“I think it’s time for your answer, Miss Blair.”

Underhanded.

Blair narrowed her eyes and looked at Kalintz.

❀❀❀

Kalintz sprawled lazily in his study chair.

A memory of Blair’s scrunched expression from a little while ago drifted through his mind, and a foolish smile slipped out before he could stop it.

“What is it that’s so amusing now.”

Ernst Werner, the prince’s guard knight, had been watching him smile to himself for a while and asked with a vaguely uneasy look.

“She’s entertaining every time I see her. Like a cat with a temper.”

“……You’re talking about Miss Blair.”

These days, the prince’s attention was entirely consumed by that red-haired frons. The man who had always looked bored to death the moment frons were mentioned, and had shown no interest in any of them, had at some point begun paying excessive attention to this particular woman.

“Your Highness. May I ask something rather presumptuous?”

“Presumptuous, and you’re going to ask anyway?”

Ernst asked regardless.

“Have you developed a romantic interest in Miss Blair?”

“Ha? Me? Does it look that way?”

“Yes. Very much so, extremely so. The rumor that Your Highness has fallen for Miss Blair has already spread all through the palace.”

“Hmm……”

Kalintz propped his chin on his hand and made an expression that was difficult to read.

“Making her princess consort, that part is true.”

“Pardon? So you really intend to make Miss Blair—”

“I think she could be a great deal of help to my plans.”

Whatever he was thinking, the prince’s dark golden eyes glinted.

“Your plans? Don’t tell me…… you’re actually going through with that?”

Ernst cried out with a look of alarm.

“Word came from Valia. The experiment finally succeeded.”

“What? Is that really…… true?”

Kalintz nodded with a satisfied expression.

“Further verification will be needed, of course. But with that elixir, it’s no longer an impossible plan, Ernst.”

“……Good heavens.”

Ernst stared with his mouth open in disbelief, but Kalintz continued in his usual unhurried tone.

“To carry it out, though…… a great deal of preparation is needed. We also have to wait until Lina comes of age.”

“Have you obtained the princess’s consent?”

“That’s why I said preparation is needed.”

Kalintz tapped the desk and spoke.

“Either way, the princess consort position can’t sit empty until then.”

“Well…… no, it can’t.”

“If someone has to fill it regardless, it might as well be someone who can be useful to me.”

“And that would be Miss Blair?”

Kalintz gave a quiet nod.

“She has nothing to lose from this arrangement. If anything, she comes out ahead. I can give her what she wants.”

“You’re saying you’d draw up a contract?”

“I’ve already made the proposal. I asked her to stay as princess consort for two years.”

“Pardon? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ernst looked up with wide eyes, his tone carrying a distinct note of hurt.

“You were away all last week.”

“And whose fault is that! You sent me off to investigate that lake—”

“Did you find anything?”

“……I found out it’s called Lake Rafen.”

“Good. Well done. Keep looking into it. Anything related to Miss Blair, I want to know.”

“Haaaaah……”

Ernst let out a long, defeated sigh. In name he was a guard knight, but in practice he was no different from a back-alley errand boy digging up other people’s secrets.

“So. Did Miss Blair accept Your Highness’s proposal?”

“Still waiting. Even with a blade at her throat, she’s remarkably careful.”

Kalintz said it thinking back to Blair at the queen’s palace a little while ago. Even when he offered to testify for her alibi, she hadn’t answered immediately.

“She said she’d watch how the inquiry goes tomorrow and decide then.”

“An inquiry isn’t a tea party. She’ll decide by watching?”

“My thoughts exactly. The nerve of her is…… something else.”

The way her green eyes had wavered and her fingertips had trembled ever so slightly made it plain she was frightened. And yet she had stood there stubbornly talking back, fighting not to let it show.

“She really is like a cat.”

Kalintz murmured it before he realized, the corner of his mouth lifting on its own.

Ernst looked faintly disturbed by the expression, then shifted the subject with a more serious face.

“By the way, Your Highness, why did Duke Brienne make contact with Olivia’s maid?”

