Even after ten years of hardship following her expulsion from the Berthier estate, Adelaide’s natural beauty had not faded, and the boy had fallen for her at first sight.

The boy’s clumsy attempts to press himself on her were a nuisance, so Adelaide had driven him away time and again. When he stopped showing up for a while, she thought he had finally come to his senses, but then he reappeared looking exactly like Lionel did now.

That is to say, putting on a show of good manners, spewing laughably slick flattery, his transparent scheme to win her favor plain for all to see.

“Who is it?”

“Pardon?”

“Be honest, Lionel. Who told you that this is how you win over a woman? Tell me right now.”

“N, no, I, well…”

“If you don’t talk, I can always gather all the servants and hold a public execution. Speak up!”

“The swordsmanship teacher…!”

Lionel hadn’t exactly enjoyed spouting buttered words either. Adelaide was kinder than anyone at heart, but she was also someone who followed through on what she said.

Lionel had said various things in front of the servants, and if Adelaide said she would track down whoever had taught him to do that, she absolutely would. That was the one outcome he wanted to avoid.

“Swordsmanship teacher? What’s his name?”

“D, Diorte na!”

“Benjamin!”

Adelaide’s shout summoned Benjamin far more effectively than pulling any bell cord. Benjamin closed his eyes slowly at the sight of Adelaide grabbing Lionel by the collar and shaking him, and Lionel going red in the face from being choked.

“Who is Diorte na?”

“Dior Tena, my lady. The eldest son of Sub-baron Tena.”

“Tell him I want to see him.”

Benjamin opened and closed his mouth with the look of someone who had a great deal to say. Sub-baron Tena was a noble, but he could not pass his title on to his son Dior. The sub-baron rank was a non-heritable status the Emperor had created by adjusting the numbers to carve out a new class from which to collect taxes.

“Yes, my lady.”

It wasn’t as though Adelaide didn’t know that background. Even so, if Adelaide insisted on meeting Dior, Benjamin had no way of stopping her. This was the reckless young lady who had never once been bested, not even by Duke Berthier himself.

“Kkk, ugh, my lady, I, I, can’t breathe…!”

“You need to learn to appreciate air. Living your whole life breathing for free, the world must have seemed like a very easy place. And with nothing better to learn, you go and pick up tricks like that, then have the nerve to try them on me?”

“S, sorry, I’m, I’m sorry!”

Adelaide only released Lionel when he was on the verge of suffocating. He gasped for air and collapsed face-down on the table.

“The teacher said women like it when you do that…”

“What did you do to deserve crying?”

Adelaide reached for her handkerchief out of habit and held it up to Lionel’s nose.

“Blow.”

“Hng.”

“Harder!”

“Hng!”

The soiled handkerchief went straight into the waste bin. Lionel clutched his head and groaned that everything was ruined. He had wanted to look impressive in front of Adelaide, and instead he had ended up blowing his nose like a small child.

“What do I have to do to win your favor, my lady?”

“Nothing you do will ever win my favor.”

“And yet you just wiped my nose…”

“Would you be fond of someone who goes around with a runny nose?”

“…No…”

Lionel deflated and took out his frustration on his own fingers, fidgeting with them over and over. Adelaide pushed a sugar confection toward him.

“You love sugar confections and candy this much, and you think you’re going to charm a woman?”

“I’m only one year younger than you, my lady.”

“I’m talking about mental age. The way I see it, you… do you see that out the window?”

Adelaide pointed at a foal prancing about happily outside.

“You’re exactly like that foal. So exactly alike that if you stood side by side, no one could tell which one was the person and which one was the foal.”

Lionel stuck out his lower lip and ate the sugar confection. Now that he no longer had to wear behavior that fit him like the wrong size of clothes, Lionel found it easier to act naturally.

“My lady, Dior Tena has arrived.”

“Stand there and listen.”

Dior stood at the threshold, slightly tense. Adelaide drinking tea was a beautiful sight. His student Lionel sat beside her like a child, reaching for sugar confections one after another.

“I present myself before Lady Berthier.”

Dior greeted her with the graceful bearing he had studied, the kind he believed women found irresistible.

Because his father was a sub-baron, Dior had grown up having to navigate an ambiguous position, neither noble nor commoner. Sub-baron Tena’s wealth meant Dior had never known hardship, but once his father died, any chance of becoming a true noble would be gone.

Dior was desperate to capture the heart of a noblewoman and secure a title through marriage.

His moderate swordsmanship skills and a personality that disguised itself as easygoing had gotten him as far as the Berthier estate. His student showed some promise of growing into a fine-looking young man, but was still an unrefined creature.

He had looked and looked for an opportunity to use Lionel to get close to Adelaide. The chance came when Lionel, who was usually so eager, seemed downcast, and Dior volunteered to hear him out.

His plan was this: if Lionel followed the method Dior had taught him, Adelaide would grow curious about the confident adult man who had taught it to a young boy, rather than the boy himself.

“The angel who appeared in my dreams last night is right here before me. It is an honor to meet you, my angel.”

