The Pride of a Grand Duchess
The Grand Duchess had a fierce pride.
"I will never be the one to approach you first, my lady."
"···."
Having heard my words, the Grand Duchess stood frozen with her mouth hanging wide open, as though she had just heard something utterly shocking. Then,
"······And what does that matter to me?"
She smoothed her expression almost instantly and showed me a sullen pout instead — as if to say that even if I did such a thing, it would deal her no blow whatsoever; as if she couldn't care less whether I did or not.
She had claimed, after all, that she'd hovered anxiously at my side the entire time I lay felled by poisoned arrows — yet on points like this, she refused to concede an inch. Very Rebecca of her, I suppose.
Truly, when it came to pride, no one could touch her.
"······Is that so?"
For my part, I had no intention of losing to this Rebecca either. If she truly didn't care, what reason did I have to insist?
Of course, I already knew full well that the Grand Duchess, brimming to the ears with pride, was only saying it because she hated to lose. But still.
"Then today I shall follow your wishes, my lady."
"······Pardon?"
"Today's banquet is for those entering high society for the first time. Let us each enjoy it on our own."
This was precisely the moment to play the part of an oblivious fiancé.
Who knew? I might even get to witness a side of Rebecca I had never once seen before.
Already, I found myself looking forward to what the Grand Duchess would look like after this.
"······Do as you please, then."
Rebecca was still wearing that face of utter indifference. How long she could maintain that expression, I couldn't say.
Though I suspected it wouldn't be for very long.
"Off you go, then, fearsome Grand Duchess of Valencia."
"···."
Smiling, I sent the Grand Duchess on her way.
*
And so, having sent the sullen-faced Rebecca off first,
"······Haah."
I was experiencing a twinge of regret. I had just bid farewell, smiling all the while, to a Grand Duchess who claimed not to care in the slightest — but without Rebecca at my side, I had nothing to do at all.
Thinking it over, it was only natural.
Transmigrator or not — even if I'd fallen into the novel I'd once read — here and now, I was simply a noble making his very first step into high society.
Any chance to make other friends before my debut had long since been squandered, spent day after day in Rebecca's company.
With not a single acquaintance in the hall, it was only fitting that I'd become a lone island in the corner, nibbling at the banquet's food bit by bit.
Not that I could go looking for Rebecca, either.
If I failed to endure my boredom and went chasing after the Grand Duchess,
What did I tell you? You really can't get by without me, can you.
I could already picture the exact expression she'd wear upon finding me, and the exact words that would come spilling out of her mouth. The faintly upturned corner of her lips, the look that said I knew you'd do this, and that satisfied little voice to match.
If only to protect my own dignity, I could never allow myself to see that.
"······Delicious."
The one saving grace, perhaps, was that the food laid out here was genuinely excellent. It more than lived up to being an imperial banquet held but once a year.
As I quietly ate and watched the other nobles mingling about,
"Hello there."
someone approached me, alone as I was.
"······Good evening, Lady Bluebell."
The person in question was someone I knew all too well.
"Oh my — you know who I am?"
She appeared surprised that I knew her name,
"······Yes, well. By circumstance, I suppose."
but there was no way I — a man who had read The Crown Prince Wields a Sword — could fail to know her.
Isabella Bluebell.
The name of the woman currently standing before me, a fan half-veiling her face.
To borrow the original novel's description of her: the Flower of High Society.
The "Flower of High Society," a cliché that crops up constantly in romance-fantasy novels, was, in this story, a title that belonged to Isabella Bluebell.
The Empire was home to two ducal houses. The first was Rebecca's family, the Valencia Ducal Family; the second was Isabella's, the Bluebell Duke Family.
Though generally judged a shade weaker than House Valencia in sheer power — put another way, that meant a house second to none in the entire Empire, save Valencia itself.
With a background as formidable as that,
"To think you'd know of me. How curious."
and with Isabella's signature affability, she lacked nothing in the ingredients required to become both the Flower of High Society and Mikhail's second heroine.
"······I don't find it particularly curious, my lady."
Truthfully, I had never much cared for the character "Isabella Bluebell."
I don't think that's an out-of-nowhere statement, by the way. As I've mentioned before, I wasn't especially fond of Mikhail, this story's protagonist, either.
"······Is that so? Well, everyone thinks differently, I suppose."
How could I possibly like a snake of a woman whose outward expression and inner one were so utterly different — a fellow Grand Duchess, no less?
No doubt some readers enjoyed heroines of that type. It simply wasn't me.
