“I-I like you…!”

Andrea shouted with her face flushed red.

It was quite a heart-fluttering situation – an angelic young lady with honey-colored blonde hair and clear blue eyes without a trace of impurity making a confession. 

Moreover, the riverside where they had come for a picnic in early spring still carried a slight chill, but warm enough winds blew during the day, and the leaves of the towering trees above their heads rustled and chattered.

However, Priscilla turned to look at Andrea following the direction of the wind and asked again in bewilderment.

“Me… you mean?”

This young lady with a face that looked ready to burst was Andrea Ulrich.

The daughter of Theodore Ulrich, a coal merchant who had built his wealth through coal trading, she was a young lady Priscilla had known since she came to the capital last year. She had just turned twenty this year. She was now at the age where she should be getting married soon.

“Ah, I know!”

Andrea cried out almost tearfully.

“That it’s strange.”

“I suppose… it is.”

She could only murmur in response. After all, as you can see…

They were both wearing dresses.

Whether she knew or not that it would be an enormous scandal for the daughter of a prominent bourgeois to like someone of the same s*x, Andrea wore a shy expression.

“I’ve thought about it a lot too. Whether I might be mistaking respect for something else. But no matter how much I think about it, I think I l-like Lady Priscilla.”

Priscilla covered her lips with her fan and smiled softly.

She was an elegant beauty with exotic hair like black silk, calm black eyes, and a cool gaze that carried a chilly aura. Though her heavy makeup might seem somewhat overwhelming, the inexplicable, powerful dignity she exuded was enough to intimidate most men. Even with high heels, her tall stature for a woman and distinct bone structure were particularly exotic.

“I appreciate your feelings. But since you haven’t had many opportunities to spend time with other gentlemen yet, might that be why you’re feeling this way?”

Andrea shook her head in protest.

“I’ve had my debutante ball and several meetings too. But gentlemen are, how should I put it… rough, scary, coarse… they lack any delicate aspects, they’re not elegant… too loud, and they smell sometimes…”

She rambled on endlessly like this.

What on earth should one say to this…

The eyes of Priscilla – that is, Gillian – who was half-covering her face with a fan, turned like those of a rotten herring.

‘I’m a man, I am.’

Though he was currently in the ridiculous state of wearing a dress with fluttering lace and heavy makeup, Gillian was a flawless, one hundred percent pure man. 

He simply had circumstances that required hiding his identity, so when coming to the capital, he had created the fake identity of ‘Lady Priscilla Maia’ and was pretending to be a woman. 

He had never thought that his delicate face, which he had always disliked, would be helpful at times like this.

Anyway, though he would explain the detailed circumstances later, according to his setting of being ‘a young noble widow who lost her husband at a young age and came to the capital unable to bear the loneliness,’ he had appropriately built connections with upper-class women in the capital to avoid looking suspicious. 

While doing so, he participated in a tea party hosted by a certain noblewoman, where he first met Andrea Ulrich, who had also come as a guest.

From their first meeting, Andrea had been particularly attached to him. Since she was a kind and gentle young lady, he had no reason to dislike her behavior, so they continued to interact several times after the tea party. Then Theodore Ulrich, learning that his daughter was following some widow, came to request that he take charge of his daughter’s education.

Though it was unexpected, he thought that knowing such an important figure would surely be helpful, so he accepted the proposal. After conducting regular lessons for nearly a year, he had finally reached the point of receiving a love confession.

Gillian once again covered his lips with his fan, hiding his expression as much as possible.

Actually, Andrea wasn’t the first woman to feel something mysterious about him, who was actually a man. Still, given the social conventions that considered homosexuality sinful, no one had dared to cross the line, but Andrea was charging straight into the wall head-on.

He had thought she was such a quiet friend that her lack of social skills was worrying.

And Andrea was blonde with blue eyes. The reason for bringing up this seemingly random topic was that to Gillian’s eyes, being from the Kingdom of Kirak in the central continent with black eyes and black hair, blonde hair and blue eyes gave rather a blurred impression.

For that reason, Andrea, who already had a vague impression and was passive in personality, was truly nothing more than ‘person number one’ to him.

