~Chapter 2~
What a beautiful friendship this is.
Harriet clenched her teeth tightly. She was fed up with this familiar situation—it was both ridiculous and infuriating.
‘I don’t care if he’s an old man on the verge of death. If someone would just take me away from this demon, I’d marry him in a heartbeat, so please, propose to me.’
Harriet prayed desperately.
She was desperate, but deep down, she didn’t really expect much. God hadn’t answered her prayers since she was twelve, after all.
So when a man who had nothing to do with her came up to her, she was so startled that she froze up.
It was no wonder.
“Miss Harriet Listerwell?”
“Huh? Y-yes! I-I’m… Harriet Listerwell…”
The man, who asked for her name with a smile that held no meaning, said,
“I’d like to get my possession back.”
He pointed to a brooch with his long, firm fingers, claiming ownership of it.
‘Oh my God!’
The man standing before her was none other than Cedric Kailas, the Duke and the hero of the war, who was the star of tonight’s banquet.
‘Why is he talking to me?’
Harriet’s face flushed with sudden excitement.
But Cedric simply stared at her without saying anything more. Harriet suddenly realized that his eyes weren’t smiling at all.
‘Something’s off.’
She knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. No, to be more precise, there were so many things wrong that she didn’t even know where to begin.
It was clear that Cedric hadn’t put the brooch on her. Before the lights went out, he had been talking with the Empress, and just now, he had walked over from where the Empress was standing.
‘And besides, he’s not in any position to be playing romantic games.’
That was Cedric Kailas’ situation.
At just twenty-five, he had inherited the title of Duke after his father, Rowan Kailas, died in the war with Kiphrine.
As a strong ally to the imperial family, he had the duty of maintaining the dukedom just as his predecessors had. And his wife would need to be carefully selected, considering a range of conditions.
‘Then who put this brooch on me? Where did this brooch come from in the first place?’
Could this be someone’s twisted prank?
A sense of danger instinctively welled up within Harriet, and her lips felt dry.
She couldn’t just stand there, staring blankly at Cedric. She had to fix this somehow.
“I-I’ll give it back to you.”
She decided to return the brooch first. But she was so flustered that her hands fumbled as she tried to undo the brooch’s clasp.
“What’s this? It doesn’t look like His Grace the Duke gave it to her, does it?”
“Of course not! Why would the Duke give a brooch to someone like her?”
“Could she have stolen it? And she’s been wearing it on purpose?”
“Who knows what goes on in her head? Anyway, Harriet Listerwell is making a scene again.”
The murmurs of gossip reached Harriet’s ears.
Her back felt damp with sweat.
‘Why won’t this thing come off?’
A brooch belonging to Duke Kailas? She could swear she had never even imagined owning something like it. Why did she have to deal with such a misunderstanding over something she never wanted in the first place?
She wanted to rip it off and throw it away.
Had that feeling shown on her face?
“Wait. If you keep pulling at it like that, you’ll damage the brooch. Let me help you.”
Even though the brooch was placed near her chest, which would make it difficult for him to help, Cedric moved in close to Harriet with a single-minded focus on retrieving the brooch. Harriet was so tense that she couldn’t even breathe.
Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—Cedric removed the brooch with ease, making Harriet’s struggle seem almost intentional by comparison.
“T-thank you.”
Even she didn’t know what exactly she was thanking him for. He didn’t respond.
Harriet couldn’t bear the silence that followed, so she nervously raised her head and immediately swallowed hard. Cedric’s face, which had come close to retrieve the brooch, was now right in front of her.
His reddish-brown eyes, reminiscent of rubies, were beautiful, but she was too frightened to admire his good looks because those eyes were filled with contempt and anger.
“Who do you think I should discuss this matter with, Miss Harriet?”
“I-I’m not sure what you mean…”
“Who should I speak with about why my late father’s keepsake is pinned to the chest of a young lady I’ve never even met, and how we’ll handle the insult I’ve just been dealt?”
With every word Cedric spoke, the temperature around them seemed to drop lower and lower.
“It’s hard to forgive this as just a thoughtless prank by a young lady because of the significance this brooch holds,” Cedric said.
