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“I have way too much time on my hands…”
That one sentence perfectly encapsulated Sara’s life as the prince’s consort.
Historically, wives of the king’s brothers would accompany their husbands to official engagements or evening parties. Edouard, the current king, had been betrothed since he was born, but he and his fiancée had not yet married, so when a gathering was to be held at the royal castle, his sibling’s wife might have also been tasked with helping the queen mother organize the event.
But Sara had no proper official business to do at all. She was a hostage who had been married off as a token of diplomatic friendship—there was nothing important they would leave to someone like her.
To make matters worse, her husband, Richard, was a recluse who couldn’t stand being around other people. He would assist his brother with official duties and look over his paperwork, but Richard would never step out from the sidelines.
Consequently, there was no need for Sara to go anywhere with her husband. The only thing she needed to do was be docile and quiet, like the hostage she was.
Even so, I have way too much time on my hands…
Claire suggested embroidery or writing poetry. Hermine might have liked those activities, but Sara had never really cared for them. She preferred reading or walking to delicate, repetitive work. Given her current position in Ferrier, though, she thought it would probably be best not to go out on walks too much and thus refrained from doing so.
Just as Sara let out a sigh, there was a knock at the door.
“Excuse me, Princess Hermine. I’ve brought you some tea.”
It was Claire.
“Yes, thank you, come in.”
Claire excused herself as she entered the room.
“Oh! I smell frene! Did you pick some?” asked Sara, who had caught the gentle aroma the moment Claire had walked in the room.
With the silver tea tray in her hands, Claire started in surprise and stared at Sara.
“What?! I— Yes, actually. One of the gardeners picked some for you and I brought them up, but…did you know that already?”
“No, I just smelled them.”
“Your nose must be pretty sharp, huh?” Claire asked as she prepared the tea. Sara smiled and nodded.
Sara’s nose had always been very sensitive. Even as a child, she had shocked her parents and servants by correctly guessing the evening’s dinner menu from just the smell of ingredients wafting from the kitchen. It had been a very useful skill to have when she was Hermine’s maid, too.
Hermine had once complimented Sara’s talent of being able to identify the flowers and herbs in a basket by their faint scents. “It’s like you have an ability,” Hermine had told her.
Wait… Now that I’m thinking it over, was that really a compliment?
“I had no idea!” Claire said, sounding impressed. Her voice broke Sara’s reverie. “Oh…then does that mean you know what the flavor of today’s tea is, too?”
Sara sniffed and pondered for a moment. “I smell marlo. Did you add some wedges of marlo to the tea?”
“Spot on! Wow, that’s amazing!”
Claire excitedly lifted the lid of the teapot and, sure enough, there were wedges of marlo inside. Marlo was a fruit that grew in warm climates, and Sara had once heard that all the marlo eaten in Saleilles were imported from Ferrier. Having been grown and harvested in their natural habitat, however, the marlo here looked bigger and juicier than the ones Sara had eaten before.
“You’re really something else, Princess Hermine! It’s like you’re the same as us, with an abi— Oh, um, never mind.”
Claire suddenly deflated and hung her head. Sara quietly looked at her.
The maid had almost certainly been about to say “with an ability.”
Sara didn’t know if there was an ability in Ferrier that enabled people to identify things based on smell, but Claire had been about to compare Sara’s skill to one before stopping herself midsentence. The maid probably thought she’d just cause trouble by comparing Sara to a mutant—that this would make Sara either angry or depressed.
“Claire…”
“I-I… I didn’t mean it like that…”
“You really don’t have to worry. You’re right—my sense of smell is just like an ability, isn’t it?” Sara asked with a smile.
Claire still watched Sara with worried eyes.
Just like an ability… That was how Hermine had phrased it before, too. But only Hermine knew what sort of feelings had inspired her to say that back then.
Now that she thought about, however, Sara realized that a keen sense of smell was a very unusual skill for a nobleman’s daughter to have, so Hermine implying that Sara was like someone from Ferrier—Saleilles’s enemy—must have surely been heavily laced with underhanded ridicule.
Sara had been born and raised in Saleilles, and even now that she was married, she was a hostage—nothing more than the ornamental consort of the prince.
Being compared to mutants now, however, felt like she had been given a handbook on living in this kingdom. In Ferrier, being told that her sense of smell was “like an ability” surely meant “You’re one of us.”
Sara gently took one of Claire’s hands. The maid’s terrified eyes shot up to meet hers.
“I never thought my sense of smell was very ladylike, but if it makes you and the others feel a little closer to me, I couldn’t be happier to have it.”
“Princess Hermine…”
“So please don’t worry.”
This time when Sara smiled at her, the tension slowly drained from Claire’s face, and her lips pulled up into a small smile in return.
“You are so kind, Princess Hermine.”
“R-Really?”
“You are. Princess Hermine…if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it. You can count on me,” Claire said—rather shyly, but that must have been typical for her.
After blinking a few times, Sara beamed—smiling this time not as Hermine, but as Sara—and gave Claire’s hand a squeeze.
“Thank you! Well, there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes, ma’am! Shall I pour you a cup of tea so you can drink it while you talk?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The gentle scent of the marlo-infused tea wafted throughout the room.