Look at her now, even. Wearing a pleasant smile while declaring that everyone is entitled to their own opinion,
the skin at the corners of her eyes was trembling — subtly, so as not to be noticed — making it abundantly clear that Isabella was not pleased with my answer.
She likely believed she was giving nothing away at all.
But to me, who had spent three whole years watching the most mercurial Grand Duchess in all the world, that tremor was as legible as print.
"······So then — may I ask what brings you here?"
"Are you truly going to turn away a lady who came to you first?"
"···."
I asked why she'd come, and rather than answering, Isabella pouted and spouted nonsense instead.
I understood it was no easy feat to stack unpopularity points with someone you'd never met —
but truly, there was unlikable, and then there was this.
Fortunately(?) — perhaps because she lacked the confidence to keep watching my souring face any longer — Isabella quickly revealed her reason for approaching.
"It's nothing much. I saw yesterday that you dance rather well, so I thought I might request one."
"······I see."
"Yes. So — will you accept?"
"No. Why on earth would I?"
"···."
Revealing her reason didn't mean I intended to grant the request, of course.
"······I beg your pardon?"
Isabella was wearing an extraordinarily dumbfounded expression. As if it had never once crossed her mind that I might refuse — as if she'd simply assumed I would accept.
"Why would I dance with you when I have a fiancée?"
Not that it changed my answer one whit.
"···."
Isabella no longer even bothered to hide her expression. It was the first time I'd ever seen a person's face swing between such extremes.
Then again, since Isabella was making that face in the first place partly because of me,
"Isn't it only natural?"
I decided to do her the courtesy of explaining my refusal — in the generous spirit of a reader who had enjoyed the original novel.
"If you saw me dance yesterday, then you knew I have a fiancée."
"······Of course."
"Then you understand what it means to request a dance from a man who is already engaged?"
There was no way she didn't. Even if Isabella had only recently entered high society, there was a reason she would one day be called its Flower.
Trained from childhood by her house to dominate the social circuit, Isabella could not possibly have been ignorant of so elementary a rule.
"I do know what it means, you see. Requesting a dance from an engaged man."
"Then why in the world—"
"However... do remember that today is the Imperial Banquet."
"···."
Her point was a simple one.
This place we stood was the very venue of the Imperial Banquet. The nobles gathered here had come to forge connections. That was all.
And her words weren't wrong. They were, in fact, remarkably logical. Had I been any other noble, I would have had no rebuttal whatsoever.
When a duke's daughter declared a wish to grow acquainted with you, what fool in the Empire would talk back?
"It is only natural for a noble new to high society to request a dance in order to build connections, and—"
"And why would I need to build connections with you, Lady Bluebell?"
"···."
It was simply that her opponent was the wrong one.
"Isn't it strange? Demanding I manufacture a friendship out of thin air with someone who has no interest in you whatsoever."
"······You do know who I am, don't you?"
"I do. Isabella Bluebell, daughter of the Bluebell Duke Family."
"And someone who knows my identity intends to speak to me like this?"
Isabella seemed unable to comprehend my answers.
How dare someone like you refuse me?You know perfectly well who I am, and you still decline my request? Something along those lines, I'd wager.
Every noble who had ever exchanged words with her would have bowed to the ground at her merest utterance, so perhaps her reaction was only to be expected. It wasn't that I failed to understand where this Isabella was coming from, either.
And yet.
"Yes. That is exactly what I said."
"···."
As I said before — it was simply that her opponent was the wrong one. It just so happened that the man standing before Isabella was me, a man interested in nothing beyond his fiancée.
No fault of Isabella's, really.
"······You'll regret this."
When her words utterly failed to move me, Isabella tossed out a line straight from a third-rate villain and swept away,
"I don't suppose there's a soul in this Empire besides you who could speak that way to the Lady Bluebell herself."
and was immediately followed by the low voice of Mikhail, who had somehow appeared at my side without my noticing.
······How long has he been standing there?
"······How much of that did you see?"
"Not all of it. From the moment you refused Lady Bluebell's dance, perhaps?"
"···."
Which meant he'd seen essentially everything — the preceding conversation hadn't contained a single important word.
I clicked my tongue at the Crown Prince's stealth, which ran deeper than I'd imagined.
"······So. What brings the Crown Prince to me this time?"
"Ah — I never did say why I came looking for you in such a hurry."
The Crown Prince pointed a finger toward somewhere in the hall, and as though spellbound, I followed it with my eyes.
Where Mikhail's fingertip pointed, there stood Rebecca.
"Do something about your fiancée."
"···."
"She is more than I can handle."
Rebecca's face had flushed a deep, furious red, as though she'd been draining wine by the bottle.
Truly, it was one thing after another with her.