Two days prior, while keeping watch on Olivia’s movements at Kalintz’s order, Ernst had happened to witness Duke Brienne and Olivia’s maid exchanging words in secret.

“Surely the two of them haven’t joined hands.”

House Brienne and House Lorentz had been old enemies for years.

“That viper wouldn’t stoop to it. He’s likely planning to use this opportunity to get rid of both Blair and Olivia.”

“Both…… of them?”

Kalintz nodded with cold, flat eyes.

“It was Olivia who spread the false rumor that Blair poisoned Anais. She set a trap, using her maid as a witness. To have Blair expelled.”

“That lady seems to have completely lost her head since the riding competition.”

Ernst clicked his tongue.

“Exactly. And Duke Brienne went straight to that same maid of Olivia’s.”

A crooked smile touched the corner of Kalintz’s mouth.

“The maid who was put up to framing Blair. What do you think that means?”

“……He wasn’t there to help Miss Blair, then.”

Ernst said it with a knowing look.

“He almost certainly bought her off. Had her instructed to give testimony that damages both Blair and Olivia.”

“But…… could that kind of testimony actually work?”

“Willer Brienne is more than capable of it. He’s the kind of man who puts his own interests above the truth of his own daughter’s death.”

Kalintz’s voice carried deep contempt and disgust.

“He did make quite a scene about abolishing the frons system over this poisoning, didn’t he. The same man who called it a venerable tradition when he was sending his own daughter in as a frons.”

“He’s not the type to stand by while someone else takes the position of princess consort. He’ll bring it up at tomorrow’s inquiry, no question.”

A cold, sardonic smile crossed Kalintz’s lips.

He agreed that an outdated tradition like the frons system ought to be done away with, but he had no intention of letting Willer Brienne have his way.

“Either way, we’ll find out what he’s planned at tomorrow’s inquiry.”

“Miss Blair will be all right, won’t she.”

Ernst asked carefully, watching Kalintz’s expression.

“While I’m here, nothing will happen to her.”

He answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“Well, Your Highness is the most reliable witness—”

“How dare anyone touch her.”

“……”

“There is no one who fits my plans as perfectly as Miss Blair.”

The dark amber of Kalintz’s eyes flashed sharp. It was the look of a predator whose territory had been threatened, heavy with possession.

Ernst briefly wondered whether the prince had any idea what his own eyes looked like, but being the seasoned guard knight he was, he simply nodded and left the study.

“……That is not the look of someone who simply wants a partner.”

Ernst murmured to himself at the intriguing change in his charge, and disappeared down the corridor.

❀❀❀

The next morning, Blair was getting ready to leave her room, her face tight with nerves.

“Goodness, what is happening, really……”

Lucia was tying the last decorative sash on Blair’s dress and looked close to tears.

“There you go again. I told you I’m not going to die.”

“But Miss, it’s because His Majesty the King is conducting the inquiry himself. And they say Duke Brienne is absolutely furious. Oh, what are we going to do. What on earth did that Marie girl get paid to tell such outrageous lies!”

Lucia was worried sick and the words came pouring out.

The genuine concern touched Blair, and she smiled faintly and leaned close to whisper in Lucia’s ear.

“It’ll be fine. I have at least one person in my corner.”

“Pardon? Really? Oh, could it be…… His Highness the Prince?”

Blair gave a silent nod, then made her way to the central palace where the inquiry was being held.

Not just someone in my corner.

He was, in truth, her last resort. Her only lifeline.

She had said yesterday, out of pride, that she would see how the inquiry went first, but even she could tell there wasn’t much of an opening to slip through.

Framing someone for poisoning took preparation. Olivia was not the type to start something this serious with nothing but one maid’s testimony.

I should have held my tongue a little longer. We both lost our tempers.

The price of provoking a marquis’s daughter with money, power, and a vicious streak.

Reflecting on past choices, Blair found herself at the doors of the central palace audience hall before she knew it.

“Haah……”

She took a long, slow breath and stepped through the heavy doors as they swung open.