RBSP 5

Chapter 5

The Society’s Punching Bag, I’m Retiring!

Karlroy Windsor. Born as the only son between Duke Alixey Windsor and Princess Adelaide Mary of Hibernia, he had grown up lacking nothing in the world.

The northern dukedom had developed various industries to ward off the bitter cold, with fuel being its most specialized trade. Heston wood was treated as its primary specialty, and this special timber stood as one of the most widely used types of firewood across the entire kingdom.

What changed the fortunes of the House of Windsor—a family that had enjoyed moderate wealth and prestige—was four years ago. With the royal-spearheaded opening of the railways, fuel sources such as coal began to popularize rapidly. The conventional lumber business even began to reel from the shift.

Duke Windsor concluded that before the next railway line opened, he needed to completely overhaul his fuel business strategy. The ultimate means to achieve this was mine development.

The north was home to countless mountains, and it was already common knowledge that vast reserves of coal were buried within them. However, the ducal household lacked the technology to develop coal mines. Commerce had always been looked down upon. That was when the mining corps of the Gloucester trading guild extended a helping hand.

Karl had willingly bartered away his betrothal for the sake of the north’s advancement. Since it meant the prosperity of the northern territories he was destined to lead, it was a sacrifice well worth making. Yet, it was inevitable that he looked upon the Gloucester young lady, his betrothed, with a jaundiced eye.

The Count had married six times, and the young lady’s birth mother had suddenly run away and vanished one day. Could that bloodline skip a generation?

The biases Karl held were no different from those of any other figure in high society.

“I’ll wager one hundred sickels that today you’ll claim your shoes hurt and refuse to dance.”

“Isn’t that an insultingly obvious excuse? No matter what, it’s a shame to say that to such a lovely young lady. I’ll wager one hundred sickels that you’ll say you were blinded by her beauty and simply couldn’t bring yourself to dance.”

The banter of the young gentlemen around him had zero impact on Karl.

Over the past three seasons since his debut in high society, the number of times the two of them had actually danced could be counted on one hand. He had only reluctantly taken Lady Gloucester’s hand when his mother, the princess, was present, or when his maternal uncle, the king, was watching. Even then, Karl had never been the one to ask first.

Was she truly not even embarrassed?

Karl thought this as he looked at the back of her dress, where her skin was daringly exposed.

It was a design that didn’t take even a shred of warmth into consideration. It was attire entirely unsuited for a woman destined to become the mistress of the north.

Yet, even while entertaining such tedious thoughts, Karl had waited for her to approach. Pondering what polite excuse he should use to dodge her today had practically become part of his daily routine.

Pfft!

However, the moment he saw Gloria averting her gaze from him, wine sprayed right out of Karl’s mouth. The purple liquid began staining the carpet.

This was an “incident” he had never once imagined. The young gentlemen surrounding Karl snickered out loud. Was that woman—who remained rooted to the spot without a single flutter of movement even as the music started—truly Lady Gloucester? She had never, ever acted like this before, and Karl’s hands began to tremble uncontrollably.

Clatter—

Before he even realized it, his wine glass slipped from his fingers and shattered against the marble floor. Attendants rushed over to clean it up in a panic, but Karl’s eyes never left her. The way she walked away without glancing back even once, as if she had erased his very existence, felt cruelly cold.

Karl knew very well that he was being hypocritical. Still, when a person does something completely out of character, how could they not be shaken?

“My Lady.”

Approaching her had been a purely impulsive act.

Dozens of people in this very room had likely placed bets on our relationship, but probably not a single one of them had anticipated this kind of trajectory. It was a moment he couldn’t even make sense of himself.

However, what shocked Karl the most was his conversation with her. He came to a genuine realization:

‘I didn’t even know her name properly.’

The correspondence exchanged with her had always been rigidly conventional, and even that was rare. He had always written ‘G’ for Gloria attached to the title ‘Lady Gloucester.’

He had assumed he definitely knew it, but the moment she asked, Karl couldn’t answer. Because he couldn’t accurately pronounce her name.

Leaving the terrace, Karl had remained in a daze until the banquet came to an end.

Usually, he would at least offer stiff, perfunctory responses to the greetings of young ladies, but today even that felt like a chore. Especially the moment he laid eyes on the Baron of Kent’s daughter, who had stirred up trouble by dragging a journalist into her schemes just days ago, a fresh wave of boiling rage had surged within him.

People often remarked that if he simply kept his mouth shut, he looked like a statue of a knight on display in the royal palace. There was simply no way to explain why someone like Karlroy Windsor was being shaken to this degree.

