her neck a little and peered over. She knew it was terrible curiosity, but she couldn’t help wanting to see how the man her mother had called so “cold-blooded” would react.

“If you’ve seen enough, you can come out.”

So getting caught spying this spectacularly was also not part of Lionette’s plan.

Duke Siegfried smoothed his disheveled hair back into place with careful hands as he spoke. Lionette hesitated, then crept forward. Duke Siegfried let out a short, humorless laugh and looked her over.

“Wagner?”

Sounds like he’s asking if I’m Miss Wagner. Nod, nod.

“Did you see from the beginning?”

Shake, shake.

Duke Siegfried let out another sigh. Then he spoke again, at greater length this time.

“Lionette Wagner. The only daughter of the Wagner count family. Currently planning an arranged marriage due to the family’s declining fortunes.”

Duke Siegfried raised one eyebrow.

“Anything incorrect? In words, this time.”

“Um…… no.”

“Then why was Miss Wagner, on the eve of her marriage, spying on this scene?”

“I was taking a walk……”

“Ha.”

That was the second humorless laugh from Duke Siegfried. Lionette added, deflated.

“I’m not just saying that. I actually come out during banquets and take walks all the time.”

“Then you should have kept walking. Why were you watching someone else’s confession?”

“I’m truly sorry about what happened to you, Your Grace. But I hope you’ll understand that I had no ill intent.”

Duke Siegfried let out a sigh that said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, then pushed his hair back with that handsome face of his and opened his mouth.

“Very well. Then let me ask you one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“Do you intend to tell anyone about today?”

“No.”

Of course anyone would say no if Duke Siegfried asked. Duke Siegfried knew that too, which was why he kept his eyes on Lionette a moment longer with a dissatisfied look. Lionette added:

“Really, no. I don’t have any friends.”

She had only added that one line about having no friends, yet Duke Siegfried relaxed considerably. The way a man relaxes when he already knows something to be true. Lionette raised a finger and pointed at herself.

“Can I ask a question now?”

“Go ahead.”

“Did she break up with you?”