Chapter 8: The First Ball
It had been a full twenty-five days since our wedding when I finally saw the face of the woman who had become my wife.
Her fair skin and honey-blonde hair, styled in soft waves, framed her adorable face as though the curls themselves danced around her.
“Lord Olivier, thank you very much for escorting me today.”
My wife spoke with distant politeness before performing an absolutely flawless curtsy.
“My!”
“Lady Kastehelmi!”
“There isn’t a single trace of Brother Olivier’s colors in your outfit at all!”
Yuliana, who had just entered the entrance hall behind us, let out a startled cry.
And indeed, not a single color representing me had been incorporated into Kastehelmi’s dress.
Kastehelmi merely smiled silently.
Then the butler Glen spoke with a slightly stiff smile.
“Lady Yuliana, that dress suits you wonderfully.”
Yuliana wore a beautiful deep sapphire-blue gown.
And among the countless ribbons decorating her tied-up pink-blonde hair, she had woven in a single silver ribbon as an accent.
“Having my brothers’ colors close to me makes me feel reassured.”
That was Yuliana’s usual style — using one silver ribbon to represent us.
And today as well, she looked utterly adorable.
“Lord Olivier, the carriage is already prepared, so please depart first with Lady Kastehelmi.”
“Ah, understood.”
Today would be our first ball as husband and wife.
My brother Niklas had already departed for the palace due to prior obligations.
Yuliana planned to travel with Father and Mother instead.
That meant I alone would ride in the carriage with my new wife.
And under these circumstances, I naturally had to say something.
“Why are you not wearing my colors?”
Even Yuliana had incorporated silver among her ribbons.
Was my wife truly such a foolish woman that she could not even prepare colors matching my eyes and hair?
“You do understand this is the first ball we are attending together as husband and wife, don’t you?”
“My!”
“This dress was personally chosen for me by Lady Paula, and yet Lord Olivier still finds it unsatisfactory?”
Kastehelmi looked directly at me with her large hazel eyes while smiling pleasantly.
“I was naturally aware there would be a ball on this day.”
“However, I believed the husband normally provides the first gown and accessories for his wife.”
“But since nothing arrived even by the day before, I assumed I would not be attending the ball at all.”
“Then today, Lady Paula informed me that absolutely no matter what, I had to attend.”
Placing one hand lightly against her cheek, Kastehelmi tilted her head slightly.
“And so, we unpacked every dress I had brought from the count house to decide which one to use.”
“However, being informed on the very same day, naturally I possessed nothing that matched Lady Paula’s expectations.”
“Even so, after searching and searching, we finally selected the one dress deemed acceptable enough.”
“And with borrowed jewelry from Lady Paula, I somehow managed to maintain appearances suitable for a bride of the ducal house.”
“But perhaps that was still insufficient for Lord Olivier, who served as Prince Adolf’s personal guard and has grown accustomed to observing elegant noblewomen at court?”
Our house was, after all, merely a count house.
Naturally, she would not own dresses comparable to those of a ducal family.
And as Kastehelmi calmly continued speaking, cold sweat slowly began running down my back.
“I assumed Mother had prepared your dresses.”
“Lady Paula?”
Kastehelmi laughed softly.
“Lady Paula has apparently been collapsing from exhaustion quite frequently lately, so I doubt dresses were her highest priority.”
“Mother has been bedridden?”
“You were unaware?”
Kastehelmi never openly insulted me.
And yet somehow, those hazel eyes of hers carried enough silent condemnation to make me feel like absolute trash.
She never directly criticized me.
But for some reason, I felt as though I had been reduced to the lowest kind of human being.
“Lord Olivier is very busy, so it cannot be helped.”
Kastehelmi said that gently before adding:
“There are many forms of love in this world.”
“I shall always support you, Lord Olivier.”
I had absolutely no idea what exactly she was supporting.
Yet somehow, the atmosphere made it impossible to ask.
After finishing tea with my dear friend Kristina and the delightful troublemakers accompanying her, I returned to the ducal residence carrying mountains of baked sweets purchased from a luxury confectionery shop.
There’s an old saying:
If you wish to shoot the general, first shoot the horse.
And so I decided it was finally time to begin winning over the servants — something I had not yet properly done.
Naturally, I distributed sweets and small gifts to everyone possible.
Lower maids.
Stable hands.
Gardeners.
Even merchants visiting the estate.
