The Tragic Male Lead Chose the Wrong Partner

“The princess who’ll be used and discarded… pitiful, isn’t she?”

“…Is that so.”
Major Rodriguez’s voice was calm, as always.
“Brigadier Masera seems intent on profiting from her royal blood and then divorcing her. It’s perfect timing, too—he just received a marriage proposal from the Medeian archduchess’s family.”

Steve noticed a subtle shift in Rodriguez’s eyes.
“Rumor has it she’s still in love with the brigadier. Guess that means she wouldn’t mind a second marriage.”
The reason Steve was saying all this was simple: sympathy and pity were the sparks that started fires.

And when the kindling was a young, emotionally driven man, that fire would catch even faster.
Scandal, jealousy, betrayal—anything I can use will do.
Your perfect marriage is already over, Masera.

Steve, who had always been consumed with inferiority toward Masera, let himself grin leisurely.
* * *
“Miss Cynthia, if you could just go over the guest list and—ah? You’re already finished?”

Diego hadn’t even finished explaining, but Cynthia had already reviewed and finalized the invitation list.
Because, quite simply, there was no one to invite.
I have about as many friends as a firefly has tail-lights.

Aside from the names sent by the Queensguard family, there wasn’t a single person she could personally add to the guest list.
I’ll make lots of friends from now on, she resolved, brushing off the brief three-second sting of loneliness.
First on her list of friendship targets: Eugene.

Masera was in the category of “someone I have to get along with to survive but don’t want to get along with.”
“Eugene! You promised we’d decorate the frog house together!”
Cynthia opened the door and only knocked afterward, entering with her usual cheer.
Eugene, sitting at his desk reading, glanced at the small fishbowl she held.

“I never made that promise.”
“I did. You just didn’t hear it.”
Like a child throwing a fit, Cynthia thrust the round bowl toward him.

Filled with soil, pinecones, miniature figurines, and terrarium décor, it looked like a tiny garden.
“Pretty, right? The frog’s sleeping inside it.”
Despite acting uninterested, Eugene’s clear green eyes remained fixed on the bowl.

“Before the cold hits, I’m going to build a warm shelter for the cats, too. You’re helping, right?”
“Do it with my uncle. He likes cats.”
“…Wait, that was real?”

She’d had her suspicions when Masera vanished during Helene’s wedding, but he really was a cat can-opener.
Cynthia imagined them building a cat shelter together.
Even when she tried to set the scene as peaceful ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) and cooperative…

“Why did you ask me to help if I’m just going to end up doing all the work?”
In her imagination, he wasn’t just a can-opener—he was a rude one.
Shaking the image away with a faint groan, Cynthia asked,

“Do you like books, Eugene? I do too. What are you reading now?”
“One the tutor gave me.”
Cynthia peeked at the book in his hands.

It was about a rabbit family competing to find the biggest carrot. Nothing alarming there.
Then she spotted another book on his shelf.
The Snow Queen

So that’s the one that scared him…
“Hey.”
Eugene, noticing her deep in thought, called out.

“What?”
After a moment of hesitation, he closed the book and asked,
“Why don’t you look like your family?”

It was a child’s innocent, yet cuttingly sharp question. Cynthia didn’t resemble anyone in the Queensguard family—different hair, different eyes, nothing in common.
Everyone liked to say she looked like the Frost Queen with her pale features and red eyes, but no one had ever directly questioned the resemblance—until Eugene.
“You think I don’t look like them at all?”

Eugene pointed to an illustration of rabbits in the book.
“Your family is like foxes. You’re like this white rabbit in the story.”
“Oh really? I must take after my mother, then. It’s been so long… I don’t remember her very well.”

At that, Eugene made a somber expression far too adult for his age.
“Do you forget people’s faces when you grow up? I don’t remember my mom’s face anymore. But… I remembered it again today.”
According to Dalia, Eugene had been in a ruined hospital in the war-torn principality when he was found.

He’d lost both his parents at a very young age—just like Cynthia had in her past life.
“How did you remember her?”
When Cynthia asked, Eugene looked straight at her.

His eyes were filled with emotion—like he was seeing something reflected in her.
“I don’t look like my mom. Why do you think that is?”
Instead of answering her question, he offered another.

Cynthia scratched her cheek awkwardly, unsure what to say.
“Maybe you’ll find out when you’re older? You’re this handsome now—it’s probably thanks to her.”
Eugene, pouting, reached up to touch the fishbowl on the desk.

No one knew anything about his parents beyond the fact that they’d died in a bombing.
But he must’ve come from a good family.
Just one look at his spotless, delicate hands was enough to know.

She’d seen plenty of parents who made their kids work hard from the moment they could walk.
Cynthia—one of those children—looked down at her own hands, rough and scarred beneath silk gloves.
Suddenly, she recalled what Dalia once said:

“We tried asking around to find any surviving relatives, but he shuts down the moment his parents are mentioned. We stopped asking—didn’t want to trigger anything.”
For Eugene to be speaking of his mother now… maybe it meant he was beginning to open up.
Encouraged, Cynthia handed him a wedding invitation.

“Here. You’re the first person I’m giving this to.”
Eugene looked it over quickly, then set it down in a deliberately dismissive way.
He was clearly being sulky on purpose.

But Cynthia didn’t mind.
“See the flower on it? These ones are only for special people.”
Pretending to be indifferent, Eugene peeked up at her again.

Is she really a bad person? I don’t know anymore…
That confused question kept circling in his young mind.
He couldn’t understand why people spoke so harshly about those with white hair.

His tutor, Hayden, especially—he always said, “Don’t fall for their kind smiles.”
He claimed that once Cynthia became mistress of the house, she’d show her true colors.
Will she throw me out too?

Eugene both liked and feared her warm smile.
“Her mother had white hair and blue eyes? We can’t take in that child.”
“If we keep treating him here, we might get in trouble too. My friend helped an escaped Esat and got sent to a camp.”

Eugene, left behind in a ruined nation, had already heard such things. Been moved from place to place. Been rejected.
That’s why—even with Masera, whom he trusted more than anyone—he never spoke of his mother.
“This invitation…”

Eugene started to speak, then stopped. The “thank you” caught in his throat.
“Ugly.”
He ended up lashing out again with a lie.

“Huh? You think the invitation’s ugly?”
Cynthia’s eyes went wide as she turned the card this way and that.
Still a child, Eugene didn’t yet understand that this unfamiliar, overwhelming emotion tugging at him was… longing.

* * *
Cynthia delivered the special invitations to the duchesses and staff of the residence.
She had intended to give one to Major Rodriguez in person too—but he hadn’t returned to the residence since, so she ended up mailing it instead.

And so, time passed…
The day of Cynthia and Masera’s wedding finally arrived.