"Sir Jonny is your partner, and here you are, stuck in here because of a maid like me…… I'm so sorry."
After a long silence, Ruri ducked her head and fidgeted with her fingers as she whispered. As a minor noble, Jonny ought to have been mingling with the young ladies of the glittering ballroom—and she felt terrible that he was shut away in the dark with someone in her position instead.
Jonny studied Ruri's profile for a moment. Her green eyes caught the moonlight and shimmered, and her lashes trembled with barely contained nerves—somehow she looked even more endearing than usual. Jonny had always been a straightforward, selfless knight, but even he couldn't deny it: something warm and fluttery was seeping into him from this small, quiet space they shared.
"I'm not missing anything."
Jonny pushed his light-brown hair back and said it like it was nothing.
"A noisy, fake ballroom? I'd much rather be out here watching the stars with you."
"I—pardon?"
Ruri looked up in surprise, and Jonny smiled at her—a wide, open smile, his violet eyes soft at the corners. That gentle smile knocked the breath right out of her. She had sworn to herself, over and over, never to let these feelings show because of the gap between them. But in the flutter of the night breeze, the distance between them was closing—slowly, secretly, inch by inch.
While Jonny and Ruri were nurturing that sweet, unspoken tension on the moonlit terrace, the imperial ballroom had become a silent battlefield—every eligible young lord angling for Lia's attention. The moment Jonny disappeared, the suitors who had sent their proposals saw their opening and swarmed.
What they found blocking their path was an immovable wall of polished steel: Ed, the most capable—and most dangerous—butler in the Count's household.
"Lady Lia, are you here alone? I'm beginning to question Sir Jonny's judgment. Leaving a lady this radiant unattended—honestly."
The first to approach was the eldest son of a marquess family, famous in social circles for his silver tongue. He reached for Lia's hand, lips already descending toward it, when Ed materialized between them with a silver tray, smooth as silk. What the young marquess's lips met was not Lia's pale hand—it was the rim of a chilled crystal champagne flute that Ed had inserted with perfect precision.
"Young Lord Marquess, how kind of you to make the trip. I'm afraid my lady is still recovering from the fatigue of our recent journey and is feeling rather delicate this evening. She simply hasn't the energy to smile at your witticisms."
"I didn't come here to trade witticisms—!"
"If you didn't come to be witty, that's even more alarming."
Ed bowed with impeccable courtesy, but the blue eyes behind his glasses, looking down at the young lord, were cold as ice.
"Furthermore, there is a rumor circulating that last month, at a well-known gambling establishment in the capital, you pledged your family's mining shares as collateral. My lady's grasp of financial matters is already somewhat… underdeveloped. I would hate for it to be further corrupted by association with someone of such loose fiscal habits. I'll ask you to step away."
Having his most damaging secret recited aloud under the blazing chandeliers by a smiling butler, the young marquess went white as a sheet and retreated at speed. Lia watched him go, champagne flute in hand, and shot Ed a look for the crack about her financial sense—then burst out laughing anyway.
"Wow, Ed. He gambles? I knew he had a shifty face. Good thing you caught it!"
"I only did what was necessary, my lady."
Ed smiled graciously and gave the hem of Lia's dress a small, precise adjustment.
Before long, a haughty young count from the southern provinces strode over with all the confidence of a man who expected to be charmed in return. He opened with Lia's famous train journey, hoping to find common ground.
"My lady, the southern coastal railway is simply breathtaking, isn't it? I rode through on my private carriage just last year—the scenery is absolutely—"
"Oh! The southern coastal line? I've been there too, it really is amaz—"
Lia was already lighting up, ready to dive in, when Ed stepped smoothly behind her and draped a soft silk scarf around her shoulders—cutting the young count off mid-sentence.
"The southern coastal railway, you say. That particular line was the site of two separate derailments last autumn due to ground subsidence—it holds the distinction of being the most hazardous stretch of track in the Empire. That you speak of it so admiringly does make one wonder about the engineering standards of the railway works your family owns."
"Why, you—how dare you! A mere butler, insulting a noble family's livelihood?"
The young count sputtered, his face cycling through shades of red and purple, but Ed didn't so much as blink. He refilled Lia's glass and continued.
"Not an insult—a caution. The Count of Crimson has no intention of investing so much as a single gold coin in shoddy workmanship that cannot guarantee safety. I suggest you take your leave before the guards notice this commotion. It would be better for your reputation."
The young count stormed off, sputtering, no match for Ed's cool, surgical wit.
From the far corners of the ballroom, the other young lords who had been watching all of this swallowed hard and decided they had no business approaching Lia at all. That smile of his was warm—almost playful—but the words behind it and the information he wielded were terrifying. One wrong move and tomorrow morning every skeleton in your family's closet would be plastered across the society pages.
"Hmm, why does everyone leave looking so upset? Society people are so hard to read."
Lia tilted her head and crunched on a petit four, genuinely puzzled.
Ed turned to her with the most gentle, harmless smile in the world. Behind his back, another cluster of would-be suitors caught one glimpse of his eyes and quietly reversed course.
"They simply aren't equal to you, my lady. Who could manage your particular brand of… demanding?"
"You're teasing me again."
"Well. You need only enjoy the evening, my lady."
Ed produced his handkerchief and carefully wiped away the tiniest crumb of pastry from Lia's hand.
Poor Jonny, shivering on the moonlit terrace, had no idea. While he sat there in the night air, Ed had been methodically dismantling every man who came within three feet of Lia—with a smile on his face the entire time. Watching Lia laugh and lean on him, trusting no one else, Ed savored something richer and darker than any fine wine in the room: the exquisite, private sweetness of having her entirely to himself.
