The dining room of the Florence manor.
“Ahem — p-please, help yourself.”
Father looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. But given that his guest was none other than Kael Hardeion, Duke of Hardeion, he was making every effort to maintain his composure and observe the proper forms. The slight stammer told me he was considerably more nervous than he wanted to let on.
‘He would be. This is the Duke of Hardeion, after all. Good.’
I wasn’t precisely enjoying Father’s discomfort at my expense, but there was something satisfying about the reversal — a small, quiet revenge, courtesy of Kael.
Meanwhile, as if entirely indifferent to the tension in the room, Kael had continued to pat me on the back until my sniffling subsided. He made no effort to compose himself for my parents’ benefit, no attempt to appear conventional or deferential. His expression remained exactly what it always was — perfectly blank.
A few minutes before, in the entrance hall, when I had started crying properly, he hadn’t even greeted my parents first. He’d simply wiped my tears away. With every one of the household staff watching.
‘In hindsight, that was a little mortifying.’
In an attempt to ease the stilted atmosphere, Mother — ever the gracious hostess — offered a polite opener.
“I’m afraid we weren’t prepared for company. Please forgive the inadequacy, Your Grace.”
“It’s fine.”
No ‘oh, this is a wonderful spread,’ no ‘it smells delightful, the future mother-in-law’s cooking must be something special.’ Not a single pleasantry.
Any mother hoping for a warm, charming son-in-law would have despaired on the spot.
But I found myself quietly satisfied.
‘Good. Revenge for you too, Mother.’
I dabbed the last stray tear from my lashes with the back of my hand. It wasn’t as though the history of being treated differently from Jacqueline was anything new — but today it had stung more than usual. I wasn’t sure why it had broken through today when I’d held it together so many times before.
I blew my nose quietly into my napkin, and Kael stopped patting my back. His hand moved to the back of my head and swept my hair gently, once.
“Better now?”
I answered with a small nod instead of words. Then I glanced across at my parents and Jacqueline, all three of them seated side by side.
They were frozen — all three — clearly uncertain of what they were supposed to say or do.
My own blood relatives had piled on me all at once, and yet here was this man — a stranger, by any formal reckoning — who had stepped in to look after me. The strangeness of it struck me.
It made me want to cry again. But it also made me feel, strangely, safe.
Kael withdrew his hand and straightened his posture. The moment his gaze settled on the three people across the table, they all startled like a row of very surprised owls.
I watched it all from the sidelines, arms crossed, with the comfortable detachment of an audience member.
‘Good. He’s Kael Hardeion. They should be nervous.’
It occurred to me that I had, before their arrival, been doing my level best to get him to break things off. All that effort — wasted.
‘Fine. I give up for tonight. I’m done thinking.’
Whatever would happen, would happen. I’d worry about it tomorrow.
The real reason I’d been so determined to be rejected before my parents returned was straightforward enough: whatever the rumours said about him, the Hardeion Duchy was a house that could rival even the imperial family. Someone like Father — who had always regarded his daughters as a kind of asset — might very well welcome a match like this with both arms wide open.
‘But looking at them now, it doesn’t seem like either of them is particularly taken with Kael.’
If they came out against it, that would actually be ideal. What could Kael do if the bride’s family refused?
“Please, eat.”
“Ah — y-yes, then…”
At Kael’s invitation, my parents and Jacqueline picked up their cutlery in turn, following his lead.
‘They’re going to give themselves indigestion.’
I was famished — crying, it turned out, was hungry work — but I didn’t have the energy to chew anything substantial, so I started on the easiest option available: a bowl of cream soup, which I spooned through steadily.
Kael swallowed a piece of steak and spoke.
“I had intended to call on you before long in any case. I simply didn’t anticipate it would be this evening.”
“A-ah… is that so… ahem.”
‘Translation: I was already planning to come introduce myself — but someone made enough of a scene that I couldn’t exactly leave it until later. Satisfied?’
Father had a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth and stopped there, flustered.
‘My reading of the situation was apparently correct.’
‘There you are, Father — fork in hand, utterly at a loss for words. Excellent.’
A brief silence fell. Into it, Mother — ever the composed and capable hostess, as Father himself had always acknowledged — stepped in to offer a defence.
“I do apologise for the poor impression, Your Grace. My husband simply cares very deeply for his daughter, you understand…”
“Deeply, for someone who cares so deeply.”
Kael cut through another piece of steak, pausing on the syllable.
“He was rather… uninhibited about it.”
