The next morning.
The duke had been left behind, alone.
He had been sleeping deeply with the warm little rabbit tucked against his chest—and woke only after she had gone completely.
“…”
‘Tap. Tap.’ His large hand moved across the empty sheet, searching, wandering. The warmth was gone. His fingers grew more and more restless.
The futility of his own hand searching for a woman who had already left—it was a loneliness more desolate than he had words for.
He pushed up his heavy lashes.
Through the haze of half-sleep, he saw nothing but an empty bed.
He sat up and swept his gaze around the room. Not a presence. Not a sound. He trained every sense outward—and found only silence.
His mind went white.
He opened every door in the suite, searched every corner. He could not find a single strand of the baby rabbit’s hair.
And then, on the table, he found it: a small, white slip of paper.
‘What a lovely night. Thank you. Please take care on your way home!’
It was written in neat, rounded script—each character pressed carefully into the page.
The content was devastatingly brief. And needlessly cheerful.
‘What is this.’
He read it again. And again. He turned the paper over, in case something was written on the back.
No address. No name. No way to reach her.
His mind went the color of bleached linen.
“Ha.”
A hollow, empty laugh escaped him.
The sympathy he had extended to this baby rabbit had amounted to a scrap of used tissue paper.
He had given her his first time—and been devoured and discarded in a single motion.
‘She dared. She ate me and ran?’
It felt as though he’d been riding in a carriage with his arms full of a warm little rabbit—and had been thrown out onto the road alone.
In short: an absolutely rotten feeling.
“That wretched baby rabbit.”
He crushed the note in his fist.
The clean line of his jaw hardened into something sharp.
* * *
‘BANG.’
He brought his fist down on the desk.
His two hands, braced against it, were shaking.
“‘Damn.'”
The atmosphere of the manor had been obliterated the moment its lord returned home radiating black fury. And the person suffering most acutely from this was his adjutant, Hugo Eaton. Hugo was wiping cold sweat from his brow in real time. His grey handkerchief had already gone dark with it.
“…Hugo.”
“Y—yes! Your Grace!”
“Who is the most beautiful and lovely woman in this empire?”
“…Pardon?”
“‘Tch.'”
The duke’s irritation with Hugo’s blank response was immediate. What clearer description could there possibly be?
“Ivelina. I’m asking which family she belongs to.”
“I—Ivelina, miss…? I’ve never heard that name before…”
“I had no idea you were this incompetent.”
“…I—I’m sorry…”
The duke exhaled through his nose and pulled his necktie loose. He was already furious enough to feel his blood running the wrong direction, and now his adjutant was being an idiot on top of everything.
“Her name is Ivelina. Her hair is a honey-warm gold. Her lips are full and round like a small ripe cherry. Her eyes are a clear, vivid green—the color of pure emerald, and they catch the light when she looks at you. Her skin was white and soft. She was light as a feather—I barely knew I was holding her. Her scent was like roses dried in sunlight. And her skin, beneath—the fragrance was even stronger there.”
“…Ah. I—is that so.”
Hugo was deeply unsettled. Had he just heard—’beneath the skin’—
“This impudent woman. Find out which family she belongs to immediately. Right now.”
A chill ran down Hugo’s neck. He stood there momentarily stunned, and the duke—brow creased—leaned in with a pressure that filled the room.
“You have one hour.”
Every piece of information was entirely subjective—but Hugo had to find her even if he had to overturn the entire empire. He swallowed hard and snapped to attention.
“I’ll investigate immediately!”
The information Hugo had been given was extremely limited. He put his brain—which had graduated first in his class at the academy—to work at full speed, fitting the pieces together.
The duke had attended a gala last night—and had not come home afterward.
Which meant—
‘This Ivelina must have been at the gala last night!’
The crucial task before him: he needed to get his hands on the gala’s guest list.
After Hugo left, the duke immediately picked up his quill.
