Chapter 22
“It’s not exactly shameful to not know what you’ve never learned.”
His expressionless face was impossibly handsome as he let out a short sigh and reached out his long arm to pick up the fan.
“When a fan is held close to one’s chest like this, it means I love you. Tapping the fan lightly with your left hand means please love me.”
The fan looked almost tiny between his long fingers.
And that movement—it was far too elegant for a military officer who commanded troops.
“When you extend the fan slightly as if to show it off, it means do you desire me?”
He slowly, yet deliberately, opened and closed the fan.
“And lastly, if you open and close it like this, then draw a small circle inward…”
Arius stopped there. That one, if she remembered correctly, meant… take me now.
Just realizing that made even breathing feel awkward.
Unconsciously, she clenched her fists tightly. He tossed the fan casually onto the cushion.
“No need to say any more.”
A simple summary.
A brief silence followed. Arius looked at her with his usual calm, unreadable face.
It must have been nothing more than a straightforward demonstration, yet she swallowed hard for no reason.
“You seem to know quite a lot. I heard you don’t attend many balls.”
Maybe it was because she was embarrassed, but her tone came out sounding slightly accusatory.
“If you don’t know these things, you can easily find yourself in troublesome situations. So it’s inevitable one learns the basics.”
“…Thank you for teaching me.”
“It would be best if you properly learned the rest from the head maid, my lady.”
Unlike his other words, this one carried a rare firmness, so she could only nod.
It was a day drenched in sunlight streaming through large windows.
She turned her gaze toward the lush greenery outside and murmured,
“I should hurry and call Madame Beaumont to finalize the commission. It would be troublesome if any misunderstandings arose.”
“Of course. I’ll make sure everyone keeps their mouths shut. It concerns your reputation as well.”
“Wouldn’t the Duke Romero be more troubled by rumors than I?”
“Why is that?”
“Because of my hair and eyes.”
Her real goal might have been to get engaged to Arius and she’d been boldly pursuing him, but that didn’t mean she was unaware of the infamous reputation and background attached to Maribel Sephardi’s name.
“If rumors spread like this—especially given who I am—it would be worse for you.”
A woman with half-Moro blood, in an elegant fan boutique, alongside that man—a man both refined and awkwardly flustered by flirtation. The gossip would be terribly unfair to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Rumors would be troublesome, yes. But it’s not any more so because it’s you, my lady.”
Arius said that quietly, looking at her.
Lady Maribel Sephardi must be out of her mind.
That was the conclusion Duke Arius Romero reached upon returning to House Sephardi.
‘She seemed strange from the very first moment.’
She had thrown her engagement ring at him, then fainted in the middle of tea.
It was the Feast of Rocio—an event held once every five years.
Romero of the northeast and Sephardi of the far south—two ducal territories at the opposite ends of Naparo.
‘As if coming to this infernally hot region wasn’t bad enough.’
Bernao, the Empire, had decreed that all four ducal houses—excluding the capital—would take turns hosting the Rocio Feast, claiming it was only fair.
Naturally, this turned into a matter of pride—each duchy competing to hold the grandest celebration.
Arius found all of it tiresome.
He hadn’t even wanted to become a duke.
After his family’s massacre, Count Lamparo—his maternal relative—had served as regent for a time.
Arius had long avoided officially assuming the title, using his military campaigns as an excuse.
But in the end, he accepted it—realizing that to avenge his family, he needed the power that came with the title.
The seat once held by his father and elder brother.
Wearing that name carried only bitterness.
Four years had passed since he became Duke Romero, and this was the first Rocio Feast of his tenure.
‘That lady’s fainting act was unconvincing at best.’
The supposed fainting fit—her body had been stiff as a board when he caught her, as if bracing herself.
And then there was the black veil she wore in the sweltering southern heat, and how she shut her eyes in panic the instant their gazes met through the lace.
“What has you so deep in thought, Your Grace?”
The same deep blue eyes as that day were staring straight at him.
Caught thinking of Maribel, Arius flinched slightly and shook his head.
“It’s nothing.”
