Edelle had thought she’d cleverly deflected when the Grand Duke visited the mansion, but apparently not.

He had known everything all along and simply let it slide.

Edelle scrutinized Eli’s expression with fresh eyes as she responded.

“They’re just ribbons I started hanging to remember good restaurants. But we can’t harass shop owners because of them.”

Edelle simply wanted to enjoy delicious food happily. Since she wished for more people to be happy eating delicious food like herself, she wasn’t particularly pleased about people fighting or becoming unhappy because of the ribbons.

“So please withdraw your knights, Your Highness.”

Eli gazed into Edelle’s eyes as she stared directly at him. Stars twinkled in her violet irises.

Eli took a deep breath and then gestured toward Monty. Immediately, the knights withdrew, and customers who had been waiting outside began to cautiously enter one by one.

Eli, who had somehow positioned himself behind Edelle, spoke to Durant, who was eyeing him warily.

“You must be Count Michelin’s heir.”

“……I am Durant Michelin. I heard you’ve been away from Fonete for a long time, but you seem to know about us siblings.”

“I heard you resemble each other.”

“Has that rumor spread all the way to Norton?”

Edelle laughed, finding it all quite amusing.

She had grown tired of hearing that she resembled Durant since childhood. The porcelain doll-like Michelin siblings were also famous as muses for Madam Hesse, the owner of Fonete’s finest clothing shop.

“But we don’t look that similar anymore.”

While Durant had grown into a handsome, sturdy man with gentle features, Edelle remained small in stature and was still often mistaken for an eighteen-year-old. Despite their similar aura, few people recognized them as siblings at first glance.

“You must have a good eye, Your Highness.”

“Well, more or less.”

Edelle swallowed the laughter that threatened to escape. The Grand Duke of Norton was a man with a face captivating enough to enthrall anyone at first sight, yet possessed social skills that fell far short of his appearance.

Just then, the sandwich placed in front of him caught Edelle’s eye. It was Joseph’s ambitious new menu item, a hot sandwich.

Edelle carefully asked while trying to hide her excitement.

“How does that sandwich taste?”

“It’s fairly decent.”

Though she had already rejected his proposal, she was prepared to abandon any lingering attachment if he showed even the slightest aversion.

The Grand Duke’s unhesitating answer surprised her. Edelle leaned closer to him, forgetting her attempt to hide her disappointment.

“You don’t find it strange or off-putting?”

“……This shop’s peach sandwich is delicious.”

Edelle’s eyes widened again.

The peach sandwich, made with flat peaches and arugula, had once been ridiculed by territorial nobles. Though now few people hadn’t tried this special sandwich, which had become the shop’s summer signature menu…

“I thought you’d been away from Fonete for a long time?”

“I’ve spent more time in my territory than here.”

“Yet you’ve tried the peach sandwich?”

“Someone insisted I try it.”

“Then……”

Despite his curt responses, a flush spread across Edelle’s round cheeks.

Meeting someone who appreciated good food was incredibly exciting. When Edelle first met Hilda and Joseph, she had been so happy she’d practically bounced up and down on the spot.

“So you were serious about wanting me to make the most delicious and mood-enhancing food in the capital?”

“Is there any need to deliberately make unappetizing and unpleasant food?”

Looking at the Grand Duke as he questioned her as if she’d asked something ridiculous, Edelle made up her mind.

She straightened her posture while suppressing the corners of her mouth that threatened to curl upward. At twenty-two years old, she couldn’t very well start bouncing around.

“Your Highness.”

Eli’s piercing blue eyes turned toward Edelle. However, already beginning to feel a sense of camaraderie with him, Edelle was no longer intimidated by those eyes.

“Is your offer for my help still valid?”

***

The Grand Duke of Norton readily entrusted Edelle with preparing the party. Despite some pointless opposition from the Michelin father and son, Edelle overcame it easily as always.

For the past few days, she had only one concern.

“What food should I serve to earn a good reputation?”

“Only you would cause such a big commotion and then worry about something like that, Eddie.”

Kyra burst into laughter. Having visited the Michelin residence to have lunch with her friend, she had just heard news that could turn the social world upside down.

