The Grand Duchess Dreams
The Grand Duchess dreamed.
The long, long night passed at last, and a morning that had seemed it would never break finally dawned.
"...Haam."
Needless to say, I hadn't slept a wink.
I had proudly dragged the bedding out of the wardrobe and spread it on the floor the night before, but the fact that I hadn't once slept on the floor since possessing this body left my back stiff and aching. Bed and floor may have been separate, but how was I supposed to fall asleep comfortably with the woman I loved breathing the same air in the same room?
"...Sleep well."
Rebecca, by contrast, had slipped off to dreamland with the most peaceful expression in the world. In three years of watching her, I had never once seen her look that relaxed—after all, the expression I'd seen most on the Grand Duchess was the flustered, frustrated face she made whenever I beat her.
A chuckle escaped me. These days, merely imagining that look of hers was enough to bring a smile to my lips.
"...It's serious. For me too."
I knew full well this wasn't the mind of a normal person. But by now, wasn't it far too late to pull myself free of Rebecca?
Lost in these scattered thoughts, I perched carefully on the edge of the bed—mindful not to wake her—and admired the face of the sleeping Grand Duchess.
Skin white as fine jade, flawless and pure. Red hair that stayed silky and lovely even in sleep. Delicately clustered eyes, nose, and lips. Every time I looked at Rebecca, I found myself thinking: was there anyone in this world more beautiful?
"Aren't you being a little too defenseless?"
At the same time, I worried for her. I had declared I wouldn't try anything, yes—but sleeping this unsguarded beside a man in the absolute prime of his youth? It wasn't as though she didn't know she was a beautiful, attractive woman. How could she drift off to dreamland so thoughtlessly? It was a mercy that the person beside her was me. If it had been anyone else...
...Ugh.
I didn't care to finish that thought. Shuddering at the creepy idea, I edged a little closer to the sleeping Grand Duchess—close enough that the smallest dip of my head would bring our foreheads together.
Then an amusing thought struck me. What would Rebecca do if she woke to find her insufferable fiancé's face right in front of hers?
"Maybe she'd scream."
She'd probably jolt awake in terror and let out a shriek, then scramble as far away from me as possible—just like last night. Not that it would get her far; we'd still be on the same bed.
Simply imagining her reaction was delightful. So I held my position for several minutes, savoring the anticipation of whatever expression she would wear.
"Awake, are you?"
At last, Rebecca opened her eyes.
Despite my greeting, she simply stared at me blankly, offering no reaction at all. Perhaps she was still half-asleep, unable to tell whether this was reality or dream.
...A shame.
I was a little disappointed—I'd been hoping for a startled yelp. But this wasn't so bad either. In those half-lidded red eyes of the Grand Duchess, still drowsy from having just woken, only my face was reflected. And that wasn't an unpleasant feeling at all.
"Come on, up you get. It's time for breakfast."
The thought crossed my mind that lingering in this moment a little longer wouldn't hurt—but the hour for breakfast was creeping closer. When I'd checked earlier, the door the Duchess had locked behind us had been standing open for quite some time. If any of the ducal household's servants were to catch us like this, together, that would be decidedly bad news.
So, having woken the Grand Duchess, I moved to rise from the bed.
"...Your Highness?"
That is, until Rebecca seized my wrist.
For a moment, I was utterly flustered. Never in a hundred years had I expected her to grab my hand like that. But as always, panic translated instantly into the urge to tease her.
"Do you enjoy my company that much? Well then, I suppose I have no choi—"
Just as I was shaking my head in mock resignation, preparing my tease, her delicate hand pulled me toward her. The red eyes that had been gazing at me filled with mischief.
I've said it before—I can't overpower the Grand Duchess in a contest of strength. So I simply went along, drawn helplessly toward her.
"...Be quiet."
Mwah—
It happened in an instant. With Rebecca's voice telling me to hush, her soft lips came down over mine.
In that moment, I couldn't think at all.
