Chapter 20

“Now then. Let’s wait around here for a little while.”

As soon as we arrived at the shop I had in mind, I stopped outside without going in. I gave the hem of my simple dress a light flick and casually adjusted my silhouette.

“H-Huh?”

“If you’re bored, you’re welcome to take a stroll around town.”

At that, Yuri shook her head vigorously. I didn’t press her any further and simply remained standing beneath the shop’s awning. She kept sneaking puzzled glances at me, as though she couldn’t understand what I was up to, but I had no obligation to explain myself.

“Oh? Could you possibly be Lady Ophelia Desmond?”

Soon enough, someone who knew me appeared before my eyes, sooner than I’d expected. I’d figured that any young noblewoman whose only entertainment after graduating from the academy was attending parties day and night in hopes of catching a more eligible bachelor would inevitably stop by this place.

Apparently, Ophelia had attended the academy in name only, as the prince’s fiancée. She’d been repeatedly warned not to become too knowledgeable, and once Helena, who was a year younger, enrolled, she’d been looked down on at every turn. In the end, Ophelia had spent her entire time walking the shadowed paths with her head bowed.

She loved learning, yet she hadn’t even been allowed to enjoy that properly. Having to pretend to be just stupid enough to keep aristocratic men happy was cowardly of Ophelia, to say the least.

A man could demonstrate the breadth of his character by keeping an intelligent woman at his side. As for old men who’d done nothing but grow older for no good reason, they should retire already and spend their days hunting or fishing.

“You are… the right person, aren’t you?”

A haughty-looking young noblewoman gazed at me, her curly brunette hair swaying in the breeze. She’d approached me thinking I was Ophelia, but my entirely different air had apparently made her doubt herself. She was probably nothing more than another one of Helena’s hangers-on.

I lifted the hem of my dress ever so slightly and gave her a warm, friendly smile, as though she were an old friend.

“Yes, you have the right person. I am Ophelia, daughter of the Marquis of Desmond. And you are one of my younger sister Helena’s…?”

“Y-Yes. Helena and I have been close for quite some time.”

My hunch had been right. I smiled inwardly, then let my expression light up as though I’d just discovered something wonderfully exciting and out of the ordinary.

“Thank you so much for speaking to me. I’m absolutely delighted to have the chance to talk with one of her friends!”

“U-Um…”

She was clearly bewildered, unable to hide how she really felt. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the young noblewoman before me. There was nothing more pitiful than being a half-hearted villain’s lackey.