Knock knock. After rapping on the door, Cassian paused for a moment before opening it. The Duke and Duchess were already in the tea room, drinking their tea.
“Is Bliss all right?”
The moment she saw her son, his mother asked the worried question, and he sat down before answering.
“Yes. I left once she was looking better.”
Cassian set the tray down on the table and straightened up. In truth, Cassian wasn’t the only one who had noticed Bliss had an upset stomach. The Duke and Duchess had known too, but they’d pretended otherwise, pained by how hard Bliss was trying to hide it. Instead, after Bliss had returned to her room, the Duchess had hurriedly contacted the family physician and passed the medicine she received to Cassian.
She must be in a great deal of discomfort, so go and help her right away.
She’d gone on to list, one after another, just how lovely and delicate a child Bliss was, but Cassian had cut her off at a suitable point and left. And now, the Duke and Duchess were waiting to hear how it had gone.
“She must have been so nervous it gave her a stomachache. Poor thing.”
His mother sighed again, her face full of concern and sympathy, and Cassian simply watched her with a smile. It was true the Duchess had pressed him out of worry for Bliss, but it wasn’t only his mother’s urging that had made Cassian personally fetch the medicine and go to Bliss.
It was nothing more than a heartrending effort to preserve the world he’d built.
He was picturing Bliss’s moved expression when his eyes suddenly met his father’s.
“Why are you smiling all of a sudden?”
At the Duke’s question, Cassian realized only then that he’d been smiling.
“It’s nothing.”
Answering simply, he poured his own tea into the cup that had been prepared in advance, avoiding his father’s gaze. In any case, his goal had been more than achieved. Bliss had worn such a moved expression the whole time that she could hardly take her eyes off him.
Now she’ll believe wholeheartedly that I like her.
He’d gone through hell over Mozart’s grave and Versailles and all the rest, but in the end he’d gotten the result he wanted. And on top of that, he’d gotten to see that brat’s cute face, so that wasn’t so bad either...
He stopped short right there. Remembering that he’d had the exact same thought earlier, his brow furrowed without his meaning it to.
No, wait a second.
He grew flustered, unsure what on earth he’d just been thinking, but soon regained his composure. Coolly reconsidering, there was nothing particularly wrong with it. Yes, it was true the brat was cute. Wasn’t that the kind of thing anyone could think? Right, when you see something cute, anyone would think it’s cute. There was nothing especially strange about me.
It’s no big deal.
Having gotten that far, Cassian drank the rest of his tea, then looked from the Duke to the Duchess and back as he spoke.
“Then I’ll take my leave now. Have a pleasant night.”
“Yes, go and rest.”
When the Duke nodded, Cassian offered a brief courtesy and stepped outside. Only after the door had closed and the two of them were left alone did the Duchess carefully speak up.
“What do you think, dear?”
She was asking about the conversation they’d been having before Cassian came in. Rather than answering at once, the Duke stalled by pretending to drink his tea. He only opened his mouth after he’d set his cup down.
“Bliss Miller and Cassian. It’s a pairing I never imagined, so honestly, I’m baffled.”
Rather than deciding yes or no right away, the Duke chose to put off his answer. And no wonder, for from the moment the Duchess told him the news that Bliss Miller had, out of nowhere, come to the castle with their only son, he’d been thoroughly bewildered the entire time. He had no idea what was going on as it was, and now marriage to his son, on top of that?
“But if Cassian had his heart set on the girl, wouldn’t he have introduced her to us that way? And the name, what was it? Blair? Bliss? Whatever it was, he goes and trots out some peculiar thing. Honestly, it makes me uneasy enough to wonder what my son is scheming against us.”
“Oh, Arthur. You poor thing.”
To her husband, who was honestly baring his heart, the Duchess clasped his hand tightly and said, as if she felt sorry for him,
“It’s not a matter worth fretting over so much. The situation is simple. Just think about it. What reason would Cassian have for bringing Bliss here? Without even formally introducing her to us, no less.”
