After that, time flowed on, indifferent as a river.

For Julia, the years at Pearl Springs were neither slow nor fast, yet the more she tried to hold them, the more they scattered like water slipping through her fingers.

In that current, young Julia gradually shed the shape of a girl and became a lady.

Before she knew it, the loose everyday clothes and the little outing basket were replaced by silk dresses that traced the elegant lines of her figure, and a beautiful platinum bracelet adorned her wrist.

The plump, rosy cheeks of her childhood drew into a slender line, and the soft jaw that was once round sharpened to a clean edge.

Her flat chest filled out softly, and the straight line of her waist and hips curved into a pleasing silhouette that completed the form of a young woman.

***

The streets of the capital, visited for the first time in years, were dazzlingly splendid as they stood on the eve of the social season that opened with the founding festival.

Julia, who had grown up spending most of her life outside the capital in the countryside, felt her heart shrink instinctively at the sight of the bustling city.

The wide avenues lined with grand stone buildings, incomparable to the Wilroy County seat or the open-air hot spring resort of Pearl Springs, were packed with a procession of carriages pouring into the capital and a surging crowd that left no room to stand.

The energy radiating from people dressed in fine silk and adorned with costly jewels was ostentatious, as though it embodied the wealth and glory of the entire Kingdom of Fenhaven.

Perhaps because the grand annual festival was just around the corner.

It was a completely different scene from when she was young, when she had stayed at the capital estate holding the hand of her brother Vincent, whose illness had miraculously stabilized for a few days. She felt small.

The feeling of not belonging here, of being the only dull grey amid the bright, colorful scenery.

Lonely and hollow.

She desperately wanted to turn the carriage around and go back to the familiar, comfortable landscape.

“Shall we go directly to Rodev manor?”

Her maid’s voice cut through her hazy thoughts, and Julia gave a small start, then slowly nodded.

Then she tilted her head and asked, as if to confirm, “…We did send notice of our visit to the Rodev Marquisate, didn’t we?”

“Yes. It was sent three days ago.”

“I see…. But is it all right for me to go to Rodev manor alone?”

“I don’t think there would be a problem? It is simply the day of your first meeting with Lord Rodev.”

Her maid’s words were certainly correct.

It had been well over a fortnight since the engagement between the Rodev Marquisate and the Wilroy County was formalized with both families present.

The betrothed: Henry of the Rodev Marquisate. The bride-to-be: Julia of the Wilroy County.

Today, Julia came to the capital for her first meeting with her fiancé.

Under ordinary circumstances, her parents would have accompanied her, but unfortunately Julia was entirely alone.

It was due to an unavoidable change of plans.

“Oh, what a mess! The dates have overlapped. Changing the schedule now would be difficult, so let’s go separately.”

Her mother said it as though it were nothing much.

Julia’s first meeting with her fiancé mattered, of course, but what mattered most was the audience with the royal head alchemist.

Julia’s engagement itself was nothing more than a means to an end, a way to obtain a cure by passing materials to the alchemist.

With the alchemist’s changed schedule arriving as notice, her parents rushed to take Vincent to the royal research institute on the outskirts of the city, but the message that arrived urgently at the Wilroy household said that Marquis and Marchioness Rodev were away at their domain and not in residence.

Consecutive heavy rains had washed out a bridge in the domain, causing flood damage, and they would not arrive until the day after tomorrow at the earliest.

So it seemed the first meeting with her fiancé, Henry Rodev, would be postponed, but both sets of parents reached an agreement: ‘Let the young people meet first on their own and get acquainted on good terms.’

In the end, Julia had no choice but to visit Rodev manor, located in the heart of the capital, alone.

Inside the jolting carriage, gazing out at the splendid streets, Julia’s heart felt heavy with nerves.

At last, the carriage left the main avenue, crossed through a neighborhood of grand residences, and came to a stop before the gates of Rodev manor. Through the window, the storied building revealed its full presence.

The Rodev family crest was a daisy at the center of a shield, flanked on either side by two stags.

The maternal family of the late Queen Catherine, and the relatives of the two princes she bore.

The Rodev Marquisate exuded a commanding presence, as though flaunting its piercing power and influence, yet the heart of Julia, who was meant to become its mistress, trembled with unease and felt heavy.

She wanted none of this.

She wanted to flee that very instant.

But she had yet to meet Henry in person, and letting herself be swayed by nothing but unflattering rumors would be a hasty prejudice.

‘But where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’

Surely Henry Rodev’s bad conduct accumulated and piled up to form his reputation.

With a family as distinguished as a marquisate, no one could simply fabricate malicious rumors out of envy or spite.

To do so would invite retaliation severe enough to erase an entire household.

