To avoid the dishonorable impression of an unmarried man and woman meeting alone at a late hour, that is.

To think he forgot that person’s existence, even for a moment. Cassian was, frankly, caught off guard. It felt like clear evidence of just how absorbed he became in his conversation with Wilhelmina.

“My, what a waste of a perfectly good teacup.”

Oblivious to whatever his nephew was brooding over, Count Mortimer was busy lamenting the broken teacup.

“In any case, I’m against it, Cassian.”

“Against what, exactly?”

“Don’t play dumb! The marriage that young lady proposed, obviously.”

“Well.”

Cassian replied evasively.

“To be precise, it was a ’contract with marriage as its premise.’”

“I’m not saying I believe the gossip columns. And no, that doesn’t mean I blindly believe her claim that Kingsley spread it either. I’m simply saying there’s no ferryman alive bold enough to get entangled with a terrifying young lady like that.”

“Hm. Terrifying, you say?”

“Yes. And judging by the things she said and did…”

As he spoke, Count Mortimer glanced once more toward the closed door. The worry on his face was plain, as though he feared that terrifying young lady might come bursting back in.

“…she’s clearly a little unhinged.”

He said it in a thoroughly hushed voice.

“In fact, she might be more than a little.”

The expression on Cassian’s face, which was on the verge of softening at his uncle’s comical display, turned serious at once.

‘A little unhinged?’

As far as he recalled, his uncle used that expression exactly twice before. The first was directed at his mother, when she resolved to set sail. The second was directed at himself, when he resolved to go to war.

…Both, in their own way, went on to achieve tremendous things along the path they chose, and earned the reputation of being remarkable for it.

‘And the third…’

Was it to be Wilhelmina Priestley?

Cassian’s gaze settled on the closed door. The woman who walked out through it so boldly moments ago made a promise. That he would come to need her, without fail, and that when he realized it, the price would be steeper than it was today.

‘A steeper price.’

Cassian was sixteen when he first went to sea as a soldier. From then until he turned twenty-seven, he spent the better part of his life sinking all manner of plunderers to the ocean floor.

And yet someone dared to present him with a bill, and on top of that, guaranteed the sum would be substantial?

Cassian laughed without a sound. An ordinary man might have taken offense at that sharp warning. But regrettably, he too was one of the lunatics his uncle recognized as such, and at present, he was among the wealthiest men in the kingdom, second to none. He was not exactly a villain, but he was no saint either, not the kind to look the other way at the treasure aboard a pirate ship he sank.

There was no price he could not pay. If anything, it would be the difficult thing to find a bill grand enough to truly sting him.

‘So the real problem, then.’

Was himself. At the very moment that bold woman announced the price of the bill she would next present, he felt a willing impulse to sign a blank check on the spot.

It was neither here nor there, but in truth, Wilhelmina’s reputation in Winstor’s social circles was not particularly good even before any of this. Her name was always preceded by words like ‘peculiar,’ ‘eccentric,’ ‘unconventional.’

“Let me just say one thing.”

And the man who contributed no small part to that was none other than Nate Ashton, standing right here.

A handsome man with black hair and amber eyes that gave him an exotic yet dangerous air. He was the son of one of Winstor’s wealthiest families, and also Wilhelmina’s longtime childhood friend.

“What you did last night was irredeemably insane, Mina.”

It was a leisurely afternoon, the thick fog lifted. The setting was the lavish greenhouse of Ashton Manor, situated in the heart of Belgrace. The moment was just after Wilhelmina finished recounting every last detail of the madness she committed the night before.

“What a cutting assessment.”

“Most people would call this stating the facts.”

The words had an edge to them, but Wilhelmina paid it no mind. For someone hearing what she did yesterday, this reaction was fairly mild.

Anyone else, a certain duke in particular, would have screamed like a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown the moment they heard her reckless tale of adventure.

Fortunately, Nate was not that sort of loud, emotional man. More than that, he was a living witness who spent years watching up close the reckless streak running through the Priestley bloodline for generations.

“The state funeral was barely three weeks ago. The national mourning period ended only three days ago. In the middle of all that, there are people calling for you to be punished for impiety over your scandal, and you go sneaking off somewhere? In the middle of the night?”

The fact that even Nate could not hide his agitation over this affair was itself an indirect testament to the gravity of the situation.

“I had no other choice.”

Wilhelmina muttered with a slight pout, and Nate studied her in silence for a moment with a sidelong look.

In the sudden quiet, the fresh scent of all manner of exotic and rare plants mingled with the fragrance of fine tea. Inside the greenhouse where the two sat in silence, only the occasional chirping of the free-roaming birds could be heard.

In that utterly tranquil stillness, Nate asked this.

“Have you considered marrying me instead?”

“My goodness.”

Wilhelmina’s eyes widened in a show of innocence.

“What a remarkably out-of-nowhere proposal, delivered so casually. I don’t suppose I misheard you suggesting a walk to Gloria Green later?”

“I’m not joking, Mina.”

“I’m not joking either. I won’t marry you.”

“Oh?”

A leisurely smile spread at the corner of Nate’s mouth.

“Why not?”

Wilhelmina looked in silence at her friend’s amber eyes watching her, then let out a small sigh.

“I know you care for me, Nate.”

“Yes, and knowing that, why?”

Words that would have made other men uncomfortable, Nate acknowledged with perfect ease. He was not the sort of man with such a small and rigid sense of masculinity that he felt ashamed to show the warm feeling of friendship.

At the same time, he was exactly the sort of person who, rather than let his childhood friend and only friend’s honor march toward the guillotine, would volunteer without hesitation to become a married man on paper.

“I understand. If our positions were reversed, I would have made a similar offer.”

But that was precisely why she could not take this devoted offer, Wilhelmina thought.

“Still, I’ll decline. I have no wish to get in the way of a friend’s love.”

“Sabina will understand.”

“I know. So don’t waste that generous understanding on something like this.”

Nate seemed to think for a moment at her clean refusal, then gave an easy shrug.

“Fair enough. It would be a problem either way, a man with nothing but money marrying you.”

In the thoroughly hypocritical world of Winstor’s social circles, the Ashton family occupied a deeply awkward and uncomfortable position.

The Ashton family. They held, without question, one of the greatest fortunes in all of Brighton. And not the traditional kind of wealth represented by castles and estates, but the kind of magnate who owned factories and ships.

Nate murmured idly, lacing his fingers behind his head.

“It’s not as though anyone doesn’t know how my grandfather, who was most certainly born a commoner, managed to get his name into Brighton’s register of nobility.”

Nate’s grandfather married the daughter of a ruined baronet to shed the label of a commoner-born wealthy man. People mocked it endlessly as essentially ‘purchasing’ honor.

The argument among most nobles was that a title could be bought that way, but bloodline could not be changed. Even those whose debts were forgiven through the Ashton family’s goodwill whispered behind their backs about ‘merchant blood reeking of silver coins and coal.’ That said it all.

Wilhelmina scoffed.