I had always been a person of little presence. The weight of an enormous string of contemptuous titles had kept scornful eyes on me at all times, but that was all. People paid little attention to how I felt or what I had to say.

Having spent my whole life as a cursed princess and then as a wife from an enemy nation, I had learned to erase what little presence I had entirely, and that skill proved useful whenever I needed a moment to breathe at a difficult social gathering.

That day was one of those days. I had been resting beneath a large rose trellis in the courtyard, no longer able to bear the relentless undercurrent of insults and pointed looks, when I heard them.

‘Can you believe that little thing had the nerve to go to my hairdresser first?’

‘And she always acted like she had no interest in any of that. What a complete pretense.’

I heard Delmir and Whitney’s voices and held my breath, pulling my shoulders in, terrified of making a sound.

‘So I paid her back in kind. Lucky for me, I happened to have a relative looking for a live-in son-in-law.’

‘Ha. He was acting like it was the love of a thousand years, and all it took was the promise of a title?’

‘Of course. Marrying Elise might come with a generous dowry, but that’s where it ends. He’ll be nothing more than the second son of a minor earldom forever. But if Rinne becomes a marchioness, a title or two might come her husband’s way as well. That’s a far better deal.’

Elise was a name that had set the social circles buzzing for a time several years ago. She was the eldest and youngest daughter of a rising earldom that had accumulated wealth through international trade, despite its modest territory.

She had a fiancé she had promised to marry, but one month before the wedding, he had unilaterally called off the engagement without any proper reason.

The fiancé who broke off the engagement soon married another young lady, while Elise fell into a deep depression, attempted to take her own life, and engaged in erratic behavior, filling the gossip sheets day after day without exception.

Some condemned the fiancé for leaving in search of better prospects, while others found fault with Elise for being broken off without cause.

At the time, I had felt sympathy for Elise, abandoned a month before her wedding, but my own circumstances were not such that I was in any position to comfort or condemn anyone, so I held my tongue.

Had I stepped in carelessly, I might have made an enemy of House Balthar for Heliones, who had been nothing more than a duke at the time, over a conversation I had only happened to overhear.

Elise still had not married. She had been twenty-one at the time, which made her twenty-four now, not yet entirely past the age for marriage, but it was no easy thing for a young lady with a mark against her name to find a match suited to her standing.

Her time was passing very quickly right now.

If even the reason for the broken engagement were made clearly known, the man who had abandoned his fiancée for better prospects would become a true scoundrel in the eyes of society, and Elise would become a pitiful woman who had simply been wronged by a bad man.

Then she could shed the dishonor. Was it right for me to keep my silence?

I had thought as much when I saw her standing beside Nelia at Delmir’s tea party some time ago.

* * *

Nelia frowned at the unexpected invitation, her expression puzzled.

‘She’s inviting me? And the young ladies who attended Delmir’s tea party as well?’

She had already been planning to find a reason to visit Lucian before long, but Lucian reaching out first was something she hadn’t anticipated. Nelia turned the corner of the invitation card between her fingers and fell into thought.

‘What’s her reason? Does she know something about me and Lewian? No, if it were something that important, she wouldn’t have invited the other young ladies. Does she have business with someone other than me?’

No amount of thinking would give her the answer before she actually attended. Whatever Lucian’s purpose, Nelia decided she would do well to stay on her good side, and she moved to set the invitation down on the table.

“Huh? An invitation from Lucian?”

Lewian appeared out of nowhere, plucked the invitation from Nelia’s fingertips, and smiled an unpleasant smile.

“So it seems. Strange, isn’t it.”

Nelia answered as coldly as she could manage, but Lewian paid it no mind.

“Good timing. When you go, make sure you find out. Whether she’s actually becoming his mistress or not. If she really is his mistress, she could be a tremendous asset to Rodencia’s revival.”

Lewian wore an expression difficult to believe had formed on such a beautiful face, conjured a small flame at his fingertips, and burned the invitation.

“By the way, is the revival of Rodencia coming along well?”

At Nelia’s question, Lewian twitched an eyebrow as though it were nothing of consequence and sidestepped the answer.

“It’s all being handled, so stay out of it. Just do your part right.”

