Chapter 008
On the very day Hazel received Theodore’s marriage proposal, the entire Viscount Easton household turned upside down.
Charlotte and Lady Easton followed her everywhere, pressing her relentlessly for every detail of her conversation with Theodore.
Hazel quickly realized that the only way to survive the two of them was to answer honestly, so she did her best to explain. Yet there wasn’t much she could actually say.
It was impossible for her to utter that Theodore had fallen in love with her at first sight, or to repeat his praise that she was beautiful.
Charlotte and Lady Easton were not the type to be satisfied with such brief details.
So Hazel had no choice but to satisfy their curiosity with other things: his elegant appearance, or the unusual lightness in his movements that few nobles possessed.
Somehow, she ended up giving what sounded suspiciously like praise. At that point, Charlotte’s gaze changed.
“You’re taken with him too~ aren’t you?”
“No.”
Hazel answered instantly, without the slightest hesitation.
Charlotte tilted her head in wonder at the immediate reply. She insisted that if Hazel wasn’t interested, how could she list so many compliments, and how could she notice all his good points if she didn’t like him?
Hazel explained that Charlotte’s logic was strange.
“I only described him objectively. If it sounded like praise, that’s because what he has is good in itself. But Charlotte, not everything that is good is something I want. Just as I don’t wish to eat every delicious-looking red apple I see.”
Charlotte didn’t understand a word Hazel said, but she nodded reluctantly anyway.
She knew that pushing further would only make Hazel dig in her heels and ruin everything.
Still, she sincerely hoped things would work out between Hazel and Theodore.
“You two looked so perfectly matched!”
Next to Hazel, whose indifference sometimes appeared gloomy, Theodore had smiled the entire time.
Even Hazel’s perpetually somber expression, which was constantly criticized, somehow looked charming beside him.
Hazel’s dark violet gown that could almost pass for black, and Theodore’s dark yet elegantly embroidered and radiant attire, revealed their clearly different tastes, yet together they were pleasing to the eye.
From the very first moment she saw Theodore, Charlotte had known he was the only man capable of compensating for what others saw as flaws in Hazel’s personality.
They were completely different, but perhaps that was exactly why they might succeed.
Charlotte had already begun imagining a happy marriage between Hazel and Theodore. But her fantasy shattered quickly, and the Easton household was turned upside down once more.
When Hazel thought she had finally satisfied Charlotte and Lady Easton’s curiosity enough, she opened her mouth:
“I refused the proposal.”
Silence fell over the room for a moment. Then, after a calm that felt like the stillness before a storm, Charlotte leapt from her seat.
“Sister!!!! Have you lost your mind?!”
“Anne, bring me some cold water.”
Lady Easton placed a hand on her forehead and collapsed back against the sofa armrest.
Anne looked shocked as well, but after checking that Lady Easton’s eyes were merely closed in theatrical faint, she dashed to the kitchen.
“You’re fine, Mother. There’s no need to overdo it.”
Hazel added calmly after checking Lady Easton’s pulse:
“A little rest and you’ll recover quickly. Breathe deeply.”
“Sister!”
Charlotte shouted furiously, so Hazel covered her ears.
“How could you refuse the proposal?!”
“It wasn’t hard. It’s already the fourth time.”
“The previous ones don’t compare to today! He’s the Duke of Bernier!”
Theodore was the one who had been rejected, yet Charlotte was the one on the verge of tears, clutching at her chest.
Suddenly, Hazel felt curious.
Had Theodore been hurt by her refusal?
She recalled her moments with him in her mind and lightly shook her head.
He had looked surprised by her rejection, but not wounded.
The smile that never left his face was proof of that.
“Speak, sister. How could you turn down a proposal so easily?”
“Because it was a light proposal.”
“What part of a proposal is light? It’s choosing a partner for your entire life!”
Charlotte stomped the floor in frustration.
This time, Hazel partly agreed with her.
Choosing a husband was not a light matter. Yet Theodore’s proposal had definitely been light.
If one had to describe it by weight, it was feather-light.
Hazel shrugged and opened her novel.
Charlotte and Lady Easton stared in stunned disbelief at her composure.
“Hazel, listen to me before I burn every book in this room.”
Hazel’s fingers, which had been flipping through the pages, trembled at Lady Easton’s threat.
Lady Easton was fully capable of burning the books she had collected with such difficulty; she might even burn the entire room.
Mothers truly are great and powerful.
Hazel quickly closed the book and looked at her mother.
After drinking the cold water, color had returned to her pale face.
“I understand that today’s refusal was unavoidable. You must have been shocked.”
It wasn’t shock, but Hazel firmly shut her mouth.
As the eldest Easton daughter who had spent the most time with Lady Easton, she knew exactly when to speak and when to stay silent.
It was a skill Andre envied greatly.
“But still—oh heavens, please give me one more chance.”
Suddenly, Lady Easton clasped her hands together and looked toward the ceiling as if praying.
