That day was an absolute nightmare for me, Agnes Evantail.
A crowd of young nobles had gathered in Count Lugre’s beautiful flower garden, mingling under the clear autumn sky. Fancy tables were lined up on a wide patio paved with flat stones, and servers dressed in refined attire brought over a wide variety of cakes and drinks.
I lugged my cumbersome white dress to a corner of the garden and did my utmost to erase my presence by becoming one with the tables. Since the tablecloths were also white, I wouldn’t stand out as long as I remained still. I felt that if I simply kept hiding until this long, agonizing time was over, it would all end without anyone calling out to me.
I want to go home right this instant, I thought.
As I held my breath, trapped in a vortex of negative emotions, one of the young women chatting happily within the crowd fixed her gaze on me. Her lips shifted into a malicious grin, as if she’d just discovered isolated prey. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Well, well, well! I thought I was looking at an awfully misshapen table at first, but if it isn’t Marquess Evantail’s daughter, Lady Agnes! You look absolutely stunning in your distinctive makeup and voluminous dress, just like always of course! You’re such a bright white that I almost didn’t notice you,” she said amid chuckles.
Lured by her words, other nobles started looking at me one after the other. A young man jumped on the bandwagon shortly thereafter.
“Are you absolutely certain you should be standing around over there instead of hounding Lord Yalata like you were earlier? I heard this rumor that the House of Evantail has sent a proposal regarding an engagement between you two,” he said.
“Oh no, poor Lady Agnes. Her beloved Lord Yalata Lugre seems to be smitten with the viscount’s daughter over there, doesn’t he?”
“Now that you mention it, when Lady Agnes tried to talk to Lord Yalata earlier, he ran away from her as fast as possible. Her love must be unrequited, ha ha ha!”
I bit my lip in frustration as everyone around me loudly laughed at me.
This is precisely why I didn’t want to draw any attention. With nothing to say in response, I turned on my heel and walked away at a brisk pace to escape the situation. I have no feelings for Lord Yalata. My parents were the ones who told me to go talk to him.
I made my way to a different table and once again erased all signs of my presence, hanging my head at my pathetic, hopeless self.
“You are to attend the engagement-announcement party the House of Lugre has organized in response to the proposal sent by our House of Evantail.” That was what my parents had told me when they’d ordered me to come here. This event held by the House of Lugre was supposed to be an occasion for announcing the political engagement between me and their son. However, I’d felt uneasy for the longest time since the House of Lugre had never sent us their approval of the engagement. My ominous premonition turned out to be right on the mark: the House of Lugre had never intended to accept the proposal and take me in.
During the party, the count’s son, Lord Yalata, displayed a clear aversion to me and avoided me like the plague; I couldn’t even talk to him. Count and Countess Lugre wore vague smiles and simply spouted platitudes such as “We’d like to respect our son’s wishes.” It was increasingly obvious that there’d been no point in me coming all the way here by carriage from our faraway mark.
Then, to my shock and dismay, as the party was nearing its end, Lord Yalata took the hand of a different woman and loudly announced their engagement. Because the proposal sent by the House of Evantail had become the subject of a widespread rumor, the venue was in an uproar.
“So he’s getting engaged to the viscount’s daughter? Just as I suspected.”
“I understand him wanting to run away from Lady Bumpkin. I felt truly sorry for him.”
“The same goes for me. We all know how unseemly Lady Agnes is.”
“She looks like a ghost with that deep-blue eye shadow and bright-red lipstick on that pale-white face. Her makeup is from a century ago. And that dress! No one wears such heavy, cumbersome attire nowadays. Her hairstyle too! It coils around so much that it makes her head look gigantic. It’s as if she jumped straight out of an old painting!”
“Lord Yalata made a clean getaway. I imagine his parents must be relieved too. They had no choice but to hold this party since they couldn’t directly reject the House of Evantail, but now that their son is engaged, the original proposal is bound to be forgotten.”
“Even if Marquess Evantail is of a higher rank, his house is in decline. There’s nothing to gain by associating with that outdated, obstinate pain of a house. There would be some room for consideration if Lady Agnes had a talent for special magic, but she can only use the ordinary kind.”
Derisive laughter echoed across the garden once more. I was left to wallow in my unease alone, feeling like I might be blown away by the unanimous storm of congratulations directed toward Lord Yalata. I was miserable.
After the party was over, Lord Yalata’s parents approached me while wringing their hands. Countess Lugre had an awkward smile pasted on her face—clearly an attempt to appear gracious.
“You see how things stand, Lady Agnes, so we’d like it if we could all pretend the matter regarding your proposal never happened. I’m truly sorry.”
“My sincerest apologies, but I also wish happiness for my son,” the count said as he nodded along with his wife’s words. “I consider a wedding of love to be very important.”
I managed to suppress the emotions I was on the verge of screaming aloud, kept my facial muscles still by force of will, and remained outwardly composed.
Stop messing with me!
What had been proposed was nothing but a standard political marriage between nobles; love and happiness were secondary. At the very least, that was what I had resolved to go through with when I came here all alone.
If you had a reason to call this off, you should have just declined in the first place!
My family’s mark was quite a distance from this county. Riding a carriage all the way here in this suffocating dress had been quite the ordeal. I endured my rising dissatisfaction and held my tongue, prompting the count to continue in a soft tone.
“Therefore, could you deliver this message to Marquess Evantail, Lady Agnes? We’d like for all of us to carry on as if we had never received his proposal.”
“Could I ask you to formally address my father via writing, Lord Lugre? I believe it imprudent to inform him of today’s events via my word alone,” I said.
It would be a different matter if the two houses had still been at the stage of discussions, but the House of Evantail had sent me to attend this party under the assumption that the engagement would become official. And now, after rejecting that engagement, Count Lugre was asking the woman he had just publicly humiliated to verbally relay that message herself? Calling him out for his complete lack of common sense would be entirely justified here.
“I beg of you, we really need your help! Talking to the marquess myself is really difficult under these complicated circumstances.”
“That is quite the predicament you’re putting me in. If you can’t do it face-to-face, you could at least send a messenger.”
Sending an official messenger would only help barely avoid a breach of etiquette, I figured. But then he uttered an even more astonishing line.
“I do have a letter for the marquess right here. Would you deliver it to your father, Lady Agnes?”
Holding a letter he must have written beforehand, the count approached me with a distinct lack of composure in his stride. Using me as a messenger was a preposterous thought, but unfortunately, he only saw me as “Lady Bumpkin,” someone to look down on just like everyone else did. The count forced the letter onto me and escaped into his mansion.
“Oho ho ho! Now then, if you’ll excuse me as well,” the countess said before hurrying after her husband.
I was left completely alone in the vast party venue, with no ally in sight. In the end, there was nothing I could do.
Maybe I don’t want to go home after all.
A drawn-out sigh escaped my lips, and my shoulders slumped feebly as I gazed up at the pale-orange sunset; I was at my wit’s end.