The Lady Is Weak to Embarrassment
The Lady was weak to embarrassment.
Ever since Rebecca's declaration of defeat yesterday, nothing between us had really changed. The Lady seemed convinced that I'd said something so mortifying purely to get revenge on her—and as for me, with no desire to have my true feelings discovered, I felt no particular urgency to correct her assumption. So things stayed exactly as they always were. Rebecca went on regarding me as nothing but an insufferable fiancé, and I went on teasing her so that my heart would stay safely hidden. A relationship untouched by change.
And yet—things hadn't stayed entirely the same, either.
"...Are we not having lessons today?"
"No. I've already let Fredric know."
First, the fact that during the week Rebecca stayed at the Zernias Count Estate, there would be no lessons from Fredric.
I believe it would be best to suspend lessons while the Lady is staying with us.
That was the agreement I'd reached with Fredric after receiving the Lady's forgiveness yesterday. My tutor, Fredric, was after all a man of the Zernias household, and he apparently had no wish to watch the heir of his house fall out with his own fiancée. What teacher, after all, wants to watch his students set alight by pointless pride and start brawling in the middle of a lesson—especially when one of those students was the future head of the very house that employed him, and the other the next Duke of Valencia, the single most influential young noble in the Empire?
So Fredric had been the one to propose postponing lessons, and since I had been about to suggest the very same thing—I hardly wanted the Lady sitting alone while I attended class—I accepted the offer gladly.
Good. We'll push the next lesson to next week, then.
Your progress has slipped, young master, so I'd advise you to brace yourself next time.
...
Though I can't say I was glad about the ominous warning that followed.
In any case, for the duration of the Lady's stay, I was free of lessons entirely—and free to spend every hour of it with Rebecca.
And the second change: Rebecca's stay at the Zernias Count Estate until the Imperial Banquet had been made official. That, too, had already been approved by my father—the master of this house, Count Zernias himself.
......The Lady Rebecca of Valencia came to visit?
Admittedly, when I first broke the news, Father seemed to think he'd misheard me.
For these reasons, it appears the Lady will need to stay at the estate for several days.
I see. Very well.
But once I earnestly laid out why she had to stay, he granted my request without a moment's hesitation. The result of that permission was the young lady now standing before me, wearing a thoroughly bewildered expression.
"...Why not?"
"..."
"Can't we just have lessons like we did yesterday?"
Rebecca asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. This was the girl who couldn't possibly be unaware that I'd postponed my lessons because of her. I couldn't tell whether that guileless face meant she truly didn't know, or whether she was laughing at me for being robbed of my class time.
So, in my boundless magnanimity as her fiancé, I decided to explain kindly.
"It's for your sake, my beloved Lady. If I went off to my lessons, wouldn't you be terribly lonely?"
"..."
And this was the third change: I could now garnish Rebecca's name with all manner of honeyed phrases. Beloved, beautiful, adorable—words I had only ever allowed inside my own head could now be spoken aloud. Until now, I'd been too afraid such endearments would give my feelings away.
"......Stop teasing me."
But as her reaction made abundantly clear, Rebecca had decided that any embellishment whatsoever was simply another form of mockery.
"I'm not teasing. As your fiancé, how could I possibly fail to love so beautiful a Lady?"
"..."
And just like that, my feelings stayed perfectly hidden while I got to watch the Lady squirm. After the rain, the ground hardens, as they say. I don't know who first said it, but it was a well-made proverb indeed.
"......So. What are we doing now?"
Rebecca had apparently realized that pursuing this topic would only earn her more of my mortifying flattery. That was why she was changing the subject entirely.
What a shame. I was hoping for more.
My regret at having my scheme exposed too soon lasted only a moment before I opened my mouth and told her what came next.
"We must prepare for the Imperial Banquet, mustn't we?"
What we had to do was precisely the thing that had landed me under house arrest in the first place—and the very reason Rebecca had come to the Zernias Count Estate at all.
Preparations for the Imperial Banquet.
The Imperial Banquet. Absent any special occasion, it was held but once a year, hosted by the Imperial Family—and since it gathered every noble in the Empire under one roof, it was a prime opportunity for the average aristocrat to forge connections.
Even in the original novel, The Crown Prince Wields a Sword, the Imperial Banquet was one of the more significant events: it was there that the protagonist, Mikhail Schuelgart, first met most of the story's principal cast. From Rebecca and the other heroines on down to the figures who would later shape the entire narrative, everyone entered the protagonist's orbit for the first time at that banquet.
A gathering place where the protagonist crossed paths with nearly every important character. That, one could say, was the role the Imperial Banquet played in the original novel.
"You intend to practice dancing?"
"We have to, don't we? We can hardly take the floor without ever having matched steps."
Of course, for Rebecca and me, it was nothing more—and nothing less—than the tiresome duty of attending as dance partners. A perfectly natural conclusion, all things considered.
As a Transmigrator, I had no interest in befriending other nobles and altering the original novel's plot over anything that didn't involve the Lady. And Rebecca, as the only daughter of House Valencia—one of the Empire's two grand ducal families—would have nobles flocking to her whether she reached out or not. A glittering debut into high society, full of romance and wonder? Such a thing simply didn't exist for the Lady and me.
All that awaited us was a social scene crawling with gossip-loving, insufferable nobles.
"......I don't want to."
"..."
"Do we really have to practice on top of everything else?"
"......Didn't the Duchess send you here specifically to practice?"
"Mother did say that, but... honestly, I don't see why I would need to."
Rebecca seemed to resent the very idea of spending time on dance practice. Fair enough—the Munchkin Young Lady was every bit as flawless on the dance floor as she was in every other field. Almost no one wants to invest hours in something they've already mastered.
"I am the one who needs practice."
But while Rebecca could handle everything without a hitch, I was the problem. Since transmigrating into this body, it wasn't as though I'd never studied noble dancing—but apart from being dragged through the steps by my mother, the Countess Zernias, I had no real experience with it. Even so, I hadn't learned nothing; a few run-throughs would surely have me settled. It was that "few run-throughs" that mattered to me. Having actually done something versus never having done it at all makes quite a difference.
"......You're bad enough at dancing that you need practice?"
"..."
When she heard I needed to rehearse, Rebecca's face was the picture of genuine astonishment—as if such a thing were physically possible.
"I knew you had no particular talent for things like this, but needing practice? Truly shocking."
"......It happens to be the truth, so I won't argue."
Unlike my usual habit of contesting every one of Rebecca's barbs, this time I let it pass. It was the truth, after all—and the one who'd be regretting a skipped dance lesson was me, not her.
"Which is why I ask this of my beloved fiancée: guide me."
"..."
So instead of arguing back, I resolved to win her over with words stacked thick with embellishment—with every intention of drowning her in shame if she refused to help me practice.
"Would the most beautiful Lady Rebecca in all the world not deign to instruct this poor, deficient fiancé herself?"
"......Stop."
"If my beloved Lady would teach me with her own hands, nothing in this world could make me happier—"
"I'll practice with you, so stop talking!"
As I'd expected, weaponizing embarrassment against Rebecca was devastatingly effective. Witness the Lady, who had barely endured a few sentences, already scarlet to the ears and shrieking at me.
"If my beloved Lady wishes me to stop, then stop I shall."
"..."
Truly, the Lady was far weaker to embarrassment than anyone would have guessed.