Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“This is the very person I’ve promised to marry!”

Atop the central lobby on the second floor of the vast banquet hall.

The head of the woman standing with her arm linked through his rested lightly against Leonard’s stiffened shoulder.

No one found anything strange in the affectionate sight.

The countless guests gathered in the banquet hall below, one and all, broke into applause.

“Congratulations on your engagement, Marchioness!”

“You two make such a perfect match!”

‘A perfect match? Me and this woman?’

Apparently, no one had realized that, far from being engaged, the two had met only twice, today included.

Naturally.

After all, even he thought he was out of his mind, playing Marchioness Blair’s fiancé at a banquet of this staggering scale.

‘How on earth did it come to this?’

Leonard couldn’t believe that the root of all this was a single sunflower.

As if fleeing the gazes pouring down on him, Leonard recalled the moment he’d been handed that sunflower in front of the fountain in the capital’s plaza.

* * *

A handcart with its wheel knocked off, and countless flowers scattered around it.

No one was helping the girl, who looked on the verge of tears.

If anything, people simply trampled the fallen flowers underfoot as they passed.

Clicking his tongue at their indifference, Leonard helped the girl gather the fallen flowers.

“Thank you for your help, Sir Knight.”

“But I have nothing to give you… so please take this flower as thanks instead.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“With all your flowers ruined, you should at least sell that one.”

“No! Please, let me repay a kind knight like you. Please?”

Even though he declined, saying it was fine, the girl stubbornly held out the sunflower.

When he finally had no choice but to accept it, the girl smiled brightly and said to Leonard,

“That flower will lead you to a wonderful connection.”

He’d thought it was just a polite pleasantry.

Leonard didn’t know.

That a man standing in front of the capital’s fountain holding a sunflower was a sign that he was looking for a date.

By the time he learned this and threw the sunflower away, more than five women were already chasing after him.

“Hold it right there, handsome Brother! You’re looking for a date, aren’t you!”

“Damn it, I said no! How many times do I have to tell you it’s a misunderstanding!”

“Oh my, so shy! I do like a man who plays coy!”

“Or maybe being fought over by women is your hobby?”

“I like that! Conquering is my taste, after all!”

“A game of tag, how fun!”

“Whoever among us catches you first gets the date!”

At the sound of their giggling, a chill ran down his spine.

He felt exactly like a deer being hunted.

To shake the women off, Leonard turned into a dark back alley.

“Stop right there!”

Yet, as though the gloom didn’t frighten them in the least, the women followed Leonard right into the alley.

‘Why are they so relentless?’

If they’d been men, he’d have knocked them out cold, but his pursuers were women.

With running the only thing he could do, Leonard dashed for a long while around one twisting corner after another.

Then, at some point, an open road appeared before him, like sunlight breaking through dark clouds.

Seeing a woman standing in the middle of that road, Leonard stopped short in surprise.

‘What’s this?’

Standing before a derelict, half-collapsed house, she wore an enormous bonnet pulled low, its thick ribbon knotted heavily to veil her face.

All that showed was the slender line of her jaw.

Was that why?

As she turned her head toward him, an air of something strangely out of place hung about her.

“What the— where did he go?”

“Over there, over there!”

Leonard, who had been staring at her as if bewitched, flinched, his shoulders jerking, at the shouts from behind.

Perhaps she found his frightened-rabbit start amusing.

Raising a snow-white gloved hand near her mouth, the woman let out a soft laugh.

‘Who is this woman…?’

He’d endured every kind of mockery there was.

But hearing someone’s laughter and feeling this embarrassed, as if his whole body were being tickled, was a first.

While he blushed helplessly at a sensation he’d never felt in his life, she, who had been standing some distance away, came tripping over on light steps and laid a hand on his elbow.

“Shall I help you, Sir?”

“Help with what…?”

“Here he is! Oh my?”

Just then, one of the women rounding the corner spotted Leonard and cried out loudly.

As if telling her she was already too late, she gave a little chuckle and linked her arm through Leonard’s.

“You’re too late, Sisters.”

“I caught this man first.”

“Aww, come on! It’s been so long since we had prey!”

