Nothing but a Number, Nothing but a Dress

"Ugh. Please don't whisper in my ear like that from now on. It tickles far too much."

"If my wife wishes it."

"I told you not to call me your wife. I hate that."

The word wife had a way of dragging James back up. When she said it with a straight face, Ian pressed his lips together and looked at her. She could not have said how long their eyes held.

He made a small sound—hm—and murmured.

"Is that so."

"So what?"

What is that supposed to mean?

She narrowed her eyes and glared. He shrugged, his face calm enough to be infuriating.

"It's nothing."

No sooner had they reached the ducal estate than a letter came winging to the house.

The imperial household meant to hold the wedding in two weeks.

Preparing a wedding inside of two weeks was no simple matter. Nothing had been made ready to begin with.

Naturally, the head maid was to see to it in place of Olivia, who had not yet found her footing. But—

"Give it here. I'll do it."

She held her hand out to Ian with perfect confidence.

He had been working through one paper after another in his office. At the sight of her, his brow creased.

"You?"

"I can. I've already had the practice, as Duchess of Parnel."

"But..."

He let the rest trail away. There was surely a great deal he might have said. The scale of House Tyrone's affairs was not the same as House Parnel's, and the work of managing them would differ as well.

But she was sure of herself. Triumphant, she held her hand out again.

"I'll do it well. Most of the substantial work will be handled by Her Majesty the Empress anyway."

He was silent.

She was not wrong. Once the ceremony was set for Diamond Hall in the imperial palace, the greater part of their wedding fell to the imperial household.

When one considered that the venue and the reception of the guests were the most important duties of any wedding, it was a thoroughly advantageous arrangement. What remained on their side was the gratitude that had to be shown to the imperial family, the gifts for the guests, the invitation letters to each house, and the matter of how she and Ian would present themselves.

"Then I shall leave it to you."

Ian, who seemed to have been reckoning it out for a moment, nodded readily. He turned to the head maid.

"Attend her well."

"Yes."

"Then I'll be going. Are we having dinner together later?"

"Of course."

"I'll see you then."

She had offered that light farewell and turned cheerfully on her heel when Ian called her back.

"Olivia."

Ugh. Every time she heard it, that voice sent a strange chill through her. She hunched her shoulders and gave a small shiver, then turned around with a hand still rubbing her arm.

"Yes?"

I'm busy. Why is he calling me?

He looked at her without a word. Silence again.

But the one who boasted she could live perfectly well even with a brick was me.

Having put those words out into the world, she waited calmly for him to speak. That was when his finger came slowly nearer and touched her forehead. It seemed to slip—and then it brushed past her ear.

A shiver.

The touch against sensitive skin made her body draw in of its own accord. She covered her ear with her palm and took a step back. He looked at her and said, blunt as ever,

"Your hair is out of place."

"Yes, yes. You could have just said so."

"One cannot see one's own face with one's own eyes."

Would you listen to him. Not a single clumsy word.

"Thaaank you. Then I really am going! I'm not joking—I am actually busy!"

Face blazing red, she spun around. The head maid hurried after her. Olivia shut the office door with a bang.

She could have sworn a laugh slipped out through the crack.

Given full authority over the wedding, the first thing she did was this.

"Send word to the Duchy of Parnel."

"Pardon?"

The head maid's face hardened at once. A beat late, Olivia realized she had spoken down to the woman just as she used to in her days as a duchess—and decided to ignore it.

What are they going to do about it? I'm truly the lady of this house now. I even swore the oath on the marriage papers.

"But, my lady, they will not be pleased."

"That's why I'm sending it. The dress and the jewels I used at the wedding must be nothing but a burden to them by now."

She did not need to look to see how things stood at Parnel.

Too precious to throw away, too hateful to keep—an eyesore. That, too, was the tight state of the duchy's finances. If it had been her, she would have sold them if only for the sake of pride.

Put them up for auction and the premium would climb even higher.

How sought-after that dress and those jewels were. The very jewels and gown once worn by Olivia Florence, who had married the Duke of Parnel and was now Duchess of Tyrone!

A chance to make back more than the original cost, and their heads are stone, so the thought would never even occur to them.

The elegant nuisance believed that putting the belongings of celebrated people up for auction was a vulgar amusement. To Olivia, it sounded like the excuse of a penniless ducal dowager who could not afford to take part.

She scratched the papers out in a rush. Even now she knew exactly what she had worn and what she had put on. They were the only things she had ever gained from that house.

