THERE were already a large number of attendees at the Hilton residence, and when Marcus arrived, they greeted him one by one. It wasn’t his party, so he kept his responses short and found an empty spot with Cesia. He could see Ada and Felix out of the corner of his eye, acting as if they weren’t coworkers, and he also spotted Keith, disguised as a guard.
Eventually, Rosary’s father, Count Hilton, appeared at the highest point in the room and began to address the guests.
In Emeroade, there were often noble families whose titles were the same name as their family name. They were old houses with a long history and had received that family name at the same time when they had been bestowed the land. The Hilton family was one of them, and that name alone made Rosary recognizable to anyone as a lady of good birth and noble origin. The Diane family was the same. They were of a low rank but rich in history and tradition; on the strength of that name, Selene had been all but promised a bright future and marriage to Raymond Chaser, the son of a marquess.
As Cesia thought, she shook her head slightly. Selene—her cousin—was the same age as her, but in contrast to her, she had been blessed from birth and had grown up in the lap of luxury. Selene had hated how similar their faces looked and had often bullied Cesia whenever she was bored and wanted to kill some time. As Cesia had been Selene’s servant, the other servants had never protected her. She had suffered greatly. Luckily, they had been young children, and the bullying had always been childish. As the days of Selene splashing water on her, tearing her clothes, and pulling her hair continued, Cesia gradually built up a resistance to it. She had never had to deal with anything a child wouldn’t think of, so nothing ever escalated to the level of, say, beatings.
Still, Cesia had found it hard to stomach when Selene had taken her mother’s brooch, which was Cesia’s only keepsake to remember her by. But Selene had only thought that Cesia didn’t deserve to have it—she hadn’t actually wanted it—so when she had forgotten about it, Cesia secretly retrieved it from the trash.
With that in mind, it was fair to say that Selene had been a great influence on Cesia’s personality. Maybe, when Ada had that Marcus was ruthless, Cesia was the one whose viewpoint was strange. Cesia’s perspective of things might not have been typical.
While he listened to Count Hilton’s speech, Marcus amused himself by watching Cesia make various troubled expressions. The count spoke eloquently about how proud he was of the daughter he had raised and about the great joy, with a tinge of loneliness, he felt now that she was getting married.
Marcus knew that Cesia had no one who could say something like that about her, and he had decided he would take good care of her and cherish her enough to make up for it. Cesia loved her parents, but he thought that one of the mysterious things about her was that she had never seemed very sad about their passing. Perhaps she had never had the time to feel sad because her life afterward had been so hard. But when he remembered her look of childlike surprise when Maria told her they would be family, he knew that family was truly important to her.
Maybe, sometime soon, she’ll eventually have the chance to face how she felt when her parents passed away and left her behind, Marcus thought. I want to be as close to her as I can then so I can hug her tightly.
The count’s speech came to a close, and Rosary and her fiancé stepped forward. When Cesia saw how Rosary was dressed, she put a hand to her mouth and looked deeply impressed. “She’s so pretty.”
“Yeah,” Marcus replied after a pause.
“They look happy.”
For a moment, he had wondered whether it’d be best to reply, “You’re even prettier,” but it didn’t seem that Cesia had had any ulterior motive behind what she had said, and amid her amazement at Rosary she didn’t notice his awkward hesitation.
Marcus had had women he could call a girlfriend in the past, but he had never gotten so worked up over little things like that before. It was like he was a young boy, confused and constantly flustered over a first love. He relished the feeling.
“Do you know the man Rosary is marrying, Your Royal Highness?”
Marcus searched his memory. “If my memory serves me right, I think he’s a knight in his third year of service. He’s the same age as Lady Hilton.”
Cesia widened her eyes. “Huh? Do you know about everyone who works in the castle?”
“No, I could never remember it all. I just remembered looking over his personal details when I assigned Lady Rosary to be your lady’s maid.”
“Still, you have an incredible memory, Your Royal Highness,” Cesia said, impressed.
It’s nice to have your girlfriend look at you with such respect, Marcus thought.