Should I Trust You One More Time?
As though waking from a dream, I snapped to my senses and stepped sharply back.
Rihard's gaze followed me the whole way.
Too late, I noticed—and pressed a hand hard against my hammering heart. What did I just do?
Even if society has been starved for a decent scandal these past few years, four straight days on the front page is pushing it.
I had to salvage this somehow. Obsessed with that one thought, I finally managed to dredge up what Rihard had said to me earlier.
"The promise! A promise must be kept! If you tell me a day that suits you, I'll send an invitation to the House of Winston."
I let go of your hand. I said I let go! I even stepped back! So why do you keep glaring at my hand like that? Stop glaring and read the room already!
Whether my desperate prayer had reached him or not, Rihard, who had seemed to be swallowing a sigh, answered in an even tone.
"Everyone here heard the Duchess give her word. That promise will be kept."
"I said I would keep it?"
Now I even felt wronged. When, exactly, had I ever failed to keep a promise?
"Well. As to whether the Duchess is a party one can trust... some reconsideration does seem in order."
"Are you saying you don't trust me?"
"Not to that extent... though I do find it suspicious that even now, you only say we should have tea without ever naming an exact date."
Do you actually want to sit across from me and drink tea? Truly? Do you still hate me that much?
"Send me a day that suits you, Count, and we'll arrange a time."
I forced a smile to carry just that meaning, and the corner of my mouth trembled as though in spasm. His dark-red gaze regarded me in silence for a moment, then curved with a soft huff of laughter. And then he strode forward—by exactly the distance I had retreated.
The backs of our hands brushed, idle and unthinking. Like an accident.
At that accidental touch, I had to fight with everything in me not to jolt like a greenhorn. As though mocking my effort to withdraw with some semblance of grace, Rihard's hand settled slowly over the back of mine.
No—or perhaps even that was only my imagination?
Why?
I lifted my head, and our eyes met at once. I swallowed drily at that gaze, impossible to read.
What on earth are you thinking, Rihard?
"Then."
Rihard inclined his upper body with perfect courtesy. Surrounded by gazes glittering with interest, I could only watch him—courteous and insulting in the same breath.
"Should I... trust you... one more time?"
The voice whispering at my ear was low enough to sear.
Trust me with what?
The question I'd meant to ask was swallowed whole the moment my eyes met Rihard's.
I knew it instinctively. If I asked him what he meant, I was certain that this time, finally, that man would look at me with contempt. And I knew, too, that he was taking my silence for a yes.
For the first time, a smile—faint, but there—ghosted across Rihard's lips.
"Then let's make it today."
"What..."
"As it happens, today, my schedule is free—so I did say I would accept the Duchess's invitation."
Even if I said I'd arrange it, isn't this far too sudden?
While I stood staring at him, dumbfounded, Rihard drove the nail in.
"I trust you're not thinking of running away again, Duchess."
They say ten years can change even the mountains and rivers, but hasn't this man changed rather too much?
Beyond that—did he truly mean to take tea with me? Sitting across from each other? What could he possibly want to say?
For the first time, a flicker of enjoyment passed through Rihard's gaze as he looked at me.
Every ear in the room was pricked, waiting on my answer. Just as my lips fluttered, hemmed in at the edge of the cliff—
"I waited and waited and you never came, so I came out to find you—and what in the world is this circus?"
An irritated, familiar voice sounded at my back.
Damon Philliard.
The Crown Prince of the Empire had arrived in all his lounging insolence, and the moment he opened his mouth, he put the crowning stroke on the pandemonium.
"You said you'd call on me the moment I sent the invitation, so I wondered what the matter was..."
Damon's head tilted crookedly as he let the sentence trail off.
"You haven't decided to pick that mangy dog back up—the one you threw away ages ago—have you, Bella?"
"I have never kept a dog, Your Highness. Nor thrown one away, nor picked one up."
"Hahahaha! Oh dear. Oh dear. My apologies, Bella. I keep forgetting how hopeless you are with figurative language."
As if I genuinely hadn't understood him.
I smiled awkwardly. Fortunately, Damon didn't rake Rihard over the coals any further than that. Still, from the way his eyes kept darting sideways, the matter was clearly still gnawing at him.
How surprising, honestly.
Why? Because I hadn't thought him capable of even that much situational awareness.
Damon Philliard.
Twenty-eight this year. The Crown Prince—my exact age—had nothing to his name but a glossy face; from ability to temperament, there wasn't a single thing worth looking at. His sole merit, if you stretched the word, was being the Empire's only heir.
The only heir. Past tense.
The Princess, long believed dead, had returned, so past tense was only correct.
