On the Night Your Fiancé Sleeps — Chapter 12

"Well done, Enya."

For the first time in her life, her father's praise felt anything but welcome.

There was no way she could be pleased that she herself was included in the 'future' he had just sold off to the Whitmore Marquisate. She had certainly delivered Lucas's wishes to him, but apparently they had not been properly reflected. She had overlooked the simple truth that in Darkel, marriage was a pact between families long before it was ever a matter of the parties involved.

Count Campbell went about whispering everywhere that he might soon welcome a son-in-law far above his station, and Marquis Whitmore, for his part, turned a blind eye to it all. Thanks to them, the rumor swelled beyond anyone's control.

Enya looked at the new dresses filling her dormitory room and gave a hollow laugh. They were all ready-made, yet even so, they were extravagantly fine for her family's circumstances. Stepmother's tastes seemed woven into them too — gaudy to the point of excess.

Such luxury already. How pathetic.

Ever since the investment in the oil fields was finalized, Count Campbell had been recklessly scattering bonds secured against those very fields. Borrowing money under Whitmore's name. Watching him behave like a fox gone mad with a tiger on its back, Enya had to endure her own share of mocking glances.

It meant that lately she was once again becoming quite the inconvenient subject of attention within the Academy. She ignored most of it, but some of it was a little harder to bear.

"Lady Campbell, I apologize in advance for being unable to excuse myself so that you two may be alone. This is a etiquette lesson, not a matchmaking session, so I trust you will be gracious enough to understand that much."

That was the man before her, his attitude now decidedly crooked.

Raphael seemed deeply displeased that his friend had become Enya's 'good opportunity.' In truth, it was a perfectly natural reaction. Most people could not comprehend the Campbell-Whitmore connection in the first place, and Raphael was Lucas's closest confidant.

If I were in his place, I wouldn't be pleased to be tangled up with me either.

And yet, being on the receiving end of Raphael's cold contempt still hurt quite a bit. Those blue eyes brimming with irritation. His bristling emotion, so obviously worried for his friend's future, became a physical thorn that pricked at Enya's heart again and again.

She did her best to hide the wounded feeling and answered stiffly.

"…That kind of understanding is easy enough. Though I might suggest you save the small talk for somewhere other than an etiquette lesson? That is, unless you've accumulated enough refinement to quit the class altogether, Young Duke — in which case, do let me know."

"To Lady Campbell's misfortune, I still have plenty of profanity left to learn."

Their frigid gazes collided in midair.

Just as the taut, drawn atmosphere stretched taut between them, Lucas opened the door of the piano room and stepped inside. Reading the sharp tension in the air, he offered his greeting with a perfectly untroubled face.

"Good afternoon, Enya. I received the gift your father sent — thank you."

It was a remarkably private greeting, the kind that made Raphael's brow crease.

The lesson proceeded as though they were walking along the edge of a cliff. Raphael's pen tip, in particular, scraped across the paper far more roughly than usual. His normally composed hand had gone ragged with edge, as if announcing his emotional state to the room.

Enya pressed back a bitter smile as she looked at the spots where the ink had bled and smudged. Pretending not to notice the unnecessary ache throbbing in her chest, she examined the work Raphael held out and spoke in an icy tone.

"Splendid."

"I wrote with my current emotions in mind, so it seems the result turned out well."

"Yes — it reads less like the Young Duke Pembroke and more like the scrawl of a street rabble. So fine, in fact, that I wonder whether you need any further lessons at all."

Behind those words, which made Raphael's brows slant sharply, Lucas smoothly picked up the thread.

"It really is splendid. Unlike me, who can barely read my own spelling."

With that, he held out his own paper to Enya. As was typical of someone who had only just learned the letters, it was a page strung together with simple, clumsy words. Enya set Raphael's sheet down and took Lucas's instead. Donning a fairly earnest teacher's expression, she examined his handwriting carefully.

Her face was markedly different from the one she'd worn looking at Raphael's work.

"Yours is lovely too, Young Lord Lucas. You're keeping up remarkably well for someone learning an entirely unfamiliar language."

At the praise that followed, Raphael's face crumpled even further.

Young Lord Lucas?

She had spoken with Raphael far earlier, yet he was still 'Young Duke Pembroke' — while Lucas, who'd learned of her later, called her by her name without a moment's hesitation. Had the matchmaking — that common intersection — really bred such familiarity between the two of them? A pointless irritation surged up in her.

"Enya, would you teach me how to write your name as well? I'd like to send a letter in Eberdeen to the teacher who taught me so well."

At Lucas's next request, Raphael finally shoved his chair back with a scrape and rose. At the graceless gesture that cut the conversation dead, both pairs of eyes turned to him. Raphael looked at Enya through narrowed eyes as he spoke to Lucas.

"Lucas, write your letters to me. Every time you've sent a letter to a lady, it's turned into an entirely unnecessary 'misunderstanding,' hasn't it."

"……"

"It's plain as day that one of your featherlight letters will look like a 'good opportunity' to someone. How about, from the start, you simply don't take actions that invite noise over nothing."

Enya's expression hardened at the words that followed like a warning — because Raphael's gaze kept settling on her. As if to make clear the warning's true target.

After a brief moment frozen in place, Enya let out a soft, scoffing laugh and quietly rose from her seat. Raphael's gaze caught on her white hands as they gathered her paper and writing tools. Paying his blatant stare no mind, she finished tidying her desk, lifted her head, and looked up at him.

"Young Duke Pembroke."

Young Duke Pembroke again.

"Today will be the last of this lesson. Because on you, a nobleman's insult suits far better than a direct curse."

Not a trace of the fury of an insulted woman could be found in her lukewarm voice. Yet Raphael, staring into those cold hazelnut eyes, found himself knitting his brow against his will. Meaningless justifications circled up from his throat and dissolved, over and over. In the meantime, she drew something from her bodice and held it out.

It was a red velvet pouch. Raphael knew exactly what was inside — he had given it to her himself as payment for her Eberdeen lessons.

A champagne-colored diamond, the kind one might mistake for a fine topaz. The stone he had bought on impulse while picturing her eyes — it had come back to him, ready and waiting.

When he refused to accept what she offered, she set the pouch down on the desk before him instead. Raphael's gaze fell on her hand once more.

The small dot faintly marked on the back of her left hand, trailing up from the ring finger, stole his attention all over again. But Enya withdrew her hand quickly, as if to reject that gaze outright. His eyes clung stubbornly to the hand disappearing into her cloak as she hugged her notebook to her chest.

It was the woman's calm voice that broke through his tangle of thoughts.

"Jewelry as a gift — that was far too generous a lesson fee. Anyone else might have 'misunderstood.' I'd suggest you start looking at your own conduct objectively, Young Duke. If you intend to go on criticizing other people's behavior."

Having laid bare exactly what kind of insult he had dealt her, the woman walked out of the piano room without another word.

Lucas, who had been watching the standoff with his chin propped in his hand, let out a low chuckle.

"She got you good, Raphael."

"…Shut up."

Raphael bit out the words irritably, stared at the velvet pouch Enya had left behind, and then raked a rough hand through his hair.

He had done it again — acted like someone entirely unlike himself. He couldn't understand why he only ever realized it after the act was done. His reason was telling him he owed Enya an apology, but his emotions, zigzagging wildly, could only resent her.

The title she'd used to draw her line — Young Duke Pembroke — had plastered itself against his eardrums and refused to fall away.