“What’s the reason?”
When the Duke asked, as though he truly couldn’t fathom it, the Duchess answered confidently.
“He isn’t certain of Bliss’s feelings, of course.”
“He isn’t certain?”
To her husband, who repeated her words, she nodded and continued.
“The two of them haven’t confessed their feelings to each other yet. Cassian is probably planning to win her over while he and Bliss stay here. And once their hearts connect, he’ll introduce her to us right away and...”
“Get our blessing for the marriage all in one go!”
When the Duke quickly added the rest, the Duchess clapped her palms together, delighted.
“Exactly! Now do you see? What the situation is right now.”
The Duke stroked his chin, nodding again and again as if intrigued.
“Yes, that’s plausible. It’s possible. You’re right.”
But even so, a question still lingered for him. Frowning, the Duke looked at his beloved wife and posed it.
“Granting all that, then what about the, the name? Blier? Bless? Why didn’t he honestly introduce her to us as Bliss Miller?”
Of course, the Duchess had already worked out the correct answer to that question too.
“Oh, come now, he hid it on purpose. Think about it, Arthur. If she said she was the Bliss Miller, naturally we’d treat her with the utmost care, wouldn’t we? Especially after that accident when she was little. How burdensome would that be for Bliss? If Cassian is even braced for rejection, he’d want to eliminate as much as possible anything that might pressure Bliss. If she’s not ‘Bliss Miller’ but merely ‘someone who happens to be Cassian’s guest,’ we’d only go as far as treating her as a suitable guest, so it’d be less of a burden on Bliss.”
Only then did the Duke nod with a look of understanding.
“In short, he’s built himself an escape route in case he’s rejected.”
“Yes, that’s exactly it. Do you see now?”
At her husband’s reply, which sounded almost like talking to himself, the Duchess smiled brightly and clapped. His wife looked utterly lovely like that, but he wasn’t at all pleased with his son’s behavior.
“Slovenly boy. If you’re going to stake a contest, you have to be prepared to throw everything in, not cravenly leave yourself some rat hole to crawl through.”
“He was respecting Bliss’s feelings, I’m sure.”
His wife slyly took their son’s side, but the Duke continued, still full of complaint.
“That’s exactly why I say he’s slovenly. To win the one you love, you have to give it your all, with the resolve that you’ll die without that person. Just like you and me, isn’t that right.”
“Oh my, you.”
At the Duke’s fervent words, his wife blushed and smiled. In fact, the two had met for the first time in high school, started dating then, and had been with no one but each other for life. Their first kiss had been only with each other, their first time too. Everything done between a man and a woman had been a first with each other.
And yet that brat goes around throwing his body about so carelessly.
The Duke ground his teeth. That his one and only son had been dating girlfriends since he was scarcely more than a runny-nosed child was not to his liking, but he’d accepted it as an unavoidable generation gap. But he knew that Cassian had, just once, spent a night with a one-night partner. Of course, he hadn’t dug into his son’s affairs, nor had Cassian confessed it.
Unfortunately, it was because a cheap outlet that ran gossip articles had obtained that information and tried to expose it, and the ducal house’s PR team had found out just in time and reported it. They’d paid a considerable sum to kill the article, but it wasn’t the money that made the Duke this angry. It was that Cassian had done something so outrageous.
To have relations with someone he’d just met, with no dignity at all.
Upon learning of it, the Duke had meant to severely discipline his one and only son, but circumstances hadn’t cooperated. Bliss had eaten a poisonous mushroom and caused an uproar, and by the time things had been more or less settled, the moment had passed.
The one saving grace was that, ever since, Cassian hadn’t had relations with anyone, as if he’d come down with some sort of compulsive cleanliness, but...
Having gotten that far, deep wrinkles carved themselves into the Duke’s brow.
And now, of all things, the partner he’s suddenly brought home is Bliss Miller.
