Chapter 28

-I have something to ask you.

-Please ask, Your Lordship.

-Is your intention to marry my daughter still valid?

-It is.

-If I ask again why you wish to marry my daughter, what will you answer this time?

-I will answer that it is because I wish for that woman’s happiness.

-Can you promise that you will make that child happy?

-I can promise it.

It was a blatant lie. Hazel’s happiness was not an important factor to Kyle. But because he could gain the Marquis’s permission to marry only if he assured him of Hazel’s well-being, Kyle promised her happiness without hesitation.

Once the Marquis had obtained the answer he wanted, he told Kyle to go to Strauss Hotel.

He did not feel the need to ask why his mind had changed. Reasons are not all that important, after all. What is made public and affects the world is only the result.

The result of Hazel being pursued by the Prince, the result of the Marquis changing his mind, the result of Kyle seizing the chance given to him as if he had been waiting for it all along—this was it.

Kyle’s eyes, stripped of all amusement, stared straight ahead.

It had been an hour. Not even t*rture would have someone left standing like this, with not a word spoken to him, and no permission given to relax his posture.

At least he could regard it as fortunate that he was allowed to stand with his back straight. If he had been forced to endure in a bent posture, even Kyle would not have lasted without letting out a groan.

The minute hand pointing to twelve gave a click. This made it one hour and ten minutes that Kyle had stood at attention.

At the same moment, the red armchair turned around slowly. It meant that the exalted personage had decided to show his face at last, after one hour and ten minutes.

Joseph III leaned back at an angle.

“You are getting married.”

“Yes.”

Kyle answered, opening his stiff lips.

Before the reply even fully reached the King’s ears, he brushed down his seat and rose, then stood before the window. Once again he showed Kyle his back and merely looked down at the garden, which had begun to turn many colors. That same view he had stared at the entire hour and ten minutes, yet again.

Still, this time he added words.

“I heard the two of you are particularly close.”

“So much so that the newspapers have been kind enough to say it for us to an embarrassing degree, yes.”

“Hah!”

The open scoff was thick with displeasure. Kyle pressed his irritation far down and hid it.

‘This is rough.’

The Emperor in white uniform and Kyle in his dark jacket stood in stark contrast. Though there was no ceremony today, the Emperor had epaulettes hanging thickly from his shoulders all the same. The crown he adored so dearly had been put on display neatly to one side.

Kyle continued smiling.

This was only the second time that commoner Kyle had spoken directly with Joseph III. The first had been the day he was personally awarded a medal after returning from Kartnia. He had been summoned then because the King seemed reluctant to let go of a man who had been building a fine career as a soldier and was now saying he would take off the uniform.

But even then, Kyle had not been fooled by Joseph III. The King had merely needed a hunting dog he could use plausibly, one less troublesome than a noble and more trustworthy than a bourgeois.

Had he remained in the military, he might have risen high enough, but then again, a soldier is someone who must pretend to die if it is the King’s order.

He had not the slightest intention of entrusting his life to a man unworthy of loyalty. That thought only became firmer after Colin’s funeral.

Joseph III turned around, then glared at Kyle, who had not faltered even after being left standing so long, and steadied his breath. It showed plainly how unpleasant he found the shameless young man who would not move as he wished.

“Did the Marquis suggest it, or was it your scheme?”

“A suggestion and a scheme in marriage? Miss Hazel and I are truly of one heart……”

“Do not claim you do not know why I forced that young lady into the nobility.”

The King no longer concealed his intentions. He had calculated to use Hazel to win public sentiment and to turn the reclusive Marquis Fitzroy back into a loyal servant of the royal house.

“The Marquis chose you instead of my son. It is a very shameful situation. That Fitzroy, that old loyalist of the Croa dynasty……”

He is truly angry, Kyle thought. At this rate, even if the King ordered him to spy on Marquis Fitzroy, it would no longer be surprising.

