A symphony of cheers and applause erupted in the hall.
We were at Sharondale Gardens, where the early autumn wind was just beginning to stir.
Dark and I had rented the castle-shaped event hall to hold our engagement party.
We invited anyone with connections to our families or those still residing in London at this point in the year to attend. This meant there were few guests—the party itself was a casual affair.
Nobility generally came to London in February for the meeting of the House of Peers. The May opening of the Royal Academy of Arts for private viewings was considered the start of the social season until the summer when they returned to their territories. Once the nobles finished enjoying the seasons of fox hunting and Christmas celebrations, they returned to London again.
In other words, our engagement party was being held well after the social season.
The theme was “an early afternoon tea party.” The venue featured booths of bite-sized cakes and other light snacks, colorful bouquets, benches decorated with balloons, and a floor and orchestra for anyone who wanted to dance.
However, Dark’s guests were more interested in his choice of fiancée—me—than dining or dancing.
Once our greetings were completed, we were swarmed by guests like a rugby scrum.
“Congratulations on your engagement, Miss Alice Liddell. I never expected you to end up with Lord Knightley, but you make a lovely couple.” A woman I’d seen in salons before had approached me.
I smiled politely, imagining the ways she would gossip about me later. “Thank you very much. I happened to be invited to one of Lord Knightley’s parties. We discovered we were surprisingly similar there, and before I knew it, we were engaged in no time.”
“‘Happened to be invited,’ ‘before you knew it,’ ‘no time at all’… It sounds like it was one coincidence after another.”
Yes, I couldn’t agree more! I swallowed the urge to shout that at her. Don’t you dare. You have to act like a prim young lady, Alice!
Missteps in social settings always lead to consequences. I braced my legs against the solid floor like a flower growing from the ground—it was harder to let the wrong thing slip this way.
The woman noticed and seemed to think it was just my nerves getting to me.
She set her obvious curiosity aside so that we could make normal small talk.
“Lord Knightley owns such lovely territory. It’s full of nature, and the people there seem merry. The snow creates a lake when it melts, and by the time summer comes around, you can swim in it like the sea. Have you ever been swimming, Miss Alice?”
“I’ve seen bathing machines before, but I’ve never gone swimming, no.”
Seaside resorts recently became a popular venue for Londoners to spend their days off. Work hours became standardized thanks to the Industrial Revolution. The prevalence of long work hours meant those in the cities worked themselves to the bone in exchange for long vacations to indulge in entertainment or travel—a custom that had taken off at some point in time.
I’ve never been to the ocean in this world, but I did swim in pools and the ocean before I reincarnated… As I was thinking about the subject, a young lady in a zebra print dress began to interrogate me.
“I’m much more interested in how you got His Lordship to fall for you.”
“As I mentioned earlier, I attended a party at his mansion—”
“I’m not talking about the location. Why would the gentle Lord Knightley choose someone like you of all people? The head of her family, just a girl who gets targeted by criminals in the East End. You’re not fit to be a countess!”
The people around me turned pale when they heard her mention the dark history of the Liddell family. Even the gossip-loving woman who first spoke to me scolded the zebra girl, telling her, “This is a celebration. It’s no place for such talk.”
I glanced to the side. The other young ladies standing along the wall glared viciously at me.
Of course. This is simple jealousy. I’m marrying the Lord Knightley you all love and adore, after all.
Just like Cinderella, their beloved Earl noticed the girl they treated like dirt. Of course, they would seethe about it at a time like this. But I wasn’t so faint of heart to be scared by this level of harassment.
“You seem to have the wrong idea. I wasn’t chosen by Lord Knightly. I chose him myself.” I made sure my smile was calm but full of venom.
The zebra print girl snorted like she’d come straight from the savanna. “What do you mean by that?”
“Perhaps most young ladies can expect to be selected by men like they’re slices of cake sitting on plates. But not me. I accepted Lord Knightley’s proposal because I believed he was a suitable man to join the Liddell family, nothing more,” I said, my head held high.
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she hissed. “You mean to say an earl would choose to marry into a lower-ranking baron family?!”
“That’s correct. However, I hope you don’t have the wrong idea. We have yet to decide whose title will remain once we’re married.”
The Liddell family’s title of “baron” would end if I married into another family.
With no one else to take over my family’s line of work, it was my duty to raise children to take over for me someday. If possible, I needed to have a son who could inherit the title of baron as well.
But Dark was the only direct heir in line to his family’s title too.
He had relatives, but every last one was greedy when it came to power and wealth. They would enact heavy, grueling taxes on the people living in the Knightley domain. Those residents were probably eager for Dark to marry and have an heir as soon as he possibly could.
In other words, Dark and I could announce our engagement, but we weren’t ready to be married yet. We were bound by rules more limiting and stranger than a game of chess.
“You have some nerve. How little do you think of Lord Knightley?!” The zebra girl slammed her hand on the table next to her in a fit of rage. But that hand landed on a plate, sending the knife resting on top soaring into the air.
The sharp blade was flying straight toward me.
No way! Is this a death flag?!