Alicia blinked in confusion for a moment as she looked at her mother.

“An invitation? What invitation? From him? For me? Why?”

“I told you. I asked him to invite you to Russell Manor.”

“You did, Mother?”

“Yes. Here, this arrived today, the invitation.”

Facing her smiling mother, Alicia gaped with a dumbfounded expression before taking the invitation at her mother’s insistent gesture.

She stared blankly at the invitation, thinking that all of her mother’s kind words earlier were just to set this up.

“…I’ll go out for a bit.”

Her mind went blank, and she wanted to be alone for a moment.

Alicia left her mother’s bedroom and quietly returned to her own room, collapsing onto the bed.

Then, slowly blinking her eyes, she mulled over the current situation.

‘A woman who, after being saved from a difficult situation, didn’t even say thank you, then rejected him after 15 minutes at their next meeting and ran away, only to secretly want to meet again.’

“Ugh. That strange woman is me-.”

Feeling mortified enough to die, Alicia pulled the blanket over her head.

But then she thought that if she rejected him again, she might not just be a strange woman, but a crazy one.

‘Why do I keep getting tangled up with that man in weird ways?’

‘I shouldn’t have met him at all back then. I should have spoken firmly, even if Mother cried.’

But regret was useless now.

As she groaned under the blanket from embarrassment and awkwardness, quite some time had passed.

With a feeling of resignation, Alicia slowly poked her head out from under the blanket.

“He must have felt like this too.”

She could almost hear Eric’s voice from before, lamenting.

“Even if this time can’t be helped, will this really be the end? His mother seems just as unpredictable as mine.”

“If I keep getting dragged along like this and end up in an impossible situation-”

“I should try to resolve this somehow before it becomes too difficult later.”

Alicia muttered weakly before suddenly sitting up.

Eric’s situation is different from hers.

He’s the heir to a ducal family, and everything is already stable for him, so it wouldn’t be strange for him to marry anytime.

But right now, he doesn’t want to marry, so he must be in a difficult situation because of his parents pushing forcefully.

“I’m sure Gloucester Duchy was the largest shareholder of that trading company I helped audit before.”

Back then, she was young and inexperienced, so she only did assistant work, but having such a big company on her resume would surely be a great help when looking for jobs in the future.

“It seems there’s room for negotiation. Isn’t it worth a try?”

“If the agreement goes well, we can proceed, and if not, it will end one way or another, so there’s nothing to lose, right?”

***

Eric was flustered.

More than his mother’s sudden appearance, what she said was even more surprising.

“Countess Lancaster sent a letter. She said you did so well?”

“Me? What did I do?”

Seeing her son blink in confusion, not understanding what she meant, the Duchess of Gloucester smiled teasingly.

“Don’t be coy. She said you even fed pudding directly to the child? With your temperament, to go that far, you must have really wanted to make a good impression? Moreover.”

The Duchess suddenly laughed loudly.

“You said you like children? You?”

‘Aaaaagh! I should have killed my past self back then!’

Eric was so shocked that he let out an internal scream, but outwardly his whole body froze.

“The twins are still asking for you. Countess Lancaster wrote it several times in her letter, saying thank you.”

“……”

“So invite her. As soon as possible.”

“Who?”

“Who else, Alicia of course.”

“What? Why?”

“Why are you acting like this now?”

“Will she come if I invite her?”

“Why else would we be having this conversation?”

“……”

‘We clearly agreed to end things, so why again? No, more than that, why are they suddenly…?’

As his mind failed to keep up with the rapidly changing situation, Eric could only blink. The Duchess looked at her son with the most delighted expression she’d shown all year.

***

As soon as the carriage carrying Alicia arrived at Russell Manor, the butler rushed forward.

Eric was too taken aback to stop him in time.

Ignoring Eric, the butler opened the carriage door with an excited expression.

“Welcome, my lady.”

“Thank you.”

As Eric stood there blankly, when he should have been escorting Alicia, the butler gestured with his head for him to come quickly, as if to say ‘What are you doing?’

It was something the butler would never do normally, even with a knife to his throat, but neither the excited butler nor the flustered Eric noticed.

Eric quickly extended his hand to Alicia at the butler’s prompting.

“Welcome.”

“Hello.”

Alicia took Eric’s hand and stepped down from the carriage.

Though the two were impeccably polite, the atmosphere was unbearably awkward.

‘What’s with this atmosphere? I’m sure the Madam said things were going well…’

The butler watching from the side tilted his head, wondering what was going on.

‘Ah, right. It’s the first time he’s invited a lady to the mansion. I suppose it’s understandable then.’

Coming to his own conclusion, he once again assumed a maximally courteous and welcoming posture towards Alicia.

***

“……”

“……”

After the butler poured tea and left, the two sat in silence for a while.

Then, as their eyes met, Eric smiled awkwardly and offered the tea.

“Please, have some.”

“Yes. Ah, it’s that tea. Orange Silet.”

“That’s right.”

After watching Alicia drink the tea for a moment, Eric spoke up.

