“That dress……”

Suddenly, Ricardo’s voice, grating like metal, woke me up again.

“Is it the Duchess’s creation?”

“Ah……”

He pulled me slightly away from his body and looked me up and down as if appraising me. Unable to bear that cool, unfamiliar gaze, I squirmed to break free from him again.

“Please let me go.”

Just as I thought he might release me willingly, Ricardo pulled one of my retreating arms between his armpits and hugged me even closer.

Only then did I snap back to my senses.

“Yes, this dress was indeed given to me by the Duchess.”

My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it had moved up to my throat, making it unbearable. But I couldn’t easily ask him to let me go.

As I was pondering what to do, the man’s hand slowly approached and grasped my chin. Then it slowly lifted it.

“Along with the handkerchief.”

Unlike me, who was trembling like a ship caught in a storm, terrified out of my wits, his cool face showed no expression. I wanted to find even the slightest emotion on his face, but Ricardo simply stared at me with his intense eyes.

I was reflected in Ricardo’s pitch-black pupils. The transparent me wavering inside them soon faded away. Then resignation seeped into his gaze, and the strength left his hand.

At the same time, the world seemed to shatter and return again.

The rhythmic sound of horse hooves striking the ground could be heard, and I felt the vibration of wheels scraping the floor. The sound of rain, which had seemed to come from far away, now rang in my ears.

I instinctively knew he would let me go like this.

The tension that had been squeezing my skin painfully dissipated first, followed by an inexplicable feeling of emptiness.

But I never shied away from fear. When I felt fear, I stepped in front of it even faster.

So that fear wouldn’t consume me.

“Rica.”

I called out to him with a deep breath.

He still stared at my lips without answering.

At that moment, it was I who shattered the boundary Ricardo had drawn and invaded his lips first. It didn’t matter now how he wanted to treat me. That was irrelevant.

I am never myself in front of Ricardo.

His lips, which felt surreal, were much softer than I remembered. Imagining he might push me away at any moment, I squeezed my eyes shut. The clumsy kiss that had smeared against his lips soon broke off with a soft sound.

Unable to look at his face, I turned my head away. At that moment, he grasped my chin in his hand, turned my face, and immediately crashed his lips against mine.

Without even time to close my eyes, I took in that dizzying moment when Ricardo tilted his head and approached. I couldn’t move an inch, as if my body had frozen. Soon my eyes closed, and the world seemed to turn off, fading to white.

When everything was erased, only Ricardo remained. The unfamiliar sensations he gave me pounded through my entire body as if awakening it.

The feeling of one finger touching and leaving my back, his breath exhaling as he precisely dug into the most sensitive part of my waist, then suddenly grasping my head in his palm and forcefully pressing his lips against mine.

His lips, which had suddenly rushed in and completely invaded, retreated slowly, unlike when they came. Clouded breaths escaped like vomiting, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes.

The lips that had touched once overlapped gently again.

It was instantaneous how the gentle movements intensified.

Is the person I’m kissing right now really Ricardo? Is this person, who is digging in as if it’s not enough even after going all out, really the same person I knew?

The passion that had been pouring out forcefully gradually became soft and careful. He filled every part without lacking, then took away as much as he wanted.

Even his kiss resembled him.

Always sudden, dizzying, then sweet and surprising. But without a single gap.

Like suddenly appearing one day and greatly stirring up my life, his kiss made me so helpless. It felt like my life was being turned upside down once again.

It was a dizzying sensation I could no longer endure.

“Stop……”

The weak protest I mumbled lost its strength to his actions, which were rummaging impatiently. I pushed a little with the hand I had placed on his chest, but even that lost its will when his fingers dug into my hair.

At this moment, there was nothing that could stop him.

Just as the world was spinning dizzily and even that was flickering hazily, the carriage stopped.

Without even time to recognize the moment when it was slowing down.

When he detached me from himself, a rough breath pierced through my chest.

