“Hey, fiancée? I jumped up five whole spots in the rankings this time!”

Late in the afternoon, Henry ran into her in the corridor and puffed out his chest, shoving his report card practically under her nose.

Julia never received a formal education, but she always scored perfect marks on the household tests, and she was currently passing the highest-level curriculum exams with only one or two wrong answers.

So she had no real way to gauge what Henry’s grades actually meant.

“Your grades have improved. That’s worth celebrating.”

“Right? That’s the kind of person I am!”

What she did know, clearly, was that 105th place out of 120 students in the knight track was nothing to brag about.

‘He’s bragging about jumping up five spots, which means he was 110th before?’

Apparently, having ten students still ranked below him was something spectacular enough to puff his shoulders out with pride.

“Yes! Good results mean I’m free for a while!”

“Should we throw a party?”

“Let’s!”

“The more people the better. What about your fiancée?”

Julia glanced at him with cool eyes, gave a brief, minimal bow, and walked past him down the corridor.

“What, openly ignoring me? Your fiancée’s pretty stuck-up, isn’t she?”

She kept her back straight and walked on in silence, cleanly ignoring the stares of Henry’s crowd, men and women alike, boring into her as she moved away.

***

“Henry. What did you say your fiancée’s name was?”

“Why?”

“We’ll be seeing her often enough. Wouldn’t it be nice to get friendly?”

A male academy student in uniform, who appeared to be one of Henry’s close associates, fixed his gaze on Julia with a slick smile.

A cigarette dangled from his lips, and his dissolute eyes clung to her with a sticky, crawling quality.

It was a persistent kind of stare she found herself noticing more and more lately.

In the corridor, by the windows, and out in the garden or the rear grounds.

Henry’s associates, clearly outsiders, wandered the marquis’s residence with ease and turned up wherever they pleased.

And whenever they did, they stared openly at Julia.

Julia found it quietly unpleasant.

Henry glanced at Julia through the window with a look of mild irritation, the way someone might regard a friend eyeing their toy, and muttered flatly.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Wasn’t she the young lady of the Wilroy family? She hasn’t even made her debut yet, has she?”

“She’s engaged, so there’s no need. A debutante ball is for matchmaking. She’s already spoken for.”

Henry answered with the air of someone brushing off a nuisance.

“That’s not all it is, though. Isn’t there the element of showing off? As in, look at the wonderful match I’ve secured.”

“If bugs start swarming around her, it becomes a headache.”

The prestige of the Rodev Marquisate meant no one in the kingdom would dare act recklessly, but on the rare chance things went wrong, disasters like bride abductions did happen.

The hot blood of youth was not something to be careless about.

At evening parties, tea gatherings, garden parties, men and women mingling together, opportunities for things to turn impure were plentiful.

Through mishap, through reckless play, through accident, or through deliberate intent.

Betrothals before marriage were occasionally dissolved, so the Rodev family simply removed Julia’s attendance at any debutante ball from consideration entirely.

“Henry really was born with a gift, I’ll say that. You snatched up a pretty tempting fruit before it even ripened, didn’t you? Quick hands.”

“Well, my parents took a liking to her.”

“Quite the eye they have. If she’d made her debut, I’d have gone out of my way to meet her.”

“Dream on. She’s never debuting.”

Henry and his friend laughed and shoved each other’s shoulders playfully.

The young man with deep golden hair, who stared at Julia rather often, was the second son of a marquis family and reportedly leaving for the empire sometime this year.

He might be lonely abroad, so he was looking for a reasonably virtuous and chaste fiancée, but from what he could see, the circles he ran in were muddy water, and only the same sort gathered together, which seemed to leave him at a loss.

“Ah, I’m jealous. All I want is one devoted, obedient, well-mannered woman who only has eyes for me. It’s about time I settled down and found a decent lady. Hey, seriously, will you hand your fiancée over to me?”

“Forget it. Dream bigger.”

“I mean it. I’m serious. What do you want? Imperial gold coins? Jewels? Just say the word. My family owns several mines. All we’ve got is money.”

“Are you insane? Drop it! Stop talking nonsense.”

