The Lady Beats the Cushion
The Lady beats the cushion.
Rebecca Valencia.
The only daughter of House Valencia, one of the two grand ducal families of the Empire, and a genius girl praised for her extraordinary talent since childhood.
Swordsmanship, magic — she showed exceptional talent in every field imaginable. She had even surpassed the very tutors hired to teach her.
It was no wonder that people envied her or showered her with praise.
But right now, the mood of this otherwise perfect Lady Rebecca was terrible.
More than terrible — she was so worked up by the irritation seething inside her that her whole body was trembling.
"......Albert Zernias."
The reason was her fiancé, Albert Zernias, whom she had laid eyes on for the very first time today.
"Rebecca, your fiancé will be paying us a visit today."
"..."
Her mood had soured from the moment her mother first told her that a fiancé she had never once seen would be arriving.
And with good reason — her opinion had played no part whatsoever in the engagement that had already been decided for her.
She had always known that a fiancé had been arranged for her since childhood. But merely knowing of one's misfortune and coming face to face with it were two entirely different things.
Was it not the same as knowing there were strange rumors circulating about yourself, versus catching people whispering behind your back without your knowledge?
In any case, she had been in a foul state of mind even before meeting her fiancé — and after actually seeing him, things had only gotten worse, never better.
Because the reason she was trembling right now was none other than her fiancé, Albert.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Albert Zernias of House Zernias."
Introducing himself simply and greeting both her and her mother, her fiancé's first impression was... honestly, not bad. Neatly combed black hair, and clear, pristine black eyes so transparent she felt she might see her own reflection in them.
She wouldn't go so far as to call him exceedingly handsome, but he was certainly above average.
"......What are you staring at me like that for? How unpleasant."
"..."
And yet, despite that decent first impression, she had spat out those icy words — what are you looking at?
Because she had decided this was the surest way to get the engagement broken off easily. By planting in Albert's mind the notion that she utterly despised him, he would take the initiative to end things himself.
Saying hurtful words to someone she was meeting for the first time gave her a twinge of guilt.
But she had believed that letting this engagement drag on in limbo would wound not her, but her fiancé. So she had swallowed her apology and spoken harshly.
......Though thinking about it now, there hadn't really been any reason to feel sorry at all.
Because her fiancé turned out to be a lunatic far madder than she had ever anticipated.
"Duchess, might I have a moment alone to speak with your daughter?"
"......?"
When Albert had first asked her mother to step out of the room, she had regarded him with puzzlement.
Nothing about her mother leaving the room would benefit him. If anything, her mother — the Duchess of Valencia — might as well have been standing on Albert's side rather than hers.
Asking to be left alone out of the blue — wasn't that a situation that worked far more in her favor?
She had thought so for a moment. But upon seeing the resolute will burning in her fiancé's eyes, she realized she had been mistaken.
Those fierce eyes blazed with a competitive fire that said let's do this, no matter which of us ends up dead.
"......Mother?"
That was the only reason she had finally grabbed at the hem of the Duchess's dress.
She could too easily imagine what would happen to her if her mother listened to her fiancé and walked out of the drawing room just like that.
"Rebecca, cause any more trouble for our guest and you can forget about going out for a month."
"..."
But her mother's answer came back just as cold as the words she herself had said to her fiancé.
"Please take good care of our Rebecca, my lord."
"I won't take long."
And with those parting words — entrusting her to Albert of all people — her mother opened the drawing room door and simply left.
Her mother was gone, and only she and her fiancé remained in the drawing room.
Convinced that a man who had driven her mother out might do God-knew-what to her, she hurled the sharpest words she could manage.
"I don't know why you sent my mother out... but if you try anything strange with me, I'll chop that hand of yours right off."
"..."
At her sharp retort, Albert wore a look of sheer disbelief at first. But he quickly composed himself and spoke.
"Something strange? I haven't the faintest thought of such a thing, Lady Rebecca."
Her fiancé, who claimed not to have the slightest intention of any such thing.
Of course, she didn't believe a word of it. If he truly had no such thoughts, why on earth would he have sent her mother away?
And then came Albert's proposal.
"If you accept a wager with me and win, I will leave this room at once and see to it that our engagement is broken off."
A broken engagement. It was exactly what she had been hoping for.
But the word broken engagement had come not from her mouth but from her fiancé's — and the word wager struck her as deeply suspicious. So she did not accept the offer right away.
"......Ha, and why exactly should I accept that? If I simply ask my father, then with some time, you and I will be free of this engagement anyway."
Her judgment was impeccably rational.
Her father, the Duke of Valencia, was an aristocrat through and through — but he was not so cold a man as to force his daughter into a marriage she despised.
