DTLD 1

Chapter 1

An Unexpected Identity

“Mr. Robert is the Duke of Guienne? That’s the funniest joke I’ve heard all year.”

Grandmother Elodie, seated in her wheelchair, burst out laughing. But no one else in the room laughed with her.

Enzo pounded his chest, feeling like he wanted to go mad and jump around. This was insane. To think that the Duke of Guienne—who had vanished without warning and thrown all of Laurant into an uproar—had been eating meals at their house.

“How on earth could no one recognize the Duke of Guienne? Not a single person in this village!”

Mrs. Vinoc’h broke the silence.

“We didn’t do anything rude to him at our last meal, did we?”

“Well, I did give him some eggs, but… surely he wasn’t offended, thinking we were looking down on him?”

Mr. Vinoc’h stammered out a confession: he had handed Robert a basket of eggs as he was leaving through the front gate. He swore it hadn’t been out of any ill intent. It was just that Robert rarely ordered grocery deliveries, and Mr. Vinoc’h had felt sorry for him, assuming he must be short on money—so he’d given them as a gift.

“No money? The Duke of Guienne? Oh, please. That man is a millionaire.”

“That’s exactly why we didn’t know……”

Mrs. Vinoc’h buried her face in her hands and hung her head in dismay. Enzo slumped back in his chair, drained. It was shocking. He simply couldn’t understand why the man would have accepted the eggs.

The Duke of Guienne was a famous figure in Laurant’s high society. Robert Leblanc de Guienne du Brabant. The queen’s favored great-nephew. A young duke. A genius of the hotel business. The wealthiest man in Bricenne. Some called him a vulgar capitalist who had abandoned aristocratic honor, but it didn’t matter. In the end, the winner who would be recorded in history a hundred years from now would be the Duke of Guienne.

The nobles criticized the duke for leaping into business so quickly, and the bourgeoisie were wary of a competitor who had so much more than they did. Regardless, he was simultaneously the object of both envy and admiration from both sides. Socialites constantly sent salon invitations, always hoping the duke would attend their dinners. Those rare invitations that others desperately scrambled for lay scattered about the duke’s apartment—so common they were said to be fit only as kindling for the doormen.

Moreover, the duke was also a strong candidate for husband to Princess Deborah, the queen’s only granddaughter. Laurant’s influential figures considered a visit from the Duke of Guienne to their home as proof of a connection to the royal family, and they boasted of it proudly.

‘So the Duke of Guienne dined at this house last week.’

The duke had accepted the invitation gladly, arrived punctually with a gift and impeccable manners, and had even accepted a basket of eggs reeking of chicken droppings on his way out.

‘……Just why?’

At this point, Enzo couldn’t simply blame his family. It wasn’t his family’s fault that they hadn’t imagined their neighbor was the duke. Who could have imagined it? That the finest gentleman in Bricenne was out in the countryside collecting eggs.

“At least one good thing has come of this. Sacha won’t have to take the train to Laurant alone.”

It was Grandmother Lolo who recovered first. The most rational member of the Vinoc’h family, she had no sooner shaken off the shock than she began thinking about what impact this extraordinary event would have on their family.

“The man was the closest to you in Manoli, Sacha. If you ask him to accompany you to Laurant, he’ll agree. If you’re lucky, he might even take you as far as the palace.”

At those words, the Vinoc’h family all turned to look at Sacha at once. Sacha, at a loss for words, couldn’t say anything. Mr. Robert—the caretaker of the Hawthorn Manor whom everyone had clicked their tongues at and helped because he was so hopeless at country life—really had been Sacha’s friend. But would he still think of Sacha Vinoc’h as a friend now that he was the Duke of Guienne?

And above all else, there was something the family didn’t know.

‘Then who exactly did I confess to and get rejected by?’

Sacha Vinoc’h had been rejected by that man just a few days ago. When she’d scraped together her courage and confessed her feelings, Mr. Robert had refused her with a deeply troubled expression, as though she had put him in an awkward position. The belief that the time they’d spent together had been special to him too had been nothing but Sacha’s delusion—as if he had merely been observing courtesy.

“Don’t make things difficult for me, Sacha. I’ve never considered you as anything more than what we are now.”

“But I still thought—I thought you saw me as special, that you liked me at least a little. Was I mistaken? Was it not like that at all?”

Sacha stammered, her face bright red. It had been a confession made without any preparation, unable to hold back the impulse. But she hadn’t expected to be rejected so coldly. He didn’t answer. An irritated sigh clawed its way into her ear. It hurt. She was ashamed and miserable for having misunderstood—but more than that, her chest felt hollow, as if a hole had been punched straight through it.

In the silence, he pushed his hair back. Rising from where he’d been leaning against the chair, the man gazed at her. He looked irritated by the situation—and perhaps disappointed.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Overwhelmed with shame, Sacha sprang to her feet and fled into the garden. She hid beneath the bushes and sobbed for a long while, and one by one, raindrops began to fall. By the time she realized it, she was already soaked through, trembling. The man who found her came striding over on his long legs. A heavy sigh fell over her head.

“I’ll take you home. Come on.”

Even in this moment, the man who offered to walk her home was terribly gentlemanly. He hadn’t been kind to Sacha because he liked her. He was simply that kind of person—to everyone. Kind enough to offer goodwill even to the girl he had just rejected.

If Mr. Vinoc’h asked him to accompany Sacha to Laurant, he wouldn’t be able to refuse. He would agree, unable to help himself. And Sacha would have to ride the train all the way up to Laurant alone with that man.

‘I’m doomed.’

Her vision went dark. At the thought of having to face the man she had been desperately avoiding since that day, her cheeks burned uncontrollably. Outside the window, the orange tree was swaying. The late afternoon wind shaking the tree without mercy couldn’t cool the heat rising in her cheeks.