Chapter 39

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: I Really Hate This Débutante Partner
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Lucrezia decided to be brazen.

“Yes, he’s my nephew. Zanobi, the son of my second brother, Stefano.”

The Latin tutor, Giovanni, who had visited before, was a distant cousin of Lucrezia’s, but this time, it was a much closer relative. It seemed she was determined to take proper care of her own. Arabella, not long out of her month-long confinement, chimed in tactlessly.

“Oh, that ugly cousin?”

“You, keep your mouth shut.”

Lucrezia growled at Arabella in a low voice from the head of the table. The intimidated girl buried her nose in her plate and focused on her food.

“What choice do I have when there are so few relatives in this house? If you had any relatives on your side, of course I would have invited them, but since you don’t, I must.”

It was a subtle dig at the fact that Cardinal de Mare was an orphan and had no relatives on his father’s side. Indeed, upon hearing this, the Cardinal said nothing, only letting out a low groan.

“What is he doing these days?”

Lucrezia gave a long-winded answer to Isabella’s question. Words like “promising future,” “kind,” and “diligently preparing for the future” were thrown around, but when all the flowery language was stripped away, the summary was that he was not a knight, nor a knight apprentice, but a knight’s squire. A squire was someone who learned martial arts from a knight in their spare time, in exchange for doing menial tasks without pay—leading the knight’s horse, helping him into his armor, feeding the horse, and so on. If a young nobleman from a knightly family worked as a squire, he would usually be promoted to a knight apprentice around the age of twenty. But if the son of a family from a different background worked as a squire, there was truly no telling when he might be knighted. The vast majority of them would spend five, even ten years dreaming of being knighted and rising in status, all while leeching off their parents. In other words, the position of a squire was what a boy from a reasonably wealthy family chose as a way to postpone a career choice when he wasn’t smart enough to become a jurist or a merchant, but found the idea of farming beneath him.

“Isn’t that a bit below our station?”

In the end, Cardinal de Mare couldn’t hold back his thoughts. It wasn’t something one should say to a nephew from one’s wife’s family, but Lucrezia’s family wasn’t technically his real in-laws and had been sucking him dry for the past twenty years. It was only human nature that his words wouldn’t come out kindly. However, from Lucrezia’s perspective, things looked quite different. She snapped back, her voice sharp with irritation.

“Am I trying to marry Zanobi off to her? It’s just for one night as her débutante partner! If not Zanobi, do you have any other relative to be her partner?!”

When Lucrezia got like this, it was always followed by at least three days of a chilly atmosphere, a barrage of nagging, and a litany of complaints about her miserable life. The Cardinal would have to walk on eggshells in his own home. He pressed a hand to his forehead, warding off an encroaching headache, and waved his other hand in surrender.

“Fine, fine, we have no one! It’s all my fault for having no relatives! Do as you please!”

* * *

Lucrezia’s ability to act was formidable. Her nephew, Zanobi, had already received her message a week ago and had set off from his hometown, the fief of Taranto. At the very moment Lucrezia was unilaterally informing the Cardinal of her decision to bring Zanobi over lunch, he was already crossing the city limits of San Carlo. He arrived at the Cardinal’s residence that afternoon and was immediately invited to a tea party to be introduced to Ariadne.

“I am Zanobi de Rossi, here by invitation of the lady of the house. This mansion is absolutely magnificent. Wow, so you’ve all been living in such luxury by yourselves?”

Just as expected of a son from a family entirely dependent on Lucrezia for their living expenses, Zanobi was greedy, ungrateful, and quick to find fault. He was a young man in his early twenties with a short stature, a thick neck, and short limbs. His small eyes, chubby cheeks, and weak chin made him look even younger than his age. The three sisters—Isabella, Ariadne, and Arabella—sat in the young ladies’ drawing room, each observing this ‘cousin’ with different thoughts.

Arabella’s was the simplest.

‘He really is ugly.’

Ariadne sensed something unsettling from the young man’s features.

‘His eyes are murky.’

Isabella smelled a pushover before Zanobi had even properly entered the drawing room and sat down.

‘His type. He’ll do whatever I say.’

Zanobi, oblivious to what the three sisters under the Cardinal’s care were thinking of him, puffed out his chest and greeted his aunt.

“Aunt Lucrezia! I haven’t seen you since my grand-uncle’s funeral five or six years ago. You’ve been well?”

“Zanobi. I hear you’ve been working hard lately.”

“Of course.”

Zanobi sat Lucrezia and the sisters down and began to boast. He spun tales about how great knights were, which knights had recently performed great deeds, and what was trending among them, all as if he were a knight himself. Despite being a guest in his cardinal uncle’s house, he bragged at length, implying that a successful knight was a far more respectable profession than a clergyman. After a good while of self-praise, Zanobi turned his gaze to the sisters.

“Oh, right. I hear one of you is the lady I’m supposed to take to the débutante.”

He looked the three sisters up and down, then dismissed Arabella.

“You’re just a little kid, so it’s not you.”

