“I’m sorry. To someone who is in talks of marriage with Duke Atlas, I have been rude.”
“What do you mean by marriage talks?”
“Then… isn’t it?”
Hope overflowed in his eyes that had sunk deeply. He couldn’t have imagined that the bewilderment and displeasure on Tatiana’s lovely eyebrows would feel so welcome.
“I had heard such stories…”
“It must be baseless rumors.”
“I-Is that so? Well, it’s a world with many groundless rumors.”
“Yes. Like the story that Marquis Everton has no interest in anything except paintings.”
“It’s a baseless rumor!”
“…As expected.”
Leaving the Marquis unable to escape the swamp of confusion, Tatiana gently bent one knee. Marquis Everton clenched his fist and took a step toward the goddess in the masterpiece.
“C-Can I see you again? Will you come out here next time too?”
“Because I’ve always been interested.”
“…My Lady! Me too!”
“I mean the painting by Beln.”
Ah.
With a thud, Marquis Everton completely collapsed at Tatiana’s smile. Only after confirming the date and time several times did he leave with unsteady steps, and then Anne approached Tatiana, shaking her head.
“Ah, my Lady, is this really the right thing to do?”
“Then, do I have another option?”
Tatiana took the bundle of cards Anne handed her and withdrew her smile. She sifted through the love letters that had been pouring in to her, selecting the most usable ones and selecting again.
“My accounts are frozen, and I have no inheritance. I have no intention of receiving help from my sisters or other relatives. This is my reality. Still, among these, they are the best men.”
“Ah… Why not contact Lady Regina instead? Lady Regina surely doesn’t know about this incident.”
“With only three days left, how?”
Feeling it wouldn’t work, Anne suggested another option, but Tatiana shook her head. Regina was the only one who could stand up to her mother to some extent, but three months ago, she suddenly set sail on a huge ship. In fact, to call it sudden, her sister’s purpose was clear.
“Do you really have to go all the way to that far place? When will our Tiara get engaged!”
“So she has to leave. If a sister who has divorced three times is attached to the bride’s family in a household that her mother would target, she’d love that, wouldn’t she?”
“Regina!”
“Well, and also look for a fourth husband candidate while at it.”
The wealth her sister built from divorce settlements was said to be equivalent to the annual defense budget of the Freya Empire. Even if she wanted to marry, there was no one in Lebron with wealth surpassing hers, and even her mother had given up with both hands raised.
And now, if she reached out to Regina, there was no guarantee that her sister would take her hand. She was tired of family, but Regina was different in nature.
“…How pathetic she must think I am.”
“My Lady.”
“She’s disliked me since before. I know.”
She barely lifted the corners of her mouth, but the smile felt awkward. She knew well how her second sister had looked at her with wrapped eyes from her mother’s embrace all this time.
“Be honest. You find it comfortable there, don’t you?”
“…Sister.”
“As expected, I can’t understand the Princess’s tastes.”
Recalling her second sister’s faint, sneering smile made her chest sting. To forcibly erase that thought, Tatiana pressed her lips tightly.
‘That’s not necessarily bad.’
Even if Regina treated her like a puppet doll, in the end, the one who had stayed by ‘that mother’ until now was herself. Different from her sister’s way, she too had to carve her own path.
“It’s not something that ends by closing one’s eyes once. To my mother, my engagement to the Duke is just the beginning.”
“…What do you plan to do? Madame is not one to give up.”
“So I have to make the other person give up.”
“Yes?”
“If the Duke’s side turns away first, even my mother can’t do anything about it.”
Even after committing such a mistake, he’s the man who brazenly talked about his behavior in front of me. With that tremendous pride, he wouldn’t just sit by and watch me meeting and going around with other people. Swallowing a self-deprecating laugh, Tatiana flipped through the cards in her hand one by one.
“Marquis Everton is a decent person. In many ways.”
“Are you really planning to marry him?”
“He’s one of the candidates.”
Marquis Everton was also someone who had been at the top of her mother’s list of groom candidates, so the following conditions were excellent as well. Title, wealth, relatively gentle personality. Everything was more than satisfactory, but the reason for disqualification was clear enough.
“Marquis Everton. They say he holes up all day staring only at paintings?”
“Isn’t it better than wandering around outside gambling or betting?”
