Lau’s letters were easy to read and enjoyable for Rose, who had little experience exchanging missives. Beginning with seasonal greetings, Lau would then launch into a fascinating story about recent events.
“Do you…well…often get correspondence from her?” Harij asked, fidgeting restlessly as Rose scanned the contents of the letter with a soft smile.
“This would be the third.”
“…His Majesty would cry if he knew,” he said with a grimace. He seemed to feel sorry for his friend.
The second prince, and the older brother closest in age to Billaura, was Harij’s childhood friend. And Harij just so happened to be reappointed as the second prince’s Royal Knight.
“…My, oh my,” Rose muttered while reading the letter.
“What’s wrong? Something happen?”
Harij hurried over to her side but was too much of a gentleman to impolitely peek at the letter. Clutching to her chest the paper that conveyed an important message, Rose looked up at Harij through her lashes.
How much will he panic if I tell him? Rose tightened her jaw and schooled her features into something more serious.
“It seems congratulations are in order.”
“Congratulations for what?”
“Lady Lau seems to be pregnant.”
Harij’s eyes bulged. His mouth fell open, but no words came out.
Rose bit the inside of her cheek, desperate to stop her lips from breaking into a wide smile at his obvious reaction.
“The potion seems to have helped. As far as I can tell from her letter, this is what Lady Lau wanted.”
Rose softly smiled over the blossoming romance between Nefrit’s king and Billaura as described in the letter.
The king of Nefrit had seen a semblance of his deceased wife in the much younger Billaura when they met while he was out on royal business. The king waited until she came of age to formally propose to her through the official channels of their kingdoms so that he could legally leave an inheritance to the young princess once he passed away.
Judging from what Billaura wrote about their married life, the elderly king wasn’t after a romantic or physical relationship with her. Falling in love with such a devoted king, Billaura was the one who eventually threatened him into bed: “If this is the way our life is to be, then I’ll just drink this!”
The poor king. He misunderstood the secret potion his young wife had sneaked in from her homeland as a poison to end her life.
He couldn’t very well let his dear Billaura, whom he yearned after for a great many years, die by her own hands. So he reasoned that he, an elderly man with few years left to live, should die instead for forcing Billaura into a marriage she would commit suicide to escape.
The king also had a great successor. He downed what was left in the vial for his young wife with a promising future after she took a sip—not the least bit aware of what the potion was.
“He’s forty years older than her!”
“Anything goes as long as there is love and consent, Harij.”
Harij wouldn’t have wanted for Billaura to be mistreated or given the cold shoulder, but this bit of news came a little too soon for him. Shock rendered him speechless.
Considering the king’s age, Rose might start receiving orders for the potion’s functional uses for men. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare for future requests. She heard a familiar sound as she was calculating costs in her head.
Ding-a-ling.
The bell announcing the arrival of a visitor rang. She looked through the window to where a man looked back at her, waving. Next to the man were three donkeys—each saddled with piles of bags.
“……”
Rose buried her face in one hand. Harij peered out the window beside her. Their shoulders touched.
“It’s that man…”
“You know Tien?”
“I’ve crossed paths with him here before.”
“Oh yes, I remember something like that happening…,” Rose answered with her attention elsewhere.
Harij scooped up a lock of her pale-pink hair. He looked unhappily outside as he twirled that lock around his finger.
“What’s that pile of goods for?”
“Um, well, it’s…” Rose frowned in place of an answer. She was being distracted by him tugging on her hair, but the more urgent problem was on the other side of the lake.
“You aren’t going to tell me those are all gifts, right?”
Her head sank lower and lower instead of responding.
“I’ll go refuse him,” Harij said.
“Wait! Um, those things are, well, well!”
“I’ll get you anything you need. Don’t accept stuff from other men again.”
There he was being arrogant again, but the jealousy she sensed in his words turned Rose pink down to her neckline.
Regardless, she couldn’t yield the point to him. Rose covered her face with both hands.
“All of that is…well…you could call it a gift…but not quite…so…um…”
“What is it?”
“In other words, it’s…”
“Yeah?”
“Supposed to be given…in place of my parents…”
“Huh?”
“Tien—he has been looking out for me since I was a girl…and, um, it seems like my grandma asked him to take care of me on her deathbed…”
“Yeah?”
“So…um…I think it’s probably that…”
Damn you, Tien! Why did you have to come today of all days?! Rose cursed him out in her heart.
Tired of beating around the bush, she shouted, “I’m trying to tell you that it’s supposed to be my dowry!”
Harij eyed Tien but didn’t say anything more.
A dowry is something a woman’s family prepares for when she marries. In other words, that could only mean she intended to marry Harij.
White flowers would bloom in the forest soon.
Undoubtedly, they were going to bear sweet, red fruit.