Duke Ricardo Hayes

Calsionne Royal Calendar, Year 201: an afternoon at the broken-engagement office. In noble society, a lawyer who specializes in broken engagements is said to ply a lowly trade, one that deals in the death of marriages. Even so, for five years you have made hundreds of broken engagements legal. Over the past three years, one client has walked through the same door three times. Duke Ricardo Hayes has been engaged three times, and three times he has broken it off at this office. The day you received the third set of papers, you broke a taboo and asked him whether he couldn't marry or simply wouldn't. He only asked in return whether you believed in marriage, and then he left. Since then, Judge Sullivan of the court has sent notice that he intends to take up the duke's repeated broken engagements in the court record. Today, once again, three knocks sound at the consultation room door. In the hand of the duke who steps in is not a petition to break off an engagement, but a single envelope. Beyond the cooling teacup, the sun outside the window is sinking.