The Princess Is Strongly Possessive
My fiancée was a deeply possessive creature.
What, exactly, is socializing? By dictionary definition, it is the activity of interacting with others through contact and meeting. Then what is socializing among the aristocracy? Again, the dictionary would tell you it is the activity by which nobles cultivate friendships with other nobles — but dig even a little deeper, and it becomes obvious that the dictionary alone falls far short of the truth.
For nobles already debuted into high society, invisible contests of pride with their fellow aristocrats were simply daily life. For heirs and heiresses fresh through their debut, meanwhile, the whole business existed to help them meet people — a great many people — in search of a partner. To find a partner of slightly better prospects, or a partner their heart happened to fancy. High society was where one set foot for the sake of first impressions and eye-catching presence, the two things that mattered most in meeting anyone.
This, too, was why the custom of the dance had arisen. There were certainly those who loved dancing purely for its own sake, but most people danced with a great many partners in pursuit of a future spouse. In a sense, the dance was a courtesy extended to the young heirs and heiresses who had only just entered the halls of high society.
"You stepped on the wrong beat."
"..."
For Rebecca and me, however, none of that carried the least meaning. With a fiancé and fiancée — a couple whose future was already promised — standing right beside each other, what possible point was there in the two of us dancing with anyone else?
"Step out with your left foot, not your right."
"...Understood."
And yet the reason we were practicing the dance at all — while I absorbed abuse from the Lady of Valencia — was this: if I were to make even the slightest blunder at the Imperial Banquet, the whispers would fall not only on me, but on Rebecca as well. Simply being the next Duke of Valencia guaranteed that she would draw the eyes of every noble in the room. And if, under all that scrutiny, the fiancé beside her were to trip over his own feet and cause a scandal—
- The Lady of Valencia clearly has poor taste.
- Truly. Marrying a man like that, of all people.
I could see with painful clarity the sort of thing she would end up hearing.
Granted, given the power behind her name, no noble alive had the gall to say such things to her face. But the sensation of whispers crawling behind one's back would be stress enough for her, all the same.
"What on earth are you thinking about so hard?"
Had I dwelt too deeply on my duty to perform well? Rebecca had noticed I was failing to concentrate properly.
"...I was thinking about something for a moment."
"Then let me hear it. What thoughts could possibly be so consuming that you can't even focus?"
"..."
I was at a loss for words. No — "at a loss for words" wasn't quite right. The more accurate way to put it was that I hadn't yet figured out what to offer as an excuse. Speaking the very thought I'd been wrestling with would amount to telling her, I worry over you that much.
"...It was nothing."
I tried desperately to steer the conversation onto some other topic, but—
"No. I very much want to hear it."
"..."
Once Rebecca sank her teeth into something, she never let go. That tactic didn't work on her.
"Out with something pleasant, and quickly."
Under her gaze — the gaze of a woman declaring she would allow no practice worth the name until she had her answer—
"...I was considering what I ought to do if a situation arose where I had to dance with another lady."
In the end, one of the worries I'd been turning over in my head slipped out of my mouth.
Naturally, I would be dancing with Rebecca — my partner, my fiancée. But what if some heiress from another noble house, one who wanted to cultivate ties with me, requested a dance? What was I supposed to do in that moment?
There was no rule forbidding anyone from dancing with members of the opposite sex at the banquet simply because they had a fiancé or partner. Quite the opposite — those who genuinely loved to dance, and those hungry to broaden their network of connections, sent out dance requests left and right regardless of their attachment status. And the watching nobles didn't look upon it poorly, either. Its meaning may have shifted considerably by now, but the original purpose of high society was exchange, pure and simple. When someone requested a dance at a gathering meant for exchange, in order to do exactly that — who had the right to object?
No. What worried me was Rebecca's reaction. From the standpoint of an ordinary fiancée, watching her fiancé dance with another woman was not a particularly pleasant experience.
"How would you like me to handle it, my lady?"
And so I asked what lay in Rebecca's heart. Whether her fiancé might dance, even if only for the sake of building connections. Whether or not she truly wouldn't mind if I danced with another woman. That was what I wanted to know.
"...And why are you asking me that?"