Harriet stood there with her mouth hanging open, forgetting her manners. His words were certainly in the imperial language, but she couldn’t make sense of them at all.
“Your Grace! There’s been some, some misunderstanding…!” she stammered.
“Why is it that guilty people all love the word ‘misunderstanding’ so much? Do they think I’ll let it slide just because they say that?” Cedric’s smile was smooth and elegant, but seeing it made the hair on Harriet’s arms stand on end.
“No, no! You really are misunderstanding! When the lights came back on, I saw that this was just attached to my clothes!” Harriet protested with all her might, but Cedric’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.
Instead, people around them began to whisper.
“She probably pinned it on herself.”
“Even if she wanted attention, how could she use Duke Kailas’ brooch for that?”
“That’s just how she is.”
There were clicks of disapproval, contemptuous glances, and furrowed brows. Harriet had seen these reactions many times before, but today, it felt particularly suffocating.
“No! I’m telling you, it’s not true!” Harriet shouted as she turned to face the people around her.
Just then, her uncle, Viscount John Listerwell, rushed over, out of breath.
“Your Grace!” John exclaimed.
“Ah, the person responsible has arrived,” Cedric said.
Harriet looked at her uncle with a desperate expression. Help me! Please, help me! I really don’t know anything!
But the words that came out of John’s mouth were far from what Harriet had hoped for.
“I’m terribly sorry! It’s my fault for not keeping my niece in check.”
“That does seem to be the case,” Cedric replied, his voice calm and composed, though no one doubted that he was angry.
When you think about it, it was understandable. The war victory party couldn’t have been joyful for someone who had lost his father in that war. And to lose his father’s keepsake at such an event—that alone was terrible. But to make matters worse, the infamous troublemaker Harriet Listerwell was wearing the brooch as if the Duke had given it to her out of personal interest.
John was sweating nervously and kept bowing his head repeatedly, while Bella, who had appeared at some point, stood trembling and pleading for leniency.
“Your Grace, couldn’t you find it in your heart to show some mercy to Harriet? She probably found the brooch by chance and wore it because she wanted a bit of attention. She’s never received anything like this before…”
As Bella spoke, the color drained from Harriet’s face.
“Bella! You saw it yourself earlier! I thought the person who pinned it made a mistake…!” Harriet tried to explain, believing that Bella and her friends, who had been with her, would vouch for her innocence. But her attempt was cut short by John.
“Keep your mouth shut, Harriet! How dare you raise your voice in front of His Grace!” John scolded her, his face full of anger. And it was no wonder; he had every reason to be upset.
Today’s banquet was practically a stage for the debut of his son, Aston, into high society. Now, thanks to this commotion, Harriet had risked putting his family on bad terms with the event’s guest of honor. It was hardly a welcome disruption.
Harriet tried once again to explain her side of the story, but tears began to flow before she could get the words out, and her lips quivered uncontrollably. She knew how humiliating it was to cry in front of everyone, but she couldn’t hold back.
“It’s really not true! I, I would never, sob, steal Your Grace’s, hic, brooch!” Her tearful voice was pitiful, but no one felt any sympathy for her.
“She’s really living up to her reputation as a ‘scandal maker.’”
“She’s not even that good-looking, but she’s always throwing herself at men, one after another.”
“Poor Viscount Listerwell. All this shame because of a niece he took in out of duty to his late brother.”
Though the ballroom was crowded with people, Harriet felt like she was drowning in loneliness.
There was no one on her side. No one was willing to listen to a word she said.
The more she tried to defend herself, the more she seemed like a fool. She was used to this, but somehow, here at an imperial banquet, the sense of despair was even stronger than usual.
‘It’s so easy to make a fool out of someone, isn’t it?’ she thought, and a bitter laugh escaped her lips.
Still, there was one thing she wanted to say clearly to Cedric. She knew he wouldn’t believe her, but she couldn’t leave without at least saying it.
Swallowing her tears, Harriet turned to Cedric and spoke slowly and clearly, “I didn’t steal your brooch, Your Grace. I never even wanted it in the first place.”