Rumors that Karl and I had slipped away into the terrace midway through the ball spread rapidly. Young ladies who had been setting their sights on Karl actually burst into tears right there in the ballroom. Did they truly possess no sense of shame?

The Count came all the way to my room, showering me with praise and admiration. If he knew what kind of conversation had actually passed between us, he wouldn’t be reacting like this. Giving the Count a lukewarm, unenthusiastic response, I shooed him out of my room.

Given how things had been said, it was about time for prideful Karl to make some kind of move. Yet no news arrived. I had even anticipated that the annulment might be brought forward, but it seemed promises between noble houses were stubborn and venomous things after all.

Soon, an event celebrating the opening of a new route hosted by the Railway Bureau would be held. Once the railway station was established in the northern Windsor domain, the mining operations would commence in earnest. Of course, during the preliminary survey phase before the actual mining, the entire project would be completely scrapped, but from our current perspective, it was a momentous event for our family.

Nearly the entire Gloucester household, including myself, was scheduled to attend this Railway Bureau event. The reason Mathias, who usually stayed on his own estate with his family, had traveled up to the capital was precisely because of this Railway Bureau event.

Whether railways were built or not, my marriage to Karl falling through was a guaranteed future anyway. I had briefly considered skipping it, but I changed my mind.

‘Even if I break off the engagement with Karl, I need to figure out a way not to end up in a convent.’

There were many ways for future me to avoid winding up in a convent. The Gloucester family was a complete mess, but the bond among the siblings was remarkably good, with only one exception. Misery loves company, as they say; since our targets of hatred were identical, we naturally clicked.

In fact, if Mathias had been anywhere inside the capital at that exact point in the future, he could have saved me. At the very least, had I been given even enough time to send a single letter to Marchioness Leonor’s residence, I could have run away from home.

‘But Father whisked me away at dawn like a night-flight fugitive. He thoroughly blocked me from even sending a letter.’

My older sister Isabella held a deep dislike for Karl.

She had always been furious because he was excessively rude and indifferent for a younger sister’s fiancé. That was why she used to say like a mantra: break off the marriage and come to the March-Lord’s castle. She promised she would make sure I had no trouble making a living for the rest of my life.

If I had just been able to contact her while trapped in the convent, I would have fled straight there on the spot.

However, thinking about it coolly, that wasn’t the right answer.

Unmarried children of kingdom nobility belonged to their father. The fact that I was sent to the convent was the choice of the father who legally owned me. Even if I escaped to the March-Lord’s castle, the state law dictated that if the Count—my father—came to drag me back, there was no way to stop him.

If so, I had to choose a lawful method. At the very least, I had to avoid the ending of shivering away in a convent before dying of pneumonia.

‘First, I need to find a decent marriage candidate. Even if it’s not Karlroy Windsor, someone truly respectable enough that the Count would approve.’

That was the thought, but it wasn’t going to be easy. This season was my absolute last chance. Time was running desperately short.

As for men, if I set out to find one, I could probably drum someone up even now. In the future, the number of men who proposed to me after my engagement was broken off was high enough that I had to count using both hands and then some.

However, because none of them were quite satisfactory enough to meet the Count’s standards, I had ultimately been shipped off to the convent.

‘Even if it’s a marriage candidate Father dislikes, there is one way I can marry entirely of my own accord.’

The method of securing a dowry on one’s own. It was a means typically chosen by wealthy heiresses who inherited fortunes. If a person possessed a sufficient dowry of their own, they could marry without needing the permission of a father or a guardian.

The problem was that I possessed neither inheritance nor wealth. Whether my birth mother was dead or alive was a mystery to me, and our ties with my maternal family—a small barony in the countryside—had been cut off long ago.

Right now, I was living in luxury off the Count’s money, but I couldn’t call any of this my own property. Even if I liquidated some of my jewelry or dresses to scrape together a certain amount of wealth… it would fall disastrously short of a proper dowry.

‘That is why I absolutely must attend the Railway Bureau event.’

I clenched my fists tightly.

A few days before my death, I had once discovered a newspaper tucked inside a pile of firewood gathered for the convent.

It was the first and last piece of outside news I encountered after arriving at the convent. It carried a brief blurb announcing that that accursed Karlroy Windsor had taken Lady Castilla as his new fiancée.

Luana Castilla. She was one of the predatory beasts still eyeing Karl to this day.

‘It was never mine to begin with, so Karl is free to take her. But instead, I think I’ll borrow a few business ideas ahead of time.’

I glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. The date marked with a circle was just a single day away.