Their conversation was plainly about Julia, yet not a trace of it treated her as a person with any dignity.

It was clearly an unsavory, scheming exchange, the kind used to discuss the bloodline of an expensive horse or the value of a gemstone.

Julia let out a short breath and resolved to keep ignoring them entirely.

She was already being careful about where she walked to avoid running into them even by chance, but the bad luck was that today’s geology lesson was a soil practicum, held in the rear grounds instead of the classroom.

“The yield and quality of farms and ranches within a domain are determined by the composition and structure of the soil. As you can see, the soil on this side has a high clay content, while the other side is closer to sandy loam. A precise understanding of soil acidity, drainage, and organic matter content allows for a more scientifically designed approach to crop selection and fertilization strategy.”

Julia listened to the geology teacher’s calm explanation and carefully examined the textures of the different soil samples laid out before her, gloved hands working through each one.

The crumbly clumps of earth between her fingertips were far more interesting and worthwhile than the vulgar conversation drifting through the window beyond.

Throughout the lesson, Henry and his crowd clung to the window like visitors at a zoo, snickering and making a spectacle of Julia as she worked through the outdoor practicum.

The female students fluttered and cooed in hushed, coy voices, trying to draw a little more of Henry’s attention, but several of the male students carried a different kind of stare entirely, one with an unmistakably crude hunger in it.

“Is your fiancée really enrolling at Saint Rose’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Haa… what a shame. So we won’t see her face at the academy at all? What is she, some royal treasure? Not debuting her, keeping her wrapped up and hidden away like this.”

The grumbling voice was a tangle of longing and frustration toward something expensive and out of reach, and the men’s blatant stares cut through the glass and dragged slowly over Julia from head to toe, lingering like something that refused to let go.

Just then, a female student twirled a strand of her brown hair, which fell in a tempting curtain to her waist, lazily around her finger and spoke in a bored tone.

“Oh please, Saint Rose’s isn’t anything special.”

“What?”

The girl with dull green eyes and a somehow gloomy air continued.

“I don’t know the details, but apparently the girls there come and go from the Laurel Clubhouse pretty often. Rosalyn saw it herself.”

“Rosalyn? You mean Arnold Findel’s fiancée?”

“Yeah. Didn’t the Laurel Club’s vice president change recently? Apparently the soirees or whatever completely changed too, and the Saint Rose girls showing up there are, well, apparently their hips are very light¹ “엉덩이가 가볍다” lit. “very light hips,” a derogatory phrase for a woman who is sexually loose or easy.. Strutting around all hot and bothered, apparently.”

“No way. The Saint Rose goddesses wouldn’t do that.”

A male student said skeptically.

Then he glanced at Henry.

“Henry, have you met any of the Saint Rose goddesses? That pink blonde you said you liked at the cultural fair last time!”

“Hardly. All I saw of her was at that cultural fair. We exchanged greetings, and that was it.”

“That’s strange. Rosalyn said she sees her at the Laurel Club all the time.”

“What? Laurel Club membership is in principle limited to specially selected high-ranking noble male students. There’s no reason someone like Rosalyn, who isn’t even a member, would be going in and out of the club… Oh.”

Henry nodded as though something clicked.

“Got it. She must have gone in as a guest with her fiancé. Arnold Findel is a member.”

“But Henry, aren’t you a member too? How do you not know about this?”

Henry’s expression soured at the guileless question.

“Because of Klaus, who suddenly showed up in the second half of the year and seized control, the club rules completely changed. You can only enter the internal banquets if you bring your fiancée. It’s not like I want to stay away.”

“Klaus, the student council vice president? So Louis Klaus was in the Laurel Club too. Well, I suppose that makes sense. He’s a duke’s son, so it would be strange if he weren’t a member. Still, that must sting. Apparently Saint Rose female students are attending the club banquets in large numbers. That pink blonde you’ve had your eye on is supposedly there often too.”

“D*mn it. Because of those garbage club rules, I can’t enter the internal banquets alone. Especially if you have a fiancée, you’re required to bring her.”

“So you can’t attend at all, then? Your fiancée is going to Saint Rose’s. Ha! Serves you right.”