A reaction that said, why ask me about your own affairs? A reaction that said, do whatever you like, I couldn't care less. And yet—
"I am your fiancé, am I not?"
"..."
Having watched Rebecca from her side for the past three years, I knew that reaction was a lie. Probing me. Trying to learn what I thought. I knew she was speaking words her true feelings did not hold — because the Rebecca Valencia I knew was a woman of ferocious possessiveness.
"...Don't dance."
Just as I'd predicted, Rebecca — her cheeks flushed crimson on both sides — commanded me not to dance with anyone else.
An ordinary person would have been satisfied at this point and said, "Understood."
"Might I ask why I shouldn't?"
"..."
But as the most mischievous fiancé in the world — a man who delighted in teasing his betrothed above all else — I wanted to hear the reason for it straight from her lips.
"...Because you are mine."
"I'm afraid I didn't catch that."
"Because you are my fiancé, that's why."
So do as I say.
In the crimson eyes of Rebecca — asserting her ownership of the person called Albert Zernias — there was room for me and me alone.
"...As my lady wishes."
I chose not to defy her.
"...Then take my hand already."
"Of course, my beloved fiancée."
Holding tight to the hand of the Lady of Valencia, whose face was still burning red, our dance practice that day continued on until dinnertime.
Rebecca hated high society.
Listening to the accounts her mother, the Duchess of Valencia, gave of it, it was only natural that she should. Her mother's words — that high society held almost none of the romance always on display in novels, and was instead a place brimming over with the shadowed warfare of the nobility — had planted a deep aversion to it in her long before her debutante had even arrived.
But she was the next Duke of Valencia, and she was the imperial duchy's heiress, her coming-of-age ceremony drawing near. No noble could opt out of the Imperial Banquet, attendance at which was mandatory. And so, thinking I hate this all the while, she had no choice but to prepare for her debut.
She had refused her fiancé's suggestion of dance practice at first for the simplest of reasons: it was a bother. She had already mastered the dance completely in the course of her debut preparations — why, she wondered, should she pour yet more hours into rehearsing something she had finished? It was only afterward, when Albert blurted out his mortifying little excuses without a hint of hesitation, that she had accepted the proposal. Not, she would note, that she had accepted it in a particularly good mood.
Once the practice began, her mood grew worse still.
The very fiancé who had proposed the practice was failing to concentrate now that it had actually started. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, but his face was full of worry. So she had asked him. What thoughts, exactly, could keep him from focusing on a practice he himself had suggested, making mistake after mistake? Her fiancé had seemed unwilling to speak at first, but under her sharpened glare he had finally opened his mouth.
- ...I was considering what I ought to do if a situation arose where I had to dance with another lady.
The answer set her thoughts spinning in every direction. If, as Albert said, some heiress of another house requested a dance from her fiancé — and if Albert accepted that request — then what, as his fiancée, was she supposed to do?
Truthfully, the correct answer had been sitting in plain view all along. The banquet was a gathering for the sake of society; what harm was there in dancing with others for society's sake? Rebecca had already learned from her mother that this much was no problem at all.
And yet.
"..."
The words go ahead and dance with anyone you like refused to come out of her mouth. This should have been the sort of thing she shrugged off without a second thought, no matter what her fiancé did. So why was granting permission so impossibly hard?
"...And why are you asking me that?"
So instead of answering, she had tested her fiancé first — curious, at last, about the reason this feeling had taken root in her.
"I am your fiancé, am I not?"
"..."
And when she heard Albert's answer, only then did she finally understand why she felt this way.
Albert was her fiancé. Not anyone else's — hers, and hers alone. Even if she didn't love Albert, what person alive enjoys watching their own person at another's side?
Her conclusion reached, her heart considerably lighter, she was able to issue the command.
"...Don't dance."
Don't dance with anyone. Don't go near another woman. For the whole of the banquet, stay at her side and hers alone.
It wasn't love. It was possessiveness — a hunger to own, to monopolize.
At least, that was what she chose to believe. Whether it was actually true, or whether she simply wanted to believe it, she could not say.
But of one thing she was certain.
"...Then take my hand already."
"Of course, my beloved fiancée."
Her fiancé was always, always infuriating. But if she ever saw him at another woman's side, her mood would not survive it.
On that much, at least, there was no doubt.