He took a step closer. “Look me in the eye when you speak.”

So she looked up at him.

Gray eyes that seemed even deeper and colder in the darkness.

“Not an apology. Give me an excuse.”

He said again.

‘An excuse……’

She didn’t understand exactly what he wanted to hear from her. But since she was going to quit anyway, she thought she could suppress her shame just this once. Whatever she said, it was too late to change his impression of her.

Bronwynner opened her mouth with a come-what-may attitude.

“Jemima……”

“Which Jemima. The narrow-eyed Jemima from the Laurel comital family?”

Does this man have profiles of all Whittingham nobles stored in his head?

“……Yes. That Jemima Laurel invited me to a ‘night tea party’ welcome event. She told me to come in nightclothes. So I went at midnight, and everyone except me was properly dressed.”

⌜Oh, didn’t you know? Only you were supposed to wear them.⌟

The shame and humiliation she felt when she heard those words. It was a different feeling from what Alec Bingham had given her. Bronwynner blinked to keep from crying. If she cried, how pathetic would this man think she was?

“There were more than ten people in the atelier…… They said they would evaluate my qualities and morality, stripped me, and scored different parts of my body.”

His expression showed no change.

“Who led it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must have been there. The person who gave the scores.”

“……Lady Devon Whitman.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

“And then?”

“I resisted. In the process…… I hit Annie Moonstone and Jemima.”

Her voice grew smaller. Goodness, hitting others at school at the age of twenty. When she thought about how she had scolded Elise for pinching Kaylee, she felt even more guilty.

But he only asked this about her hitting the two people.

“How many times?”

“……You think I counted?”

“Then describe it specifically. So I can understand.”

So Bronwynner described it as she remembered. During this time, he listened quietly, but his gaze and expression softened considerably, and somehow a smile-like expression even appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Bronwynner thought he was laughing at her for acting like a wild foal.

“Were you hurt?”

She showed him her ear and cheek that she had covered with her hair. She thought he would just look, but he did something quite unexpected.

He raised his hand and lightly brushed the area with the handprint with his long, elegant fingers.

It was the first time their bodies had been so close since the waltz practice. That touch was extremely gentle.

She started back in surprise.

“Does it hurt?”

“……Yes, a little.”

He lowered his hand. As if it were nothing.

“How did the fight end?”

“Miss Herman…… the etiquette teacher came in and stopped it.”

“And then?”

“I fainted. Well, I pretended to.”

He chuckled. It was clearly not mockery.

“Well done.”

It was the first praise she had heard from him. But of all things, it was for hitting others and pretending to faint. Not knowing whether to be happy or sad, Bronwynner opened her eyes wide.

Noticing this, he quickly erased his smile.

“So, what would you like me, as Miss Pemberton’s guardian, to do?”

Only then did Bronwynner understand his intention.

Jeremy Lovedale had no intention of firing her, nor of letting Francine Whitman expel her. So he had really come to hear her explanation and deal with the situation.

All the way from Crimsworth to Whittingham.

If that was the case, Bronwynner needed to fulfill her duty as an employee and ward.

“……Please don’t let Headmistress Whitman expel me.”

He crossed his arms and leaned his body obliquely against the balcony railing.

“Devon Whitman is the headmistress’s granddaughter. Because of that, you’re in a very disadvantageous position. Why should I interfere in what seems like a private quarrel between ladies?”

Bronwynner racked her brain. Of course, he hadn’t come for her sake, but for the purpose for which he had sent her to this school.

“……If I turn Lady Devon into an enemy, Lady Celestine might want to be friends with me.”

During her week of observing Celestine, Bronwynner had memorized the faces of the young ladies the duke’s daughter usually associated with. None of those faces were among those gathered in the atelier last night. Even so, rumors would spread quickly, and they would reach Celestine’s ears.

Jeremy seemed lost in thought. Because his gaze remained fixed on her face during this time, Bronwynner couldn’t relax.

After a while, he said,

“I’ve parked a carriage at the front gate. Go wait there.”

* * *

When Jeremy finished his conversation with Francine Whitman and returned to the carriage, Bronwynner was asleep with her head against the wall.

Since she looked tired, he didn’t wake her. He just opened the curtains wide and instructed the coachman to go to the townhouse.

Looking at the soundly sleeping woman, he sank into the carriage seat.