‘There is always a reason when unsavory rumors run rampant.’

Julia bit down gently on her lower lip.

The more she thought about it, the heavier and more troubled her heart grew.

‘Still, it is a first meeting as his betrothed. I must conduct myself with propriety and leave nothing to criticize.’

Julia steeled herself inwardly, put on a thin, bitter smile like a mask, and stepped down from the carriage.

“Lady Wilroy, welcome. Please come inside.”

Led inside by the seasoned head butler, she entered the manor to find that the quiet estate, contrary to its outward appearance, was stirring with a vague, inexplicable bustle.

“Miss Julia, thank you for making the journey all the way to the capital. The young master will be down shortly.”

Someone came hurrying down from the top of the high arched staircase.

Julia looked up, puzzled.

By his attire, he appeared to be Henry’s personal butler, a young man.

“How long will that be?”

“Shortly. Shortly! He will come down.”

The young man smiled firmly in response to the head butler’s question, but behind the strained expression, along with a cold sweat, was the unmistakable implication of ‘there are circumstances I cannot speak of.’

“For now, please come to the drawing room.”

As the head butler guided Julia politely and she began to walk, the young butler spun on his heel and vanished up the staircase.

The butler sprinted down the corridor, flung open the inner chamber door, and without even bothering to knock on the door to Henry’s bedroom, threw it open and shouted.

“Young master! Please, please get up! The young lady has arrived!”

“Mmm… what, it’s so loud. What a bother….”

From deep within the plush bed, Henry rubbed his eyes with a bleary, dazed expression.

Then he spotted the woman sprawled beside him, not a stitch of clothing on her, and grinned, pulling her slender waist into his arms.

“Mmm, darling….”

The woman stirred in her sleep and clung to him with a lazy, petulant murmur, and the butler practically leapt to pry the two apart.

“What do you think you’re doing right now! Can you not hear me? The young lady, she has arrived at the manor!”

“Young lady? Who on earth are you talking about…?”

Henry muttered, still wearing the same indifferent expression.

“I’m not currently seeing anyone. Was there a sister or an older sister of mine in this house that I didn’t know about?”

He yawned widely as he muttered, without a trace of urgency or any sense of crisis.

Unable to hold back any longer, the butler raised his voice without any regard for the unfamiliar woman’s presence.

“Lady Wilroy! Lady Julia! Your fiancée, young master!”

“Oh, right! That’s true!”

As though finally snapping to his senses, Henry sat bolt upright.

His body, bearing every mark of a night of debauchery, was equally bare.

“You’re engaged?”

The woman lying beside him asked in a sticky voice, and Henry scrubbed his face roughly with his palm, then grinned and asked back,

“So, do you mind?”

“Hmm, of course not.”

The woman who smiled sweetly was a lower-ranking noble’s daughter he met at a masquerade ball, someone uncomplicated.

Give her a few pieces of jewelry and she was thoroughly satisfied, clinging to him like a tongue in his mouth.

He had been with so many similar women that even her name was hazy, but it was no great matter.

She was introduced through Stephanie, so if he was ever curious, he could just ask later.

Henry gave the woman’s round backside two light, casual smacks with his palm and said,

“All right, time to clear out. My fiancée is downstairs, and my parents will be back soon.”

“Do you like your fiancée?”

“Hah, hardly.”

With that, Henry got out of bed, stood up, and spread his arms out in an arrogant stretch.

The butler, well used to this, rushed over and hurriedly helped him into his shirt and trousers.

Henry fixed his appearance with a quick glance in the hand mirror, then bent his head and sniffed himself.

“Do I smell bad?”

The previous night’s masquerade had been quite wild, with women and endless rounds of liquor and tobacco, so the stench must have soaked right through.

“…Would you like to wash up, sir?”

The butler checked his pocket watch with a sour expression.

Henry loved his baths, and once he got in, an hour was the minimum.

Even if pressed, it would easily take half an hour.

Any other woman, he would tell her to wait, but this time it was his fiancée.

Whether he read the butler’s complicated thoughts, Henry shrugged.

“If I wash up, it’ll take too long. Keeping a lady waiting isn’t proper.”

“Even so, it is a first meeting. Wouldn’t it be better to present yourself cleanly? If you wash quickly….”

The butler, wrinkling his nose at the smell, offered the advice carefully.

“Eh, it’s all going to come out eventually anyway. Let’s just go.”

Henry, growing impatient with the whole thing, reached up and carelessly undid two of the neatly fastened buttons from the top.

“Perfume, please spray some perfume, sir!”

The butler rushed over and spritzed perfume on him, and Henry, with a shrug of his shoulders, sauntered toward the lower floor where the perfect fiancée, personally chosen by his parents, was waiting.