* * *
‘CONTRACT’
‘In exchange for ‘Party A’ taking ‘Party B,’ ‘Party A’ agrees to become ‘Party B’s lawful spouse.’
”Party A’ shall, as Duchess of Hardeion, fulfill all marital obligations to ‘Party B’ until the end of her days.’
‘The courtship period: one month. The wedding ceremony: to be held approximately one month thereafter.’
He drafted reasonable terms on the basis of what had been verbally agreed between them. Given that a promise of marriage had been made in the midst of intimacy, there was no issue with the content whatsoever.
* * *
Fifty-eight minutes later.
Hugo came sprinting back with barely a second to spare. His brown hair was soaked with sweat and had gone several shades darker.
“Your Grace! I found her! She’s from the Florence earldom!”
“Report. Now.”
“Y—yes, Your Grace! I also took the liberty of gathering additional personal information! Her name is Ivelina Florence. She is the eldest daughter of Count Florence and has reportedly kept a low profile in social circles! She graduated from the academy with excellent marks! Not a natural genius, apparently, but an extraordinary worker!”
“Continue.”
“She became engaged at a young age, but is currently in a provisional state of broken engagement—her fiancé was unfaithful! After attending the gala last night, her whereabouts after midnight became unaccounted for!”
Hugo gasped between words, mopping at his forehead as he rattled through the report.
The duke smiled—a cool, unhurried curve of his mouth—and murmured:
“Florence. So she’s the count’s daughter.”
Hugo’s spine turned to ice.
He had served the duke for a long time. But every time that particular expression appeared, he felt a powerful urge to hand in his resignation and flee.
“Have the family’s lawyer here immediately. I need a contract drawn up.”
A ‘contract’—!
What in the world had happened last night—?!
Hugo was, as his academy record suggested, a clever man.
So he took the limited information available to him and arrived swiftly at a conclusion.
The duke had not come home. Ivelina had also not come home. And the duke was now asking about Ivelina’s whereabouts.
Which meant—
‘Last night, the two of them, meeting at the gala for the very first time…’
They had exchanged a kiss! At the very least!
‘Good heavens. Our duke, who regarded women the way most men regard stone walls, has finally—!’
* * *
Thirty minutes later.
The family’s dedicated lawyer also arrived at a dead sprint.
He had received the duke’s summons to come without delay—accompanied by Hugo’s warning that the duke’s mood was currently very, very poor.
“Your Grace! What has happened?!”
“I have been the victim of matrimonial fraud.”
“…Beg your pardon?! Not the perpetrator, but the—’victim’, Your Grace?”
“That’s right. I was victimized.”
The duke wore a pleasant expression and an absolutely murderous look in his eyes simultaneously.
The lawyer flinched at the paradox and dabbed at his brow. His handkerchief darkened.
“I—in any case! Could you walk me through the situation in chronological order?”
The duke explained calmly. He substituted the word ‘intimacy’ with ‘a kiss’, reframing events delicately.
He did not wish to put the baby rabbit in a difficult position.
“…So, to summarize—Miss Florence pledged marriage to Your Grace, stole a kiss from Your Grace, and while Your Grace was asleep, fled—leaving only this note behind?”
“Precisely.”
“I—hmm…”
“And since I have been the victim of matrimonial kiss-theft under false pretenses, I will need you to draft a certain contract.”
“…Pardon?”
What connection could a fraudulent promise of marriage possibly have to the drafting of a contract?
The lawyer’s professional ethics were under significant strain when the duke slid a sheet of paper across the desk.
“Draft this exactly as written. Then proceed to notarization. You have thirty minutes.”
Certain procedural steps appeared to have been omitted—quite significantly—but when the duke said jump, the family lawyer’s sole responsibility was to ask how high. In this world, the highly placed stood above the law.
“Understood!”
And thus.
The duke’s small and precious baby rabbit—
“How do you do, Your Grace. I believe this is our first meeting. You sent for me…? ‘EEEK!'”
—found herself facing the greatest trial of her life.
* * *
