At last, the evening banquet the King had been so eagerly awaiting was held. They had deliberately chosen a modest, intimate setting so they could sit close together — but there was nothing modest about the food itself.

“Try some of this as well. It’s the pride of our kingdom.”

“Yes, and this one is very well known too.”

Annabella felt as though she might burst from all the dishes being pressed upon her, but she understood the feeling behind each offering well enough — and so she made sure to take at least one bite of everything they urged on her.

Besides, everything the two of them recommended was genuinely wonderful. The ingredients were fresh, and the style of cooking was far more free-spirited than anything she knew from the Empire, as though each dish had been made to coax out the fullest possible flavor from its ingredients.

“Have some more of this too. You’re far too thin. What on earth has the Duke of Lates been doing, letting his own daughter get this thin.”

“Truly. Goodness…… so slight as this. A good breeze would carry her off.”

Meeting their granddaughter for the first time, the couple were doing their utmost to get one more bite into her at every turn. It made Annabella feel as though she had been carried back to childhood.

“Bring out the dessert.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

She had thought the banquet was finally drawing to a close — only to find herself facing the swamp that was dessert. She was quite certain she could not manage another single bite, and yet the moment the beautifully plated confection appeared before her, her spoon began to move of its own accord.

“This too is a specialty of our royal house. Aubrey was so very fond of it.”

A scoop of ice cream set atop a crisply baked waffle and drizzled with vanilla syrup — it was the sort of thing anyone would love, not Aubrey alone.

She had been absolutely certain she couldn’t finish it, but as the saying goes, there is always a separate stomach for dessert — and Annabella cleaned her plate entirely, to the delight of them both.

“There is a sitting room with a lovely view of the moonlight — let us move there. I’ve had tea arranged.”

Whether this banquet would ever truly end was beginning to feel like a genuine question — and yet Annabella found herself enjoying every moment of it in her own way. The eyes of the royal couple practically dripped with warmth, and there was a tenderness about them that stirred the faintest, most distant memory of her mother’s embrace from earliest childhood.

“Now at last I can join on equal footing.”

It was Milton who had chosen the sitting room for their after-dinner tea. Evidently he could not bear the thought of retreating to the inner palace and watching Grace monopolize Annabella all over again.

“Come now, sit down.”

The sitting room surpassed every sitting room Annabella had ever seen — not only in its sheer size, but in the floor-to-ceiling window that consumed an entire wall, which was nothing short of breathtaking.

At Grace’s invitation, Annabella took the sofa across from the two of them. The moment she sat down, tea arrived alongside an arrangement of small desserts — a few cookies that looked as though they had come straight from the oven, and a crêpe topped with fresh cream and whole fruit.

“How long we have all waited for this moment……. So then — you turn twenty next month?”

Milton, never one for patience, was the first to ask.

“Yes. My birthday is the thirty-first of March, so I will come of age officially then.”

After which a dreadful state marriage awaited her. Only a month away, as it stood.

“And after that, the state marriage?”

“Yes…….”

The royal couple couldn’t help but worry as they watched Annabella’s face darken at the mention of the wedding. She was nothing like a young lady who had an ordinary marriage to look forward to in a month’s time.

“You can speak honestly with us about anything. We have a duty to look after you in place of Aubrey, who left this world too soon.”

“That’s right. Think of us as Aubrey herself, and tell us everything freely.”

Annabella thought it over for a moment.

‘Am I speaking too hastily.’

But there was no time to weigh such things carefully. She had only three days in Elaise, and after that, two more days of travel back to the ducal estate — and then the state marriage.

Whatever else might be said, she could not bear to go through with that marriage and become the wife of that revolting man.

“I…… the truth is, I don’t want to go through with the state marriage.”

Annabella gathered all her resolve and said it.

“The marriage was arranged when I was ten years old, and since then I have been required to go to the imperial palace every year to pay my respects to him.”

Looking back, the signs that the marriage would be a miserable one had been there all along.

“Each time…… I thought him a man who observed every courtesy on the surface, but was cold to the bone underneath.”

Alexis was a narcissist utterly besotted with his own standing as Crown Prince. Rather than asking a single question about Annabella, he was the sort of man who spent every meeting boasting of his own greatness — cataloguing his accomplishments, his attributes, his consequence.

His treatment of servants and ladies-in-waiting was equally contemptible — he dealt with them as though they were something less than human. And in her previous life, true to every one of those signs, he had gone on to carry on an affair with Annabella’s half-sister, and the two of them had conspired together to cause Annabella to miscarry.

“But I could never say any of this to my father. He believes becoming Crown Princess is the highest honor the family could achieve.”

“What matters is your heart. If you are to be miserable, what good is that so-called honor!”

