On days when the academy was closed, Joshua spent his time in his office at the royal palace, buried in paperwork.
Samuel was there as well, assisting him.
“Sam, about Lady Alicia,” Joshua said at length. “What do you think? Don’t you find her behavior lately… strange? Mariabelle says Alicia’s mental state has become unstable.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Samuel replied. “I’m not close to Lady Wellston at all.”
“Hey, you don’t need to use honorifics with me. Speak as you usually do.”
Joshua and Samuel were childhood friends, and it had long been decided that Samuel would one day serve as Joshua’s aide.
That was why he now helped with Joshua’s official duties.
“First of all, even your way of addressing them is a problem,” Samuel said. “Mariabelle, Lady Alicia. It’s obvious which one you’re closer to.”
Joshua looked taken aback.
“…I hadn’t noticed. I’ll correct that.”
“And because you didn’t notice, her feelings drifted away,” Samuel continued.
“Eh?”
“At the ball, Lady Wellston was shoved by debutantes crowding around you. You failed to intervene. That alone is an issue. You should have been the first to support her and reprimand the girl who pushed her. Because you didn’t, everyone concluded she’s an unloved fiancée, and they began treating her lightly.”
“…I didn’t notice that either.”
Samuel looked at Joshua with something like pity.
“There’s more. Why did you introduce your classmates to Mariabelle before introducing them to Lady Wellston? She’s your future crown princess. Yet you let Mariabelle do the introductions.”
“I thought it would be easier, since they’re sisters.”
“That stripped her of all dignity as your fiancée. She was forcing a smile the entire time, but her face was pale.”
Joshua finally slumped.
“…Was I truly behaving that badly? Then perhaps it’s only natural that Alicia would be upset.”
“Oh? She was upset? That quiet, timid girl? Then she must have reached her limit. You look pretty shaken yourself, so I’ll stop there for today.”
Joshua’s eyes widened.
“There’s more?”
“I could go on all day. At the ball, Mariabelle wore this year’s fashionable design and expensive jewels. Lady Wellston wore the same dress as last year, with cheap-looking ornaments. Do you not gift your fiancée dresses or jewelry?”
“The Wellston household strictly forbade it. They said everything would be prepared by their own family.”
“But it wasn’t prepared.”
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but yes. That’s how it turned out. I did, however, send her flowers and letters before.”
“Past tense. You don’t anymore?”
“I never received a reply.”
Samuel shrugged in exasperation.
“And you didn’t think to ask her about that?”
“I did. She apologized with tears in her eyes. But when there was still no reply afterward, I stopped sending them.”
“If it were me, I’d suspect something was going on at her family home and investigate. Especially given how complicated the Wellston household is.”
“I investigated before the engagement.”
“That was before the stepmother and Mariabelle entered the picture, wasn’t it?”
Joshua had no answer.
The Wellston estate was heavily guarded, as befitted a marquisate, and the servants were tight-lipped. Any investigation would take real effort.
“Taking all that into account,” Samuel said, “is Lady Wellston truly being looked down on solely because of her own shortcomings?”
“Are you saying it’s my fault?”
Joshua frowned, and Samuel shrugged again.
“Who knows? That’s exactly why you should ask her directly. Though knowing you, you’d probably end up asking Mariabelle instead.”
“Alicia seems to believe it isn’t her fault.”
“Oh? By the way, there’s a rumor going around that your engagement might be dissolved. Not just at the academy, but in society as well. People even say you might become engaged to Mariabelle. If that happens, mind if I take Lady Wellston for myself?”
Joshua shot to his feet.
“What did you say? That’s out of the question. Alicia is my fiancée. And why are such rumors spreading in the first place?”
Samuel looked at him as though he were hopeless.
“How many times did you eat lunch with Lady Wellston at the academy? Far fewer than with Mariabelle, right? If you’re dissatisfied with her, then you ought to release her.”
Joshua froze.
Come to think of it, the schedules of the general course and the magic knight course rarely aligned. It was natural that he and Alicia often missed one another.
Then why was Mariabelle—who was in the same ladies’ course as Alicia, albeit a different year—so often present in the cafeteria at the same time as him?
With few elective subjects, their schedules should have been nearly identical.
The sense of unease had been there all along. He had simply never tried to look into it.
“Sam… do you like Alicia?”
“What a thing to ask. Aristocratic marriages aren’t about liking or disliking someone.”
Samuel continued, sounding thoroughly fed up.
“Lady Wellston is exceptionally intelligent, has high magical potential, impeccable lineage, and is beautiful. She’s a perfect match for my family’s standing. Her only flaw is her lack of sociability, but she’s well-mannered, and that’s something I could easily compensate for.”
“You’ve always been a remarkably rational man,” Joshua said, eyeing Samuel with faint disdain.
Still, Joshua had not been idle.
Alicia’s sudden change had troubled him deeply.
That was why he had taken action.
The dormitory matron had said Alicia returned home during holidays. Yet Joshua had found her at the academy library.
When he asked the librarian, he learned that Alicia spent long vacations and Sundays studying in the library from morning till night.
And just recently, her face had been swollen, as though someone had struck her.
(Has the Wellston household been lying as a family? But why would they do that? Every time I visit, Alicia never appears—only Mariabelle does.)
Mariabelle was cheerful and innocent. Unlike Alicia, she was popular among female students. It was hard to imagine her harboring ulterior motives.
If so, then perhaps the Wellston household itself had an agenda.
With that thought, Joshua fell into uneasy contemplation.
