“And His Highness said he’d be your backer and pulled you right into his arms!”

“No, he didn’t pull me into his arms……”

“Eeek! Miss, are you really going to become Her Highness the Princess Consort? I can’t believe it!”

She was no longer listening. Lucia was rejoicing as though she herself were the one becoming princess consort, and Blair found a helpless laugh slipping out.

“My head feels like it’s about to split open, and here you are. What is there to be so happy about.”

Blair’s muttered words jolted Lucia back to attention, and she looked up with wide eyes.

“Pardon? Why does your head feel like it’s going to split?”

Why else, I’m about to play princess consort when it was never in the cards for me.

Blair swallowed the words she couldn’t say out loud and let out a long sigh.

Will I really be able to get through two years of this.

She tried to picture herself wearing a princess consort’s crown. Olivia had wanted it badly enough to do anything for it, but Blair had never once dreamed of such a thing.

“But Miss, why did you keep avoiding His Highness all this time?”

Lucia’s unexpected question pulled Blair out of her thoughts.

“He invited you to dinner so many times and you turned him down every single time.”

“Ah, that……”

Blair thought for a moment about how to put it naturally, then cleared her throat.

“Ahem. Back then I didn’t have much interest in him. It was a bit overwhelming, I suppose.”

It was a brazen thing to say, even coming from her own mouth. But it worked perfectly on Lucia.

“Oh my, oh my. So His Highness was the one pursuing you first, eek!”

Lucia clapped a hand over her mouth, startled by her own unguarded words, but her eyes were absolutely sparkling with excitement.

It wasn’t entirely wrong, if she thought about it. He had been the one to approach her first, after learning her secret about the Withered Garden.

And very persistently at that.

Starting with barging into the luncheon, then the relentless dinner invitations, and then the riding competition on top of it all.

Turning over Kalintz’s past behavior in her mind, Blair let out a small laugh and shook her head.

Just then, a light breeze drifted in through the slightly open window. And with it came the memory of the moment earlier, when a blade of grass had settled on Kalintz’s head.

Those eyes staring at her with such intensity. The hand that had closed around her wrist as she reached to brush the grass away.

Blair rubbed the inside of her wrist absently, feeling a strange phantom tingle where he had held it.

Lucia, watching her, smiled warmly and said.

“His Highness succeeded after all. I can tell just from looking at that expression on your face.”

“Hm? What expression? What do you mean?”

Blair asked, feeling a little flustered, as though she had been caught thinking something she shouldn’t.

But Lucia only giggled and announced she was going to clean the bedroom, then disappeared.

“What’s wrong with my face……”

Grumbling to herself, Blair glanced at her reflection in the window, and trailed off at the sight of her own face, faintly, inexplicably flushed.

“……I’m perfectly fine.”

She murmured to no one, then threw the window wide open.

The fresh, green-scented air of early summer filled her lungs, and her heart kept beating just a little too fast.

❀❀❀

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Duke Brienne make a face like that.”

Ernst Werner spoke to the figure lounging lazily in the study chair. A faint, sweet-bitter scent of brandy drifted from the crystal glass on the desk.

“Ah, it was worth seeing.”

Kalintz smiled with contempt and took a sip of brandy.

Willer Brienne with a thoroughly defeated expression. It was, admittedly, a rare sight.

“Still, it’s a shame. The maid seemed like she was about to say something more.”

“The duke will have a hold over her. He’s a cunning one.”

Recalling how swiftly the duke had cut off his own piece when things turned against him, Kalintz frowned with distaste.

“That maid. Marie, was it.”

“Yes. She’s being held in the dungeons. I went to speak with her a little while ago, and she kept repeating the same things she said at the inquiry. She looked terrified.”

At that, Kalintz rubbed his jaw and continued.

“She probably won’t be in there long. The duke will find a way to pull her out.”

The look in his eyes was low and flat, and Ernst understood immediately what he was getting at.

“Duke Brienne will want to get rid of her. She could say something damaging to him at any time.”

Kalintz gave a quiet nod.

“Keep watching. If we’re lucky, we might be able to catch evidence that deals a real blow to the duke.”

“Yes, understood.”

Ernst gave a brief bow and turned to leave, then stopped as something came to mind.

“Ah, then the princess consort selection will be soon, won’t it.”

At the question, Kalintz’s eyebrow twitched slightly.

“……Most likely. The duke brought up the frons system publicly, so the king will want to move quickly.”

“That makes sense. And after what happened at today’s inquiry, the mood has completely shifted in one direction.”

Ernst thought back to the nobles watching with the eyes of people reading an exciting romance novel.

“It worked better than I expected.”

“Was it intentional?”

“What do you mean.”

“Well…… it looked like it came from somewhere genuine.”

But Kalintz only looked at him with a sideways stare and said nothing.

Under that silent pressure, Ernst cleared his throat and changed course.

“In any case, keeping up the pretense in front of everyone for two whole years…… that won’t be easy.”

“No. But she’ll manage. Blair Mervish will.”

A smile had crept onto his lips without him noticing. Ernst, still not quite used to that expression on his face, said something else without thinking.

“She’ll probably become Duke Brienne’s target going forward. That worries me too.”

But the moment the words landed, Kalintz’s eyes went cold in an instant.

“No.”

His voice was full of displeasure.

“I won’t let it come to that. How dare anyone.”

A deep possessiveness passed through his eyes. Ernst, struck by the oddly fixated look on Kalintz’s face, ventured carefully.

“Your Highness. You truly have no particular feelings for Miss Blair, is that right?”

“What?”

Ernst asked in earnest. He had known Kalintz since they were children and had seen every side of him, but this was new.

“……”

He had expected an immediate answer. But Kalintz said nothing. The silence stretched on, and Ernst’s expression shifted to something close to shock.

“Wait, really……”

“……Nonsense.”

Only then did Kalintz frown and answer.

“You must have too much free time on your hands. You keep saying ridiculous things, just like before.”

“Ahem. I’ll take that as an answer.”

“Ernst Werner.”

The glare that followed was withering. Ernst fought down the laughter threatening to escape and hurried out of the study.

“Well, I’ve seen everything now.”

Something sharp was said from inside the room, but Ernst only smiled faintly to himself and walked away down the corridor.

“Ha.”

Ernst left, and alone in the study, Kalintz let out a dry sigh.

Why had he suddenly gone speechless like that.

When Ernst had asked his question just now, the memory of the garden had surfaced before Kalintz could stop it, and the words had refused to come.

The moment he had seen her say she wanted to decide her own life, something had lurched inside his chest.

He had been pulled into those deep green eyes and couldn’t look away.

Then the memory of her hand brushing the grass from his hair, and her bright smile after it, rose up in sequence, and his face felt warm in a way that was almost embarrassing.

“Maybe I drank too much.”

Kalintz murmured, slowly turning the glass in his hand. The sweet scent lingered at the tip of his nose longer than usual tonight.

❀❀❀

The palace was in an uproar for some time after the inquiry.

Olivia had always seemed so elegant and refined, and the shock of seeing her true face left everyone reeling.

“It sounds like House Lorentz has lost quite a bit of standing over this.”

Selina said it lounging comfortably on the reception room sofa, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

“After what happened to Anais, everyone assumed Olivia would become princess consort and flocked to the marquis. Now they’ve all been left with nothing.”

“Those people will have fallen out of Duke Brienne’s favor as well.”

Tilda shook her head, crunching on a cookie from the table.

“Most likely. But then, who could have predicted that the prince’s interest would fall on Blair? We didn’t even see it coming. That’s why Olivia lost her head over it.”