The Past Life of the Arrogant Grand Duke of the North - Chapter 2
“Ggiiieeeek…!”
And among them, there was one woman screaming for a different reason.
It was Yulia, who was attending the heir’s coming-of-age ceremony. At the moment, Yulia was being forced to stretch under the pressure of her nanny, Sophie.
“A flexible body makes your dance lines come alive. Today, you must find a groom. Understood?”
But Sophie, for that to happen, a man has to actually ask me to dance first—only then could I show off my ‘dance lines’ or whatever.
Yulia could only sigh at Sophie’s utter devotion.
“Hey, Sophie. This whole marriage thing… is it really necessary? I mean, the estate may be small, but if we live modestly and save, I think you and I could get by just fine for the rest of our lives.”
“Goodness, what kind of dreadful thing are you saying? For the sake of the late Baron and Baroness, please don’t speak like that. You know how hard it is to go from living as a noble to living as a commoner. With Her Majesty the Empress still sponsoring you, you must marry into the nobility.”
The reason Sophie, herself from a fallen noble family, was so desperate to marry Yulia off to a noble was because she had lived through that hardship and knew it all too well.
Yulia’s parents had passed away together ten years ago. For their 15th wedding anniversary, they had traveled to the capital to attend a royal hunting tournament hosted by a king, only for a bound magical beast to escape and trample them.
Both of them had no surviving relatives, and as a baron of the lowest rank, her father couldn’t pass down the title. Their only daughter, Yulia, was nearly left abandoned in the world—until the Empress intervened.
“I will become Miss Yulia’s guardian until she turns twenty. It’s the least I can do for a child who lost her parents because of a royal event.”
It had truly been a stroke of luck.
The servants who tried to flee with the family’s valuables were caught and thrown in prison. Those who claimed they had lent money to her parents and demanded the estate as repayment backed down, saying it was a misunderstanding.
Thanks to her status as the Imperial Consort’s sponsored ward, Yulia was able to receive invitations to noble parties.
Yulia was nineteen years old. By the end of this year, she would turn twenty.
Which meant that if she wanted to marry under the pretense of being under the Empress’s guardianship and thus benefit from her influence, it had to happen within the year.
But it was already mid-November, and less than two weeks remained until the new year. Was it even possible?
Sophie often said that falling in love had nothing to do with time, but wasn’t that only true if you were an absolute beauty?
The founding Emperor of the Empire Yulia lived in was a handsome man with black hair and black eyes. The Empress, who had once been a Saintess, was famed for her blonde hair and blue eyes.
And so, within the empire’s standards, the darker a man’s features, the more handsome he was said to be, while lake-like blue eyes and rich honey-gold hair were considered the epitome of beauty for women.
By those standards, Yulia was not considered a beauty.
Yulia didn’t just have dark hair—her hair was pitch black.
‘If I had been born a man, people probably would’ve called me handsome.’
Take the men of the Grand Duchy, for example. Generations of them had black hair, and people were constantly admiring them for it. Of course, that admiration also came from their tireless defense of the North from magical beasts.
‘Well, I guess it makes sense. The founding Emperor’s younger brother was the ancestor of the Grand Duchy, so the black hair gene must’ve come from there.’
Yulia made her first debut in high society at the age of sixteen.
The Empress had personally sent her a teacher to instruct her in court dancing. A tailor was sent to make her a dress, and with it came a matching pearl necklace and earrings.
Finally, the Imperial family dispatched a knight to escort her.
