Edward, Duke of Kingsley, enjoyed a reasonably favorable reputation in society. Above all, he was thoroughly aristocratic, and was regarded as someone who understood the workings of Winstor well.

There was a time, when they were all still princes including the late king, that Edward openly coveted the throne, but that was long past. Few people still remembered it after all these years… except for oddities like Wilhelmina.

“One thing I should make clear is that His Highness Edward conducted himself admirably all this while. Most of society now agrees that it is more fitting for His Highness Edward to become regent than for the ‘Butcher of the Open Sea,’ whose hands are soaked in blood.”

The nobles of Winstor’s social circles were insufferably proud. They had no interest whatsoever in where the tea they drank like water came from, or the sugar they stirred into it. In fact, they seemed at times to forget entirely that their Brighton was a nation isolated in the middle of a vast sea.

The ships carrying silver out, and the ships carrying in tea and silk, sugar and pepper, were all under the protection of this very man they called the Butcher. That was no exaggeration. The moment he left the seas, merchants immediately raised the prices of tea leaves and various other imports across the board.

Cassian was undeniably a hero. And yet society quietly looked down on him as a man who lived with blood on his hands every day. It was not so different from the hypocrisy of eating meat daily while condemning the butcher as cruel.

When Wilhelmina’s sharply precise and merciless summary concluded, Cassian held a deep silence for a moment, his expression unreadable. The arrogant air with which he treated the uninvited guest before him as nothing more than a ‘peculiar new species of creature’ was nowhere to be seen.

After a long silence, Cassian finally parted his lips.

“I concede.”

His silver-grey eyes swept over Wilhelmina like cold moonlight.

“Your audaciously confident reasoning is not entirely off the mark. It is true that I currently need a nominal marriage to demonstrate a stable political foundation, that is to say, to silence my brother Edward’s petty and tiresome objection.”

“A wise assessment, Your Highness.”

“However, Miss Priestley.”

Cassian tilted his head slightly to one side and once again wore that gentle and lethal smile.

“The fact that I need a ‘wife’ to prove my fitness for the regency does not mean that wife must necessarily be you. Winstor’s social circles are full of proper, obedient young ladies of good family who have, above all, never been the subject of sordid rumors about rolling around on a boat with a ferryman on the River Tess. Isn’t that so?”

It was a blatantly barbed taunt. It was closer to a provocation, a test of whether she could endure even this.

Any ordinary daughter of a noble house would, at this point, be unable to bear the shame and retreat before the humiliation she brought upon herself.

Regrettably, however, Wilhelmina was not a person who belonged to that ordinary category.

“That is precisely your obvious limitation, Your Highness.”

She even went so far as to click her tongue at him openly.

“If Your Highness truly understood the workings of society, you would never have used such naive descriptors as ‘proper and obedient’ in reference to unmarried young ladies.”

“Miss Priestley…”

“Please, think carefully.”

Wilhelmina urged him with something almost approaching earnestness.

“Given the current situation, with political rivals eyeing your regency from every direction, suppose you were to enter into a conventional marriage with one of those proper, obedient young ladies of good family. Could you be certain that wife would be wholly on your side?”

“That is not something Miss Priestley needs to concern herself with.”

“Of course not. I have absolutely no desire to join in at such a critical moment of political tightrope-walking.”

“Do you mean that sincerely?”

“Yes. I say this with conviction: if the one behind spreading this scandal were anyone other than His Highness Edward, I would not have ventured this far myself.”

At those words, Cassian’s moon-like eyes froze over with cold stillness.

“…What do you mean?”

Tap, tap-tap.

Rain began slashing against the windows through the thick fog. There was a low rumble of thunder overhead.

“I thought Your Highness would have some inkling of it already. Was I wrong?”

“……”

“His Highness Edward will want to become regent by any means, or at the very least, to prevent Your Highness from becoming regent. In that situation, there is no better prize than Duke Priestley, who remained neutral until now.”

“So my brother attacked you in order to get his hands on Priestley?”

“The period of national mourning has ended, but people are still steeped in grief over the loss of the king. The longer my scandal drags on in this climate, the more Priestley’s honor will erode. That is precisely when His Highness Edward’s side will extend a hand, playing the role of savior. With a very ‘suitable’ match in mind for the young lady whose honor was lost, of course.”

Through the pouring rain, lightning flashed silently and lit up the room. Wilhelmina smiled in the midst of it, a smile that was nothing short of ominous, and spoke.

“Could Your Highness tolerate such underhanded scheming?”

“……”

Cassian stared at Wilhelmina for a long moment without a word, then pressed a hand to his forehead and began to shake with small, quiet laughter.

“Hah.”

It became a suppressed burst of laughter that rang out through the still study.

“Haha, ha, hahahaha!”

The laughter that broke from Cassian in the darkness was tremendously hearty, and at the same time, chilling enough to raise the hair on one’s skin.

After laughing freely and wildly for a long stretch, his gaze returned to Wilhelmina. She could clearly see the soft remnants of laughter still lingering across his face. He called out to her quietly.

“Miss Priestley.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do you have evidence to support what you just said?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you can hardly raise any objection if I refuse your proposal.”

Delivering yet another clear refusal, Cassian was inwardly curious. How would Wilhelmina react to what must by now be her umpteenth rejection? Before, she held her ground because she still had things left to say, but by now she laid out every advantage she could possibly offer.

‘Will she finally be discouraged?’

It would not be an exaggeration to say he refused her purely out of curiosity about that.

But his expectation was wrong. Wilhelmina was remarkably composed. No, in truth, composed was an understatement. A triumphant smile spread across her lips, like someone who just claimed victory.

“Understood. I never expected Your Highness to accept such an enormous proposal on the spot after a single meeting.”

Wilhelmina rose from her seat with graceful ease, lightly smoothing out the unwrinkled skirt of her dress. It was a perfectly ladylike gesture.

“But I say this with certainty, dear Your Highness.”

She leaned in slightly and murmured in a low voice, wearing that particular smile of hers where her full lips curved in a peculiar way.

“Your Highness will soon come to admit that you are in desperate need of me.”

“……”

A voice like a curse.

And that face. What could one even call that face? That expression that cast a thousand facets and colors and lights all at once, like a gem with a thousand sides?

“Only bear in mind that when that time comes, the price you pay will be far steeper than it would be today.”

With those words, Wilhelmina turned away without a trace of lingering regret and walked out of the study.

Bang.

The door shut.

The silence that flooded in like a rising tide felt strange. Perhaps because the presence she left behind in this room until moments ago was that overwhelming.

“Whew!”

At that moment, someone Cassian completely forgot broke the silence.

“I nearly suffocated! What an extraordinary young lady.”

“…Uncle.”

Henry, Count Mortimer. This man with his good-natured, easygoing face was Cassian’s maternal uncle, and also the guest he specifically requested be present tonight.