Edelle widened her eyes and joked.

“What commotion, Lady Muir? This is clearly a contract. I agreed to help prepare the party in exchange for compensation.”

“Sure, a contract, Lady Michelin.”

Kyra matched Edelle’s playful tone without batting an eye, then added more seriously,

“But don’t you know that such things shouldn’t be done carelessly?”

“Of course I do.”

Edelle grinned, swallowing a question about whether Kyra had ever heard of an employment contract. Seeing her eyes curve into crescents, Kyra also burst into laughter.

“What do you know? You’ve completely fallen into his trap.”

“Fallen into whose trap?”

“Whose? The Grand Duke of Norton’s, of course!”

Kyra, the heir to the Muir ducal family, was a veteran who had debuted early in Fonete’s social circles and had extensive experience. Even to her, this contract seemed highly unusual.

Preparing a party at a residence was typically the hostess’s responsibility.

So when Norton’s young, unmarried Grand Duke entrusted that task to a lady who hadn’t even had her debut?

Even if Edelle didn’t realize it, the Grand Duke clearly had other intentions. Otherwise, why would he propose a contract that would cause such a stir in society?

“I don’t know what the Grand Duke’s intentions are, but I do approve of you finally making your social debut.”

“How did the conversation turn in that direction?”

“Now that you’ve revealed yourself as the ribbon’s owner, preparing the grand ducal residence’s party as your first move? Not bad. No, it’s not just not bad—it’s perfect!”

“Kyra.”

“You can’t keep living like this forever, Eddie. You know that.”

A noble lady who reached twenty-two without making her social debut? There were more than a few women who ended up married by imperial decree to old bachelors or widowers they’d never even met.

Whatever the Grand Duke’s feelings might be, he would serve as a good shield for Edelle’s belated debut in society.

Imagining Edelle standing beside the Grand Duke, whom she barely knew, Kyra grinned.

“Everyone will be quite jealous if the Grand Duke becomes your cavalier at the festival banquet.”

“Are you crazy? The Grand Duke as my cavalier!”

“Of course you should dance with the Grand Duke! Don’t tell me you’re planning to enter with Durant?”

“Would that be wrong?”

“Oh my goodness, Eddie.”

Kyra closed her eyes tightly and pressed her forehead. Her beloved friend clearly didn’t understand at all what it meant to prepare a party at the grand ducal residence.

“After the grand ducal residence party ends, people will speculate about your relationship with the Grand Duke.”

“But we don’t have any relationship?”

“And how would it look if you pretended not to know each other at the festival banquet?”

Edelle’s eyes asked if that would be wrong. Kyra sighed deeply and gave an easy-to-understand example.

“Imagine if you and I met at a salon and didn’t even greet each other.”

“……People would think we’d fought. Or that there was a deep rift between the Muir ducal family and the Michelin count family.”

“Exactly.”

“Ah.”

Edelle finally realized that this business relationship was more complicated than she had thought.

If she didn’t dance with the Grand Duke, it could create a misunderstanding that the Michelin family had fallen out with the Norton Grand ducal family. For the business-oriented Michelin family, such a misunderstanding would immediately lead to losses—it would be like drinking poison.

But even so, a cavalier seemed excessive.

“What if strange rumors start spreading after I entered with the Grand Duke?”

“What kind of strange rumors?”

“……That we’re in that kind of relationship?”

Edelle vaguely replied, trying to be careful. However, Kyra dismissed her concern with a wave of her hand, as if it were trivial.

“Such rumors will naturally spread. If rumors about you and Lucas are circulating, why wouldn’t they about you and the Grand Duke? But rumors are just rumors……”

“You knew about it too?”

Realizing something was off, Edelle cut Kyra off mid-sentence. Her round forehead wrinkled intensely.

Kyra, suddenly serious as well, asked back,

“Knew what?”

“About Lucas!”

Kyra’s expression, which had tensed at the familiar name, instantly relaxed. Not stopping there, she smiled broadly and looked at Edelle through half-lidded eyes.

“Ah, the rumor about you and Lucas getting engaged?”