She wanted to speak calmly without getting angry, but it wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.

Viscount Brandley’s face turned pale the moment his truth was exposed.

He moved his lips for a long while before finally opening his mouth.

Even that was nothing but excuses.

“Yes. Honestly, it’s not a small amount. But if it’s Duke Seyfried! Doesn’t that make it different?”

“The fact that he’s the Empire’s richest man has nothing to do with the fact that you still haven’t quit gambling, Father.”

She’d wanted to leave and find a life that was completely her own.

But Astaire wasn’t the only one holding her back.

Her father was gripping her other ankle too.

Daphne eventually delivered the cold truth to her father. It was something she had to say eventually.

“Father, I’m about to divorce His Grace.”

“What!”

Viscount Brandley shot up, seemingly having heard something he shouldn’t have.

Daphne didn’t hide her hollow expression as she watched her father.

At the very least, shouldn’t a father first ask why she was thinking of divorce?

The viscount, seemingly realizing his mistake, sat back down and scratched one ear with an awkward smile.

“…Maybe I’m getting old, I keep mishearing things.”

“I’ll soon be returning from Daphne Seyfried to Daphne Brandley.”

Daphne drove the point home once more.

“Child, you’re not in your right mind!”

In her view, the one not in their right mind wasn’t her but her father, yet she calmly continued her explanation.

“There were several critical reasons I couldn’t continue the marriage.”

“Did His Grace get another woman?”

Daphne flinched and froze.

“Please tell me you’re not talking about divorce over something like that! Men are creatures who can’t focus on one woman their whole lives. Still, with time, His Grace will surely realize there’s no wife better than you—”

“No, it’s not that.”

She could only answer after unconsciously wetting her dry lips with her tongue.

“Either way, it’s right to return the borrowed money.”

Her father’s face hardened like stone.

Daphne felt unease rising in one corner of her heart.

“Sorry, but that’s going to be difficult.”

“If the full amount is difficult right away, then even little by little…”

“Sigh, Daphne.”

The viscount sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“Must you really do this to your poor father?”

Poor father.

The moment she heard those words, her breath caught. Daphne had never once thought of her father as poor.

If anything, she herself was the pitiful one.

Watching her father still unable to escape his self-pity, she felt confused about what to say.

“…Father, you’re not going to sell your daughter twice, are you?”

She hadn’t wanted to say this much. She simply couldn’t bear the fact that the escape route she’d barely found was blocked.

But then.

“A father wants to benefit a little from his only daughter—is that so wrong?”

“What?”

Daphne doubted her own ears.

“Do you know how much money it took to feed you, clothe you, and house you! Daughters from other families treat their parents so well after they’ve grown up, you don’t know…”

The viscount finished with a deep sigh. That sigh, laden with meaning, stuck in Daphne’s chest like a thorn.

And stanching the bleeding heart was entirely Daphne’s burden.

“You’re mistaken about something.”

“What?”

“The person who sent me to school for an education, who paid for my uniform, snacks, and allowance—that wasn’t you, Father. It was Duke Seyfried.”

She definitely wasn’t defending Astaire.

Chewing over the words she’d just spoken, Daphne realized anew how deeply Astaire had infiltrated every corner of her life.

The more she chewed on it, the more an indescribable emotion lingered in her mouth.

“I at least want to end things well with him.”

Even if that man had been the worst to her, she didn’t want to remain the worst to him.

It wasn’t that she had any love left for him. She simply didn’t want to tarnish her past self, who had burned all her passion on that one love.

It was entirely for herself, not for Astaire.

She thought she could be this selfish.

* * *

Eventually, Viscount Brandley raised the white flag.

Daphne only left the mansion after somehow getting her father’s promise to repay Astaire the money.

It seemed like a decent result, but in reality it was nothing. She hadn’t even heard exactly when he would repay it.

And pressing her father there wouldn’t magically make money appear out of nowhere.

“We’ve arrived!”

In the meantime, the carriage had arrived at Duke Seyfried’s estate.

Just as Daphne received the coachman’s escort and stepped down from the carriage, entering through the main gate—

The closer she got, the more she could hear two voices laughing like song.

Just hearing them made her ears ring.

She could tell who the voices belonged to without even looking.

They had come to visit the ducal estate after a while.

Daphne grimaced but had no choice but to head to the drawing room. Even for unwelcome guests, it was her position to offer hospitality.

Astaire’s mother, Grand Duchess Daniela Seyfried.

And.

Astaire’s childhood friend, Marquis Ellington’s daughter Reina Melanian.

A childhood friend who had known Astaire for over ten years, an Academy alumna, and someone whose family had known each other since their parents’ generation—practically family.

The Melanian Marquis family, like the Seyfrieds, was a high nobility belonging to the First Prince’s faction. It made sense that Grand Duchess Seyfried had marked Reina early on as duchess material.

With her forget-me-not-like pure appearance and bright, warm personality, she had no shortage of followers in high society.

If not for the variable named Daphne, Astaire and Reina would have become husband and wife.

Reina couldn’t have dreamed it either.

