Twenty minutes had passed since I’d pasted a flimsy smile on my face and begun chatting with a few women. I was normally expressionless, so my facial muscles were already screaming. The corners of my mouth were on the verge of spasming. I respected my younger brother for his ability to keep an amicable smile on, no matter whom he was talking to.
“Your Highness, do you agree as well?”
I nearly jumped when I was suddenly dragged into the conversation. I somehow managed to suppress the urge, but my heart was racing.
This is bad. I have no clue what they were talking about. I was so distracted that I wasn’t listening to them at all. But I would offend them if I honestly admitted I hadn’t been listening. I was at a loss, and the advice my savvy younger brother had given me crossed my mind. As he’d once told me, I put on an ambivalent smile.
The noble lady who had asked me the question blushed furiously and looked down. “I apologize. I spoke out of turn.”
“Us as well...”
“Indeed. His Highness would never judge a woman by her appearance.”
The other noble ladies began to speak up one by one. Based on what I gleaned from their responses, their question apparently had something to do with my preferences for a woman’s appearance.
“As I thought, His Highness is different from other men.”
“Yes, he truly is.”
The ladies’ cheeks became a rosy red, and they smiled blissfully. Watching them made me appreciate the accuracy of Johan’s advice. According to him, “When you’re in a bind, don’t say anything—just smile. If you do that, the other person will interpret it in a favorable way for you.”
However, in this instance, it pricked my conscience. I was at fault for not listening to the conversation, and yet the ladies were directing affectionate gazes at me. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I turned away as though I were fleeing from their passionate stares. Just as I did, I spotted someone enter the hall.
He was a man more expressionless and unfriendly than I, yet he had more presence than any other. The moment I laid eyes on him, the rage that had abated was reignited once more.
Irritation colored my vision as I watched him calmly stroll in. Our gazes met. Without seeming surprised in the slightest, his eyes narrowed, his demeanor as arrogant as ever. I felt like he was scoffing at me, but perhaps that was a delusion born from paranoia.
After that, he lost interest in me and turned elsewhere. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to punch his nonchalant profile.
“Pardon me. I remembered there’s something I must attend to,” I said.
“Huh?”
“No...”
The young ladies tried to stop me, but they relented when they realized I was looking at the king. I slipped past the dejected women and headed straight for him. He had stepped onto a balcony facing the garden and was in the middle of receiving a drink. The servant finished pouring a dark-red liquid into his glass and then flinched when they saw my icy gaze, but they quickly fixed their expression. The king waved his hand, and the servant bowed before taking their leave.
“What is it? You’re interrupting my break, so it must be for a good reason.” The king gently shook his wineglass, as though to show me he was resting.
“My apologies. I was under the impression that the break time you wrested away from me and Johan had ended long ago.”
A vein was probably bulging on my forehead, and a disturbing thought even crossed my mind. I’m so furious that maybe it’ll be okay if I hit him somewhere that’s covered up by his clothes. In the first place, either Johan or I was supposed to take a break—no, we were supposed to get to see Rose. But then he swooped in from the side and snatched the privilege away from us. How dare he act so brazenly? The word “audacious” perfectly describes him.
I’d never had many opportunities to see Rose, but now I had even fewer. Soon, she would return to Prelier, and after she gave birth, she wouldn’t leave for some time. And as the crown prince, I couldn’t leave the capital easily. I wanted to treasure the limited time I could spend with my sister, so I hadn’t even yielded to my cute little brother.
Johan hadn’t yielded either, so we’d agreed to use rock-paper-scissors—the easiest method—to decide who could go. My brother might’ve seemed like a flexible person, but he could be surprisingly stubborn. Thus, I had anticipated he would throw out rock. As a result, we’d tied... At least, we should have.
Who could have predicted that our forty-year-old father would cut in with scissors? The king had shown no trace of emotion while Johan and I had gawked at him, dumbfounded. He’d been as expressionless as ever and said, “I win.”