“No. A man obsessed with only one thing goes mad the moment that one thing is taken away.”
In short, he’d be a headache.
For that very reason, her mother had flicked away the love letter he sent with a twirl. But the fact that she didn’t greatly humiliate him like she did to others meant that at least he was a fairly decent match.
“Anyway, it seems the Marquis still has feelings for me.”
“Feelings? Oh dear, he was so flustered and honored he didn’t know what to do.”
Anne shuddered as if she herself was embarrassed and wiped her dry face. All the people they ‘happened to’ meet today were smitten with the young lady and blushed, but Marquis Everton even stuttered his words.
“Let me see. Next is… the opera house. If we want to arrive before the performance starts, we need to hurry.”
“But Madame has probably reserved the Viscount family’s box seats.”
“There’s Count Fergen.”
Count Fergen, the biggest patron in the performing arts industry, was also on Tatiana’s list of groom candidates. He was someone who had sent love letters to her almost every day for a while, and there were rampant rumors that even the ballet currently performing at the opera house was dedicated to Tatiana.
“You know a lot about opera too, don’t you, my Lady?”
“Enough to have a conversation with an opera fanatic.”
A lady who won’t end up as mere decoration anywhere, anytime—that was Viscountess Cartien’s motto. From art and history to foreign languages and politics, the number of home tutors she had gone through since childhood was enough to establish a decent academy.
“Even if they take away everything I wear and possess, they can’t carve out what’s in my head.”
“My Lady! Still, the people you’re meeting now are all too…”
“It’s fine. Anyone is better than the Duke.”
There is no such thing as a perfect groom anyway.
Having realized that one fact bone-deep, Tatiana looked down at the cards in her hand. Whether Marquis or Count, none of them would meet the eye of her mother, who had already set her sights on the Duke.
So she wanted someone who made her heart at ease.
In terms of money or status, all the senders of these cards were similar. Tatiana selected only those who seemed trustworthy among them. She didn’t care if their appearance was inferior to the Duke’s or if they weren’t eloquent. A man who wouldn’t forget the responsibility and meaning of marriage between man and woman—that was all she wanted now.
“As long as he doesn’t cheat. If that’s too greedy, then I should just give up on marriage altogether.”
“My Lady.”
“I don’t even have time to steadily get to know one person.”
A cold wind seeped into Tatiana’s collar as she descended the stairs. The intricate lace decoration around her neck trembled as finely as her eyelashes.
“…Haa.”
It was absurd that she had to start looking for another match the moment the marriage fell through, but she couldn’t lament and collapse. She had to accept the reality that had come upon her. In her position, where she could be chased out anytime without surprise, all she had was herself.
Unfortunately, under the empire’s national law, the only ways for an unmarried lady to independently leave her family were two.
Marriage, or divorce after marriage.
“The suitors will flock back to the house, so the rumors will spread throughout Lebron by tomorrow. At least it should be enough grounds for the Duke’s family to demand the breakup.”
“…My Lady.”
“Well. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet a really good match in the process.”
Tatiana smiled brightly at Anne, who looked at her with eyes about to cry. Being tired of men didn’t mean she had no intention of marriage itself. Perhaps because she had never lived that way, she was curious about a ‘warm and harmonious family.’
Does such a thing exist in the world?
If it does, what would it feel like to belong to such a family?
“…My Lady? What are you thinking that makes you like that?”
“Nothing. Let’s hurry.”
Tatiana, who had been blankly looking down at the square covered in white snow, led Anne. It wasn’t a question she could get an answer to now. She had to meet as many people as possible before the palace banquet and keep all possibilities open.
Tatiana’s white shoes quickly stepped down the red stairs, trying to prepare for her future as much as possible in the remaining time.
△▲△▲△
“Viscountess! Look at this!”
“…I can hear you fine even without shouting so loudly, Duke.”
In the reception room of Duke Atlas’s residence. Viscountess Cartien, who had been fiddling with the diamond ring on her finger, lifted her head toward the excited Duke. She could more than guess the content of the newspaper article rustling in his gripped hand.
“Why? Did our Tatiana meet someone else this time?”
“Viscountess!”
“Sigh, I need to change the painter here first. To express Tiara’s hair color so poorly like this.”
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