This was nothing like the childish pecks on the cheek. This was a real kiss. It was so impossibly sweet that my mind went blank white—and forgetting entirely that I'd been teasing the Grand Duchess mere seconds before, I could do nothing but live inside that moment.
How much time passed like that, I couldn't say. When lips that seemed they might never part finally did, and our gazes locked onto each other, a low voice reached my ears.
"...What's this? You're redder than I am."
"..."
Having delivered that baffling observation—that I was redder than she was—Rebecca promptly sank back into dreamland.
"..."
And I, who had been sitting there in a daze for a long while, only managed to pull myself up once I registered that Rebecca had fallen asleep again.
"Young Lord Albert, you're awa—"
"..."
Ignoring even Dorothy's greeting at the door, I bolted for the ducal residence's washroom. I arrived and stood before the gleaming mirror.
"...Wow."
Only then did I understand Rebecca's dreamlike remark. My face was flushed far redder than any embarrassed expression of hers I had ever witnessed. So red, in fact, that I half-feared it might burst.
And then I thought:
"...I can never let anyone find out about this."
The fact that my first kiss had been stolen by a half-asleep Rebecca would remain a private memory until the day I died. I swore it, firm and absolute—I would never, ever let a soul know.
Rebecca was dreaming.
In the dream, she woke in her room as usual—and there, right before her eyes, was Albert's face. She was flustered at first, but quickly realized it was a dream. There was no other explanation for her fiancé's face being the first thing she saw upon waking. She had woken in her room, so why on earth would her fiancé be at her side?
And as if to prove it beyond doubt that this was a dream:
"Awake, are you?"
The voice asking if she was up was so tender, so lovely to hear. That was when Rebecca knew for certain. The Albert she knew did not greet her with that kind of voice and a smile that made her heart flutter.
Perhaps that was why.
"Come on, up you get. It's time for breakfast."
Catching her fiancé's wrist as he moved to rise, claiming breakfast awaited—that was a somewhat impulsive act. Even she had been briefly startled by her own boldness. She had her reasons, though. A slightly embarrassing reason, admittedly: she had wanted to keep looking a little longer at this tender side of her fiancé, as if seeing it for the very first time.
"...Your Highness?"
But seeing Albert's promptly flustered expression, she judged the whole thing well worth it. Even in a dream, catching her fiancé off guard was no everyday occurrence. Dream or not, she could amply feel that her mood had improved.
Then again—was Albert still Albert, even in dreams?
"Do you enjoy my company that much?"
There he went again, trying to tease the girl who had grabbed him. Watching his lips work busily, preparing some mockery or other, a thought drifted into her mind.
...What would his lips feel like?
Embarrassing as it was to admit, she had rather enjoyed it when her fiancé's lips had brushed her cheek. If it had felt like that on her cheek, she found herself wondering what it would feel like on her lips at last.
Maybe that was it—curiosity. Or maybe it was how insufferable he looked, mouth moving busily, about to tease her even here in her dream.
"Well then, I suppose I have no choi—"
"Be quiet."
She silenced his mid-sentence lips by pressing her own right over them.
It was only a dream—but it might well have been the first kiss of the Valencia Ducal Family's only daughter. Her verdict: quite sweet. Not that it had been storybook sweet, like the cloying candy kisses in those juvenile romance novels Dorothy was always pressing on her—but how those impossibly soft lips, which surely held nothing at all, produced such a sweetness left her curious.
Perhaps that was why she held her fiancé close, lips to lips, for so long.
And when their lips finally parted, and their gazes finally met, she felt a small flicker of victory.
"...What's this? You're redder than I am."
Albert's face had turned redder than her own hair. Considering that even when she was flustered, her embarrassment only matched the shade of her hair, it was easy to guess just how mortified dream-Albert was at that moment.
It was only a dream.
But the thought that, for the very first time, she had won against her fiancé—
—let her drift back to sleep with a smile.