Lost in such thoughts, he remained silent for a while, causing Andrea to tremble with nervousness and call out.

“Lady Priscilla…?”

Looking at her quietly like this, her large eyes that seemed frightened, her white face where the blush stood out prominently, and her delicate and soft features like sugar confectionery weren’t entirely unappealing, but still, nothing would change.

“That you like me.”

Gillian opened his mouth.

“Do you mean you want to do with me what you would do with men?”

The moment he asked, Andrea’s cheeks turned bright red.

“I-I’ve never thought about such things…”

“Why haven’t you thought about it? Isn’t that what you mean when you confess that you like someone in that way?”

“I, I…”

Andrea’s face grew redder and redder as she stammered.

‘What is she thinking? I just asked about dating.’

While Gillian was thinking this, Andrea suddenly shouted.

“I absolutely never harbored such wicked intentions…!”

It was absurd. Who was harboring malicious intentions toward whom? It was laughable for a young woman, who likely had never even held a man’s hand, to make such claims.  

But wait—what was she thinking? This was truly intriguing.  

Regardless, pushing aside these minor curiosities, Gillian let out a deliberate sigh.

“Then that’s no different from saying you just want to remain friends, isn’t it? Is that what you mean?”

“N-no, that’s not…”

“Then what do you want to do with me?”

Though it was intentional on Gillian’s part, perhaps feeling like she was being interrogated, Andrea was flustered and couldn’t answer.

Snap.

Gillian closed his fan with an audible sound.

“Andrea.”

And he called her name in a voice that was both gentle and stern.

“I understand the feeling of finding your educator, who seems both distant and familiar, admirable. But have you considered how troubled I would be hearing such words? Speaking like this without considering the other person’s position cannot be considered proper.”

Andrea couldn’t say anything, then spoke in a completely deflated voice.

“I’m… sorry.”

“I appreciate your feelings. But I don’t want to lose a precious friend.”

Gillian even managed a somewhat bitter smile.

“Sort out your feelings and let’s meet with good faces next time. I’ll be going first today.”

He gathered the long dress skirt and walked past Andrea. Andrea only hung her head low, unable to bring herself to stop Gillian.

Though acting coldly didn’t make Gillian feel entirely comfortable either, he wasn’t in a situation to play along with a young lady’s romantic talk, and especially since the object of Andrea’s confession was Lady Priscilla, who was of the same s*x, it was right to firmly reject her for Andrea’s sake as well.

‘During the time I’ve known her, she hasn’t shown any particularly homosexual tendencies, so this is probably just momentary admiration.’

Such things happened often. Because men seemed difficult at that age, girls sometimes mistook s*xual attraction for someone among the women they were familiar with who gave off a mysteriously masculine feeling – which was natural, since he was actually a man.

Gillian walked toward Jerome, his guard who was waiting at a distance.

“Let’s go.”

He said and passed by him. Jerome glanced back once at Andrea, who was still standing there dazed, then followed Gillian.

“Shall we return to your residence?”

Jerome asked when they reached the carriage waiting at the park entrance. Gillian nodded and got into the carriage.

Soon the carriage departed. However, the Ulrich family carriage visible through the window was still waiting for its owner.

Gillian withdrew his gaze and looked ahead.

Since the park wasn’t far from the mansion, they arrived quickly, and Gillian got out of the carriage and went up to his room.

“Welcome back?”

He maintained his elegance even while passing the greeting maids. And when he entered his room and the door closed, he threw his fan onto the table.

“D＊mn it.”

Unlike just moments before when he had clearly used a woman’s voice, this was unmistakably a low-toned man’s voice.

Gillian was irritably removing his gloves when he stopped and turned around.

“Do you want to die?”

Jerome, who had followed him in, was holding onto the wall and dying from trying to hold back his laughter.

“You got confessed to! While cross-dressing, by a woman…! Hahahaha. Ahahaha!”

It was impossible to tell if he was laughing or crying.

The reason Jerome, who was supposedly a guard, spoke so familiarly was… no, that wasn’t what was important right now.

“Won’t you shut up?”

Gillian crumpled up his gloves and threw them. Being light, they naturally didn’t reach Jerome, but only then did Jerome finally stop laughing and grin.