Chapter 9

Lizzie. It was an unfamiliar name. No one had ever called her that.

Except for Graham, she could hardly remember even her family calling her by name.

It was a short set of syllables, but there was no small warmth contained in them. But the way Killian called her Lizzie somehow felt less like her name and more like a term of endearment, and for some reason it made Lizette’s chest tighten. A feeling passed through her, as if she had become someone entirely different from before.

“……Why are you calling me Lizzie?”

At her question, Killian answered without hesitation, as though he had expected it.

“I simply wanted to give that name.”

The reason he had chosen the name Lizzie was simple. He merely wanted to draw a line between this woman before him and the people who had led her to make such a choice. But Killian did not bother to explain that. Perhaps she would not be convinced by that reason alone, so he lightly added another one instead.

“You seemed to feel some guilt toward me, so I will settle it with this.”

“……How did you know I felt sorry?”

“It was a guess. For someone who received gifts, you didn’t look unreservedly happy.”

Lizette was surprised to learn that he was more attentive than she had expected. At the same time, she felt embarrassed, as though Killian had seen through her inner thoughts, so she deliberately tossed out a remark as if it were a joke.

“Didn’t you value it too highly for the price of a gift?”

“If it is a name no one else can have, that is enough. So there is no need to feel sorry over gifts like that.”

Just as he said, the name Lizzie was valid only within the relationship between the two of them. Feeling Killian’s consideration, Lizette smiled back as if she could not help it.

“Then I won’t feel sorry, and from now on I’ll be a little bolder.”

“As much as you like.”

At Killian’s answer, Lizette gave a faint smile. Looking at her clear smile, Killian called her name once again.

“Lizzie.”

When he spoke the name Lizzie for the second time, Killian no longer had the same hesitation as before. The name he had chosen with the vague thought that he did not want to call Lizette by the same name Graham used was not bad.

The name he had just placed on his lips felt like a line separating Graham and himself, and for Killian, that alone gave the name Lizzie more than enough value.

‘……What is this feeling.’

Meanwhile, Lizette, who had once again heard Killian call her by name, felt an even stronger echo than before.

“Do not forget that in Luan, you are the only one who may call me by my name as well.”

A shapeless tenderness seeped through Killian’s voice. At his steady gaze, Lizette unconsciously found the corners of her lips lifting on their own.

“I’ll remember it, Killian.”

Lizette smiled brightly. Killian suddenly thought her radiant smile was dazzling. At the same time, he pressed down the faint ticklishness quietly rising in his chest. It was a sensation he had never felt before.

‘All that happened was that my name was spoken.’

It was a moment when all the advice he had just given her became useless when it came to himself.

* * *

“Have you heard the news?”

Bechern, the capital of the Luan Empire, had already been in an uproar for several days. News of Duke Cedric’s proposal, and the rumor that the other party was the young lady of the Trianne Marquisate, spread quickly. Rumors were swift by nature, but perhaps because the subject was that subject, this time they felt as though they were spreading even faster than usual.

“Oh, come on, that stiff man getting married……”

At first, there were those who half believed it and half doubted it, but once witnesses appeared claiming they had seen the ducal carriage loaded with dresses and jewels heading toward the Marquis’s estate, the rumor hardened into fact.

There were also those who learned, quite unintentionally, that the rumor was true, and those people were none other than the Marquis and Marchioness Trianne. Staying near the capital, the two immediately canceled all their plans upon hearing the news of Killian’s proposal and were now hurrying back to the estate.

‘That child and Duke Cedric.’

When Marquis Aberdeen learned of Killian’s proposal, it felt to him as though someone were playing a cruel joke on him.

‘How am I supposed to act like a father now, after all this time……’

It was unpleasant enough to have to discuss matters concerning Lizette, but the fact that the other party was ‘that’ Duke Cedric made him even less willing. Though much younger than himself, he was by no means someone Marquis Aberdeen could afford to dismiss lightly.

All the way back to the capital estate, almost driven along without even being able to properly judge the situation, Marquis Aberdeen had a headache. But what truly left his head ringing was after he saw Lizette’s face.

Clatter.

With a loud noise, the carriage came to a stop. Marquis Aberdeen stepped down from the carriage and was startled out of his senses.

‘Isabel……?’

The Marquis felt as though he had been bewitched by a ghost. The moment he saw his daughter’s face for the first time in two months, he thought of his wife who had left the world long ago. Since her childhood, he had thought his daughter’s face bore a striking resemblance to Isabel’s, but from a certain point onward, that was something he gradually forgot as Lizette began covering her face.

The child whom the woman he loved had borne in exchange for her life, he had never been able to love for even a single moment. And yet……

Lizette, who had no way of knowing the Marquis’s feelings, was as calm as ever.

“Welcome back.”

Lizette, who had come out to greet the Marquis and Marchioness, lowered her head as she offered a dry greeting. Once she raised it again, it was obvious that, as always, the familiar silence and indifference would pass over her. And it was equally certain that even the brief glance that merely brushed past her would be as cold as a winter blade of wind.

Her stepmother was not much different. If one were to compare, her stepmother did not ignore Lizette as thoroughly as her father did, but in the end they were of the same kind in their mutual indifference. Thinking of Graham as he was now, that lack of concern almost felt welcome instead.

In any case, such things were no longer important now. That was simply how her heart had become, since she expected nothing. Yet contrary to Lizette’s expectation, when she lifted her head, her father’s gaze was resting on her, something rare indeed.

‘What is this?’

For a moment Lizette was flustered by her father’s unfamiliar eyes directed at her, but the Marquis soon pulled his coldly cooled gaze away from Lizette and walked into the estate.

‘Why did he look at me like that.’

As Lizette walked down the corridor back to her room, she went over the strangeness she had felt just now. Her father, who had always passed by her with a rigid expression, had been slightly different today. It had never happened before, but somehow his eyes, which had seemed startled, lingered on her longer than usual today.

For a moment, the thought crossed her mind that perhaps something had changed after all, but Lizette quickly shook her head.

“It’s only my imagination.”

Just because her father had spared her a glance, it surely did not mean there was some other meaning in it. By the time she had gone over that inscrutable look from her father again and again, Lizette had arrived at her room.

“Let’s just endure a little longer.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lizette counted off on her fingers, one, then two. The Crown Prince’s birthday celebration party, and the annual regular monster-subjugation schedule of the Imperial Knight Order. Even aside from Lizette, who had suddenly entered his life, Killian was already someone whose life was busy.

Until his large and small schedules were sorted out, she had to somehow endure staying in this house. Fortunately, after Killian’s warning, Graham had not taken any particular action.

But that quiet brought with it another kind of anxiety. Still, what she had to worry about right away was tomorrow.

“……Will it be alright?”

Tomorrow was the day when Killian and her family were to have lunch together at the Marquis’s estate. An unease difficult to put into words came over Lizette.

It was only an ordinary meal, but because she knew it truly was not, she felt suffocated. Even as she hoped that nothing would happen, the thought of Graham, her father, and her stepmother all gathered in one place made her chest feel tight.

“Miss, dinner is ready. Will you be coming down?”

“No, I’ll just rest.”

The meal she had not even eaten already felt as though it would upset her stomach. Just imagining it made her feel ill. Lizette acted as normally as she could to maintain her composure. But no matter how she turned the pages of her book, her heart did not settle easily.

In the end, Lizette went to bed early, but the night, stained with worry and unease, was unusually long.

* * *