The imperial gala's brilliant music had faded to nothing, and the nobility were drifting one by one toward the courtyard to find their carriages. Thanks to Ed's airtight defense, Lia had made it through the entire evening without surrendering so much as a fingertip to any suitor.
But at the very threshold, just as they were heading for the carriage, an unexpected ambush materialized. He was Ked Valkar, the eldest son of a viscount family—a young man who had spent the evening thoroughly captivated by the Crimson family's wealth and Lia's beauty in equal measure.
The moment Ed turned to open the carriage door and smooth the seat, Ked moved with startling speed, stepping in front of Lia and bowing with practiced elegance.
"Lady Lia, not being at your side this evening is the greatest regret of my life."
Ked was one of the handful of persistent suitors who had survived the pile of applications Lia had handed off to be dealt with. Before Ed could interpose himself, Ked reached toward Lia's hand and murmured sweetly:
"Please—grant me the honor of escorting you at the next social club gathering. I look forward to that occasion, and I bid you good night."
Rather than pressing his lips to her hand, he held her gaze with a devastating smile—and then he was gone, like smoke.
Lia just laughed it off: "Oh, was that young Lord Ked? He's certainly in a hurry." But the state of the butler standing behind her was something else entirely.
A vein ticked, almost imperceptibly, at Ed's temple. The blue eyes tracking Ked's retreating figure burned with a cold, quiet fury—the look of a man already planning to bury an entire viscountcy.
*Ked Valkar…… Next social gathering. There won't be one. Not for you.*
He ground his teeth once, drew a measured breath, and smoothed his expression back into the face of a perfectly capable butler before turning to Lia.
"My lady, the carriage is waiting…… Before we go, however, I believe we need to collect some lost property."
"Lost property? What did we lose?"
"Indeed. The family's knight and housemaid appear to be stranded somewhere inconvenient, failing to perform their duties. It falls to their employer's generosity to retrieve them."
"…Hm?"
At that same moment—the imperial terrace where Jonny and Ruri were trapped.
The terrace had shed every trace of the day's splendor, leaving nothing but moonlight pooled across the stone.
Tall arched columns cast long, deep shadows over the polished white marble floor, and between them silver light fell in broken shards. Beyond the balustrade, the imperial gardens crouched in the darkness, rustling and breathing slowly each time the wind moved through them. The only warmth came from the stone lanterns placed at the corners of the terrace—each one spilling a soft amber glow that barely reached the tips of their shoes.
After a stretch of awkward silence spent staring at the ground, Ruri finally spoke.
"Sir Jonny, I really am not cold. Please take your cloak back……"
"Forget it. You've been shivering for the past hour."
Ruri was huddled at one end of the bench, wrapped in Jonny's cloak; Jonny sat calmly beside her, facing the night sky, unbothered by the cold. The stiffness of two hours ago had dissolved entirely. What remained was something quieter—a strange, fragile closeness made of nothing but each other's breathing and the moonlight. The wall of rank between them felt, just for now, like something they could almost forget.
What shattered that romantic silence was not a crash or a bang.
*Click.*
The door swung open with the smooth, perfectly oiled precision of something that had been waiting for exactly the right moment. Jonny and Ruri spun around simultaneously—and there stood Ed, lantern in hand, wearing a mildly amused smile. Behind him, Lia peered over his shoulder with wide eyes: "Wait—why are you two coming out of there?"
"Your time is up, you two. My lady would like to go home."
Jonny let out a short, disbelieving laugh and stood up from the bench.
"Ed, isn't this a bit much? You locked your own escort knight in a closet."
"You flatter me, Sir Jonny. Thanks to that arrangement, my lady's evening was entirely peaceful and safe."
Ed replied without missing a beat. Jonny clicked his tongue and, without thinking, gave Ruri a brief pat on the shoulder.
Meanwhile, the sight of Ed and Lia snapped Ruri back to reality like a bucket of cold water. Her face went scarlet and she scrambled to her feet, rushing toward Ed.
"M-Mr. Ed! A-and my lady! I—the door was locked, you see—!"
"Well…… I'll be rooting for you both……?"
A true noblewoman knows how to wish happiness upon the people she cares about. Lia smiled warmly; Ruri made a strangled noise and waved her hands in frantic denial. Ed, however, took one look at Ruri's flushed face and the cloak still around her shoulders, stepped close, and murmured quietly in her ear:
"Well done, Ruri. I confess it took me a little longer than usual to open that door—I didn't want to interrupt your…… deep conversation."
"What?! N-no, it wasn't like that at all—!"
Ruri was so mortified she could have stamped a hole through the floor, but Ed had already turned away and was walking calmly down the cold corridor.
Whatever tender feelings Jonny and Ruri had kindled on that terrace, they were already far from Ed's mind. His thoughts were occupied entirely with one thing: a detailed, methodical plan for how to ensure that Ked Valkar, who had had the audacity to suggest a future meeting with Lia, would find himself thoroughly and permanently erased from polite society.
"Sir Jonny, Ruri—if you don't keep up, you'll be walking home."
As Ed disappeared into the darkness with his dangerous intentions perfectly concealed, Jonny felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the night air, and Ruri was too busy trying to muffle the sound of her own heartbeat to notice. And Lia turned the scene over in her mind—Jonny, whom she had privately considered a candidate for a husband, and Ruri, whose face had gone the most adorable shade of red…
*Ruri's blush was so cute! But how do I help them along?*
It was too embarrassing to play matchmaker outright, but she couldn't just pretend she hadn't seen anything—not when her dearest maid's first love was right there in front of her. And so Lia's sweet little dilemma quietly began.