Astaire didn’t bother sending away the uninvited guests who’d shown up. He wanted to maintain the ducal family’s dignity by graciously hosting visitors.

That evening, an unusual atmosphere flowed through the spacious dining table in the ducal estate’s dining room.

The strange combination of four people—Duke and Duchess Seyfried, the head of house’s birth mother, and his childhood friend—sat at one table.

All of them displayed perfect table manners throughout the meal, never once making the crude noise of clinking utensils.

The atmosphere was calm yet suffocating.

“I really missed the Duke Seyfried estate’s cooking. I’d love to steal the chef away by offering higher wages, you know?”

“Oh my, dear. Why don’t you ask Astaire to have the estate’s chef do temporary work for you?”

“Astaire, what do you think?”

Meanwhile, Reina led the conversation with a lively yet refined voice.

Daphne couldn’t understand how she could think the chef’s skills were excellent while eating a piece of lettuce without a drop of dressing on it.

Moreover, asking to take away a chef who was excellent staff and difficult to hire—it was clearly an act of disrespecting the estate’s mistress.

Daphne silently cut and ate a piece of salmon steak.

She’d probably need to ask the head butler for digestive medicine after the meal ended.

“This reminds me of when we were young. We were just talking about old times with the Grand Duchess earlier.”

“Yes. You should have been there then!”

The dinner conversation revolved entirely around Astaire, Reina, and the Grand Duchess. Daphne couldn’t join their tightly-knit world even if she wanted to.

It felt like an invisible wall stood between this side and that side.

Daphne stared blankly at the metal candlestick decorating the table.

The candle flame, which had never flickered once when she was alone with Astaire, now swayed gently.

Wax dripped down below the burning wick like tears.

Somehow she couldn’t look away. Those dripping wax tears seemed to represent her current emotions.

As she watched the wax pool and harden white with a blank expression—

Her eyes met Astaire’s across the table.

“Let’s stop with our private talk here. It’s not polite to the person with us.”

‘Our private talk.’

That one trivial phrase swirled through her mind like a whirlwind.

Only then did Reina and the Grand Duchess glance at Daphne. Their gaze was insincere, like they were doing charity.

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

“…It’s fine.”

Nothing surprising. To them, Daphne was no different from the ceiling light above.

Present in the same space, yet someone they neither noticed nor felt the need to notice.

“Oh right, Astaire. I painted the Grand Duchess’s portrait in the drawing room earlier.”

“Yes. Your skill was considerable. Too good to just accept.”

The conversation topic shifted to Reina having painted the Grand Duchess’s portrait earlier. Still no room for Daphne.

“I’d like to show it to you too.”

At the Grand Duchess’s words, a maid quickly brought the portrait.

Despite this estate clearly having another mistress, Astaire quietly narrowed his brow watching the Grand Duchess command the servants like her own limbs.

But that was all. He didn’t particularly raise his voice.

Two maids held both ends of the Grand Duchess’s portrait and stood before the table. They removed the cloth covering the canvas.

“Well, isn’t it wonderfully done?”

“Oh, Grand Duchess. I’m suddenly embarrassed showing it to others like this.”

Reina and the Grand Duchess spoke up eagerly.

“…It’s decent.”

Meanwhile, Astaire only left a perfunctory compliment.

Daphne carefully examined the Grand Duchess’s portrait.

Since she’d left early with paint on her clothes, she was seeing the completed portrait for the first time here too.

Like a well-educated noblewoman, Reina’s painting skills were excellent. So too was the appearance of Grand Duchess Daniela Seyfried, whom a foreign king had supposedly fallen for at first sight and proposed to long ago.

The effort to impress the Grand Duchess showed in every brushstroke.

But what caught Daphne’s gaze was something else.

The water going down her throat somehow tasted bitter.

What the Grand Duchess held in the portrait was a bouquet of roses.

The beautiful roses with unusual petals—white overall but tinged red at the edges—were called Nostalgia Roses.

There was a reason Daphne remembered the name of a rose variety she barely knew.

* * *

She was eighteen, attending the Academy. Back when she secretly loved her patron Astaire and nursed her heartache in silence. At the time, Daphne was frantically busy preparing for the May festival as president of the women’s division student council.

The end of spring, the beginning of summer.

While all the students were excited about the festival, Daphne had to hole up in her room battling piles of documents. Documents stacked up like mountains every day in front of her single dormitory room door.

Even personal packages addressed to Daphne Brandley got mixed into that pile.

Early one morning, rubbing her tired eyes as she picked up the documents in front of her dormitory door—

‘Huh?’

A letter had arrived for her. What was more surprising was the sender’s name written on the envelope. Astaire Seyfried.

What reason would he have to send a letter?

Clutching her pounding heart, she slowly tore open the envelope.

