“All right. Let’s meet here again tomorrow.”

“Here again tomorrow.”

Jade repeated it as a firm promise and released her shoulders from his large hands. The air that touched the places his hands had been felt noticeably cool, and only then did Rose realize how warm his hands had been.

The sky, pouring down light more intense than a spring day had any right to, slowly darkened and then brightened again.

She looked up. A flock of cotton-white clouds drifted overhead, and in the distance, grey rain clouds were moving in.

“I have somewhere to be, so I’ll head off.”

Jade mounted his horse first, as usual.

“Don’t write anything strange, all right?”

Rose climbed onto Chaconne’s back and called out to him.

“Mm. Let’s both write within the bounds of conscience and common sense, Ordo.”

“You’d do well to carefully reconsider what your conscience and common sense actually are before you put pen to paper, Camelot.”

They parted with an exchange full of mutual distrust.

But as Rose turned away after making plans to meet Jade again tomorrow, her heart was full of anticipation and excitement.

“Let’s go back, Terra!”

She had seized a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Even if dark storm clouds rolled in and poured down thunder and rain, she would push through.

Even if it meant fighting the whole world.

No matter what.

From this moment forward, Rosemaria Ordo would make it happen: she would have her false love with Jade Camelot recognized as real, marry him properly, and bring together two families that had been the bitterest of enemies!

“This is what fate means, Terra. Not the whims of fleeting feelings.”

Perhaps she had been born into Ordo for exactly this purpose.

Rose smiled with deep satisfaction and renewed her solemn resolve.

“Oh, I don’t want to know. Marriage to a Camelot beast. I heard nothing. Lord have mercy……!”

Terra’s anguished groan and the blue wolf’s long, drawn-out howl rang out across Hilude hot springs, as though proclaiming the birth of a new alliance.

❀❀❀

[– Rose and Jade care for both families equally. At minimum twice a year, they move their residence together between Melos and Camelot and work jointly as a couple.

— Jade trains in swordsmanship with the Ordo knights once a week. (During this time, Jade is to adopt the mindset of the future consort of the next lord of Ordo, and train with particular strictness toward Anton and Piar, showing no favoritism.)

— Bathing is to take place immediately before bed. Care must be taken not to bring the dirt of the outside world into the bedroom, and one must not lie down or sit on the bed while wearing shoes.

— Trimming fingernails and toenails must be done before dinner, using the designated tools and following the proper disposal method……]

“This isn’t working. I keep getting distracted by trivialities.”

Rose threw down her pen and clutched her head, having been trying to write out the conditions to add to the marriage oath.

There had to be things more important in a marriage than maintaining a comfortable and fussy sleeping arrangement……

Agreeing to finish the oath in a single day had been a mistake.

What was she even supposed to ask for? What conditions should she propose to keep the marriage alliance intact?

She had always thought of marriage in the most proper and obligatory noble sense. Things like the duties of a spouse inscribed in bold in the Iresian Mythological Scriptures or the Hailion’s Noble Compendium, Spouse Edition.

But since she was drawing up a marriage oath in the form of a private agreement with Jade, she needed to put forward conditions as favorable to herself as possible.

That gorilla who reads poetry and romance will definitely write out a meticulous list of demands……

“In my opinion.”

Terra cleared her throat softly and assumed a weighty air.

“Marriage cannot be reduced to a formula like mathematics. Isn’t that how life is? If there are guidelines that truly need to be spelled out as obligations, what’s written in the Noble Compendium should be more than enough. But what truly matters in day-to-day life is……”

She lowered her fierce-looking eyes to a soft, meaningful gaze and snapped her index finger.

“Love!”

Love……?

“With love, every value worth upholding takes care of itself. That is what I mean.”

“Drop it, Terra.”

There’s no love between me and that man.

Rose sighed deeply and picked up her pen.

Terra occasionally championed romance in a way that seemed out of character, and apparently it was because she was from the Sibell Empire, the so-called homeland of romance. According to Jade’s self-important claims, they even preferred complex and richly layered emotional arcs when watching romance plays.

Thanks to Jade, Rose had come to understand Terra a little better despite knowing little about Sibell culture.

