Nate ended up leaving the imperial palace partway through, unable to stay until the end. Count O’Hara clicked his tongue in disappointment, but there was nothing to be gained from putting her pale face on display before the nobility, so he reluctantly permitted her to go home.

She had no time to explain the situation to Roderick, so the following day Nate invited Lilia, his older sister and someone she had been talking with often lately, to the manor.

“You weren’t feeling well yesterday? Don’t worry too much about Roderick. He’s so straightforward that once he understands the reason, he’ll get over it quickly.”

Nate and Lilia sat in the parlor drinking tea. Nate, who had been uneasy since the day before, let out a relieved sigh.

“That’s a relief. I’ve been thinking about it all this time.”

“Were you thinking about it because you were worried Roderick was disappointed in you? Or simply because you felt bad?”

Nate blinked a couple of times. Lilia seemed to be hoping it was the former. But Nate felt more sorry toward Roderick than anything else.

Lilia suddenly laughed.

“Your face shows everything you’re feeling, Nate.”

“Oh……”

“Does Roderick not appeal to you as a man?”

Before Nate could answer, Lilia pressed on with another question.

“Or is it perhaps that you haven’t fully let go of your feelings for Young Lord Damon yet?”

Nate looked at Lilia with a startled expression, then dropped her gaze.

“Roderick is charming. I think… the problem is that I haven’t sorted out my feelings yet.”

“So you’re still wavering? I heard you left with Young Lord Damon yesterday.”

“I wasn’t wavering. I still want to give up on Young Lord Preston. I’m working on it. Yesterday… Young Lord Preston simply helped me because he could see I wasn’t feeling well. That was all.”

Lilia, of all people, probably knew best that nothing happened. Not just Lilia, but most other nobles would likely say the same: even if Damon and Nate were alone together in a closed space, nothing would happen between them. That was how thoroughly Damon showed no interest in Nate over the past five years.

Lilia nodded and brought her teacup to her lips.

“Then it seems like fully sorting out your feelings for Young Lord Damon is still the priority.”

She sat in thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up as though something entertaining occurred to her. She looked at Nate and asked.

“Nate, have you ever had any interest in going to Ombra?”

Nate looked slightly taken aback.

“Ombra? That place seems… far too out of place for someone like me……”

Nate knew Ombra well enough. It was a place Damon frequented. Nate followed Damon everywhere he went, but the one place she never set foot was Ombra.

Hotel Ombra. It was a place that could be said to exist beyond the reach of imperial law. A venue where upper-class nobles went purely for pleasure and amusement. A place thick with every manner of scandalous rumor.

Even the party where Nate declared she was giving up on Damon was full of intoxicated nobles and the banquet hall was thick with cigar smoke. On top of that, noble men and women could occasionally be seen kissing openly.

But Ombra was something else entirely. It was known as a place where n*ked nobles engaged in open s*xual acts, gambling ran rampant, and games involving tying up servants and maids for the amusement of the nobility were said to take place.

Lilia curved her lips in a smooth smile.

“You can’t say it doesn’t suit you without ever having gone. Surprisingly, even well-behaved young ladies like you come there often. We all have to maintain appearances for our families’ sake, don’t we? But that place has none of that.”

“…But I don’t see what going there has to do with letting go of my feelings for Young Lord Preston.”

“When you fall for someone, you feel certain pleasant sensations. But once you realize those same sensations can be satisfied through other means, you come to understand that what you felt all along was simply a desire to enjoy those sensations.”

“……”

“For nobles like us, there isn’t much in daily life that brings real excitement. So it’s easy to become fixated on someone of the opposite s*x who provides it. That’s why it helps to seek out new stimulation.”

Is that really true? Can the feeling of loving Young Lord Preston be replaced by something else?

Nate was not particularly convinced. But somewhere in her heart, she wanted to put this exhausting one-sided love behind her as quickly as possible. Five years of unreturned feelings wore a person down more than she expected.

“If you go to Ombra and decide it isn’t for you, you can leave right away. No one will stop you. No one will judge you either.”

Lilia said it lightly. Nate looked at her quietly for a moment, then furrowed her brow.

“But if I go there… I might run into Young Lord Preston……”

Lilia gave a small laugh.

“That makes it all the more interesting, doesn’t it? It would mean you went somewhere on your own two feet that you never went when you were in love with Young Lord Damon. And this is a secret, but it isn’t a place just anyone can get into. So among the upper nobility, there are quite a few young, handsome men there. Like Young Lord Damon.”

“…If it isn’t a place just anyone can enter, does that mean I can’t get in either?”

“Don’t worry about that. I can get an invitation. And once you’ve been admitted once, you can generally keep coming back, so after that it’s up to you.”

Nate thought it over. Was it really all right for her to go somewhere like that?

The truth was, her parents were what concerned her. Nate’s parents were deeply conservative and despised anything that brought shame to the family name.

It was the same when Nate was caught up in the noble child kidnapping by the lower-class criminal organization. They made sure to thoroughly silence Nate and everyone who knew about the incident, on the grounds that it would tarnish the family’s honor. As a result, almost no one knew Nate was involved.

But sometimes Nate felt a quiet resentment at having what she went through treated as though it never happened. She thought that if her parents paid her even a little more attention, she might have overcome her fear of dark spaces. So with a small measure of defiance, she answered.

“Then… I’ll give it a try.”

Lilia broke into a bright, delighted smile.

* * *

Fresh from his bath, Damon sat at the table smoking a cigar with nothing on but a loosely draped robe. The robe hung open, leaving his well-built n*ked body plainly visible.

He drew deeply from the cigar and exhaled. A white curl of smoke drifted past his striking face and dissolved.

Thwack, thwack thwack.

One hand held the cigar, and the other had his c*ck in its grip, working it steadily. Each stroke along the thick, vein-ridged shaft made it swell further, and a wet bead of fl*id dripped from the head.

He brought the cigar back to his lips and quickened the movement of his hand.

Thwack thwack, thwack thwack thwack.

The slap of skin on skin filled the bedroom. The pre-c*m running down the head worked as slick, pulling out a wet, squelching sound beneath the rhythm.