@stephibrito don't think he's a tsundere though. This "party" is criminally girly, something made up by someone with only the barebones of girly stereotypes. If he was actually a tsundere it would be properly tailored to Melissa's likes, not generically "young girl". Melissa has sent 47 letters and gone to the castle several times demanding the engagement be broken off. It's a political engagement by the way, the only way a noble daughter can be useful to the family in the eyes of an extreme sexist in this setting, which the father supposedly is. Pretty sure he's trying to appease her enough to "let it slide", because yeah, dissolving them engagement would be bad politics for him and with her reputation as it is the public opinion would be that she finally went too far and got the boot making her basically unmarriageable.
@Keimichi if he really was misunderstood, he would have tried something like this much, much sooner.