Prologue: A Regrettable News

April 2nd, from a letter hastily scrawled by Wilhelmina Priestley to her childhood friend Nate Ashton, in the capital city of Winstor, Kingdom of Brighton.

…So I can say with certainty, Nate, that regrettable news will soon reach every corner of Winstor. Or perhaps it has already arrived through that swift information network of yours. I honestly don’t know which will get there first, this letter or the news itself. What I do know for certain is that the moment my sister’s hunting rifle fires is not far off. You know perfectly well what kind of person the Marchioness of Montrose is!

The matter is rather urgent, so I must cut this letter short. I do hope you won’t be too shocked. I’ll be fine. Setting aside the profoundly humanitarian headache of having to protect the skull of the idiot who brought things to this state, that is.

Your faithful friend, who must prevent her sister from hunting a human being in the middle of the kingdom’s capital on her behalf,

Wilhelmina Priestley.

Chapter 1: An Improper Contract

In the conservative social circles of the Kingdom of Brighton, turning twenty-four meant meeting the full qualifications to be called a spinster.

As the third child of the honorable and storied Priestley ducal family, Wilhelmina cherished this new classification tag attached to her name, spinster!, with great fondness. The reason was simple. Ever since her debut at the early age of eighteen, she had consistently and earnestly wished to become one.

She would admit it was a somewhat unusual wish. But she swore she never caused anyone significant trouble with this peculiar desire… probably. Because all she ever did to fulfill it was go around turning down an endless stream of suitors.

What she never expected was that one particularly petty one among them would nurse a grudge and go to sweeping lengths to ruin her reputation.

‘Who could have known?’

Wilhelmina shrugged. It was an unavoidable accident beyond her control, not her fault. Not only Wilhelmina herself, but her siblings, the remaining members of the Priestley four, well known in social circles, were entirely of the same opinion.

“I swear on the hunting rifle my late father passed down to me, Wilhelmina. My darling little sister.”

Especially the second of them, Francesca, the Marchioness of Montrose, agreed with quite extraordinary fervor.

“I will crush that bastard’s skull without fail. As you know, one round of 12-bore shot is more than enough for that.”

“No!”

The one who let out a cry bordering on a scream was Benjamin, the eldest of the four siblings gathered here and the current Duke Priestley.

“This is like sending an elephant hunter after a single rabbit! It won’t solve anything either!”

It was, by any measure, an entirely reasonable opinion, exactly the sort one would expect from a duke of such high standing.

“More than six different gossip papers have simultaneously run fabricated scandals about Mina in print. The content is unbelievably low-grade.”

“Apparently I had a secret rendezvous alone on a boat with a ferryman on the River Tess.”

“Thank you for kindly bringing up details I deliberately left out, Mina. But let me be perfectly clear.”

Benjamin let out a long sigh and rubbed his face dry.

“In this Winstor, the only people who won’t believe that nonsense are those who bear the Priestley name.”

Wilhelmina couldn’t help but cut in again.

“Nate too.”

“Mina!”

It was a signal that Benjamin’s patience had reached its limit. Called out by name, Wilhelmina primly pressed her lips shut, playing innocent. Watching his younger sister, Duke Priestley issued a stern warning.

“It’s a good thing that you’re strengthening your friendship with your childhood friend, but this doesn’t seem like the time for that kind of talk!”

…Correction, he thought he issued a stern warning. At least, he believed it without a doubt.

“No matter how I think about it, I can’t understand it.”

The voice belonged to someone with a slightly boyish quality, not quite that of a fully grown young man. It was Ethan, Wilhelmina’s only younger sibling and the youngest of the four.

“Spreading such absurd rumors just because she turned down a proposal is despicable.”

“Yes, and since when has anyone ever not done something despicable just because it is?”

Benjamin muttered with a tone of utter disgust. Wilhelmina shrugged and said, “Don’t worry too much. Even in situations like this, there’s always a way to handle things.”

“Wilhelmina!”

She meant it to soothe her faint-hearted brother, but the moment he heard it, Benjamin’s face went immediately pale.

“Please, swear to me you won’t use your hunting rifle.”

“That’s fine.”

Before Wilhelmina could even respond, Francesca nodded.

“When it comes to matters of honor, it’s only right for family to step in. It’s only proper that I be the one to pull the trigger.”

“I think that’s a perfectly good method too.”

Ethan immediately agreed and stepped forward.

“If the younger sister fires, the target won’t die no matter what, so it’ll just cause a commotion. But if it’s the elder sister, that’s a different story entirely. It’s a guaranteed kill, isn’t it?”

Now Benjamin began making choking sounds, nearly like a man being strangled.

“Are you going to do it right away?”

“Hmm. I suppose I’ll have to.”

In the cozy drawing room, still arranged exactly as their parents left it before they passed away in a carriage accident eight years ago, here was this scene of murder being plotted at such a cheerful tempo.

To an outside observer it would be a bewildering sight, too awkward for either laughter or tears. Yet unexpectedly, Wilhelmina felt a quiet wave of emotion.

She cleared her throat with a small ahem and opened her mouth.

“I’m truly grateful that my family thinks of me this way, but…”

“No hunting rifles!”

Before Wilhelmina could even finish her thanks, Benjamin shrieked.

“What kind of terrible accidental discharge are you planning to cause!”

“I have no intention of using a gun!”

Snapped out of her emotion at once, Wilhelmina raised her voice in protest.

“I’m going to resolve this peacefully, entirely peacefully!”

But Duke Priestley, who had been fooled by his sisters’ claims of ‘I won’t do that’ approximately five thousand eight hundred times, was unyielding. In the end, unable to withstand the interrogation, Wilhelmina was only released after swearing in exhaustive detail that she would ‘absolutely never use firearms or any weapon requiring gunpowder, nor any bladed implement that could cause harm to a person, or even blunt instruments, under any circumstances.’

‘I never actually intended to use a real gun even without all that.’

In Wilhelmina’s view, there was no need for such destructive methods to break out of this situation. The way out she envisioned was far more precise, far more elegant, and frankly inspired.

“But to think I’d be graduating from my spinster title this way.”

It was a shame, but there was nothing to be done. Sometimes the lesser must be sacrificed for the greater good. Besides, the man best suited for this plan happened to be in Winstor.

So Wilhelmina didn’t deliberate for long. For the record, ‘didn’t deliberate’ in Wilhelmina’s terms meant she rose to her feet on the spot and set the plan in motion. The fact that it was already late at night, and that a pale fog blanketed all of Winstor thickly enough to soak through one’s clothes, posed no obstacle to her.

“So, this is the method you had in mind?”

…To meet the man ‘best suited’ for this plan.

The dim lamplight of the study cast its glow over the man’s disheveled blond hair. Whether from the late hour or the unannounced visit of an uninvited guest, his appearance was not neat. Wilhelmina guessed it was probably meant to convey just how rude this sudden visit was.

“Regrettably, I have absolutely no idea how showing up at my door in the middle of the night without warning could be considered a groundbreaking method.”

“I imagine you wouldn’t.”

His tone was openly reproachful, but Wilhelmina was perfectly composed.

“Since I haven’t told you yet.”

“……”

The man stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he set down the document he was reading and removed his gold-rimmed glasses. His bare eyes, now revealed, were silver-grey. Mineral in color though they were, framed by golden lashes, those eyes looked more beautiful than any gemstone.

And beneath those pupils, the small beauty marks stamped boldly on both cheeks.

The breathtakingly beautiful man said,

“Miss Priestley. I believe my patience has been quite sufficient by now.”