Adelaide let out a scornful laugh. Dior had a slick look about him. The carefully groomed mustache he wore with such pride was ridiculous. His body was decent enough from handling a sword, but his face was another matter entirely.

“You dare say you summoned me into your dreams?”

“How could I ever summon an angel? I can only say that you graced me with your presence of your own accord, my lady.”

Lionel bit his lip anxiously. To the eyes of a sixteen-year-old boy, Dior Tena’s hollow flattery had seemed convincing. That it had seemed convincing to a sixteen-year-old boy was precisely where he had gone wrong.

“The Duke surely brought you here to teach swordsmanship, and here you are wasting everyone’s time.”

“Wasting time, my lady? I only wished to tread even the shadow you cast from afar.”

“Who do you think you are, treading on my shadow?”

“Pardon?”

“The sight of my shadow alone should have you prostrating yourself on the ground, and yet you dare tread on it?”

“I only meant to express my admiration for your beauty, my lady.”

“Who are you to admire my beauty? Do you think I am beautiful for your benefit?”

“…Pardon…?”

“I see now there is no shamelessness quite like yours. Benjamin, I’ll speak to the Duke myself, so throw this insolent pervert out this instant.”

Benjamin, who had been listening to the entire exchange from a short distance away, nodded without adding a word. Dior, flustered, reached out toward Lionel.

“Lionel! Tell the lady how well I’ve treated you!”

Adelaide shot to her feet and hurled her teacup at him.

“Not only does the son of a sub-baron address Viscount Lavota by his given name, he speaks down to him as well! Benjamin, don’t just drag him out. Beat him for insulting the nobility and then throw him out!”

“Yes, my lady.”

Lionel watched Dior being hauled out by three or four sturdy servants and swallowed hard. Adelaide turned to look at Lionel with a sharp smile.

“Lionel.”

“Y, yes! My lady!”

“You saw that, didn’t you? That is what happens to men who waste everyone’s time.”

“Yes, I’ll take it to heart and never forget it, my lady.”

Having relieved her stress at last, Adelaide loaded Lionel up with sugar confections and sent him on his way.

It was the first time Lionel had ever left Adelaide’s room of his own accord, and quickly at that.

***

The Crown Prince’s palace. Cyril reviewed the documents he needed to process by the end of the day with a bored expression. In the early days of his appointment as Crown Prince, he had taken on documents eagerly and sought the Emperor’s guidance, but the Emperor had answered by assigning him a staff of officials to assist.

The documents that came to the Crown Prince were minor matters of no urgency, petty disputes among provincial lords. Occasionally mixed in were flattery-laden bribes from nobles trying to curry his favor.

Cyril was not someone the Emperor or Empress held in particular trust or affection. Even so, because the Emperor had insisted on making him Crown Prince, people treated him with cautious deference.

“Sub-baron Tena has sent a letter requesting that his son’s grievance be addressed.”

Dager, as befitted a chamberlain who had served long in the imperial palace, quickly recalled the gossip Cyril would want to know.

“I believe it involves Lady Berthier, Your Highness.”

“Lady Berthier?”

Cyril looked up. Adelaide’s temper was far from ordinary, but Sub-baron Tena occupied a position too ambiguous to be recognized as a proper noble. For his son to have even met Adelaide, Lady Berthier, would have been no easy thing to begin with, so what could have happened?

“The sub-baron’s son had obtained a position at the Berthier estate, but it seems he was beaten and thrown out not long ago.”

“Then it can hardly be called something involving Lady Berthier. Managing the estate is the Duke’s affair, isn’t it?”

“Well…”

Dager watched Cyril lose interest just as quickly and ventured to bring it up carefully. The Crown Prince he had practically raised had seemed somewhat more at ease in his troubled heart since Lady Berthier’s visit.

“I haven’t looked into it in detail myself, but from what I’ve heard, Lady Berthier apparently charged the sub-baron’s son with insulting the nobility without cause…”

“Insulting the nobility. What are people saying?”

“That Lady Berthier acted as Lady Berthier would…”

Cyril scoffed. The Adelaide he had encountered firsthand was not someone who would pin a crime on a person for no reason, even if her temperament could not exactly be called pleasant. He picked up Sub-baron Tena’s letter, which he had set aside, and read it.

“Sub-baron Tena intends to file a lawsuit against Lady Berthier.”

“Blinded by love for his son, he’s making a foolish move and blowing this out of proportion.”

Dager clicked his tongue. Cyril’s thoughts ran differently. The reason Adelaide had been able to act freely all this time without things ever escalating was, first, that Adelaide’s temper had never crossed a certain line, and second, that Duke Berthier stood behind her as a solid backing.

A charge of insulting the nobility was an exceptionally troublesome matter to resolve. When one side claimed insult and the other denied any such intent, the court typically ruled in favor of the party with the higher rank.

“Dager. Find out who is behind the sub-baron.”

Dager finally grasped what Cyril meant, and his expression darkened.