“I heard that the Silet region used to be famous for oranges. So they tried various ways to cultivate tea with an orange scent or flavor, and apparently it tasted like oranges during the initial tests.

But when they started mass production for commercial sale, something in the conditions must not have been right, because it ended up tasting like other fruits.”

“Oh my.”

“The promotions and product packaging were already decided by then, so they couldn’t change the name.”

“Ah, so that’s why it’s still called Orange Silet.”

“I looked into it because I remembered I hadn’t told you last time.”

“You remembered. Thank you.”

“Well, yes.”

Thinking it would surely be awkward when they met, Eric had badgered a distant relative who was handling affairs in Silet to find out this information, just to have something to talk about. It turned out to be useful.

As Eric was pondering what else to say, Alicia took another sip of tea and carefully opened her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Lord Eric.”

“?”

“It seems it wasn’t just your problem. My mother too… well. I didn’t expect her to go this far.”

“Ha, haha.”

After watching Eric laugh awkwardly for a moment, Alicia gripped the hem of her skirt slightly and spoke.

“To be honest, I was worried. That you might think I’m a strange woman.”

“Ah-. That’s not the case. I’m in no position to think that way either. And it’s not like we wanted to come this far.”

At those words, all the situations they had been through flashed through their minds like a panorama.

Then, as their eyes met, both of them suddenly burst out laughing.

“Thinking about it now, it’s really bewildering.”

“Indeed. I’ve never been swept along like this before.”

“Me neither.”

The feeling of being almost bewitched made them laugh again.

But thanks to that, the awkward atmosphere was dispelled, and the two were able to face each other with much more comfortable expressions than before.

Thinking to herself that this was fortunate, Alicia met Eric’s eyes.

“?”

“Shall we get engaged?”

“…Pardon?”

“Let’s get engaged, you and I.”

At first, Eric thought he had misheard.

“What’s this all of a sudden.”

Eric, who was about to brush it off with an embarrassed expression, straightened his posture when he met Alicia’s serious gaze.

“I apologize. It’s too unexpected. May I ask the reason?”

“Neither you nor I actually want to get married, right?”

“That’s… correct.”

“But it doesn’t seem like our parents will give up.”

“That’s true.”

“So I was thinking, how about making a contract with me?”

“A contract?”

“Yes. You could call it an engagement contract.”

“Why make such an unfavorable proposal? Breaking off the engagement later will damage your reputation.”

For him, there was no reputation left to damage, but that wouldn’t be the case for Alicia.

But Alicia shrugged her shoulders as if it didn’t matter.

“Thank you for your concern. That’s a problem I’ll have to bear. But since you mention it, though it feels a bit odd to call it compensation…”

“?”

“Won’t you hire me?”

“Hire you?”

“I need a job.”

“A job? Why?”

“Life isn’t easy. As you know, my father has been away for a long time, my mother is weak, and my siblings are still young.”

Alicia spoke calmly with an unbothered expression, but Eric was perplexed.

Usually, people want to hide such things, not speak about them openly.

More than that, he had heard that Lancaster County was quite prosperous during the previous generation. It seemed odd that just one generation later, the daughter of an earl would need to look for work.

“Does anyone know about the current situation of Lancaster County?”

“They would, wouldn’t they? I’ve never hidden it.”

Neither Eric nor the Duchess had noticed anything when they visited the mansion directly.

Even the dressmaker madam whom the Duchess had met Alicia through.

Then the conversation he had with his mother, the Duchess, suddenly came to mind and started to connect with Alicia’s words.

‘It must be fate. I hear Countess Lancaster also mainly wears clothes from that dressmaker we patronize. You know that shop doesn’t make clothes for just anyone, right? As expected.’

‘Mother, I think she might have worked and received payment from that dressmaker.’

‘I hear she even helps needy neighbors with the goods or cash she receives.’

‘Mother, I think those needy neighbors might be herself.’

‘The mansion had an antique feel and sense of history.’

‘Mother, that’s just because it’s old.’

“Lord Eric?”

Eric was pulled from his thoughts by Alicia’s voice.

He gazed at Alicia, who was looking at him and waiting for a response.

‘Given my parents’ personalities, they won’t give up. If I can just spend a few months quietly in the capital, that should be enough.’

A contract requires give and take to be established, and since both sides’ desires were clear, this could make for an excellent contract.

Moreover, if Alicia was as capable as the dressmaker madam had guaranteed, Eric had nothing to lose.

“Let’s do it, the engagement.”

The decision was quick.

“As equal partners, we’ll each take what we want through a contract.”

“Yes. That’s what I wanted.”

“For now, let’s announce it as a betrothal. Since Earl Lancaster is absent, we won’t have an official engagement. That way, even if we break it off later, it won’t be a major blemish.”

“Ah, that would be good.”

“One more thing. I’ll decide the reason for breaking off the engagement.”

“Why?”

“Because there will likely be more reasons on my side.”

“What kind of reasons?”

“We’ll discuss that later.”

Not particularly wanting to say it with his own mouth, Eric smiled and glossed over it.

“Then shall we discuss the details of the contract?”