Nelia watched the back of Lewian as he turned away, clearly fancying it a stylish exit, and felt the urge to scream at him to get out of her house that very instant.

She was sheltering him on her father’s orders, but Nelia had no interest in Rodencia’s revival or Frianc’s downfall.

All she wanted was to avenge the person she loved. Nothing more than that.

* * *

Nelia arrived at the lodgings faithfully accompanied by both young ladies who had attended the tea party with her, along with an apology for the trouble she had caused last time and a small assortment of desserts to accompany the tea.

The desserts were to my liking, and so was Nelia’s manner. Setting aside her girlish admiration for Heliones, she was quite easy to talk to.

When the conversation had warmed up nicely, I let a remark slip, steering things toward my purpose. I was not pleased about using someone else’s scandal this way, but I told myself that if the true reason for the broken engagement came to light, Elise too could be freed from her burden, and on that reasoning I hardened my resolve.

“The gossip sheets have been giving me quite a headache lately.”

“Ah, yes, I imagine so.”

Nelia took a sip of tea with a sympathetic look and nodded.

“I have no intention of marrying or becoming anyone’s companion, yet I keep finding myself in the middle of strange scandals because of these gossip sheets. It’s truly troublesome.”

I glanced sideways and caught Elise giving a faint shudder at the words gossip sheets, her gaze dropping into her teacup.

“Honestly, with two divorces on my record, unable to bear children, and my family gone, who would take any interest in me? I am hardly fit to be a wife, let alone a mistress.”

“Not at all! Miss Lucian is still so beautiful! It more than makes up for everything else!”

Nelia leaped to her feet at my bait, took both my hands, and vigorously denied everything I had said. Watching her reaction, which would have been a masterful performance if it were acting, I felt a brief flutter of something unsettled in my chest, but I recalled my purpose and pressed on with my lament.

“I feel terrible that the scandal has caused trouble not only for me but for His Majesty and Young Lord Roned as well. I am hardly in a position to…”

“What are you saying! Miss Lucian is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen! When I first laid eyes on you, I thought a goddess from ancient myth had stepped out right in front of me!”

‘Hmm?’

I was only casting bait to get Elise to open up, so why was Nelia jumping up and down like this, so genuinely upset on my behalf. No one had ever felt hurt for my sake before, and if she meant it, I was truly grateful, but I had a different purpose right now.

“Thank you. I have never heard such words in all my life.”

In any case, it was true that this was the first time I had seen someone with tears at the corners of their eyes on my account. I offered Nelia my thanks, half in earnest.

“I have also… had a very hard time of it.”

Just then, Elise, who had been holding her lips tightly shut, opened them with trembling fingertips.

“Ah, I was being thoughtless. Going on about my own troubles…”

Elise’s scandal had been so well known at the time that pretending ignorance would only have the opposite effect. I tried to apologize with my eyes pulled down in a look of genuine remorse, as though I had simply forgotten.

“Not at all. You have every right to say what you said. Back then I was in such a terrible state that I wanted to grab anyone who would listen.”

“I see.”

“My family suffered quite a bit of damage because of me at the time as well. Even now, my heart trembles when I think of it.”

“I understand completely. Every morning when I hear the newsboys calling out in the street, my stomach turns.”

Thankfully, Elise had taken the bait. The conversation had grown so suddenly serious that both Nelia and the other young lady who had come with her chose silence, and I decided this was the moment to let slip a more important piece of bait.

“I’ve even heard that there are noble houses behind the publishers printing the gossip sheets. Why anyone would want to tear down another’s reputation like that…”

I gave a subtle hint, and to my great relief, the young lady whose name I did not yet know took the bait without hesitation. She had clearly been eager to join in, because she poured out her words in a single unbroken torrent, like a sudden downpour.

“One of those gossip sheets is apparently connected to House Balthar. All prim and proper on the outside, but you wouldn’t believe how they stab other families in the back. At the Emperor’s banquet, everyone there was laughing, and they still ran that article about what a perfectly matched pair they were. And this time they printed all those false rumors about Miss Lucian too. Acting so refined and dignified on the surface while doing such shameful things behind closed doors. That Delmir. Oh!”