‘Translation: he was about to tear into her with all the fury he had.’
Father still hadn’t managed to eat that bite of steak. It seemed as though his appetite had deserted him entirely — the fork hadn’t come within ten inches of his mouth.
‘So this is what power looks like up close. Quite thrilling, actually.’
I helped myself to a piece of bread and dipped it in my soup, watching my family members with the calm interest of someone watching events unfold from a safe distance.
They were all still smiling — but the corners of their mouths were trembling.
“I — I may have spoken a bit harshly. Ha… ha ha…”
Father finally raised the white flag. The fact that Kael had managed to extract something resembling remorse from such a stubborn, set-in-his-ways man was genuinely impressive.
“I was — I was rather worked up myself earlier. I don’t usually speak to Ivelina that way, honestly.”
‘He really should have stayed quiet.’
Apparently Jacqueline had forgotten I existed.
“I don’t appreciate a disordered household.”
“I — I beg your pardon?”
Jacqueline stumbled over the words. My parents’ brows contracted sharply. Everyone in the room, it seemed, was perfectly aware of the problem — everyone except Jacqueline himself.
“You and Ivelina are two years apart, if I understand correctly.”
“…Yes. That’s correct.”
“And yet the way you address your elder sister — it leaves something to be desired.”
‘Tch.’ Kael clicked his tongue.
“I — I do call her elder sister normally! I was just — caught off guard just now!”
I seized my moment.
“He’s never called me that once in his life! He doesn’t call me elder sister or even by title — always just my name!”
‘There, Jacqueline. How does it feel?’
Kael regarded Jacqueline in silence. For perhaps ten full seconds — saying nothing, simply watching. Even I felt my airways tighten under that gaze. Jacqueline’s eyes darted around the room before he gave up entirely and bowed his head.
“I suggest you work on that habit of lying, young master of Florence.”
“Y-yes… I apologise.”
Jacqueline nodded several times in rapid succession. Then our eyes met — and for a brief moment, he shot me a look of undisguised reproach.
‘Still not quite there, are you.’
“Yes, Jacqueline — what sort of way is that to speak to your own sister? I was about to say something earlier and held my tongue. From this point forward, you will address her properly, with the respect due to her. Is that understood?”
“Y-yes, Father.”
Father had a remarkable talent for sycophancy. One glimpse of Kael and the man had completely reoriented himself.
Mother followed suit, narrowing her eyes at Jacqueline before turning back to the table.
“I do apologise, Your Grace, for showing you such an unflattering side of us on your first visit.”
“You have nothing to apologise to me for, madam.”
Predictably — Kael without empty pleasantries. He had wrapped an entire message into that single sentence: ‘don’t apologise to me. Apologise to your daughter.’
The meal appeared to be concluding. Kael touched his napkin lightly to the corner of his mouth.
Not one of the others had managed more than a bite, but the moment Kael set down his cutlery, every fork in the room clattered down in unison.
“You will have seen the article by now, I imagine.”
“Ah — ahem.”
Neither a confirmation nor a denial from my parents. Jacqueline had gone very still and very quiet.
“I have no intention of reversing this decision.”
A silence dropped over the table like a curtain.
And yet I knew. I could see it clearly in my parents’ faces — the stiff, uncomfortable set of their expressions. They did not like this. Not one bit.
‘Well, they shouldn’t. He’s essentially saying: don’t even think about standing in my way.’
Frankly, if I were a parent, I wouldn’t want a son-in-law like him either.
Father’s mouth had settled into a sulky downward line. Mother was keeping her expression carefully neutral, but she kept biting her lower lip.
‘Wait.’
I had told myself to sit quietly and let the evening pass. But this was too good an opportunity to waste.
There was a saying, wasn’t there — the more you forbid something, the more desperately people want it.
‘Let me use that.’
My parents had spent my entire life opposing everything I wanted. Which meant that tonight, too, they would almost certainly take the position opposite to mine.
‘If their daughter says she wants to marry a man they can’t stand — wouldn’t they want to forbid it as desperately as possible?’
Right. I’d had my revenge. Now it was time to think about the future — about my family’s future.
‘This is a matter of our house’s survival. Marry badly, and the Florence earldom could be ruined entirely.’
I made my decision.
I grabbed Kael’s hand — the one resting beside me — and, with my eyes going wide and my body trembling dramatically, I cried out:
“I — if you don’t let me marry His Grace, I’ll die! I can’t live without this man anymore!”
* * *