"Tell them we'll buy. No need to price them generously. Pay what they're worth."

She had nearly talked herself into haggling, then bit the impulse back. Do that, and those nuisances might actually come all the way to Tyrone. It was not that she was afraid. She was simply sick to death of their faces.

The head maid ran her eyes over the papers Olivia had filled in and handed across, then asked, gone white,

"You cannot mean to wear the dress from your former wedding again?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Olivia shrugged.

"There's no time, and having some unnecessary gown made would waste both goods and hours. Alter it a little and it will look like an entirely different dress. Writing the invitations alone is already cutting it close. I can't spend time on that."

Nobles who loved a fine show insisted that invitations be written by hand.

And by the lady of the house, no less!

At Parnel, the dowager—the elegant nuisance herself—had written the letters in person. Tyrone had no one who could properly be called an elder, so Olivia, the prospective mistress, had to write them.

And how many noble houses were there in the capital? Even the writing alone left the hours painfully short. She had no intention of frittering away what little time she had wrestling a tailor and calling on a jeweler.

At this eminently reasonable decision, the head maid worked her lips, then asked in a careful voice,

"But doesn't it feel unlucky?"

At that, Olivia burst out laughing before she could stop herself.

"That's all superstition."

The wedding she had held in that dress had been smashed to pieces by her own hand. But she was someone who already knew how it would have ended if she had kept that marriage going.

Had she been happy?

The answer was already in. Absolutely not.

If things like that could make a person happy, I ought to have been the happiest duchess in the world.

She and James had become husband and wife because they shared a birthday. Everyone had subscribed to the superstition that matching birthdays meant a good match. But she and James had not matched even as a joke. From the smallest preferences to their habits, they had not shared a single likeness.

So all of that was nonsense.

"A birthday that's nothing but a number, a dress that's nothing but a thing—how could either of them decide a person's life? I'm content if I can save money and time."

"Understood."

Better to save goods and time than to fuss over empty superstition. That was her view.

It was a wedding I held alone, without the Duke of Parnel. Not one person will remember in any detail what I was wearing, so it hardly matters.

Not long after the letter went out, a reply came from Parnel. She had written somewhere around a hundred invitations by then.

It was a letter from the elegant nuisance, and a box of the things Olivia had once used. She read the letter, tore it to shreds, and threw it straight into the lamp. Then she drew a small necklace from the box.

A teardrop of crystal, crude beyond all measure.

Mother.

The only reason she had bothered to write Parnel and offer to buy the dress and the jewels was this single necklace.

They had sent their daughter off from a poor house as if they were selling her—what else would they have sent with her? But this one necklace, she had been able to keep. It was a keepsake of her late mother.

Good thing I told them to sell it. If I had asked them to give it to me, they would certainly have thrown it away.

People who soured every last drop of affection, right to the end.

With this, it was truly farewell to the House of Parnel.

The Queen of Night had let down her deep veil, and the late hour was so black that one could not see an inch ahead.

Click.

With that small sound the door opened, and a tall man walked quietly in.

Ian.

Keen-eyed in the dark, he went to the bed without a moment's wandering. A woman lay there, breathing the soft, even breath of sleep.

Silver hair, as if the moonlight itself had been laid down upon the bed, spilled across the sheets like a painting.

Hands folded neatly, lying straight, breathing softly—she was beautiful even in sleep.

He said nothing.

She slept so utterly still that she might have been dead.

For no reason at all, his heart drew tight. Ian gazed quietly at Olivia. Only after he had confirmed the steady rise and fall of her chest did the tension leave him.

A woman I truly cannot fathom.

From the very moment they met, Olivia had been special to him.

"Marry me."

A demand of pure audacity. Shabby clothes, and yet a proud bearing. Etiquette that seemed proper one moment and impudent the next, always keeping just to the proper line.

She was clearly a young woman, and yet she carried herself exactly like someone who had been out in society for years.

Slender arms, a figure with hardly any flesh on it, supple as a willow branch. What kept her from looking powerless or fragile was those crimson eyes, burning like an open flame.

She was a strange woman. Meet her gaze, and you could not look away. Like the sun—beautiful in her own right, enchanting everyone who saw her.

A remarkable person, in every respect.

Every report on Olivia said the same thing.

"She was quiet and well-mannered—a student who did not stand out much even at the Academy, they say."

"She associated only with a few close friends, among them Romeo Alkizer, young master of Count Alkizer, and—"