The King’s n*ked anger now turned toward Hazel.

“And Miss Fitzroy as well. Surely she and the Marquis had already spoken together. If she had just watched the situation and met Edward appropriately, this country might have remained at peace!”

“……”

“I let her live in splendor and she does not know gratitude. Too clever, too selfish. She clearly learned neither etiquette nor manners.”

And yet the King added one more thing. If she had received instruction at the royal household, she would have become an elegant lady.

Kyle remained silent. It was difficult to discern the King’s true intent. He had not called him here merely to vent anger.

Would he declare that he would block the marriage, or would he say that he would permit it on condition that Kyle repay the royal family.

Then came the dry voice.

“Strauss, because of this matter, I have lost faith in both you and Fitzroy.”

Especially Fitzroy. The King muttered quietly, then cleared his throat.

“There are already more than enough power holders who do not move according to my will. I do not wish to add the two of you to that number.”

This opening was ominous. Kyle braced both legs hard beneath him. He truly could not predict what words would come from the King’s mouth.

And then the King cast him one very simple, yet heavy, sentence.

“Swear your loyalty to me, Strauss.”

“……Your Majesty.”

Under the word loyalty, he now declared plainly that he meant Kyle to become his dog.

“You are a former soldier. You will be quick to read the situation, and as a businessman, you must also see clearly the flow of money.”

“You flatter me.”

“You are someone I cannot afford to turn into an enemy. That is how I define you.”

“……”

“When I was younger, I dreamed of such a relationship with your father as well. But I stopped once I learned that the royal family’s attempts to form friendly relations only served to drive our authority into the ground.”

“……”

“But considering the position of your fiancée, who has become the daughter of a pro-royal household, you cannot reject the royal family either.”

Joseph III’s intention reached Kyle precisely. This time, he would forgive the insolence that had turned the royal family’s plans to dust. But in exchange, instead of Hazel Fitzroy, he wanted Kyle Strauss delivered into the royal family’s grasp.

“There is no need for too much concern. Where something goes, something must come in return. If I ask you for help, you too will surely have something to gain. I only mean that you should not refuse before even thinking it through.”

“……”

“Compared to the harm your fiancée has done to the royal family, this seems a reasonable proposal, does it not?”

It was revolting. It was the King himself who had first tried to use a woman who knew nothing, and yet now he treated the woman who had escaped that pit as if she were the guilty one.

But his opponent was the King of Holdland.

Kyle bent his waist with smooth ease. He hid the absurdity he felt so tightly that not a single hair’s breadth showed.

“Your Majesty, you worry too much.”

“Hoho, too much?”

“As a citizen of Holdland, loyalty to His Majesty the King is a natural duty.”

Kyle smiled.

“It would be impossible to repay the harm done to you with the mere word loyalty, Your Majesty. I shall soon send a token of my sincerity, so please accept it graciously.”

It seemed the King had been waiting for the sincerity Kyle would show. Only after discussing for some twenty minutes the price of land in a certain district and what stood upon it was Kyle finally allowed to leave the palace.

The face of the man who circled the palace guarded by the royal guard and got into his own car was astonishingly expressionless. He had far too many things to take care of to sink into the unpleasant conversation with the King.

He opened his notebook to check what had to be done and took the wheel himself. Soon the car rolled smoothly over the well-paved asphalt.

* * *

Hazel cut into her asparagus with a stiff face. Fine tableware permitted no unpleasant scraping sound from her knife.

Kyle paid no mind. There was no need to present a picture in which one’s lover always sat smiling.

Sometimes quarreling, sulking, clashing and making up—far more realistic love. Now that the relationship between the two had been announced to the whole world, the fact that Hazel looked in a bad mood would hardly become some great issue.

Having finished his meal first, Kyle slowly looked around. Though it was dinner hour, the only customers in the dining bar were Kyle’s party and one young man, just two groups in all. A man presumed to be the manager paced anxiously before a pillar.