Chapter 2: The Dress That Never Came.

By this point, Amelia had stopped waiting anxiously for contact from Reese.

Come spring, she would head to the royal capital to attend the academy.
She could simply meet Reese there.

Yet for some reason, her father kept asking persistently whether letters had arrived from Reese—and what their contents were.

In hindsight, her father must have already heard the rumors about Reese.

He was likely probing carefully to see how Reese was treating his daughter.

But at the time, Amelia knew nothing of this.
Her head was completely full of thoughts about the academy life that awaited her in spring.

Children of great noble houses with mansions in the capital apparently commuted from their own residences.
But students like Amelia, who had to travel from the provinces to the royal capital, were required to live in the dormitories on academy grounds.

The academy required attendance for three full years.

She planned to return to the territory during long vacations, but judging from Reese’s demeanor, academy life seemed quite demanding.

There were also various preparations to handle, so she intended to move to the royal capital a full month before the entrance ceremony.

During that busy period, she rarely had the chance to speak with her equally occupied father, but she often talked with her mother.

“The academy gathers nobles from every corner of the kingdom, so there may be all sorts of troublesome matters. If something feels too difficult to handle alone, contact me at once.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Amelia answered with a smile to her visibly worried mother.

Certainly, dealing with high-ranking nobles might prove challenging—but she could simply make friends among those of similar standing.

And so spring arrived.
Amelia moved to the royal capital where Reese was, and entered the academy dormitory.

When she first arrived in the capital, a small part of her had hoped Reese might come to meet her.

But after the letter he sent in winter, there had been no word at all from him.
It was unrealistic to think he would be waiting for her.

She felt a slight pang of disappointment, yet since they would attend the same academy, they were bound to meet eventually.

With that thought, she first settled into her dormitory room and focused on preparing for academy life.

The dormitories were strictly separated by gender, with no movement allowed between them.

Even fiancés received no special exceptions.

If they were to meet, it would have to be within the academy grounds—but Amelia had not come to the capital for the sake of seeing Reese.
She intended to study magic properly and, after graduation, devote herself to developing her territory.

Once actually in the royal capital, she found herself so busy with her own affairs that she had little mental space left to think about Reese.

She had assumed that at an academy, one simply needed to focus on studying—but this was a school attended solely by nobles.
Tea parties and dance parties appeared to be held quite frequently.

Moreover, almost immediately after the academy term began, there was to be a welcoming party for new students.

(That wasn’t written anywhere in the academy schedule I received before enrollment…)

Flustered, Amelia hurriedly wrote to her mother back in the territory and asked her to send a dress.

She had never been very active in high society, so she owned only plain dresses.
The one sent in haste was one made a few years earlier for a tea party invitation from a neighboring territory.

“You have a fiancé, yet he didn’t send you a dress?”

The question came from Erika, daughter of Count Court, whose room was right next door in the dormitory.

Like Amelia, she came from a territory known for thriving agriculture.
They had hit it off from their very first meeting and were now friends.

“Is that… how it usually works?”

“Yes. A fiancé normally sends the dress for the welcoming party as an entrance gift at least a month in advance.”

“…I see.”

Perhaps he had simply been too busy and forgotten.
When Amelia said so, Erika responded with an exasperated sigh.

“You’re hopeless. Academy life isn’t actually that busy. And there’s no way the son of a marquis would forget such a basic custom.”

In other words—Reese had neglected even the bare minimum duties of a fiancé, and hadn’t even bothered to inform her about the welcoming party.

(Why would Reese do something like that…)

Carrying that murky, uncomfortable feeling in her chest, she still had a mountain of things to do before the entrance ceremony.
The dress sent from her mother had become slightly too short; it needed urgent alterations.

Amid those hectic days—

Suddenly, she thought she caught Reese’s name in passing conversation within the dormitory, and her feet halted.

(Did someone just say… Reese?)

She turned around.
Two older-looking dormitory residents were glancing her way and whispering to each other.

“Is that the one everyone’s talking about?”

“She’s plainer than I expected.”

When Amelia strained her ears, those unkind words reached her clearly, leaving her bewildered.