The Night Your Fiancé Sleeps — Chapter 3: An Invitation Too Fine for Her

Had something been misdelivered?

The fleeting doubt rose before she could stop it, yet there on one corner of the paper, her own name—Enya Campbell—was unmistakably written.

Even so, she could not quite put the strangeness to rest.

Was this not an extraordinarily elegant invitation to receive for the daughter of House Campbell, whose only remaining asset was the glory of a bygone era? Above all, the stated purpose was absurd: a gathering to find the Young Duke of Pembroke a fiancée.

According to her stepmother, her father had apparently exerted some influence to make it happen—but what influence could a man possibly wield, a man who had run nothing but failing ventures and dragged his family to the very brink of ruin?

'I heard a Duchess's invitation was not something just anyone could receive.'

Brows knitting, Enya's thoughts drifted, naturally enough, to the black-haired man she had spoken with the previous weekend.

"Your Eberdeen pronunciation is excellent—I find myself wishing for private lessons."

The Young Duke of Pembroke, a man she had assumed she would never cross paths with.

…Could he possibly have had a hand in sending this invitation?

She had no choice but to entertain the speculation. In her father's current position, a connection to Pembroke was one he could never reach, no matter how hard he tried.

'Was that conversation at the salon more than just a mischievous game?'

She recalled the moment the man's cool eyes had curved with mischief.

She had crossed glances with him in passing at the salon before, but that had been the first time they had held a conversation of any length. Even back in her first year, when he had granted her one-sided assistance, their exchange had amounted to a few idle words—a moment so brief it was almost embarrassing to call it a conversation. The fact that he had apparently forgotten the incident entirely said as much.

Which was why, this time, she had tried not to let herself get worked up over nothing.

And yet Enya found herself gripping the invitation tightly. Carefully, she drew out the memory she had meant to bury and replayed it—the man's blue eyes, his low voice, his easy manner, the impish hand that had held out his token.

Come to think of it, she could well imagine how absurd the word "dung" must have sounded to a gentleman's ear. It meant his interest being piqued was hardly surprising.

…So then—presumptuous as it might be, was there any harm in accepting this invitation?

By the time Enya reached that tentative, timid conclusion after long deliberation, her cheeks were already flushed a bright red.

"Oh my, so you get excited over things like that too?"

Even under her stepmother's sneering, the rose color staining her cheeks refused to fade.

'…I suppose I do.'

I really do get excited over things like this.

She had chosen to attend the Academy solely for the sake of reaching Eberdeen. She had done her utmost to avoid marriage within the Empire—yet an unmistakable flutter rose in her, too vivid to dismiss.

The image of the man who had offered a careless kindness three years ago, and the image of the man she had spoken with days ago, crossed and intertwined, circling through her mind.

She still could not quite believe she and Raphael Pembroke would become deeply entangled. But Enya found herself gently tracing her own name engraved on the invitation.

Unlike last time, she wanted to speak with him while meeting his eyes.

She found herself waiting for the weekend.

Rumors had begun to spread that the Young Duke of Pembroke was a frequent presence at the salon, and so even on weekends, more and more students lingered at the Academy. Whatever else they pretended to be doing, their gazes kept drifting toward a single point—carrying a rather naked desire to forge connections.

"Isn't this the day of the Duchess of Pembroke's tea party? My cousin made such a fuss about receiving an invitation, yet since His Grace the Young Duke is here, I suppose the invitation didn't mean much after all."

"News that can only be good for us."

If only we could so much as brush shoulders with Pembroke.

It was a jest that circulated half-laughing among the Darkel nobility, who were desperate to bind themselves to the ducal house. And Raphael, the next Duke of Pembroke, was a man who needed no borrowed glory from his family name to impress.

Ambitious men desired him without a second's hesitation, and even the women who usually cultivated an air of demure reserve made their wanting of him rather conspicuously plain.

Just today, there had been several ladies casting sidelong glances at the blue eyes set in his sharply drawn features, beneath black hair worn looser than usual. Most of them were women who had approached him under the pretense of cultural classes, only to be rebuffed with a polite indifference. The man whose arrogance was counted among his charms, regrettably, showed a far more animated face toward prey than toward women.

'…No, has that changed lately?'

Lucas watched the man rubbing chalk along the tip of his cue, then spoke with studied casualness.

"Unless I'm imagining things, our Young Duke keeps glancing at the salon entrance… Don't tell me you've an appointment with someone other than me?"

Raphael gave a short laugh at his sly tone.

"There are places that need me every weekend. Though I haven't arranged anything in particular."

He answered lightly, and then without a moment's hesitation, drove the cue forward. As his cue tip moved, the solid balls clicked together in sequence and were sucked into the pockets one after another. A perfect shot.

Click. Click. The sound rang out in triumph.

Yet Raphael showed no particular intoxication with his own skill. He was a man for whom victory had always been a birthright.

Lucas quietly observed him—lost in other thoughts, bordering on bored—and at that point set down his cue. The Young Duke seemed in a lower mood than usual, which told him he would be waiting a long while for his turn.

