AND so, Cesia steadily began to fit into high society. One night, she was attending a soiree hosted by a count. Because Marcus and Cesia had just gotten engaged, Marcus attended more of these parties than usual, bringing her along with him. His primary goal was to help her gain experience, but he would have been lying if he said that he didn’t also want to boast about his beautiful and talented fiancée. Additionally, by this time, Cesia was meeting and exceeding Marcus’s expectations and had even begun to express her opinions, though she was still a bit reserved. She was well aware of her long history with the word “shameless,” and she put on quite a well-behaved act. That gave her a quiet and calm image, which lent her a degree of popularity.
“Cesia,” Marcus said. Whenever he called her name, she instantly turned around with a bashful yet happy expression, no matter who she was talking to at the time. He lovingly kissed her hair whorl on the top of her head, and she turned bright red.
“Please refrain from doing that in front of everyone, Your Royal Highness…”
“Okay, let’s continue when no one is watching.” Marcus grinned.
Cesia glared at him, annoyed, but her cheeks were still red, so her sharp expression looked cute. Fully aware that he loved her, she looked dazzling, as if a light were shining from within her. For the first time, Marcus was conflicted; he wanted to show her off, but he also felt like she was too good for them and wanted to hide her from everyone.
That night’s soiree felt somewhat strange. Cesia occasionally felt that someone was looking at her, and the intuition she had cultivated from her extensive experience with being bullied told her that they weren’t friendly looks.
As the second prince’s fiancée, she was widely known, but she herself was an obscure newcomer to noble society. She got some harsh looks from noblewomen with daughters of marriageable age, but that was rare in a public place like a party. Most nobles were uninterested, and more settled-down nobles like Lady Olcott were friendly. However, Cesia couldn’t help but feel some hidden meaning in those gazes tonight. Whenever she noticed them, they quickly averted their eyes.
Hiding her mouth with her fan, she brought her face close to Marcus as if she were an ordinary, loving fiancée. “Are they bothering you too, Your Royal Highness?”
“Those looks?” Marcus replied. He had noticed them, too. He drew her close, then glanced around at their surroundings. The two of them headed to the ballroom, still keeping close to one another, and they participated in a waltz. Cesia knew from her enforcer days that dancing with a partner was just right for secret talks.
“It isn’t just one or two people,” Cesia said.
“Yeah, you’re right. Rather than a specific person, it feels more like a signal bouncing all over the place.”
They turned, and Cesia nodded. They could narrow down the culprits, but the person looking at them was always different, so the most she could say was that there was an unspecified large number of people. “Should we lure them out?” she asked, slightly excited.
Marcus smiled awkwardly. “No, it doesn’t look like they’re picking a fight directly, so let’s let them act while we observe.”
“Ever heard of, ‘the early bird gets the worm?’” Cesia said, dissatisfied. But she went along with Marcus, and they continued to dance.
In the end, the people glancing at them never directly contacted them, and the two took their leave, though they still wondered what was going on. They headed outside, and Marcus escorted Cesia out of the lively ballroom and through a dim hallway.
Cesia casually looked around. A single woman stood in a hallway that led to a building not being used for the party. There were no lights on, and she was quite a distance away, so Cesia could only make out the woman’s long, blonde hair and the fact that she was wearing a dress. However, somehow, she could also tell that the woman suddenly grinned. “Who is that?” Cesia said reflexively.
Marcus stopped walking. “What is it?”
“Your Royal Highness. There’s a woman over…there?” They both looked down the dim hallway but couldn’t see anyone. The woman had disappeared in the split second Cesia had looked away to talk to Marcus.
“A woman? If she’s a maid, she might’ve gone into a servants’ passage to avoid being seen by guests.”
Passages for servants to use so they could carry out their duties unseen by guests or their employers crisscrossed noble residences. This was Cesia’s first time at this particular residence, so it wouldn’t be out of place for it to appear to her as if someone had suddenly disappeared—and yet.
“She had blonde hair and was wearing a dress,” Cesia said.
“Hm?” Marcus said, furrowing his eyebrows. The residence was full of visitors coming and going. Normally, he would’ve thought she was paying too much attention to a single woman wearing a dress. Blond hair was common among the nobility, too. However, he felt uneasy somehow. He valued her perceptiveness.
Accompanied by their attendants and guards, the two went to where Cesia had seen the woman, but when they got there and turned on the lights, she was nowhere to be seen. According to an attendant who worked there, there was a servants’ passage there, but none of the servants who knew about it had blonde hair.
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. I might’ve just been worried over nothing.”
Marcus shook his head. “I trust your intuition. Still, it doesn’t seem like we can do anything more about it.”
As they resumed walking down the corridor, heading outside, for some reason, Cesia couldn’t help but still feel uneasy about that woman.
✦ ✦ ✦
AT succeeding evening parties and tea parties, the odd gazes continued, but the woman Cesia had seen the first night never reappeared. Although things were going well, Cesia’s position still wasn’t secure, so, just in case, Marcus asked for some support.
“So, is this supposed to be the support?” Cesia asked, a slightly stiff expression on her face. It had been a few days, and after having been called to Marcus’s office, she was looking at the people who were going to support her.
“What’s with that comment? You seem dissatisfied, Cesia.” Felix said. He was wearing his formal knight’s uniform. Startled, a woman wearing a dress standing next to him hurriedly stomped on his foot with a stiletto heel. “Oww!” he exclaimed.
“You idiot! She’s going to be the princess consort, you know!” the woman said. She had long blonde hair tied back with a bright ribbon.
This was the first time Cesia had seen her, but looking at how she acted around Felix, she assumed she was the new female enforcer that Keith had told her about.