The Princess Sheds Tears
The Grand Duchess was in tears.
The Duchess of Valencia had found herself in an extraordinarily flustering situation first thing in the morning.
She'd woken a little later than usual thanks to the wine she'd had the night before, but that was all. She had simply come down to have breakfast with her daughter, Rebecca, as she always did.
"···."
"···."
Never in her wildest imagination had she expected to find her daughter eating breakfast with her mouth slightly open, being fed spoonful by spoonful.
And the person feeding her daughter was none other than Lord Albert.
Presumably, since the Count and Countess of Zernias had passed out drunk alongside her and her husband, Lord Albert had been obliged to stay one more day at the mansion as well.
Still, who could have guessed the two had grown so affectionate that he was now feeding Rebecca her breakfast?
The rude things Rebecca had said to Lord Albert just yesterday were still fresh in the Duchess's mind, and yet there her daughter was.
Her face, flushed as red as a freshly ripened apple, practically shouted that she knew exactly what she was doing.
Watching the scene, the Duchess felt a warm glow of satisfaction — until it occurred to her that she really ought to make herself scarce. If she lingered any longer, the two of them would never find their footing.
"······Enjoy yourselves, darlings?"
"···."
Leaving just that one line behind, she hurried off toward her husband's quarters.
She wanted to savor this wonderful news together with him, after all.
"Finally... our Rebecca has grown up at last..."
It would be quite some time before Rebecca learned that the news had reached her father as well.
In the dining room of the Valencia Ducal Mansion, now abandoned by the Duchess.
"···."
I stared blankly at the door through which the Duchess had vanished.
Of all the timings...
Why, of all moments, did the Duchess have to walk in right then?
The plan had been to feed Rebecca her breakfast and then slowly, leisurely, savor her flustered reaction. Instead, the Duchess's sudden entrance had startled me so badly that my entire body had frozen on the spot.
······Enjoy yourselves, darlings?
The Duchess had gazed at the two of us — frozen like statues — left behind that cryptic little remark, and walked out. The result was the dining room before me now, where nothing but silence reigned.
It had never exactly been a loud room, but at least Rebecca and I used to bicker now and then. Now there was nothing — just a profound, ringing quiet.
······Is Rebecca all right?
I was beginning to worry about the Grand Duchess, who had yet to utter a single word.
Rebecca's face had gone scarlet the moment she realized the Duchess had entered the dining room, and it was still holding that deep crimson.
"···."
She had both hands pressed over her face, as if she couldn't bear to let me see it.
And watching her like that...
"Your Highness, I thought you said it didn't bother you?"
...I found myself wanting to tease her a little more.
Granted, it was the equivalent of handing an illness to someone who was already ailing rather than medicine. But I was a man who held grudges — and, as Rebecca herself had pointed out, this whole affair was eating away at me terribly. So I didn't consider it very important.
"···."
At my needle-sharp remark, Rebecca began glaring at me in silence.
She'd lowered the hands that had been covering her face, but the blush blooming across her cheeks refused to fade — whether from shame at being caught in that mortifying position, or from something else entirely.
"Because I distinctly remember you saying it didn't bother you at all······."
"······Are you enjoying this?"
Rebecca's voice was ice-cold, and a frost crept over the dining room to match it.
Caught off guard by the sudden shift in atmosphere, I could only blink and ask foolishly:
"······Pardon?"
"I asked if you're enjoying this."
And by then, Rebecca's eyes were brimming with tears.
Something in my gut knew at once.
······Oh no.
I had gotten so carried away teasing the Grand Duchess that I had crossed the line — crossed it a long, long way ago.
When I thought about it, we'd fought from the very day we met, and I'd simply grown used to it. But in truth, the Grand Duchess and I had known each other for only two days.
The flush on Rebecca's face wasn't lingering embarrassment at all. It had come from fighting back tears — that much was obvious now.
"Someone here is about to die of embarrassment after being caught like that by her own mother."
"···."
"And you're having the time of your life teasing her, aren't you?"
"···."
"······I truly hate you."
With those final words, Rebecca swept out of the dining room, exactly as her mother, the Duchess of Valencia, had done.
SLAM—!
Unlike the Duchess, who had closed the door gently behind her, Rebecca made sure the whole mansion heard it bang shut.
After the Grand Duchess left, I was swallowed whole by an agonizing tangle of feelings.
"······What do I do now."
I'd wanted to tease her, not make her cry.
All I'd meant to do was return the favor — she'd had her fun poking at me, so I wanted to poke back. That was all.
