Side Story:
Anna-Marie’s Debonair Day of Roguish Romance
MANY MONTHS BEFORE THE SUMMER Ball, just a few weeks after the Spring Ball and the attempt on the crown prince’s life, a different incident rocked the city.
Claris walked through familiar halls with a housemaid pushing a cart carrying a tea set. They passed many doors but stopped at a specific one, straightening their clothes before quietly entering.
The lady-in-waiting approached the bed. “Good morning, my lady,” Claris whispered to the amorphous bulge beneath the blankets. “It’s time to begin the day.” But the bulge didn’t stir. “My lady, as warm and comfortable as you might be, we really should be—”
She gently peeled away the blanket, assuming her lady had simply stayed up too late again, but she did not uncover her charge, only a sloppily thrown-together pile of dresses.
Anna-Marie Victillium was missing.
“Oh dear, I thought we were done with this,” the housemaid said with a nervous laugh.
A rage so poignant it made her shake welled up in Claris and turned her face dark red. Even she had her limits. “That rotten little hooligan!”
Her expletive echoed all throughout the estate, and none were spared its sting. No one would reprimand her. They were right there with her.
“I suppose she’s finally had enough. Couldn’t help herself, could she?” said a kitchen maid preparing breakfast.
“We ought to sympathize with our lady. She’s been terribly stressed lately. You could see it in her face. The way I see it, it’s a good thing that she’s back to her old self,” said another.
Elsewhere, a pair of housemaids tidied a freshly vacated bed. “Weren’t you assigned to clean near her chambers? You didn’t see her leave?”
“Neither hide nor hair. How does she do it? I’m admittedly curious.”
“Oh, the storm that’s coming for our lady. Will it ever end for poor Lady Claris?”
“Best wipe that smirk off your face before she sees you.”
“Smirk? On my face? Nonsense.”
Lady Anna-Marie Victillium, daughter to Marquess Victillium, was the sort of noblewoman one couldn’t help but gawk at. Favored by Prince Christopher, intelligent, beautiful, and endlessly charismatic, she had been dubbed the Scarlet Seductress by the reverential aristocracy, and most considered her their future queen. From academics to etiquette to charisma, she was said to be without peer. The perfect lady.
That was the Anna-Marie the public knew. But those close to her knew a very different Anna-Marie. Those people had a little more sense. There was no such thing as perfect, and it most certainly was not how House Victillium’s servants would have described their mistress. They preferred “rambunctious,” “difficult to control,” “boyish.” Much more human terms that were, in actuality, far closer to the truth than the hyperbolic legends.
A sigh filled the silence of the estate’s office. “So she’s back to old habits.” The butler, Hagen, wore a complicated expression, torn between surprise, frustration, relief, and apathy.
Another sigh, this time emanating from the grand desk in the back of the office. “So it would seem. What of her guard?”
“They recently informed us that they’ve lost her, Your Lordship. As they did the last time. And the time before that. They’re currently investigating her whereabouts.”
“Well, I’ve a clever daughter. I ought to be proud, shouldn’t I?” Marquess Gald Victillium indulged in his third sigh of the day, and it was only morning. He massaged his temples. “Continue the search. When someone finds her, resume surveillance.”
“The usual, then.”
“If we drag her home, she will only learn to abscond more cleverly the next time. Best she savor this taste of freedom and get it out of her system. After all, Hagen, what’s one day of merriment?”
“As you say, my lord. Her duties are indeed light today. There were to be more, but she dispatched them swiftly. Quite recently, in fact.”
“Clever, clever. It would bring a tear to my eye if I weren’t so impressed.” Gald glanced out the window with a tired smile.
Hagen followed his gaze. “Will they find her?”
“Doubtful. It would be a first.”
These two men carried a great weight. Upholding a marquessate was arduous enough without such a willful family member. They shared yet another sigh.
It’s not behavior that befits the Scarlet Seductress or the perfect lady, the marquess lamented. I’ll simply have to continue to see to it that we maintain a front of elegance and poise.
Gald had a clever daughter indeed, a fact that came at much administrative cost.
“Ah! So nice to get to stretch my legs finally!”
In a quiet alley in the Lower District, Anna-Marie basked in her clean escape, a spring in her step. Noblewomen did not typically prance about so, but perhaps an average, modern-day, Japanese high schooler would have. This behavior should come as no surprise, then, seeing as she had once been the latter.
In any case, this girl was certainly not Anna-Marie. She did not move like Anna-Marie, and she did not look like Anna-Marie. Lady Victillium had crimson hair that burned like fire and sharp eyes that pierced like daggers, along with a figure that could slay any man at a glance.
This girl lacked all of that. Her hair, done up in a ponytail, was closer to bronze than crimson, and she wore glasses, dulling any spark in her eyes. A binder around her chest effectively muted one of the Seductress’s most prominent curves. Plain makeup gave her the mien of an average, youthful commoner. Clothing-wise, she could have passed for a wealthy merchant’s daughter, but certainly not a marquess’s.
It was the perfect disguise. The future queen dressed as a lowborn? Preposterous! That preconception alone was perhaps the strongest element of her camouflage.
“That and the fact that hair dye isn’t commonplace,” she corrected herself. “Granted, it’s a little silly to think literally no one’s ever tried it before, but that’s an otome setting for you. Even if this is technically reality now, I guess.”
Anna-Marie—now the plain Anna—emerged onto a bustling street. As it happened, she’d used a simple, plant-based hair dye that merely darkened her natural shade and would come out with a wash. She couldn’t snap her fingers and change her features on a whim like a certain maid, but it was a clever solution nonetheless. Anna-Marie thought so, at least.
“Anna! Goodness, it’s been so long.”
“Good morning, madam. How’s business?”
“Oh, you know. Speaking of, how about some freshly squeezed apple juice?”
“It must be going well with acumen like that! I’ll have a cup.”
“Coming right up.”
The woman’s pitch was not as important as the ritual itself. The praise itself did not matter. It was a matter of presentation.
Anna meandered along a street not far from the Upper District with apple juice in hand. This was the life. Her second life, as a matter of fact, not counting the obvious. Anna-Marie liked to don this persona when she was stressed and needed to unwind. Being the perfect lady came at great mental cost for a girl who was, in essence, a high schooler, and though living this charade for nine years after regaining her memories had done much to shape her into a noblewoman, she still craved these retreats in order to nourish her soul.
The street she’d chosen served as a major hub of activity in this part of town, the hustle and bustle lending it life and vibrancy. Anna chewed on the straw in her drink as she took it all in. The juice was sweet, and a little pulpy, but that made it feel rustic. She watched passersby come and go while she gnawed on the bits of apple.
Being a noble’s got its perks, but this really feels like home to me. Maybe I can kind of understand the heroine for running off.
Anna had a secret second goal for the day’s outing. According to the annals of her endless knowledge of The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths, today was the day of an event—“A Debonair Day of Roguish Romance”…