That the student she’d seen at the Academy summer festival years ago, when she’d walked arm-in-arm with Astaire—that woman from a fallen noble family who had been his ward—would become the duchess.

“Just getting in now?”

The moment she stepped over the threshold of the wide-open drawing room door, the Grand Duchess spoke to Daphne. Her face clearly showed displeasure.

Skin white without a single blemish—except for the wrinkles that naturally spoke of time’s passage, anyone could see it was Astaire’s face copied and pasted.

Just like how Astaire was currently called the Avont Empire’s greatest beauty, she too had once been called the Empire’s greatest beauty.

Green eyes identical to Astaire’s openly looked Daphne up and down.

Displeasure, and contempt.

When the girl who had been nothing more than her son’s ward suddenly became the duchess one day, the Grand Duchess had nearly fainted, clutching her neck.

“How can you leave the ducal estate empty when Astaire isn’t even here?”

They were the ones who had come uninvited to an empty house without its master.

“Making a guest wait alone. What will people think of our Seyfried ducal family?”

A sharp rebuke rained down from above her head.

Daphne glanced at Reina, who sat beside the Grand Duchess smiling brightly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you were coming, so I couldn’t properly welcome you.”

Someone who came uninvited without an appointment.

Generally, society calls such people “unwelcome guests.”

“Well, does our Reina really need to coldly make an appointment to visit the ducal estate? She’s Astaire’s childhood friend, not just anyone!”

She’d clearly addressed Reina, but somehow the answer came from the Grand Duchess.

The person the Grand Duchess grouped as “our” wasn’t Daphne, Astaire’s spouse.

The Grand Duchess had cherished the Melanian daughter like her own since Astaire was young. She’d openly gone around saying her son’s match would be Reina.

If not for the stone that suddenly rolled in, that expectation might have become reality.

“No, Grand Duchess. I was the one being rude.”

“Oh my, Reina! Are you an outsider? What rudeness!”

Daphne wanted to storm out right then.

There was no point in being hurt by the Grand Duchess’s every word anymore.

Her heart had long since been scratched and torn to tatters.

Even if she had treated the unannounced Reina as a guest, it wouldn’t have been different.

The Grand Duchess would surely have gotten angry, starting with “How can you let someone who wasn’t even invited into the house?” and going on about how much Daphne had dragged down the Seyfried ducal family’s prestige.

Until her ears bled.

“Anyway, sit next to Reina there. Tsk tsk, she’s supposed to be the family’s mistress but doesn’t even know how to welcome a single guest.”

How did something like that roll into our family?

The words that would follow were now so predictable they were tiresome. Daphne stood her ground silently like a statue.

That’s when it happened.

“Duchess, you look unwell! Are you running a fever?”

Reina suddenly approached and placed her hand on Daphne’s face.

“I’d prefer you didn’t touch me.”

It happened in an instant without time to avoid, but Daphne didn’t just meekly endure it either. Not particularly because she was kind.

Simply because there was no reason to endure it.

And she was still the Duchess Seyfried.

“What?”

Reina’s eyes widened as she stared at her hand that the duchess had pushed away. Her red lips trembled pitifully.

Anyone watching would think Daphne had made Reina cry.

“Hey, what are you doing to Reina! Being rude to a guest!”

“I was just trying to check if the duchess was very ill. Please forgive my rudeness.”

“The ducal estate’s physician is famously second only to the Imperial physician in the Empire. I’ll gratefully accept your concern.”

Daphne spoke coldly.

“It’s not… a contagious disease, is it?”

Reina drew out her words as though bringing up something very difficult.

“What?”

“Because it would be bad if Astaire caught it.”

She couldn’t understand why Reina was arbitrarily deciding it was a disease and why she was even mentioning the Duke.

“It would be troublesome if someone leading both a ducal house and a trading company got stuck at home with some illness.”

“Yes, exactly! Hey!”

Reina deliberately pretended not to see Daphne’s increasingly hardening face.

But Daphne wasn’t an easy person either. She smiled and said, “You should be careful too, my lady.”

“What?”

“Are you sure it’s okay to be in the same space as a sick person? I don’t want to hear complaints from Marquis Melanian either.”

To the clueless Reina, Daphne smiled even more sharply.

It was a roundabout way of saying, “If you’re so concerned, you should leave.”

Reina’s face also turned ashen as she belatedly caught the meaning.

“Hey! That’s enough!”

The Grand Duchess, unable to watch any longer, shouted. The handkerchief in Reina’s hand had already become crumpled.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

Daphne, glancing at it, quietly backed down.

An awkward silence flowed between them for a moment, but even with a new person seated, the Grand Duchess and Reina went on with their own stories again.

“Do you remember? When we were young, after piano lessons every Wednesday, I’d come to the ducal estate and play hide-and-seek with Astaire.”

“Yes, of course I remember.”

“Back then, the head maid of the ducal estate would serve a different kind of cookie every week. I looked forward to what cookie would come out each time I visited!”

The tea in her mouth tasted bitter. Even though the maid in charge of refreshments had surely steeped the tea leaves perfectly.

“Those were good times. For me, and for Astaire too.”

These were all stories Daphne was hearing for the first time.