Obviously, that had snapped us back to our senses. We had refused to accept it. “This is a serious match—don’t try to butt in” and “You waited to throw out your move! That’s cheating!” Our protests had been so feeble that I felt like my face would catch fire recalling it now. Then again, it might’ve been too late to be ashamed of our childish arguments when two grown adults were playing rock-paper-scissors.
The king had quietly listened to our grievances, waiting for us to finish. He’d crossed his arms and, as though he were carefully deliberating, looked up to his left. Then, he’d slowly blinked once. I’d thought he would return his gaze to us, but the corners of his mouth had lifted ever so slightly. Before I’d even determined that he was smiling, cold chills had started to run down my spine.
“In that case, I’ll have you both repay the debt you owe me from last time.”
We were speechless.
The king had squinted cheerfully at us. The debt that’d come to mind was when my stepmother, Johan, and I had visited the Prelier house. The king had been referring to the few words he’d written on a slip of paper and purposefully delivered to us there. That evening, when I’d returned to the castle, my desk had been piled high with documents. I had assumed that those papers were the equivalent price I’d need to pay, and I’d solemnly finished the work, but when I’d thought about it again, I’d realized that he had never explicitly said that.
That said, is he really calling in that debt now? I had thought.
“Or would you rather I claim seniority, as you suggested earlier?”
It’d been easy to tell that he’d been making a snide remark. The onus had been on me anyway for trying to threaten Johan with the seniority rule. However, I’d felt that only Johan had the right to criticize me for that, not the king.
“Choose whichever you prefer,” the king had said.
No matter which option we would’ve chosen, the result wouldn’t have changed. So, we’d replied, “The former,” through gritted teeth, never wanting to taste such humiliation again. If we’d let the debt remain unpaid, who knew what sort of unreasonable demand he would’ve foisted upon us in the future.
After that absurd exchange, the king should have gone to see Rose. I had assumed he wouldn’t return for at least an hour, but not even thirty minutes had yet passed. If he had urgent business to attend to, then fine, but he was currently insisting that he was still taking a break. It didn’t add up.
“If you’re still resting, then wouldn’t it have been better to spend more time with Rose?” I was forming a spiteful conjecture that Rose had disliked his presence and chased him off. I wondered if he could tell what I was thinking.
The king elegantly tilted his wineglass. His pose would have painted a lovely picture, pointlessly so, but all I could think about was how he wouldn’t get drunk, no matter how much alcohol he drank, so he might as well have just gulped water. What a waste of the highest-quality full-bodied wine.
He didn’t even seem to be savoring the taste. He swallowed half of it like water and regarded me with an exasperated look. “Are you saying I should spend a prolonged period of time with my pregnant daughter? Have some common sense.”
Being lectured about common sense from the person who had the least common sense in the family put me in shock.
“Besides, if it were her mother, that would be one thing, but having male relatives loitering around her would be of no use.”
This vexed me, but I couldn’t retort. Just as it held true for the king, if I were by Rose’s side, I couldn’t do anything for her either. If anything, she would fuss over me, and I would risk tiring her out.
Is that why he hindered Johan and me? No, that can’t be. He’s not a man who’s capable of such meticulous thoughtfulness.
“All of you had better not coddle her too much,” said the king.
“But she might have had unpleasant experiences at tonight’s event... I’m worried.”
Directly before Rose had left the hall, she had conversed with Duke Schletter. He was someone who made many belittling remarks about women, so he was sure to have many opinions about Rose being conferred the position of duchess regnant. He must’ve said one or two nasty things.
However, the king snorted as though I’d said the most asinine thing. “She’s not so weak.”
Rose was strong at heart. Nonetheless, I didn’t think that kind girl was accustomed to such blatant malice.
“Even if you fret, that one’s husband will handle it. Neither of you will have a role to play.”
True. If Rose is hurt, Leonhart won’t let it be. Besides, if she’s having a hard time, she would obviously rather have her beloved husband by her side than her older brother. Does the king have a better understanding of Rose than I do? That unpleasant question sprang to mind, but I shook my head and dismissed the thought.