Arabella, who hated being treated like a child more than anything, scowled. Zanobi’s eyes shifted, and his face brightened upon seeing the innocently and delicately beautiful Isabella, but he had heard the rumors. He knew the House of de Mare had a famously beautiful eldest daughter, a so-so new second daughter, and the original youngest daughter. It seemed that news of the ‘girl who sees through the truth,’ which was making waves in San Carlo, had not yet reached the far southern fief of Taranto. Even for someone as lacking in self-awareness as Zanobi, he knew that the famously beautiful eldest daughter was not his match. His date for the evening was not the beautiful one, but the shabby second daughter. Smacking his lips in disappointment, Zanobi looked at Ariadne and extended his right hand, a gesture for her to place her left hand upon his for a kiss.

“It must be you. I’m Zanobi de Rossi. Your cousin.”

Ariadne’s left eyebrow shot skyward. Behind her, Sancha’s eyes blazed with a green fire. If Lucrezia hadn’t been there, Sancha might have struck Zanobi with a tray. Ariadne hid both her hands behind her back. Zanobi’s outstretched right hand was left hanging awkwardly in the air.

“My hand… I’d rather not.”

Her words were a polite, roundabout protest. Zanobi was Lucrezia’s nephew, but he and Ariadne, who shared no blood with Lucrezia, were effectively strangers. They were not on terms to speak so informally upon first meeting. However, infuriated that his gesture for a kiss had been ignored, Zanobi’s tone turned confrontational.

“My aunt! Huh? She’s your mother, so that makes me your cousin. Hey, can’t a cousin speak informally to his younger cousin?”

His attitude was infuriating, but technically, everything Zanobi said was correct. It was considered a virtue for a recognized illegitimate child in San Carlo to treat the legal wife as their own mother, and it was proper etiquette for everyone around them to act as if the child were indeed the wife’s. The problem was that a kiss on the hand carried a sexual nuance and was not something done between actual relatives. For him to demand a kiss on the hand while claiming to be her cousin revealed his highly impure intentions. Ariadne gritted her teeth and smiled, nodding her head.

“Cousin Zanobi. It’s a pleasure to meet you. As for the kiss on my hand, I’m not wearing gloves right now, so perhaps another time.”

It was proper etiquette for a gentleman not to request a kiss on the hand if the lady was ungloved. In the unavoidable event that a kiss was exchanged while the lady was bare-handed, it was mannerly to kiss the air without one’s lips touching her skin, but Zanobi didn’t seem the type to observe such courtesies. He was the type who, if corrected, would surely throw a fit, claiming, ‘Of course I was going to kiss the air, what do you take me for?’ Ariadne decided it was better to let it go and be seen as the sensitive one rather than bicker over trivialities. But Lucrezia was not one to let it pass without a comment.

“What’s the big deal about a kiss on the hand? Why be so fussy among family? You’ll hurt your cousin Zanobi’s feelings.”

“Ariadne is a bit prickly,” Isabella, her mother’s soulmate, chimed in, joining the effort to make Ariadne out to be the strange one. “If she doesn’t like something, that’s that. She doesn’t consider other people’s feelings. She has no flexibility at all.”

It was clear that staying here any longer would lead to nothing good. Ariadne decided to make a swift escape.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment…”

Ariadne stood up, asking for their understanding as she needed to use the powder room. Her plan was to hide in the restroom for an hour or so before slowly returning. As she rose from her seat, Zanobi clicked his tongue.

“Wow. You’re really tall.”

Ariadne shot a look at Zanobi, annoyed by his comment. Since moving into the Cardinal’s residence, Ariadne had been extremely restrictive with her meals, yet she had shot up like a well-watered bamboo stalk, already standing at 3 piedi and 10 dito (about 166 centimeters). She was quite tall for her age. Zanobi, who was to be her partner at the débutante ball and share the first dance with her, happened to be short, even for his age.

“You’re that tall, and you’re wearing heels too?”

Ariadne instinctively glanced down at her shoes. They were low-heeled, only about 1 dito (3.6 centimeters) high.

“As your cousin, let me give you a piece of advice. Listen carefully.”

Though no one had asked, Zanobi began a grand speech with the triumphant air of someone revealing a critically important secret.

“Women these days, huh? They think they just need to stand out, so they wear high heels and all that, but that’s really inconsiderate. A woman who knows how to make the man next to her look good is the one who truly shines.”

Zanobi said, puffing out his chest.

“On the day of the ball, wear shoes with no heels. That’s what a truly wise woman would do.”

Lucrezia watched the scene with a pleased expression, while Isabella was practically holding her sides, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle from across the river. Only Arabella and Sancha, who were staring at Zanobi as if he were some disgusting lump, were on Ariadne’s side. Despite it all, Ariadne managed to maintain a graceful smile for everyone, including Zanobi, as she left. The moment the drawing room door clicked shut behind the smiling Ariadne, her expression soured. She abandoned her plan to return in an hour and instead instructed Sancha, who had followed her out, to return in fifteen minutes and inform the others that Lady Ariadne was feeling unwell and could not drink any more tea today. Then, with a hardened expression, she said one more thing.

“I can tolerate most things, but this is just not right.”

“No, my lady. I agree, it’s not right at all.”

As Ariadne briskly returned to her study, a servant sent by the butler informed her that a letter had arrived. The envelope the servant carried was adorned with gold filigree and sealed with red wax, stamped with the initials AFC.

“It’s from the prince, my lady.”

“The prince is the answer.”

Ariadne and Sancha looked at each other and nodded.