Chapter 3:
The Villainess Attends a Tea Party with His Royal Highness
THE MOMENT HAS ARRIVED. It’s time to face the crown prince.
Claudia was seated in front of a mirror as her maids attended to her. Her thoughts were preoccupied with the upcoming tea party. She had greeted the prince before at banquets and such, but this was her first time meeting with him privately, just the two of them.
I was shocked when the official invitation came. I was sure all the bridal candidates would be invited together. By this point, gossip was already spreading about the crown prince’s potential partners. Besides Claudia, three other ladies had been selected. She assumed they each would be invited to private tea parties with His Highness, but from what she’d gathered, she was to be the first.
It makes perfect sense, given my status as a duke’s daughter. But this didn’t happen last time. Does that mean my future was already in question back then?
Prior to her disownment, Claudia had absolute confidence that she would be the prince’s bride-to-be. Perhaps she’d merely been blind to the truth, and they had long since discounted her as a possibility well before that. Per aristocratic tradition, the crown prince wouldn’t officially select his bride until after graduation.
I would hate to have Fermina steal him right under my nose without preventing it, so this works out perfectly. I wanted to remain a candidate.
As long as Claudia was in the running, Fermina wouldn’t stand a chance. If the prince just so happened to fall for her, that was another story.
Gleaning Virgil’s preferences was easy because they lived together. However, Claudia had to rack her brain when it came to the prince. At the very least, she knew he’d hated the old Claudia. Whether he had genuinely developed affections for Fermina was beyond her knowledge.
To maintain political balance, selecting his bride from a ducal house would be the most prudent choice.
In the political arena, it was only with the king’s approval of parliamentary decisions that policies became enforceable law. Parliament itself was run by the aristocracy, which was further separated into two factions: the royal faction, consisting of the old guard—long-established aristocratic families—and the aristocratic faction, consisting of newly titled nobility.
The latter group was largely made up of merchant families who had risen to prominence and earned their titles through dedicated effort. More and more of these types were demanding less power for the royal family and more power for the aristocracy. Their aims ran contrary to the interests of the well-established nobles, who held vast regional territories, so they declared themselves the royal faction to oppose the new blood.
The Lindsays belonged to the royal faction, though Claudia’s father expressed compassionate understanding for the plight of the new aristocrats—thus putting him in a neutral position. It was difficult for the aristocratic faction to go against him, making a marriage arrangement with his family all the more desirable. Claudia didn’t discount the possibility that the prince had selected her as his crown princess purely for political reasons.
It will be difficult to ascertain either way until I meet him, she decided.
The maids finished their work. As they stepped back, Claudia surveyed herself. She’d donned a fancier gown than usual; it was a lovely violet color with a chaste design. Claudia had been careful to emphasize modesty over all else—even the frills on the skirt were kept to a minimum. Her maids recommended something more girlish and in keeping with what young ladies her age adored these days, but she knew what matched her best.
In the past, I wore whatever I wanted, but loving a design doesn’t necessarily mean it will suit you. Claudia had inherited her mother’s sharp, narrow eyes, which made her ill-suited to gowns adorned with copious frills and ribbons. Conversely, bold and mature designs didn’t fit Fermina, proving that everyone had certain styles that did and did not flatter them.
Pleased with the final result, Claudia thanked her maids and set about her final preparations for the tea party. She just had one more request.
“Would you mind doing me one more favor and rewrapping the bandages on my fingers?”