As I spent time with Lady Ekatarina doing embroidery together, I was notified that a guest had arrived for me. It was Lady Janail, my former classmate and daughter of Marquess Grimardy. She’d come without making any prior appointment, so I assumed this must have been very important.
When I went to the thirty-fifth drawing room where she was waiting, I saw that she was crying.
“Lady Anastasiaaa,” she wailed. “M-My engagement...it was eeended!”
Lady Janail shot up from the sofa she’d been sitting on and threw her arms around me. I guided her back to the sofa and sat while comforting her. After a little while, she’d calmed down enough, and I proposed that we have tea with Lady Ekatarina.
“Lady Ekatarina... I’m certain she dislikes me... She was always glaring at me... I’m sure it’s because I’m not too bright...”
Oh, it seems she is under the same misunderstanding that I’d been under. As Lady Ekatarina’s friend, I must resolve this. I will explain that she wasn’t glaring at her, and that she’s a very frank and kind person.
“Lady Janail, what brings you here to visit Lady Anastasia?” Lady Ekatarina asked after she’d joined us from the embroidery room for tea.
“I...I’m so sorry,” Lady Janail said, shrinking from her.
It seemed that she was once again misinterpreting Lady Ekatarina, but I knew my friend wasn’t displeased but simply curious. Lady Ekatarina always gave very precise advice, so I felt that she was perfect to help Lady Janail. That was what I’d been thinking when I invited her to join us, but...perhaps it was a bad idea after all.
“Well, Lady Anastasia helped me with Sir Chris in the past, and she listened to me so warmly... Lady Anastasia’s also the only friend from school I still meet with... I don’t have anyone else to talk to about these things...”
Now that I think about it, Lady Janail was often alone when we were at school. She’d still been invited by other girls to do classwork together, so she hadn’t had any problems like I’d had in finding groups, but she’d always been alone during break times.
My chest began to hurt. It was only thanks to meeting Sir Gino that I’d been able to make friends. Even after graduating, I was still friends with Lady Ekatarina, Sir Justin, and Sir Anthony. Before Sir Gino transferred in, I’d always been alone. If I’d never met Sir Gino, it was possible that I would’ve been alone the entire time I was in school. I felt like I could really relate to Lady Janail.
“Thank you very much for choosing me to confide in. Feel free to say anything you’d like if you’re comfortable,” Lady Ekatarina said.
“Thank you very much. I can tell you mean that.”
Then Lady Janail began to cry and dab her eyes with her handkerchief. She’d been in the same elite class as us since elementary school, but we’d never been that close. I only really began spending time with her starting in high school. Lady Janail had lent me the complete set of a romance series everyone had read in elementary school, which had recently concluded. Though it was geared toward children, reading it again made me discover much more complicated emotions in the characters and clever foreshadowing. It was incredibly fun to revisit.
The reason she’d lent me those books was because she deeply regretted something she’d accidentally said when Sir Gino first transferred into our school. I didn’t actually remember her saying this, but apparently she’d told me not to be so excited about my engagement because it was only a matter of time before someone as popular as him was swept off his feet by some of the other ladies at our school.
That was around the time when problems had first begun appearing in her engagement with the first prince. I hadn’t even realized she was having problems with him, and by acting so happy, I’d caused her displeasure. But she told me I had nothing to apologize for and that it was her fault for getting jealous about how happy I was. Though I’d tried to apologize for making her feel bad, she’d apologized back at me. I didn’t even remember the incident, but evidently it’d been eating at her for so long that she brought me the books as a way to repent. She was a very kind, proper, and beautiful person.
Since then, she’d continued to lend me books every now and then. We’d exchange books and long letters with our thoughts about them, but we never really had tea together.
“I received a letter from Sir Chris today...saying that he’s ending our engagement...” Lady Janail began speaking in the same slow way that she’d done during our time in school.
Sir Chris was the nickname of the new king. Even though their engagement was over, she still couldn’t change how she felt about him. It really resonated with me since I’d felt the same when Sir Gino had ended our engagement. I couldn’t bring myself to stop calling him Sir Gino back then either.
Even so, ending their engagement through a letter was an extremely horrible way to do it. I’d never heard of anyone being so thoughtless. Even Sir Gino and the former crown prince had had the courtesy to end their engagements face-to-face with their betrothed.
Besides, Sir Gino had told me not too long ago that our new king himself had stated that he had no fiancée, and that was before he even sent Lady Janail the letter. It was horrible for him to publicly announce this to others while only informing Lady Janail through the mail like an afterthought. Between this and the time he’d wanted to take Lady Janail as his concubine rather than his wife, it only made it clear how insincere a person he was.
“I...I don’t know what to do anymore. Up until now, all I’ve done is listen to what my father and brother tell me to do because they said that was how I would achieve happiness as a noble lady. Everyone else said the same thing too, but...I’m not happy at all...”
“You should forget about that idiot of an ex-fiancée and find a new one.”
Lady Ekatarina is as direct as usual. All I could really do was sympathize with how Lady Janail felt, but Lady Ekatarina immediately offered a solution while also calling our new king an idiot.
“But...father says that he can’t find any potential partners for me...”
“I’m sure that’s true with his connections. After all, all the children from old-guard families are usually engaged from a very young age. However, I think there’s a lot of other houses you could try. As long as you’re okay with it, I wouldn’t mind introducing you to some of them,” Lady Ekatarina said, looking at Lady Janail with an unnaturally kind gaze. Apparently, she’d been very shocked about Lady Janail’s comment that her eyes were frightening.
About a century ago, it had been looked down upon for nobles to dabble in industry; however, that mentality had greatly changed over the years, and now it was more strange for a noble house to not have at least one business of their own. After all, it brought their territories more wealth.
The old-guard families, however, held true to tradition and didn’t own any businesses even now. Many of them had long histories and farmland, and their customs were antiquated, with marriages arranged at a very young age. Without businesses and much wealth of their own, they didn’t have many avenues to explore when searching for potential partners, so they mostly married each other.
“W-Would you really?” Lady Janail exclaimed.
“Of course. The person I could introduce you to the soonest would be Sir Anthony. He’s gentle and very attentive. I believe he’s not too unattractive either. I would recommend him.”
“S-Sir A-A-Anthony?!”
“Yes, but I hope you understand that you’ll need to put in work as well. For military families like his, they expect the wife to have an active role, unlike houses of the old guard. There will be a lot for you to learn.”
“I don’t think it’ll work out... Sir Anthony was always the center of our class. He was even kind to someone like me, who was near the bottom. He’s such a wonderful person. I doubt he’d want to be with someone as unremarkable as me... I’d be useless...”
Oh? It seems she might actually like him. Could this be a good match?
“I’d think working hard would be a nice alternative to spending the rest of your life alone. At the very least, it’s better than doing nothing. Why don’t you do your best to become someone Sir Anthony will fall head over heels for?”
“I...I’ve never tried working hard at anything before. Up until now, I’ve merely followed what I’ve been told to do...even the things I didn’t want to...” Lady Janail seemed slightly dejected from Lady Ekatarina’s words. She seemed not to have much confidence in attempting something she’d never done before.