Generally speaking, when people receive gifts, they begin feeling favorably toward the giver.
Using the information gathered by Aira and her friends, I also began helping servants facing difficulties.
One servant couldn’t afford proper medical care for an ill family member.
Another had a daughter entangled with a terrible man.
I used my family’s influence to drive away the bad man, and was thoroughly thanked for it.
However, I never acted arrogant.
“I merely fulfilled my duties as a member of the ducal house.”
“So please don’t tell anyone outside about this.”
That was how I silenced them.
People in the Kingdom of Lahti adore gossip.
And when told not to spread something, they only want to spread it even more.
At first, they would whisper quietly.
Later, they would spread my favorable reputation openly and proudly.
As for my trio of troublesome friends — Kristina, Lydia, and Mariana — they investigated Lady Yuliana thoroughly after that.
And as expected, Lady Yuliana truly was a woman who desired polyandry!
We discovered that within the ducal faction alone, three engagements had already been broken because of her!
Apparently, all three men became captivated by Yuliana’s beauty and cheerful personality.
And after receiving all that physical affection from her, they easily convinced themselves she must have feelings for them as well.
Their families apparently didn’t complain about the broken engagements either.
After all, if things went well, they could potentially become connected to the ducal house.
Meanwhile, the older generation believed that since the two ducal sons treated Yuliana like a younger sister — and because she was still technically illegitimate — she would eventually be married off somewhere else.
And thus, Lydia, whose mother absolutely adored gossip, completely destroyed that narrative almost instantly through rumors.
Because Lady Yuliana was clearly not the type to sincerely devote herself to one man!
She truly desired many husbands!
A woman who longed for polyandry!
Replacing the old rumors became incredibly easy.
The story of Lady Yuliana’s desire for polyandry spread rapidly throughout society.
And right around the point where the rumors were beginning to reach the duke and duchess, I formally requested an audience with my in-laws.
This time, the two of them met with me together.
I placed a signed divorce petition before them and elegantly declared:
“I wholeheartedly support polyandry.”
“It seems Lord Olivier considers Lady Yuliana to be his true wife, while viewing me merely as an obstacle.”
“Therefore, I wished to present this divorce petition in advance.”
“I am fully prepared to leave this house at any time.”
“No… but…”
“The two boys merely cherish Yuliana as though she were their true younger sister…”
Even the head of the ducal house was saying that nonsense.
“Duke Lautavaara, I too originally believed the two brothers merely loved Lady Yuliana as a younger sister.”
“However, my friends warned me that this was not the case.”
Apparently, whenever Lady Yuliana went outside, she became quite… energetic.
After all, she was a young lady deeply adored by the ducal house, so naturally everyone around her constantly catered to her.
At home, she surrounded herself with her two beautiful ‘brothers.’
Outside, she gathered handsome noble sons around her as well.
She claimed they were all merely dear friends, but the men who had broken off their engagements seemed utterly obsessed with becoming the one to win Lady Yuliana for themselves.
And so, regardless of what others said, they clung to her desperately.
From an outsider’s perspective, it looked exactly like a woman keeping multiple men around her.
“At first, I also believed that eighty percent of rumors were exaggerations.”
“But after witnessing their tea gatherings myself, I realized this was not merely gossip.”
“If you wish, Duke Lautavaara, would you like to see it for yourself?”
“At this very moment, the three of them should be having tea together in the gazebo.”
Neither the duke nor duchess had apparently realized just how intimately those three behaved together.
They likely assumed the siblings merely enjoyed tea together harmoniously, just as they had in childhood.
However, when viewed objectively, three young adults sitting pressed tightly together on a single bench while flirting over tea was honestly indecent.
Even the phrase ‘flowers in both hands’ had limits!
The duke and duchess had sincerely believed the three merely shared close sibling bonds.
But once they considered the possibility that romantic and improper feelings existed there instead, they seemed to develop splitting headaches.
Once the ‘close sibling’ filter vanished from their eyes, they were forced to confront a reality too uncomfortable to look at directly.
This ball was effectively a test for the House of Lautavaara.
And yet the man calling himself my husband hadn’t even bothered to provide me with a dress or jewelry.
Hopeless.
Naturally, there was absolutely no way I intended to wear his colors as accents!
After all, this was our very first ball as a married couple.
And I fully intended to present myself as the pitiful wife who had received absolutely nothing from her husband.