Relationship Talk, Such as It Is
AS A RULE, YULAN AND Violette’s mansion didn’t receive visitors. That was partly because they didn’t have many friends. Yulan was also naturally wary of welcoming people into his personal space. The only person in his life who might invite himself over was Gia, and at present, Gia wasn’t interested in Yulan’s home. How the Sinan prince would feel about the mansion in the future, however, remained to be seen.
Given Yulan and Violette’s isolation, today was very special: They would have a guest.
“Come on in, Rosette. It feels like it’s been ages.”
“It has been, Vio! Thanks so much for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming. This is quite far for you, isn’t it? I’ve had a cold dessert prepared—I’ll ask my maid to bring us all some later.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Well, you’re the future queen. Our friendship gives me no room to be careless.”
“Yes… I know in my head that I’m to be queen. Still, it’ll take me quite some time to get used to the idea.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.”
As the two girls giggled together, the scene was so beautiful that an observer could practically have seen flowers blooming around them. Or perhaps the brusque servants standing behind them in tidy uniforms only made the girls seem so beautiful in comparison. Including the driver waiting outside and her two bodyguards, Rosette had brought five guards total with her. That was actually fewer than usual, since she was visiting Violette.
“I considered the parlor, but since it’s such a lovely day, would you like to join me on the terrace?”
“Yes, please. It’s a comfortable temperature, and the breeze feels so nice. Besides, I’d love to look at your big, beautiful garden.”
Violette giggled. “Oh, please do. Unfortunately, not many flowers are in bloom at the moment.”
“Flowers are beautiful, of course, but I just love being immersed in nature.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly that overgrown… Next time you visit, I’ll arrange to take you into the forest.”
“Thank you very much.”
As Rosette smiled sweetly, one of the two guards behind her raised his eyebrows a little. It was unclear whether he was surprised by Violette’s proposal or Rosette’s reaction, but his companion didn’t even flinch. Upon closer observation, the latter guard appeared to be the first guard’s junior.
“Prince Claudia has kindly taken me all sorts of places…but never to an untamed forest.”
“I suppose he wouldn’t. I’ll be sure to tell him that I wish to visit my forest with you, just in case.”
Although Violette and Yulan had a basic, minimal patrol around their property as insurance, theirs was a forest of longtime natural growth. Chesuit planned to clear a small corner of the trees to start a vegetable garden, but that would still leave sprawling woods around the property.
“They truly are fantastic,” Rosette sighed. “Perhaps I should build a villa in a forest somewhere.”
“That would be nice, but I doubt you could get permission.”
“True, true…”
“Maintenance aside, you want to be as self-sufficient as possible, don’t you?”
“Well, I won’t be so greedy as to say I want to live in a protected tower.”
“That’s not the issue, and you know it.”
“Hee hee! Prince Claudia had the exact same reaction.”
Rosette sat in a dreamy daze, admiring the garden sprawling out from the terrace and the thick forest far beyond it. Violette was relieved to see her unchanged, despite everything the princess couldn’t control. While Violette spent her days relaxing in her little castle, Rosette was burning the candle at both ends preparing to be the future queen. She could only visit today because she’d crammed a window into her schedule. Their environments were so starkly different that, if Rosette hadn’t made that effort, she and Violette wouldn’t have even seen each other in passing. And, on top of Rosette’s schedule, environments themselves changed people.
“I really am glad to see you looking so well,” Violette said. “I’ve been away from high society for a while now. This place is so remote, rumors don’t even reach us.”
“I’m relieved to see you looking well too. I actually hear more than my fair share of rumors, you see, so I needed to see you with my own eyes before I could know what was true and what wasn’t.”
“Aha… I did think there’d be rumors about me.”
“Lord Yulan got ahead of some of them by spreading the truth. But people believe what they want to, you know.”
Rosette, who was smiling elegantly with a cup of Marin’s herbal tea in hand, was likely the target of her own fair share of unfounded gossip. It would also fall to her to politely set the record straight if any such rumors reached her. That sounded like a hassle to Violette, and Rosette had to adapt quickly. Whatever she did, people would talk. Rather than going out of her way to correct rumors, she found it was wiser to wait for the gossip’s novelty to wear off and for the focus to drift away from her. In high society, gossip was just part of the culture. It was much easier to accept that and to distance yourself from it emotionally.
“A little while ago, the gossip was about my history with men,” Rosette said.
“My, how indiscreet. That’s unusual.”
“Well, recently, there was a scandal about an illegitimate son-in-law from Lithos. The fallout from that spilled over to me. Formal recommendation letters for wives are still mailed to Prince Claudia—but addressed to me.”
“Even their methods are indiscreet.”
“Oh, I show all those letters to Prince Claudia. Including the senders’ names. I show him everything.”
The elegant smile on Rosette’s face as she said this made Violette’s own grin deepen behind her teacup. She really hasn’t changed a bit.