Though they exchanged quarterly school life reports during the semester, even that had been through communication with Astaire’s personal assistant.

Let’s meet at this festival.

Only one line was written on the expensive stationery.

Astaire’s unmistakable scent emanated from the neat, precisely cut handwriting.

A sweet-bitter yet fresh scent that brought to mind orange blossoms.

Slowly breathing in, his unique scent passed through her nose and seeped deep into her lungs.

Daphne suddenly looked up and out the window.

The leaves densely packed on the branches looked refreshing just to see. They sparkled like emeralds, reflecting the dazzlingly bright yellow sunlight.

The greenery throughout the campus was deepening day by day. Everyone knew this fact except her.

She gazed entranced at the beautifully changing campus scenery. Somehow she couldn’t look away.

After thinking about why, the reason came to her.

In the green scenery spread before her eyes, she thought of the clear emerald light in Astaire’s eyes.

Summer is coming.

Astaire is coming.

Suddenly the world seemed brighter. Her heart pounded, and blood rushed quickly through her body.

That day, Daphne was seized by the feeling of walking on clouds all day. She prepared for the festival with her utmost effort without knowing fatigue.

She wanted to show Astaire, who would visit her, that she was working this hard to repay his patronage.

For that one reason—that he was coming—she worked harder than during any semester’s exam period.

During the three-day festival, Daphne also ran a flower bouquet booth.

When the joyful festival began and everyone cheered, only Daphne furtively looked around in the crowd.

But Astaire didn’t appear on the first day or the second day.

Only on the third and final day of the festival, as it was ending, did he finally show his face.

‘Are these the only flowers left after selling everything?’

An unforgettable, unforgotten voice finally reached her.

Daphne’s head shot up. After the long wait, Astaire was still as wonderful as she remembered.

Even his cold, detached appearance hadn’t changed.

‘N-no… there are more in the storage.’

Daphne reflexively avoided his eyes and muttered. Whenever she stood before Astaire, she was always afraid her hidden affection would be discovered.

She couldn’t even greet him happily. She fumbled like a fool.

‘I’d like you to make a bouquet matching this amount.’

At the request to make a bouquet, Daphne snapped to attention. What he held out on his palm was a single gold coin.

It was excessively generous for the price of a bouquet made by a mere Academy student.

Daphne asked, suppressing her trembling voice as much as possible.

‘Um, may I ask who you’ll be gifting it to?’

‘A woman.’

An obvious answer returned to an obvious question.

The answer without hesitation made her dizzy. Naturally she pictured the woman who would receive Astaire’s bouquet.

Of course it’s his lover. Maybe they’re even engaged already.

Daphne glanced around Astaire for no reason. But the woman whose face she didn’t know wasn’t even a shadow to be seen.

She endured her churning stomach and diligently cut flowers. She bound and trimmed the vivid fresh flowers into a bouquet.

Having received a whole gold coin, she felt uncomfortable making a bouquet with ordinary roses, so she ultimately chose Nostalgia roses.

Still, to think she was arranging a bouquet for the man she liked to give to another woman.

Though she didn’t show it, her heart was bitter.

On the other hand, she was curious. A woman who would receive Duke Astaire Seyfried’s bouquet.

Who could it be?

‘Astaire!’

Her curiosity was immediately resolved. She saw a beautiful woman running up from behind Astaire.

Come to think of it, that face seemed to appear often in newspapers. Her appearance was too glamorous and three-dimensional to be confined to black and white photos.

Under the sunlight, a vivid yellow glow flowed smoothly down from the woman’s crown.

The beautiful picture seemed to tell Daphne:

This isn’t where you belong.

He’s not a man for you to covet.

Even when the woman received the bouquet Daphne had made with her own hands from Astaire.

Even when she held Astaire’s bouquet in her right hand and linked her left arm through his.

Even the woman’s beaming face was so dazzling she couldn’t look away.

* * *

…Surely Astaire felt the same way then as now.

Watching a servant pour cool ice water into her empty cup, Daphne wished her unwelcome memories could be washed away like that too.

“Let’s end the meal here.”

Astaire put down his fork.

Did he have no appetite today? Looking again, he’d barely touched his food.

“Oh right, I brought a gift for you, my lady.”

At Reina’s words, Daphne looked up.

She could read the poorly hidden anticipation in Reina’s eyes.

Daphne somehow felt she knew what the gift she’d brought was.

“It’s tea leaves.”

A cylindrical case the size of a palm. Even without opening the lid, fragrant flower scent flowed from inside.

“It’s a blend of various flower petals that are supposedly good for pregnancy. My father recently went on a business trip to the Eastern country and bought it to give as a gift to Duchess Seyfried.”

Daphne recognized what it was at a glance.