“Prey…”

Weren’t they the ones who’d said he was looking for a date?

A chill ran down his spine at the thought of the state he’d have been in had they caught him.

It was a real relief that they’d backed off so meekly at the sight of the woman on his arm.

“Now then, Sir. This way.”

And so, with the help of the woman whose arm was linked through his, Leonard made it safely back to the capital’s plaza.

Heaving a sigh of relief before he knew it, he bowed with perfect courtesy to the woman who had helped him.

“Thank you for your help, my lady.”

“Thanks to you, I was able to escape a dire predicament.”

His manner of speech had turned courteous because he’d sensed she was of high rank.

An elegant gait with an even stride, and a perfectly straight back.

Though she seemed to be hugging his arm as if to seduce him, in truth she held it the way a lady does when escorted by a gentleman.

As if confirming his guess, the lady gave a short laugh.

“If you truly consider my help a favor, may I ask you to repay it?”

“Repay it, you say?”

“Yes, repay it.”

Releasing Leonard’s arm, she spread her skirts wide with both hands and curtsied to him.

“You who have won the honor of Anup.”

“I’ll send someone to your lodgings soon.”

“Please, do not refuse my invitation.”

“…Do you know who I am?”

“Of course.”

She merely nodded in assent and left without saying how she knew.

If she’d done it on purpose, it was truly a sly trick.

After all, he’d ended up thinking about a woman whose face he didn’t even know for two whole days and nights.

* * *

And then, at last, on the third day.

An elderly gentleman came to his lodgings carrying a single invitation.

Along with a large clothing box.

“We will send a carriage for you at the appointed date and time.”

“We would like you to wear the formal attire we’ve prepared, so please, try it on first.”

The old gentleman, who introduced himself as Daymond, helped Leonard try on the attire.

The black formal coat, embroidered in gold thread and fastened with ruby buttons, fit as though it had been made from his exact measurements.

“Fortunately, the fit is perfect.”

“Is anything uncomfortable, my lord?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Please, do speak to me casually.”

Bowing respectfully, Daymond left, thoroughly pleased to hear that there was nothing wrong with the attire.

After he’d gone, Edward, the aide who had quietly helped with the dressing alongside Daymond, whispered belatedly in a frightened voice.

“For the clothes to fit this perfectly, they must have investigated you behind your back.”

“Maybe even the part where you helped the lady was all planned, Count?”

“How would she have known I’d be chased by those women and end up there?”

“They hired the women too!”

“Stop talking nonsense, and tell me, do you happen to know what kind of banquet is being held here?”

Edward mulled over the address written on the invitation a few times, then said with an “Ah.”

“It’s a banquet at Marchioness Blair’s residence.”

“I read in the papers that Marchioness Blair, who’s done nothing but work like mad for the three years since inheriting her title, is finally announcing her fiancé.”

“Marchioness Blair?”

Every time he heard that name, Leonard felt a tangle of complicated emotions.

One of them was a sense of kinship.

“The late Marquis and his wife died in a carriage accident, didn’t they.”

“Yes.”

“It was such a sudden death that there was no end of gossip and trouble.”

“The late Marquis’s younger brother even tried to gobble up the title and got badly burned for it.”

Having safely protected her parents’ title and inheritance from her uncle’s scheme, Marchioness Blair plunged straight into business.

Her moves were so bold that many people watched her with thoroughly fascinated eyes.

Eagerly waiting for the day she’d go under.

‘As if just anyone can run a business. I’d bet my entire fortune she’ll blow through all her money within a year.’

‘She’d have been better off donating it. At least that would’ve filled a few beggars’ bellies.’

That year in high society, people mocked Marchioness Blair as if competing over who could laugh the loudest.

But they had no choice but to fall silent.

Because every business she touched became a smash hit.

It had begun with buying iron and coal mines at a premium and investing heavily in the railway project led by the Emperor.

In return, she received the imperial army’s support to wipe out the pirates running rampant along the southern coast, and then immediately opened sea routes and began trading with two nations to the continent’s west, the Kingdom of Milos and the Kingdom of Parodia.