“Hmm? The benefits of the alliance are already showing?”

Rose was rekindling her motivation and adding a new line when:

“For love conquers even the sword of the merciless hero!”

Terra clenched her fist, veins standing out, and openly defied Rose’s order to drop the subject.

“Love gives all of itself!”

Patient, gentle, humble, and so on, she rattled off every fine thing she knew about love, then abruptly let her shoulders droop and sighed.

“……To think that Miss Rose, who deserves such a great love, is getting tangled up with a lackey of dark gorillas. I cannot hide my sorrow.”

“What if I write that he’s not allowed to sit to my right at the dining table? Too petty? Jade’s left-handed, so he’ll keep bumping my shoulder while we eat.”

“Whether it’s the left hand or the right hand is beside the point! You haven’t understood a word I’ve said about love, have you?”

“Calm down. Are you my nursemaid, Terra?”

“You never had a nursemaid, Miss. Ah, I think that might be the root of the problem. The absence of someone to teach you warm and devoted love with every fiber of your being from infancy, that’s what killed our Miss’s capacity for romance.”

“I was raised well on my mother’s milk, Terra. More importantly, I hate rustling sounds when I’m trying to sleep, so Jade’s sleepwear fabric…… sleepwear…… oh, forget it! I’m not writing that!”

In the end, Rose couldn’t even fill ten lines of conditions on the oath and fled the room.

A man who probably didn’t even wear sleepwear to bed. Was it even possible to regulate a spirit that free-ranging from top to bottom?

A creeping dread came over her that while she was floundering over a blank page, Jade was gleefully filling sheet after sheet. At this rate, she might end up signing a forty-page oath full of conditions he had written out in fluent detail, without a word of protest……

“See, brother? Now Rose is running around the garden pulling her own hair out. Definitely suspicious, right?”

She couldn’t exactly ask the idiot brothers who spent every day spying from outside her window.

“D*mn it! Something tells me that guy is cheating on our Rose!”

The two brothers grabbed their own hair just as she had been doing.

“That shameless cheating bastard……! Should we go k*ll him, brother?”

“No, hold on. They say the best way to get over a man is with another man. Let’s quietly arrange for her to meet Sir Benyamin.”

“What about the rich prince from Franzel who came by?”

“Disqualified. Aunt didn’t like that he drew Rose unflattering.”

“Ugh, Prince Julius would’ve been perfect if he just had some initiative!”

“Argh! That orangutan dares to cheat on Rose, the most beautiful woman in the world?”

The idiot brothers had no idea Rose could hear every word of their scheming.

“Haah. What would be good conditions to ask of a spouse? Love handles everything on its own, they say. There is no love, I tell you……

Just go along loosely, he had said, he’d handle it. Looking back now, that felt like an ominous sign. That everything would end up in Jade’s hands, to be moved as he pleased……

Rose spent the night pulling at her hair, sick with worry.

❀❀❀

Every year in May, Melos held an arts festival open to all residents of the domain. It was called the Belloti Arts Festival, named after the square. Alongside performance troupes specially invited with the lord’s support, residents gathered to present songs, dances, musical performances, and comedies of their own.

Visitors came from other domains just to see the various performances and exhibitions.

A May festival full of romance!

“Then I’ll go meet with the residents’ committee.”

House Ordo spared no material support in preparing for the festival.

As the heir to the lordship, Rose met with the residents’ organizing committee to determine the scale of support and assist with preparations.

“Brothers, don’t go anywhere and stay with Mother. Father and I are both away today, so you two need to step up. Play with Shu too. If you’re so restless you can’t stand it, go beat up a bale of straw in the yard. If you sneak out again without permission, you’ll be locked in the prayer room for three days.”

“Is your dream in life to be a tyrant? Bossing around your grown brothers like servants! Hmm?”

Anton protested loudly, but it carried no weight whatsoever. The wool hat with rabbit ears that Shurelli had forced onto his head was far too distracting.

“Our Princess Shu, let’s have dinner together with Auntie later. If Daddy goes off and leaves Shu behind, tell Grandma. Understood?”