If she asked, it might take time, but he would surely grant it.
She was quite satisfied with her own level-headed reasoning. That was precisely when Albert's words began to scrape at her pride.
"The illustrious Lady Valencia — afraid of a mere Count's son like me? Now that is rather disappointing."
Wearing a look of profound disappointment, Albert asked if she was scared.
"......Are you mocking me right now? Ha, fine. I'll hear out this wager of yours."
She knew it was bait — and she still had no choice but to take it.
Her first impression of him hadn't been bad, but she had nonetheless considered Albert beneath her. She could not suppress the hot rush of anger at the thought of someone lesser than herself looking down on her.
"It's simple. If you beat me in a staring contest, I will cleanly admit my defeat and request a broken engagement from His Grace myself."
"......A staring contest?"
"Yes, a staring contest."
"You mean that game commoners play?"
Hearing the terms of Albert's proposal, she laughed at him inwardly.
At first she thought she'd misheard. When he mentioned a wager, she'd expected something enormous to be on the table — and instead it was nothing more than a staring contest, a pastime for commoners.
"A wager of all things, and it's a commoner's staring contest. Just how much further do you wish to be insulted by me?"
"So — will you do it or not?"
"Fine. I will."
And the moment she accepted, Albert at last revealed his true objective.
"If I win, you will have to sincerely apologize for what you said to me earlier."
"......So that was your goal."
She had suspected some ulterior motive ever since he brought up such a childish method as a staring contest.
But to think he still remembered what she'd said earlier. On top of being a lunatic, her fiancé was apparently also pettily vindictive.
"So — will you do it or not?"
"Let's just get this over with."
She couldn't pass up such an easy chance to end the engagement — and besides, she didn't believe for a second that she would lose some trivial staring contest to Albert.
And so she accepted his proposal and began the staring contest.
"......I believe I've won, my lady."
"You've got to be kidding—"
And she lost.
Naturally, she was burning with the injustice of it all.
She had been winning the entire contest — and then, out of nowhere, her fiancé had blown air into her eyes.
Her eyes, strained from staying open for so long, stood no chance of withstanding such a sudden attack.
So she turned to glare at Albert with an expression that demanded, what was that?
"Did I ever once say that blowing air would be a rule violation?"
Albert merely said, with utter shamelessness, that no such rule had ever existed. He showed not the slightest intention of cutting her any slack.
"Aren't you going to apologize?"
"Ha, you won by such cowardly means and now you expect my apology?"
She thought accepting such a result was utterly absurd, and she dug in her heels, refusing to apologize.
"If that's how my lady wishes to play it, then I suppose I shall have to spread word among the people that my lady here assaulted me."
"......Hold on a moment. What did you say?"
Albert's next remark made her doubt her own ears.
What kind of outrageous nonsense was that?
"That's — that's completely absurd... it's a lie!"
The idea of Albert spreading a false rumor defied all common sense.
"And what does that matter? The only ones who know what happened in this room are you and I."
"..."
Unfortunately, her fiancé was not a man with whom common sense had any effect.
And so, in the end, she was the one forced to raise the white flag first.
"......What do I have to do?"
"Have I not already told you? You need only offer me a sincere apology for what you said earlier."
She would sooner have died than apologize. But she could not possibly stand by and watch such an outrageous rumor spread among the nobility — a class that was pathologically fond of gossiping about other people's affairs.
"......I'm sorry."
She apologized in a voice no bigger than a mouse's squeak.
"My. Such a bold, ringing voice you had just moments ago — and now you speak more softly than an ant crawling across the floor."
"..."
"And if you don't apologize properly this time, I will have the newspapers connected to our House run a story about how my lady here attacked me."
Needless to say, her fiancé was not about to let the matter slide so easily.
"I said you looked unpleasant the moment I saw you — I apologize for it!"
And so, with tears in her eyes, she was forced to offer a truly sincere apology.
It was mortifying. Never in her entire life had she ever felt so humiliated.
"Your apology is received with thanks. Out of special consideration for the dignity of my fiancée, Lady Rebecca, I shall be magnanimous and forgive you."
"..."
And that wasn't even the end of it — Albert, in the very act of "forgiving" her, kept raking at her insides.
"......Just you wait."
All she could manage, her whole body trembling, was to spit out a line worthy of a third-rate villain.
"You wished to see me again so soon? I am deeply moved, my lady."
"..."
Her fiancé, who had scraped at her pride until the very last moment, then strolled right out of the drawing room.
Thud—! Thud—!
And she beat the innocent sofa cushion, again and again.
"......Albert Zernias."
Vowing, with all her heart, that she would never forget this humiliation.