Ricardo looked at me with unreadable eyes for a moment, then strengthened his hold on my back and pulled me towards him again.

As he patted my back soothingly, I felt how much my breathing had become disordered. With my forehead, which had become hot, against his strongly pulsating neck, I caught my ragged breath for a long time.

Ricardo kissed my upper lip stealthily, then my lower lip coaxingly, once each, equally, before starting to fix my thoroughly disheveled clothes.

Startled back to my senses, I hurriedly moved away from him and returned to my seat.

As I quickly moved to go outside, Ricardo stretched out his arm to block me.

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Your face… is too red.”

“Ah…!”

At those words, as I hurriedly covered my cheeks with both hands, he tightly closed his eyes.

When we returned to Count Enehas’s mansion, it was already late at night, but people were still filling the banquet hall. No, perhaps there were even more people than when we had left.

Some were enjoying secret meetings in a corner of the garden, unable to control their passions, and the balcony was already full.

While there were groups staggering drunkenly, there were also groups of yellow roses still stamping their feet, unable to find a partner.

But as soon as Ricardo and I entered, all eyes in the hall turned to us.

“Entering is Ricardo, Viscount of the Gardarelli Rochester family.”

The impact of this one sentence was enormous. As if this entire banquet had begun just for him, everyone’s gaze and steps were directed towards him. And by extension, to me standing beside him.

He took me to the center of the hall and waited for a suitable song to play.

In the meantime, Ricardo received from me a handkerchief with the family crest drawn on it, and soon tucked it neatly into the pocket on his chest.

The open jaws of the beast immediately disappeared into his pocket, but I was at a loss as to how to close my own mouth that I had opened myself.

As he led me around various parts of the hall, exclamations erupted from people everywhere. The women at least showed the courtesy of unfolding their fans, but the men openly displayed their surprise.

“It seems to be true that there’s a woman who helped Rochester’s manifestation.”

“Could it be that a separate saint exists?”

The chatter of people could be heard confusingly, but Ricardo didn’t seem to mind anything.

He kept his gaze solely on me and silently asked with his eyes if I could dance to each new song that played. When the melody changed for about the third time like this, we entered the dance floor.

That song was a famous dance tune widely used even in the duchy, the first chapter of dance lessons that every noble would learn first.

I never thought that the dancing I had forcibly learned from Sabrina would come in so handy.

Before matching steps with him, I was worried about how I would look, but once the music started flowing, those thoughts disappeared far away.

With his perfect lead, my feet barely touched the ground before rising again. I didn’t particularly feel like I was exerting any strength. Everything felt dizzy, as if it wasn’t my reality.

As soon as the dance ended, Count Enehas approached us.

He was a short, plump middle-aged man with an ordinary impression that somehow didn’t suit this splendid banquet.

However, his eyes alone glinted unpleasantly, revealing a greed that seemed determined not to let go of the prey before him.

Ricardo introduced me to him as the woman he was about to become engaged to. At that, I smiled awkwardly, but when Ricardo mentioned the imminent engagement date, I couldn’t even maintain the smile I had barely managed to put on.

Ricardo was the heir to the Rochester family, who already had a designated partner. So there must have been many questions, but Count Enehas couldn’t get anything out of him.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. But all questions were dismissed before the sentences could even be completed, and he wasn’t even allowed to give flattering compliments.

Of course, no one in there dared to approach Ricardo.

“Are you cold?”

He had been keeping his arm around my waist the whole time, and when he asked that, I realized that I had been trembling slightly for a while.

“No.”

He looked down at me for a moment and then took off his outer coat.

As he carelessly draped the coat over my shoulders, I felt completely buried in it. Was it thanks to his warmth? It seemed like my severely trembling body was calming down a bit.

As I barely managed to sigh while trying to adapt to the atmosphere, Ricardo tightly pulled the waist he was holding and whispered in my ear.