Chapter 10
Yet sometimes, events move in directions one could never have foreseen.
It was ten days later that a letter from Juliet’s grandmother arrived for her.
Enjoying her afternoon tea on the sunlit terrace, Juliet took the letter from her maid Mary — and nearly dropped her favorite teacup upon reading the first few lines.
“To my dear, sweet Juliet.”
So began the letter, and its contents were as follows:
A few days ago, Juliet’s grandmother had fallen from a ladder and injured herself.
While she crouched in pain, clutching her hip and ankle, a young man happened to pass by. He lifted her in his arms, carried her into the house, and tended to her wounds with practiced, capable hands.
Deeply moved by his kindness, the grandmother tried to offer him a reward — but he adamantly refused.
What a selfless young man, she thought, and her gratitude only grew. She wished to thank him somehow, but he left without giving his name, disappearing like the wind.
A few days later, however, the young man returned — this time carrying a large basket of fruit. He had come simply to check on her condition and offer his regards.
The grandmother found him to be a rare, fine young man in this day and age and soon began inviting him to her house regularly.
Up to this point, Juliet was already familiar with the story.
When her father had first heard it, he had been deeply concerned for his mother’s well-being. He suspected that the youth might be a scoundrel trying to swindle a wealthy widow out of her fortune.
For that remark, however, her father had been thoroughly scolded.
“How dare you speak that way of my benefactor!” the grandmother had snapped.
Upon further inquiry, the grandmother learned that the young man’s name was Adam, that he was only sixteen — younger than he looked — and that he served as a squire in the local knights’ order.
Of course, the grandmother was not so senile as to take his story at face value simply because it came from a polite tongue. She had already verified, through reliable sources, that he had spoken the truth.
With that in mind, Juliet continued reading.
Adam, it seemed, had told her grandmother that the order to which he belonged would soon be holding a ball at their lord’s castle — to celebrate the twelfth birthday of the lord’s only daughter. It was to be a small, private affair.
However, Adam had no one to accompany him.
Even if it was a small gathering, a ball held in a noble’s castle still counted as a social event of some standing. Attending alone was permitted, of course — but nearly all of Adam’s colleagues would be bringing their lovers or fiancées.
At sixteen, he was at that awkward age when one felt quite self-conscious about such things. So when his comrades asked who he would be taking, Adam had blurted out:
“I’ve invited the granddaughter of a lady I’m close with — she’s a beautiful young lady named Juliet. I can’t wait for you all to meet her.”
No doubt those words had slipped from Adam’s lips in a moment of pride — the last remnant of a young man’s fragile dignity. It wasn’t strange that, in his desperation to appear respectable, the name of his elderly benefactress’s granddaughter had come to mind.
Unable to retract the lie, Adam later confessed everything to the grandmother and apologized for using her granddaughter’s name without permission. Then he begged her — just once — to ask Juliet to accompany him to the ball.
To make matters worse, when he last visited to check on her recovery, Adam had apparently seen Juliet by chance — leaving the house and heading toward her carriage. And, at that moment, he had fallen hopelessly in love.
Juliet’s grandmother had always insisted on using the least conspicuous carriage when visiting her estate in that rural region — one of the plainer ones belonging to the viscountcy. Her attire, too, was deliberately modest.
Too fine a dress would only draw attention, and in a small town, gossip spread quickly.
No wonder Adam never suspected that the girl he saw was actually a viscount’s daughter.
Thinking her merely a lovely village maiden, he had resolved to ask her to be his partner — and perhaps, if fortune smiled, to grow closer to her.
Grateful for his past kindness, the grandmother found it difficult to refuse. And so, without Juliet’s consent, she accepted the young man’s request.
“Forgive me for making this promise on my own, dear Juliet. But he truly is a wonderful young man, so you needn’t worry. In fact, I would be delighted to see him become your husband one day — and heir to the Forringen title.”
At that, the letter crumpled in Juliet’s trembling hands with a sharp rustle.
“G–Grandmother—!”
A most unladylike shout of outrage rang throughout the manor.
＊＊＊
For now, she had to calm down.
Back in her room, Juliet smoothed the wrinkles from the letter again and again, trying to steady her turbulent emotions.
She knew well that her grandmother was a warmhearted woman — one who had always detested the petty schemes and rivalries of high society.
So it wasn’t difficult to understand how the sincerity of that young man, Adam, had soothed her weary heart like a breath of fresh spring air.
But still — who in their right mind would decide that someone should attend a ball with a stranger without asking her first?
Juliet had only turned sixteen last month and had yet to make her social debut.
In the Kingdom of Efilante, young men and women typically entered society at seventeen, except in rare cases. The debutante ceremonies — held under the goddess’s blessing — took place during the White Moon, the final month of the year, said to be when the goddess’s grace shone brightest.
Which meant Juliet’s debut was still a year and eight months away.
No young noblewoman wished to be the subject of scandal before her debut — especially in a country where the religion of Spius still valued a bride’s purity above all.
If Juliet were to appear at a ball — unbetrothed and escorted by a man — what would happen?
Rumors would spread like wildfire among the upper class: “The Forringen daughter, keeping improper company with a man before marriage — how shameless!”
Even Juliet, raised freely in the countryside, could easily imagine such consequences. Her grandmother, who had lived in the capital all her life before marriage, surely knew them even better.
So why — why on earth — had she made such a reckless promise?
Could it be that she truly intended for this Adam to become Juliet’s husband and heir to the viscountcy?
“That’s impossible…!”
Juliet clenched her fists.
Ever since she’d regained memories of her past life, she had harbored a deep, instinctive fear of men — especially knights.
She knew that one day, she would have to marry — most likely a younger son of another noble house — and bring him into the Forringen family as her husband and successor. Such was her duty as a noblewoman.
But if she had to marry, she wanted anyone but a knight.
To walk the same path as in her previous life… she could not bear it.
She knew, rationally, that not all knights were like Oscar, the husband who had treated his wife with cold cruelty. There must be kind, gentle knights in the world.
But reason meant nothing here.
Within Juliet’s heart lived the memory of Liddell, who had been wounded and broken by her husband’s neglect. That pain could not be erased so easily.
And to make matters worse, Adam’s order of knights served none other than the Lord of Aschen — the very territory where Juliet’s grandmother lived.
Which meant that this ball would be hosted by Oscar himself, in celebration of Emilia’s birthday.
Emilia.
The precious daughter she had only known briefly in her past life.
Now twelve years old — what kind of young lady had she become? Was Oscar treating her well?
Juliet wondered, but the thought of seeing Emilia — calling another woman “Mother,” having long forgotten her real one — was unbearable.
Surely, after Liddell’s death, Oscar had taken a new wife without delay.
Though she had once been Emilia’s mother, in this life Juliet was a stranger.
She could not reveal the truth, nor did she wish to disturb the life her daughter now led.
It was better not to meet.
Letters would do no good — she would have to visit her grandmother in person and make her refusal clear.
Resolute, Juliet called out for Mary, who must have been waiting in the adjoining room, to prepare for an immediate trip to her grandmother’s estate.
