Corsages and Carriages
I gritted my teeth as I shot back.
"It was exactly ten years ago. Isn't that right, Count Winston?"
"Well, I'm aware that the breakup I remember and the one the Duke remembers are two different things."
"How could anyone remember it differently?"
"Depending on how one thinks about it, one might."
"No!"
How could anyone possibly see it differently!
"Good heavens!"
Just as I was about to cry something out, an excited exclamation rang down the corridor. Now everyone, myself included, was staring at Sasha, both her cheeks flushed crimson with excitement.
"Could it be... that midnight elopement that set the whole capital talking ten years ago...!"
"Enough."
Just as the musty old romance talk threatened to begin, Damon cut in, looking thoroughly displeased.
"Why on earth are you digging up the past, Sasha? What matters isn't the past but the present. Whoever Bella saw before, the important thing is that she's seeing me now."
"Is that so?"
"It is. And I am the most exalted man in the empire, and among women of marriageable age, Bella has the finest credentials of them all. So before long, we'll be married and the perfect match made flesh."
Sasha tilted her head, looking genuinely baffled. She seemed to have decided that she couldn't follow Damon's logic because she had been away from the capital for too long.
No, Sasha. That's not it. You don't fail to understand; that man is simply deranged.
Fortunately, Sasha let the matter drop.
"Then at the ball next week, your partner will be the Duke as well, Cousin? I hardly remember, but at a grand ball like that, one presents one's partner with a corsage, doesn't one?"
Huh?
I turned to Sasha for a beat, then shifted my gaze, unblinking, to Damon, who was grinning away without a shred of shame.
What on earth are you saying to the cousin you haven't seen in years?
Corsages were for green lovers, giddy at the very start of a romance. And neither I nor Damon had ever once made an entrance at a ball, even our first as partners, with flowers wound about our wrists.
Why? Where had the man gone who'd sworn he'd never stoop to such childish theatrics?
He had told me outright that he had no intention of copying the games children play, and now he could not even manage embarrassment. Honestly.
Damon answered with perfect shamelessness, not a hint of discomfort about him.
"Naturally. I've had the corsage ready since the ball first came up in conversation. Ah, Bella. As it happens, I've already picked out several dresses to give you as well. Since we're here anyway, why not come have a look?"
He's giving me what, exactly?
"...Dresses?"
Surely not.
Is this... no, it couldn't be. Not that. Twenty-eight years old, and still this childish? Surely not.
"I've always seen to your dresses, Bella. Why the fuss all of a sudden?"
...They do say it's always the "surely not" that gets you in the end.
So he was showing off. Of course he was.
For reasons I could not begin to guess, Damon was now exerting every ounce of effort to appeal to Rihard.
To the fact that he was my lover.
...Surely he hasn't forgotten that the two of us aren't actually lovers?
Somehow, a gut feeling had begun to creep over me that my parting with Damon would not go smoothly.
"There you are at last! I thought I would die of boredom waiting out here. With the credentials I carry, they wouldn't even let me through the palace gates."
The knight leaning against the palace wall straightened at once, his face lighting up the moment he spotted Rihard. Even at the sight of Philip, the man who had stuck to his side like a second shadow in the North, Rihard's expression stayed distinctly sour.
"Why is the one man who ought to be following Noah standing here?"
"Ah, fret not about the young lord of House Belois. Astar went chasing after him, happy as could be."
At that, Rihard swallowed a sigh. So she still had not given up on Noah.
Then again, he was in no position to point fingers. Rihard fought down the urge to wheel around and sprint straight back to where Isabella was.
It was not time yet. He knew it was not, and that only made it harder to stomach how absurd he looked, having torn over here like a madman at a single word from Noah.
Bella dislikes Damon?
He would not deny that Noah's bait had hooked him. But even so, surely there was no need to fawn over Damon so shamelessly right in front of him.
How many times had he been forced to swallow a punch while watching the man swagger? What galled him more was how well the two of them suited each other.