“You say that, but your face looks far too serious for it to be nothing.”
Maribel Sephardi’s pitch-black eyes were always full of mischief.
She spoke as though everything in the world were a jest.
Even her flirtations carried no trace of sincerity.
And yet, with that same light tone and gaze, she’d told him she had fallen in love at first sight.
“Hardly.”
Arius found her unsettling.
Not just because this flighty woman had managed to discompose him after only a few days.
“…I was wondering whether your fan would be finished on time.”
“Beaumont said it wouldn’t take long to make. It might take a little more time to set the crushed opal pieces, but I trust they’ll meet the deadline. They wouldn’t want to upset their doorman, after all.”
Maribel murmured, leaning her head against the carriage window.
She had been treated with blatant discourtesy at the boutique.
Yet the duchess of one of the Empire’s highest noble houses—the equal of royalty—seemed entirely unbothered. She only shrugged.
‘That’s odd. A noblewoman of her standing brushing off such treatment like it’s nothing?’
It had to be the product of complicated family dynamics.
The Duke of Sephardi. His wife. Their eldest daughter, now well past her coming of age, yet who had never learned even the basics of ballroom etiquette—now venturing out to buy her first fan.
Until recently, she’d even worn a mourning veil.
And then there were her eccentric siblings—a brother whose behavior toward her was questionable, and a younger sister soon to be the Crown Prince’s fiancée.
A tangled family indeed.
As Arius pondered, Maribel looked at him and smiled sweetly.
“Were you really worrying about such a little thing for my sake, Your Grace?”
Her lips, a startling shade of red, curved upward.
Her slender neck, her ink-black hair shining as though wet, her beauty contrasted starkly against her pale skin.
Even the small beauty mark near her mouth drew the eye irresistibly.
He suddenly realized he’d been staring too long. Arius turned his head and replied evenly,
“The purpose of my escort was to ensure you could purchase your fan. If that goal isn’t achieved, this outing is meaningless—that’s all I was thinking.”
“I didn’t care about the fan. I just wanted to spend time with you.”
“There’s no need to say such things.”
“But it’s true. And I really did have fun today. You taught me so much.”
Fun, she said.
And then she smiled again, bright as sunlight.
“Didn’t you enjoy yourself, too, Your Grace? Or were you bored?”
Arius couldn’t answer.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her for even a moment.
She was expressive to the extreme—laughing, startled, embarrassed, then suddenly serious.
Especially those eyes.
Deep as the night sea, every time they met his, he found it hard to look away.
Simply watching her was like witnessing an endlessly fascinating play—never dull.
‘But of course, I can’t say that out loud.’
Maribel was predictable and yet full of surprises, making her impossible to read.
When he shook his head slightly, her eyes brightened.
“If it wasn’t boring, then how about going out together again sometime?”
“Without a proper purpose or pretext, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to go out alone, my lady.”
“Is that what people from Romero think?”
Her eyes widened, filled with innocent curiosity—he could tell she truly wanted to know.
“Strictly speaking, Romero is one of the more liberal regions of Naparo.”
“Then in Naparo, it’s frowned upon for unmarried men and women to go out and fall in love?”
“For nobles, yes… that’s generally the case.”
So she really had never left the duchy before. Even basic social norms seemed foreign to her.
‘She’s practically a child.’
Maybe that was why she acted so freely.
‘Her siblings didn’t stand out much, though.’
Arius wasn’t one to attend many social events, but he had passing acquaintance with the other ducal families.
The Sephardis, aside from Maribel, were perfectly proper in manner and often seen at gatherings.
Except for her—the so-called “dead pearl.”
‘How did this lady end up so clueless…?’
A woman who started with a blatant confession, who shamelessly exposed her own disgrace, and somehow led him all the way here.
A woman who, despite her supposed ignorance, had waved a fan in that particular way.
‘Why am I even thinking about this?’
Maribel Sephardi, in just a few days, had completely upended the mind of a man whose life was built on vengeance.
It reminded him of something.
Of a girl from long ago—one who had once made his thoughts bounce around in exactly the same way.