She whispered incomprehensible words for a moment, then fixed Hazel with eyes that flashed like lightning.
“If—if only. If Duke Theodore Caron Bernier proposes again… or does anything resembling courtship, think about it for just one day before refusing. No—promise me you’ll think about it for a whole week. And positively, too.”
Hazel opened her mouth but couldn’t say anything.
One day, one week, or even a month of thinking wouldn’t change her mind.
Not because there was anything wrong with the Duke of Bernier, but because she had her own plans.
Marriage would be an obstacle to her goal, and the troubles it brought could even harm the Duke of Bernier himself.
But she couldn’t explain all of that in detail.
What Hazel was planning—her true goal—was the kind of thing even her loving mother or her sister who shared all her secrets would struggle to understand.
Still, since her mother had begged her in this way (through threat), she agreed.
“…I will. But I don’t think the Duke of Bernier will come back.”
Hazel gently added that there was no reason the proposal had to be limited to the Easton family, and since she had rejected him so firmly, his pride would keep him from returning even if he wanted to.
Lady Easton clutched her forehead and collapsed again.
This time, her faint was real.
* * *
In the days that followed—to Hazel’s relief, and to the Easton family’s as well—there was no sign of Theodore.
Yet it was still possible to know where he went and what he did.
“They say he attended the ball hosted by Baron Valance two days ago.”
Theodore had long been the center of high society’s attention.
Whether it was fortunate or not, Hazel didn’t have to make any effort to hear detailed reports of his movements as though she were watching them herself.
“They say he only danced with Lady Valance.”
At balls, dancing was a way to express interest in the opposite sex. Except when dancing with a married person, which carried meanings of courtesy, respect, or returning a favor.
In other words, Theodore had attended the marriage market but chosen no target.
Hazel concluded he was a man uninterested in women.
But Charlotte and Lady Easton saw it differently.
“He hasn’t forgotten you yet. He’s still hung up on you.”
“Mother, I don’t think so. If that were true, he wouldn’t have completely ignored me for the past five days.”
“That…”
No one could refute Hazel’s words.
To Lady Easton, who had once been the star of society in her youth, a man in love offered everything to the woman he loved.
Love meant seeing her in the morning and writing in the evening that he missed her, or sneaking at dawn to gaze at her window and returning in the morning to sing her a romantic song and court her properly.
From that perspective, one could say Theodore’s feelings had cooled, but Lady Easton’s intuition declared:
“It’s not over yet.”
Hazel looked at her mother with a face full of things she wanted to say, but swallowed both her sigh and her words.
She had no right to strip away her mother’s hope as well.
In any case, the attention directed at her would soon fade.
Because before long, as expected, the drawing room would be filled with Charlotte’s suitors.
And indeed, she was not wrong.
An hour later, the room was packed with men who had come to court Charlotte.
Hazel exchanged polite greetings, then immediately fixed her eyes on her book.
“Hazel, at least join the conversation.”
Lady Easton pinched Hazel’s side hard.
Her words, spoken with lips barely parted, carried clear anger, while her facial expression remained a serene smile.
Mothers truly are amazing.
How could she master the art of speaking without opening her mouth?
“Mother, it doesn’t look like there’s a single man here who wants to talk to me.”
A tall man, a short man, a man with a protruding belly, a man with curly hair, a one-eyed man, a man boasting his title…
The room was full of all kinds of men, but every ounce of their interest was directed solely at Charlotte.
‘It’s hard to unite people’s opinions, but at least it’s nice that they agree on something in a place like this.’
Hazel thought idly.
“That’s because you only ever look at your book.”
“Do you mean the problem is me?”
“I can’t say it isn’t.”
“Mother, just once, try thinking differently. Maybe the problem is the men who can’t draw my attention more than a book can.”
Today was even more boring than usual.
How many times had this repeated?
Men praising Charlotte with the same phrases, carrying similar bouquets, reciting verses that sounded familiar—no, they had definitely been heard before…
Everything was identical to what had happened last year.
“Has a department for teaching cheap courtship been secretly added to the academy without my knowledge?”
Hazel shook her head in disappointment.
Her remark wasn’t entirely wrong, so Lady Easton tightly pressed her lips together.
Hazel gave a faint smile, savoring a rare victory in an argument, and returned her head to her book.
“If a man ever appears who can make that book fall from your hands, I will do everything in my power to marry you to him.”
“Very well. If such a man exists.”
Hazel answered indifferently, completely convinced that no such man would ever appear.
But life always holds unexpected surprises.
“His Grace, Duke Theodore Caron Bernier, has arrived!”
Hazel’s shoulders trembled at the announcement of the man she had believed would never return.
Lady Easton seized that moment of weakness and swiftly struck Hazel’s hand.
Thud—
Hazel’s book fell to the floor.
One might need a detailed causal analysis, but the man who had made the book drop from Hazel’s hand entered the room with a bright, dazzling smile.