In any case, Damon was haughty and arrogant, exactly as you'd expect of a Crown Prince who had lived his whole life without a rival. The only heir, with no one he ever had to mind—he was practically the textbook specimen of a spoiled wastrel, living as he pleased from childhood on.
Ours was a contract of mutual necessity, and yet the fact that he never even bothered to hide his visits to the courtesans while being, officially, my lover said everything. Just how much of a scoundrel did a man have to be, for the Emperor to keep withholding the throne despite his long illness?
Not that it mattered—the useful nobles were all on Damon's side anyway.
After my father's death, the ironclad hierarchy had shifted, if only slightly. Marquis Frost, who had coveted the seat my father left vacant, had been elbowed aside by Count Kindel and had been grinding his teeth ever since.
But none of that was what mattered right now. I stole a glance around the room.
What on earth was I to do about this exquisite awkwardness?
Damon and Rihard circling each other, fine—I could stomach that. But why, oh why, was Her Highness the Princess getting along so cozily with Damon?
Whether she had finally read the strange tension in the air or not, Sasha, who had been clasping both hands together, suddenly lifted her head. Something like resolve flickered through her eyes.
No. Wait just a moment. That does not seem like a good idea...
"Everyone I love is gathered in one place, so this is truly wonderful!"
Ahh.
Why did bad premonitions never once prove wrong? Sasha, who had never so much as set foot in society, looked entirely unaware of what blunder she had just committed.
Had this been a salon or a banquet hall, she would have earned herself the scornful laughter of every lady present. The gentlemen would have smiled stiffly, or looked away.
Damon... well. As expected.
I was just moving to rescue Sasha myself—
"Yes, indeed."
Rihard picked up Sasha's words and ran with them. My spirits dropped through the floor.
"That's right, Sasha. I'm always kind to you."
And true to his word, Rihard was smiling at Sasha—kindly.
My temper flared.
Ah. No.
My heart, which had dared to hope without knowing its place, brandished the sight before me and tormented me without mercy.
I understood, with brutal clarity, just how far into absurd delusion I had drifted in that corridor moments ago. This was what a gentle Rihard looked like. Not the cold, impassive mask from the corridor. So don't mistake it.
I'm the one who threw him away. Don't hope.
Damon, arms crossed, his gaze swinging between us, spoke with a mischievous look.
"Hmph. Well, I'm not pleased one bit. Just having a man Bella used to see anywhere in the vicinity puts me in a foul mood."
"Oh my. Goodness! The Duchess of Belois and Rihard used to see each other?"
"What, you didn't know?"
"Well, no one thought to tell me."
"It's been days since you returned to the capital. You couldn't make a single friend in all that time?"
Good heavens.
Damon's insolence snapped me awake as if I'd been doused with cold water. What is this lunatic saying right now? Desperate to contain the damage, I wedged myself between the two of them.
"Damon was just telling us how worried he is about Her Highness the Princess. He said that with it being so long since he'd last seen his cousin, she's been very much on his mind. Isn't that right, Damon?"
At my question, Damon arched a single eyebrow. His face said, plainly: what nonsense is this.
You're the one spouting nonsense, not me.
"And besides, Damon—Her Highness has plenty of friends. The Count of Winston standing right here is one of them."
"...Friends. Between a man and a woman."
Don't trail off like that with your insinuations.
Damon gave a short laugh, then dipped his head toward Sasha in apology.
"My apologies. I hadn't realized you had such fine friends."
"Oh. No, not at all. I've only just learned it myself."
Sasha flushed scarlet and hesitated. Somehow, an ominous feeling stirred in my chest.
It seemed far safer to steer the conversation anywhere but the question of who was whose friend.
But what was I supposed to say?
While I was still racking my brain, Sasha beat me to it, summoning her courage once more.
"But were you and Rihard truly together, Duchess?"
Somehow, the sparkle in her eyes made it seem less a feat of courage than a girl settling in for a good story.
"It was a long time ago."
The answer left me on pure reflex. Then, with a sinking too late, I searched Rihard's face.
That was... something... I should not... have said...
"Five, six years ago now, wasn't it."
I, who had been slyly avoiding his gaze, whipped my head around the instant the words landed. Rihard, perched rigid on the edge of the sofa, twisted his lips as though answering my look directly.
As if to say: what, so?
Why does he keep doing this?
Fine—say he hated me. But I could not, for the life of me, fathom why he kept sawing the length of our separation clean in half.
It wasn't as though the years we'd actually spent apart grew any shorter just because he said so. And if that wasn't it—was this that famous game of one-upmanship?