"Why did you do that, you idiot."
I smacked my own forehead, cursing myself. I'd crossed the line for no reason at all. Because of me, the Grand Duchess couldn't even finish her breakfast······
······Breakfast?
Looking at the food Rebecca had left untouched on the table, a good idea came to me.
Honestly, I had no idea whether it would work on a sulking Grand Duchess. But soothing the girl who had just run out of the room in tears was priority number one.
I turned thought into action without a moment's delay.
The room was lavish — filled with ornate ornaments and elegant furniture that spoke of considerable wealth.
Its colors, throughout, were pinks and reds — much like the temperament of the room's owner.
"···."
And the owner of that room, Lady Rebecca, was lying face-down on her bed.
Her mind was busy replaying, over and over, what had just happened.
After careful review, she'd reached a conclusion: she might have said things a little more harshly than she'd intended.
She had been the one to start the teasing. She had been the one to needle him first.
And yet the moment her fiancé did the same thing back, she had burst into tears, told him she truly hated him, and walked out. It was, quite frankly, unlike Rebecca in every way.
And yet even she had things she wanted to say.
She had told him to try feeding her — and her fiancé had actually gone and done it.
At first she'd assumed it was a joke, a bit of revenge for her teasing, nothing more.
How could she possibly have guessed he would stride right over and spoon soup into her mouth?
Worse still, her heart had pounded without her permission.
Racing at her heart's frantic command to eat it quickly, she had opened her mouth — small as a baby bird accepting food from its mother — and swallowed the soup before she knew what she was doing.
Only yesterday, they had been at each other's throats.
Hadn't she pounded her sofa cushion and sworn that she would get her revenge, no matter what it took?
He was supposed to be the fiancé she couldn't stand...
So why had her heart beaten so fast just now?
The truth was, that was part of the reason she'd fled the dining room.
Yes, there was the fact that her mother had caught her in such an humiliating position, and yes, Albert's merciless needling afterward was his fault too.
But far more than any of that, it was that she couldn't bring herself to accept her own thundering heart.
She couldn't accept that she'd accepted the soup without a flicker of resistance, meek as a baby chick — or that her heart raced because of her fiancé.
And so she had run.
She decided she really ought to give some serious reconsideration to her ideal type.
Her fiancé wasn't ugly — but he wasn't remarkably handsome either.
Far from treating her warmly, he had openly met her at their first encounter with eyes that seemed to say let's fight.
He wasn't strikingly good-looking, he hadn't wrapped her in gentle words, and nothing about him had been exceptional enough to draw her interest.
So what, exactly, had set her heart racing like that?
Don't tell her she'd fallen for her fiancé······
SMACK—!
She slapped both her own cheeks.
It was punishment for her brain, for daring to entertain such an absurd notion.
Her, fallen for that insufferable fiancé of hers? What utter nonsense.
Fallen for the man who, far from being kind to her, had demanded a broken engagement the moment they met and picked a fight?
It seemed the shock of crying earlier was still lingering with her. Otherwise there was no way she could have conceived of anything so ridiculous.
But the moment the memory of her tears surfaced in her mind again, her mood sank right back down.
She remembered how Albert had looked at her at the end.
A genuinely flustered expression — quite different from the sly, smirking faces he'd worn all along, as if he'd realized he'd made a mistake.
He probably hadn't expected her to burst into tears like that, out of nowhere.
She had told a man wearing such an expression that she truly hated him. Of course he would be hurt.
She even caught herself thinking that maybe this was for the best.
Only yesterday, she had been desperate to win their staring contest so she could break off the engagement, hadn't she?
True, Albert had won through a cheap trick — but the fact that he'd fought that hard only proved how much he wanted the engagement ended.
If her fiancé had been hurt by her, perhaps he would now convey his wish to end things without ever needing another contest.
That would be a good outcome.
And yet, in spite of that thought, her heart was nothing but a confused, tangled mess.
This was surely a good turn of events.
This was surely what she had wanted.
So why did her chest feel so unbearably tight?
Knock knock—
Just then, she sensed a presence outside her door.
"Dorothy?"
At this hour, the only person who would come to her room was her maid, Dorothy.
So she called for her maid, asking what it was —
"It's me."
— and the voice that answered belonged to none other than her fiancé, the very man who had filled her head until moments ago: Albert Zernias.
"······What do you want?"
"I've come to apologize for what happened earlier."
Her heart, which had only just calmed, began to race all over again at the words — but she did her best to ignore it.
"······Come in."
And with those words, she allowed her fiancé to enter her room.