Rihard let out a long, deep breath and started walking. Philip fell into step hard on his heels, muttering as he went.
"So what did Lord Belois say that sent you bolting? You headed for the palace, so I take it this concerns Her Highness the Princess... no, wait. Duke Belois, come to think of it."
At that moment Philip changed tack, his eyes on a carriage slipping out through the main gate. Rihard, mid-swing to knock some sense into him, froze solid the instant he saw it.
Watching Rihard trail the carriage with blank, unblinking eyes, Philip clicked his tongue to himself.
"Ah, our order is nothing but lovesick fools, every last one of us. The commander, Astar. Why must you all be so desperate over a single person?"
Rihard, at least, had known romance; what went on in Astar's head he could not begin to fathom, Philip grumbled, then shook his head.
"Commander, will staring make the carriage stop? Well?"
No answer came to the jab. Philip would have staked money on Rihard having taken no damage whatsoever from his words.
Why? Because every scrap of the man's attention was glued to the carriage rolling slowly down the central road. He plainly had not heard a syllable.
"Astar, the commander. I honestly don't understand a one of you. Why do you all hang so desperately off people who want nothing to do with you?"
"If you have breath to waste on nonsense, you can march off to Belois territory yourself."
"Aw, come now. Posting two senior knights to a mere territory inspection is a waste of good manpower."
"And trotting at my heels like a devoted hound isn't a waste?"
"That's escort duty, that is. There's no telling when or where a monster might spring out. Who but the adjutant should guard the commander's side?"
Rihard glared at him, dumbfounded. Even under that blazing look, Philip did not so much as flinch. This was the moment his iron nerve, tempered through staring contests with monsters that wore monstrous bird skulls where their heads ought to be, paid its dividends.
"Even in the capital, you can't say when or where a monster might turn up, can you?"
"You said yourself, just now, that this was the capital."
"And you're the one who taught us that until we know what makes monsters appear, there's no safe ground anywhere on this earth, Commander."
It was clear Philip would swallow nothing he said, whatever it was, so Rihard gave up the argument. With a light shake of his head, he set off toward his destination. Not that Philip was the sort to quit over a thing like that.
"Running away, Commander?"
...
"There's no call for that. I understand, truly. First love is a frightening thing. Why, I still haven't forgotten the little wretch who pressed a piping-hot potato into my hand when I was eight."
Just like that, the feelings Philip had carried for years were demoted to the same rank as a brat's potato.
...
"Oh. So you and Her Highness are parting ways, then? The gossip sheets talk as if the two of you might wed any day now."
He did not need to ask which gossip sheet Philip was rattling on about.
Damned Troublerub.
It had hounded him ten years ago, and five years ago too, and still the thing refused to die. Far from it. It had dared lay hands on the imperial family and then put up its own headquarters building, and business was booming.
The better Troublerub fared, the better it was for him, but money in the coffers and peace of mind were two different matters.
"In any case, you will be attending the welcome ball, won't you? And I may attend as your escort, may I not? Might I borrow formal dress? Well? May I? If you tell me no after the fact, I'm sending you the bill?"
Philip, who had been chattering away glued to the side of a Rihard who had not so much as glanced back at him, let alone answered, went abruptly silent.
Why? Because they had just stepped into one of the very few places on earth that could cow even a man so brazen he had held his ground in front of the palace itself.
Still, no matter how long he had nattered on about formal dress, this was going too far. Philip asked in a voice gone white.
"...Commander. You don't truly mean to go in here?"
Only then did Rihard turn to look at him. Under that look, which asked what on earth he thought this was, Philip lost the power of speech altogether.
What could he possibly say?
That behind his commander, at this very moment, dresses of every description rioted in lavish, rustling lace?
"It's nothing at all..."
With Philip trailing behind him, mouth sealed tight in fear, Rihard strode grandly into the finest shop in the empire.
It was the moment the featured knight of the next day's Troublerub was chosen.