Milton’s indignation came swiftly and without restraint. He had never liked his son-in-law — not from the very beginning. The man had wooed the guileless Aubrey with every manner of sweet talk and made her his duchess.

The royal couple’s dislike of the Duke had nothing to do with Aubrey’s rank — it was his conduct that had turned them against him. When their consent to the marriage proved difficult to obtain, he had persuaded Aubrey to give herself to him beforehand, then presented that fact to the King and Queen as grounds for approval. It had not been a request at all — it had been a notification.

“If I could have my heart’s wish, I would stay here forever. How wonderful that would be……. The ducal estate no longer feels like home to me — only uncomfortable.”

“Hilda told us. That he took his mistress as his new duchess. And that there is even a half-sister only a year younger than you.”

Milton clenched his fist, trembling with barely contained fury. How tenderly they had raised their daughter. Death could not be helped — but to bring such common creatures into the house while Annabella was still living under that roof!

And when he considered the half-sister’s age, it was plain that the Duke had been carrying on his affair openly, while Aubrey was still alive.

“I knew it would come to this — I opposed it from the very beginning…….”

“My dear, don’t distress yourself so. Because of it all, we have our Annabella here with us now.”

At that, Milton’s expression softened by degrees, and he gave a slow nod.

“And yet when I think of how he kept our own granddaughter from us, the fury comes right back.”

“Hilda told me that you had tried to see me.”

“We did — we sent envoys more than once. But your heartless father refused every one of them. Said it was not in keeping with imperial custom.”

The more she heard, the more despicable the Duke of Lates became. Annabella felt a deep, heavy disappointment settle over her at the realization of what manner of man her own father truly was.

“Let us leave the past behind. What matters most right now is Annabella.”

Grace spoke with quiet warmth, and Milton — who had all the makings of a man with a fearsome temper — was instantly mollified. That, Annabella thought, was what a wise wife looked like.

“If, perhaps…….”

This was the moment that called for courage.

“If…… I said I didn’t want to go back…… what would happen?”

A brief silence fell over the couple.

“It isn’t possible, is it…… I thought as much. Especially given that my marriage to the Empire has already been arranged.”

Annabella’s expression darkened as she spoke of her own circumstances. At that, Milton brought his fist down on the armrest of the sofa with a resounding thud.

“What do you mean, not possible! This is my kingdom, and I am its ruler. I am not so powerless that I cannot protect my own granddaughter!”

The answer came so swiftly and with such passion that Annabella was momentarily struck speechless.

“That’s right…… something like — she fell gravely ill here and must convalesce — and there would be nothing anyone could say to that.”

Grace, who had seemed nothing but composed and proper, said something far more alarming.

“It might be better still to simply confer the title of princess of our kingdom upon her.”

“Oh, now that is an excellent idea.”

“And then, once the Crown Prince marries someone else, we say she has made a full recovery — and find her a decent young man to marry so she can live here with us in the royal palace.”

Quiet as Grace always appeared, she was clearly far more formidable than the straightforward Milton. To speak so casually of deceiving the imperial family — and to go so far as to mention bringing in a suitable young man. For no particular reason, Annabella felt her cheeks go warm at those words.

“As long as you are willing, there is nothing we cannot do. Whether the Empire condemns us or whatever else — it makes no difference. Our kingdom has always been self-sufficient.”

“That’s right. And as you can see, His Majesty’s fiery temperament has already reduced our diplomatic relations to their worst possible state — so there is nothing left to make worse.”

Grace smiled with effortless elegance as she spoke of her husband’s shortcomings without a moment’s hesitation, and once again Annabella found herself at a loss for words.

And yet, looked at from another angle, it meant the Kingdom of Elaise was strong enough to weather whatever pressures others might bring to bear. Which meant that perhaps Annabella’s wish could truly come to pass — that she might stay here, without going back——

“Well then, have you made up your mind?”

“……Pardon?”

“You said you wanted to stay here rather than go back.”

True to form, the King had no patience to spare. Having laid eyes on a granddaughter more precious to him than any rare jewel in the world, he found he simply could not bring himself to send her away.

“I want that more than anything — but I don’t want to cause trouble for you both.”

At that, the couple answered in the same breath, quick as lightning.

“I am not the least bit troubled. I have weathered far worse than this.”

“That’s right — we are not troubled at all.”

It was not bluster — the tone of it carried the easy certainty of people who had genuinely weathered worse. And at that, for the very first time, Annabella felt the urge to be indulged by them — to lean on them as a child would.

“Then…… I don’t want to go back……. Call it selfishness if you will. I don’t want to go back.”

The moment Annabella finally gave voice to what lay deepest in her heart, the royal couple clasped her hands tightly in theirs. They had been powerless when their daughter was slowly dying in the Empire — but for their granddaughter, they wanted nothing less than happiness, and nothing else.