Prologue: Unfortunate News

On the second of April, in Winster, capital of the Brighton Kingdom, from a letter Wilhelmina Priestley hastily scrawled to her childhood friend Nate Ashton.

Chapter 1. An Improper Contract

In the conservative high society of the Brighton Kingdom, to have reached the age of twenty-four was to have acquired every necessary qualification for being called a spinster.

As the third child of the honorable and ancient Priestley ducal house, Wilhelmina cherished this new classification tag—spinster!—with particular fondness. The reason was simple. Ever since she had made her debut at the early age of eighteen, she had diligently aspired to become one.

She would admit it was a rather uncommon wish. Yet she swore she had never, by means of this peculiar desire, inflicted any serious inconvenience upon another person’s life… or so she believed. After all, the only thing Wilhelmina had ever done in pursuit of her wish was to refuse the flood of suitors who came calling.

Unfortunately, among them was one especially petty specimen who, nursing a grudge, proceeded to ruin Wilhelmina’s reputation by the most spectacular of means.

Who could have seen that coming?

Wilhelmina gave a little shrug. It had been an unforeseeable accident, not her fault in the least. Not only Wilhelmina but her siblings as well—the remaining members of the celebrated Priestley four—were in complete agreement on that point.

“I swear upon the hunting rifle Father, the late Duke, bequeathed to me, Wilhelmina. My darling little sister.”

Francesca, the second of them and Marchioness of Montrose, agreed with particular enthusiasm.

“I shall most certainly smash that scoundrel’s skull to pieces. As you well know, a single round of twelve-bore shot is more than sufficient for the purpose.”

“Absolutely not!”

The near-scream came from Benjamin, eldest of the four siblings gathered there and the present Duke Priestley.

“That would be like sending an elephant hunter after a single rabbit! And it wouldn’t solve a thing even if you did!”

It was, by any measure, an eminently reasonable opinion—precisely the sort one would expect from a duke of such distinguished reputation.

“More than six different gossip sheets have simultaneously printed fabricated scandals about Mina. And the contents are of an unbelievably vulgar standard.”

“They claim I enjoyed a private rendezvous alone with a Tess River boatman aboard his vessel.”

“Thank you for volunteering information I had deliberately chosen not to mention, Mina. But let me be perfectly clear.”

Benjamin heaved a deep sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face.

“In all of Winster, the only people who do not believe that utter nonsense are those who bear the Priestley name.”

At that, Wilhelmina could not help interjecting once more.

“Nate doesn’t believe it either.”

“Mina!”

That was the signal that Benjamin’s patience had reached its limit. Thus addressed, Wilhelmina demurely closed her mouth as though she had never spoken. Looking at his younger sister, the Duke of Priestley issued a stern warning.

“It is all very well that you are cultivating your friendship with your childhood companion, but this is hardly the time for such remarks!”

…Correction: he thought he had issued a stern warning. At the very least, he believed so without a shadow of doubt.

“I simply cannot understand it.”

The voice, still carrying a touch of boyishness that kept it from sounding fully adult, belonged to Wilhelmina’s only younger brother—Ethan, the youngest of the four.

“To spread such outrageous rumors merely because a proposal was refused is a despicable act.”

“Yes, and when have you ever seen people refrain from doing something simply because it was despicable?”

Benjamin muttered in a tone of utter disgust. Wilhelmina shrugged.

“Don’t worry yourselves too much. Even for situations like this, there is always a way of handling things.”

“Wilhelmina!”

She had meant the words to soothe her rather fragile elder brother, yet the moment he heard them Benjamin’s face went deathly pale.

“Please—swear to me you will not resort to your hunting rifle.”

“Agreed.”

Before Wilhelmina could even reply, Francesca nodded.

“When it comes to defending one’s honor, it is only proper that family take the lead. I am the one who ought to pull the trigger.”

“I think that an excellent method as well.”

Ethan chimed in at once with his agreement.

“If Younger Sister shoots, the fellow won’t die no matter what, and there will only be a ruckus. But if Elder Sister does it, that is an entirely different matter. She never misses—he would be dead for certain.”

Benjamin had begun making choked, strangling noises.

“Do you mean to carry it out at once?”

“Hmm. I suppose we must.”

In the cozy drawing room, still furnished exactly as their parents had arranged it before the carriage accident that claimed their lives eight years earlier, a conspiracy to commit murder was unfolding to such a cheerfully brisk rhythm.

To a third party the scene would have been too absurd to laugh at and too unsettling to weep over, yet Wilhelmina found herself unexpectedly and quietly moved.

She cleared her throat with a soft “ahem” and opened her mouth.

“It is truly touching that our family thinks of me this way, but—”

“No hunting rifles!”

Before Wilhelmina could finish her expression of gratitude, Benjamin cried out as though in agony.

“How catastrophic an accidental discharge are you intending to cause?!”

“I have no intention of using a gun!”

Yanked abruptly out of her sentimental mood, Wilhelmina raised her voice in protest.

“I intend to resolve this peacefully—entirely peacefully!”

But the Duke of Priestley, who had been deceived by his younger sisters’ assurances of “we would never do such a thing” some five thousand eight hundred times already, remained adamant. In the end Wilhelmina, unable to withstand the interrogation, was forced to swear in exhaustive detail that she would “absolutely never employ any firearm or other weapon requiring gunpowder, nor any bladed implement capable of harming a person—nor even blunt instruments”—before she was finally released.

I never intended to use a gun in the first place, even without all that.

In Wilhelmina’s view, resolving the present situation did not require such destructive methods. The escape route she had in mind was far more refined, elegant, and downright brilliant.

“Still—to think I would graduate from the title of spinster in this fashion.”

It was a pity, but there was no help for it. Sometimes one had to sacrifice the lesser for the greater good. And as it happened, the man most perfectly suited to this method was currently in Winster.

So Wilhelmina did not deliberate long. For reference, by Wilhelmina’s standards “not deliberating long” meant rising at once and putting the plan into action. The fact that the hour was already late at night, and that a thick, clammy fog blanketed all of Winster, presented her with no obstacle whatsoever.

“So this is the method you had in mind?”

…If it meant meeting the man “most perfectly suited” to the plan.

The dim lamp in the study cast its light over the man’s disheveled golden hair. Whether because of the late hour or the unexpected arrival of an uninvited guest, his attire was far from neat. Wilhelmina guessed he had left it so deliberately, the better to convey just how rude this sudden visit was.

“I am afraid I cannot begin to imagine how bursting in on me in the middle of the night without warning could possibly constitute a groundbreaking solution.”

“You wouldn’t.”

The tone was openly critical, yet Wilhelmina remained perfectly composed.

“I haven’t told you yet.”

“……”

The man regarded her steadily for a moment. Then he set aside the documents he had been examining and removed his gold-rimmed spectacles. The bare eyes thus revealed were a silver-gray. For all that the color was mineral and cold, those eyes—framed by golden lashes—looked more beautiful than any jewel.

And beneath those pupils, the tiny beauty marks stamped boldly upon each cheek.

This dazzlingly beautiful man spoke.

“Miss Priestley. I believe my patience has been more than sufficient.”