‘Calling someone out in the middle of the night, stripping them, and giving scores.’

The existence of such harsh practices at Whitman School wasn’t particularly surprising. This was commonplace at the Royal Academy he had graduated from, and at university as well.

It’s human nature for people in competitive groups to establish hierarchies and confirm power in such ways. Male student groups were even more violent than Whitman School. Physical strength was openly exercised, and the cruel logic of the strong ruled that small world. Whether one preferred violence or not, one couldn’t survive without defeating others. Of course, Jeremy was always the winner.

The world of women would be somewhat different in its manifestation, but applying the same logic, Bronwynner Howard was undoubtedly a winner.

He had once sent Maude to a boarding school.

Maude couldn’t adapt and returned before the term ended. Jeremy said nothing to his sister about this. Maude was not at fault. And as the Duke of Crimsworth, he could have taken issue with those who had insidiously bullied Lady Maude Lovedale at that school at any time. Only Maude hadn’t wanted that.

Her response had been graceful and mature, but he realized only now that he had harbored some regret about not having punished the perpetrators definitively at the time. Unlike Maude, Bronwynner said she had hit those who bullied her with all her might. She had even said they should be whipped more.

He wasn’t even aware that he was smiling.

Afterward, Bronwynner had handled the situation cleverly as well.

She fainted in front of the teacher and the perpetrators. Fainting was a powerful weapon and useful tool for ladies, to the extent that educational booklets on how to faint dramatically were secretly read among noblewomen and young ladies. It didn’t matter whether one pretended to faint or whether others knew it. Sometimes, the first to collapse won.

⌜If I turn Lady Devon into an enemy, Lady Celestine might want to be friends with me.⌟

Bronwynner was also precisely aware of her purpose for entering this school.

Certainly, Devon and Celestine were famous rivals in society. And that was why Jeremy considered Devon more foolish than she appeared.

Though he now served Her Majesty the Queen, when the crown passed to the crown prince, he would work for Reginald.

Currently, Reginald’s fiancée was Celestine Harrows. To openly keep someone who might become the future queen of Lennox, someone Jeremy would serve for life as the Duke of Crimsworth in check, while dreaming of becoming the Duchess of Lovedale….

Of course, Devon Whitman was just a nineteen-year-old young lady, but the nineteen years of a young lady from such a family should be different from the nineteen years of an ordinary lady. That was also why the marquis family had spent a fortune to produce the most expensive and beautiful product in the marriage market. If she didn’t understand this, Devon Whitman was nothing more than a thorny rose. Easily withered when broken or with the passage of time.

And now he had to court that thorny rose.

He recalled his unpleasant conversation with Francine Whitman.

⌜I thought Miss Pemberton, being vouched for by Lord Crimsworth himself, would have something special about her, but now I see she’s not special but truly peculiar.⌟

⌜Miss Pemberton simply wanted to make friends at her new school. From what I’ve heard, no one helped her adapt to the unfamiliar environment.⌟

⌜That young lady used violence against her peers and wandered outside at midnight in inappropriate attire.⌟

⌜And Lady Jemima and Lady Annie used the same violence against Miss Pemberton. Lady Devon just watched the scene. I heard Miss Pemberton even fainted from shock. I thought it was the duty of people like us to help those in distress.⌟

⌜I’m not sure whom Lord Crimsworth refers to as ‘us’.⌟

That meant if he wanted to put Devon in the same category as himself, he should act accordingly.

And if Francine Whitman wanted that, the old lady should have spoken her wishes directly. Jeremy had no intention of letting any noblewoman except Her Majesty the Queen speak to him indirectly. The Duke of Crimsworth’s time was precious, after all.

⌜Would it suffice if I took Lady Devon as my partner to the regular ball at Whittingham Palace?⌟

⌜Well, wouldn’t Devon’s wishes be important?⌟

⌜Ah, Lady Devon won’t refuse.⌟

No matter how foolish Devon might be, she wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be the Duke of Crimsworth’s partner at an official event just to expel a viscount’s youngest daughter from school. Especially since the regular palace ball was famous as a venue where ladies made their debut as debutantes and official couples were formed.

It was a ball he would have had to take Devon to anyway, if only to be mindful of Her Majesty the Queen, but looking at the tired face of the woman sitting across from him, he somehow felt a bitter taste in his mouth.