Amused by his own idleness, Lucas rested his elbows on the edge of the billiards table and studied Raphael.

"You might at least show your face, you know."

"I didn't expect to hear from you what I've been hearing from Albert."

"Well, it's advice for your own good. Marrying a woman whose face you've never seen seems a bit grim, doesn't it? If you must, may as well have a beauty."

It was a meddling he would not have indulged under ordinary circumstances.

Raphael, catching the subtle probing beneath the words, kept his eyes on the last remaining black ball as he replied.

"Since when did you factor in looks? I seem to recall you saying anyone in a skirt would do for a date."

Mind your own house. The wandering affections of the Whitmore Marquisate's second son were already stale gossip in society.

But Lucas, ever and again, stepped right over the line Raphael had drawn. His green eyes, glinting with a peculiar pleasure, held Raphael's gaze.

"I did say that. But it turns out I have tastes of my own."

"Such as?"

It was the instant Raphael's cue tip drew back to strike the white ball.

"Such as… golden hair, and gold-brown eyes."

Lucas answered in a voice laced with laughter.

Reflexively, strength gathered in Raphael's hand around the cue. The white ball shot out hard, and the black ball it struck went rattling wildly across the table. Skimming Lucas's striped balls one after another, it finally came to rest far from any pocket.

"Foul."

Lucas, who had been watching the whole scene unfold with leisurely amusement, stretched and rose to his feet. He chalked the cue he had picked up again, then leaned over the table. For a fleeting instant, his green eyes, fixed on the balls, curved a little deeper.

"I think I saw my ideal type at the salon last week."

"……"

"A beauty who enjoys debate."

At the added remark, Raphael's brow shifted. His blue eyes had sunk into something strangely dark.

"Ah, the daughter of House Campbell… You were a far finer lady than I'd been led to believe. So graceful one hardly notices the Countess's absence. Do enjoy yourself—you've come all this way."

The words drew a line, unmistakably.

As hostess, she would have known every detail of her guest's circumstances—yet her eyes widened as if she had truly never expected her to come. Praise that was no praise at all, a refusal to acknowledge the Countess of Cortijan's bloodline.

'"Do enjoy yourself—you've come all this way," no less.'

Enya had to strive ceaselessly to hide the heat rising in her face at the Duchess of Pembroke's open contempt.

Her skin, which under normal circumstances would have stayed silent through any insult, would not obey her that day of all days. It was an absurdly cruel irony: the temperature and color of her cheeks were nearly the same as when she had received the invitation, yet the feelings behind them were worlds apart.

"…Come to think of it, I hear the Campbell daughter attends the Academy as well? So there is a connection to the Young Duke after all. They say nothing binds people quite like school ties—was your invitation a professor's recommendation, I wonder?"

And when she finally heard that teasing, mocking remark, it was like being doused in cold water. In a single moment, her misreading and the expectation that had simmered beneath her feigned indifference cooled to nothing.

At the same time, an unspeakable shame welled up in her.

'There's no way that man invited me…. Fool that I am.'

No pairing suited each other worse than Campbell and Pembroke.

Blinded by her own fluttering heart, Enya had briefly forgotten that fact. It showed in the shameless way she had taken a seat at the tea table while insisting, even to herself, that she would never grow close to the Young Duke.

"I wanted to attend the Academy too, but Father wouldn't allow it. Piano and harp are lovely, but… walking the grounds in a school uniform would be so romantic, wouldn't it?"

"I find it a little frightening, honestly…. Sharing a classroom with gentlemen seems like it would be rather uncomfortable."

The one who raised the matter of uniforms let her gaze slide over Enya's attire. The rest smiled faintly and set down their teacups. The silences that punctuated the gathering were a naked discomfort directed at Enya herself.

Only then, in the atmosphere her own presence had created, did her surroundings truly come into focus. There sat young ladies in fresh, radiant dresses—in contrast to herself, in an altered gown a season past its fashion. The dress she had worn in mourning for her mother was, in that moment, nothing more than a mirror reflecting her poverty. Her fingertips went cold.

Among the resplendent ladies, the time it took to swallow her tea stretched unbearably slow. The fragrance of the hyacinths blooming in riotous abundance throughout the ducal garden never once lowered its assault on her senses. As if commanding her not to grow accustomed to her place there, it kept pouring out its heavy perfume.

The truly laughable thing was that right up until reality struck her, she had been holding on to some measure of hope.

Enya realized it the moment the tea ended—realized how bitterly disappointed she was that Raphael Pembroke had never once appeared. As if his arrival would have changed anything of consequence.

When she was the first to rise from her seat, murmured snickers trailed behind her.

By then, the red that had stained Enya's cheeks had evaporated entirely. She knew all too well that excitement, hope, even shame—these were luxuries she could not afford.

She simply erased from her mind the mischievous blue eyes that had been circling there.

At least for that moment, she believed the cautious, carefully tended unrequited love she had carried had finally come to an end.