So great was her skill that she solved the endemic disease that had plagued Parodia and won the Parodian royal family’s trust, and using Parodia as a bridgehead, she went on to trade with the Con-Isle-Tem Federation, made up of three islands, and with Illum in the polar region.

Then Marchioness Blair launched a cruise business linking the ports of those nations, and ultimately developed her own domain, the seven islands off the Devora coast in the continent’s south, into the empire’s finest tourist destination.

From small ventures like dessert shops to large ones like brokered trade among several nations.

She went from triumph to triumph day after day, raking in money from every direction.

The Blair Trading Company, which had always been solid at its core, rose to stand alongside the empire’s three great trading houses, until no one objected to its being called one of the Big Four.

“In Marchioness Blair’s interview, she said the man she marries will never have to lift a finger and will be indulged in luxury.”

“I wonder who the lucky man will be.”

Edward chattered on beside him without pause, but Leonard wondered about only one thing.

So who on earth was the lady who’d asked me to escort her?

* * *

And so, at last, the day of the appointment arrived.

“Count! We’ve arrived.”

The carriage carrying Leonard gradually slowed to a stop, and soon the door opened.

Leonard fell silent for a moment before the grandeur of the mansion spread out before him.

It was grand enough that he’d have believed it was a royal palace.

‘So the rumors of her staggering wealth were true…’

“Are you Count Elpiers?”

Just then, a well-dressed footman approached Leonard and asked, bowing politely.

When Leonard nodded, the footman said he’d been expecting him and showed him the way.

“This way, please.”

The lady who had invited him here seemed to have already arrived.

Fidgeting with the clothes that suddenly felt uncomfortable, Leonard followed the footman.

“Count, are you really sure about this?”

“About what?”

“What do you mean, about what! How many times must I tell you that if you slip up, you could get hooked!”

Leonard snorted at Edward, who was pounding his chest in frustration.

“If she has any sense at all, she won’t hook me.”

He wasn’t unaware of what it would look like for a man of marriageable age with no fiancée to escort an unmarried woman.

But he was a bastard, a former mercenary, and on top of that, buried in staggering debt.

Any one of them would be disqualification enough, and he had all three at once.

No nobleman in his right mind would ever consider him as a husband for his daughter, or for himself.

Leonard had learned that reality three years ago, firsthand and most painfully.

‘And to be asked to escort someone to a banquet at Marchioness Blair’s residence, of all places, and not even a masquerade… That young lady must have had no one else to ask.’

Leonard pitied the woman whose face he didn’t even know.

For exactly five minutes.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation, Sir Leonard.”

Presumably, the mansion’s drawing room.

The lady who had been waiting for him curtsied to him in a splendid gown.

Just as she had a few days ago.

Unlike that day, today she hadn’t hidden her face behind a bonnet and ribbon.

Silver hair, thickly braided and pinned up with glittering jeweled pins, and blue eyes reminiscent of the deep sea.

The moment he saw that face, made all the lovelier by the harmony of those mysterious colors and her clear, graceful air, Leonard realized it.

Why this lady had kept her face so carefully hidden.

At the same time, he was puzzled.

‘Why did she ask me to escort her?’

With looks like these, any man would drop everything and come running, unless he had a fiancée, or no, even if he did.

“…It is I who should thank you for the invitation.”

Beyond surprise, he was so flustered that his voice came out slightly shaky.

Fortunately, the lady who had invited him smiled sweetly instead of sneering that this was why street-bred men wouldn’t do.

“Not at all.”

“No number of words could thank you enough, Sir, for so readily indulging my whim, but since time is short, may I ask you to escort me right away?”

She seemed to be asking his consent, yet she was already holding out her hand to him.

Without even the leisure to think it over, Leonard took that hand.

“If someone like me will do, then gladly.”

On the way to the banquet hall, while escorting the lady with her hand resting on his arm, Leonard saw Edward, wearing a flustered expression, mouthing something, trying to tell him something.

‘What’s with him?’

Well, I can ask him later.

Having brushed it off so carelessly, Leonard did not know.

“This is the very person I’ve promised to marry!”

That, as the price for a small favor, he would be hooked, and hooked thoroughly, by the woman clinging to his arm.