Rose ignored Anton’s resistance, bent down to meet Shurelli’s eyes, and whispered warmly.

“Yes, Auntie.”

Shurelli rose onto her tiptoes and brought her mouth to Rose’s ear. Both small hands cupped over her lips.

“Shu has a secret to tell.”

The child’s chirping whisper tickled her ear.

“Tell me then. What kind of secret?”

Rose narrowed her eyes and smiled. The others had all heard perfectly well, but they turned their heads and cleared their throats, pretending not to.

“When are you going to show Shu the prince?”

“The prince?”

Did she mean Prince Cassius? Rose hadn’t thought Shu liked him enough to want to see him again…… Ah, was she talking about Prince Julius?

Rose tilted her head, and Shu giggled, dimples appearing in her chubby cheeks.

“The monster prince under a spell!”

“……Ah. That prince.”

What to do? He’s not a prince at all.

“Has the monster’s spell still not been broken? If it breaks today, please tell the prince that Shu misses him. All right?”

Shurelli finished her message and dropped her hands, clasping them behind her back with a bashful air. Her grin revealed the gap where a front tooth had been, and the sight made Rose smile too.

Rose was completely undone by her niece looking up at her with eyes full of expectation.

She couldn’t bring herself to deliver the disappointing truth: that the man who had given her the ring wasn’t a prince enchanted into a beast, but simply a man who had been beastlike from birth.

I’m sorry, Shu. Among the men who proposed to your auntie, there were actual princes, and yet here I am introducing you to an ordinary monster. How embarrassing……

“Understood. When I see the monster, I’ll make sure to tell him Shu misses him.”

Anyway, Jade Camelot. A man who disliked dogs, disliked foreign women, and disliked dressing neatly. She could only hope he wouldn’t go so far as to say something like I don’t like kids.

“And tonight, let’s read the rest of that book we started together.”

Rose pulled her niece close in a tight hug. Shurelli had already begun to harbor a one-sided affection for her auntie’s fake suitor.

Shurelli wrapped her small arms around Rose’s back just as warmly.

“I want to read it so badly. I was so curious about what happens next, but I held myself back because I wanted to read it with Auntie.”

“Just a little longer. Auntie will run her errands and be right back.”

And so Rose left the house early that morning.

Inside the pouch hanging from her belt, alongside the notes to deliver to the residents’ committee, was the oath she would exchange with Jade at the hot springs.

❀❀❀

“The oath?”

Jade had arrived at Hilude before Rose and was waiting.

Instead of his usual rock, he had chosen a wide, flat boulder with room for two. That seemed to be his chosen meeting place. The blue wolf was crouched beneath it, gnawing on a meat bone that looked like it had been pilfered from some banquet hall, which did nothing to lend the setting any air of solemnity, but regardless.

Rose looked at the parchment scroll in Jade’s hand and his expression, as casual as if he had brought a dueling notice rather than a marriage oath, and spoke.

“I have a niece.”

An abrupt change of subject, but Jade waited quietly for her to continue.

“Her name is Shurelli. She’s Anton’s daughter, six years old. Very sweet and precious. She’s the only young child in our immediate family.”

I hope Auntie meets a wonderful prince.

Remembering her niece’s tender little wish made Rose’s chest ache.

Right. This was what she should have written down. Someone this precious belonged in the oath.

“Shu…… believes the monster who gave me the ring is a prince under a spell. She thinks our fated meeting will break the curse. She loves the book you gave her too. She’s only six, but she reads on her own quite well. Though she prefers having me read to her.”

The thought of Shurelli developing a one-sided attachment to Jade seemed too sad to bear.

The way Shurelli loved Anton without limit simply because he was her father, even though he had no idea how to care for her properly, she would love Jade too, believing he was her auntie’s prince.

“Do you dislike children?”

Rose lifted her eyes and asked.

“……”

Her heart sank for a moment at Jade’s unreadable expression.

“Dislike them? Have you ever heard how old the youngest Camelot is?”

He tilted his head slightly and turned the question back on her. His soft-looking chocolate-brown hair slipped sideways across his clean forehead.

“Hmm…… fifteen?”

Rose frowned at the puzzling question and then, a beat later, remembered something with a start.

The brothers she had thought were two had turned out to be three!

“Four years old.”

Jade let out a heavy breath and dragged one hand down his face, which had gone noticeably dark.

“When I left home, I didn’t even know he existed. I had no idea there was a new addition on the way. After that, my mother was still too angry about my running away to mention him in her letters, and I only found out about my youngest brother when I came home.”

Rose faltered at the startling revelation and found her voice.

“Ah, the youngest is four. Well, your parents are quite young, so…… but still, they didn’t even tell you a sibling had been born……”

Rose fell quiet, struck by a sudden solemnity. So that was why she had thought there were two when there were three……

At the same time, a creeping unease settled over her that the lady of Camelot was probably no ordinary woman.

“Anyway, I have no idea how I became ‘the monster who gave you a ring’ to your niece, and I’d rather not know, but don’t worry about whether I dislike children, Rose.”

Jade shrugged and smiled faintly.

“I may not look it, but I’m quite good at acting like a servant to small children.”

So he’s been living like his youngest brother’s personal servant……

“All right. That’s enough for me. Shu won’t boss you around like a servant, so you can relax.”

Rose smiled at him with a flicker of sympathy. Only then did she sit down beside him and unfasten her belt pouch.

An alliance really was a good thing. Having an honest conversation had cleared some of the weight from her chest.

The other trivial conditions suddenly felt like things she could afford to compromise on.

“I only managed two pages of additional terms. What about you?”

Rose held out the oath she had written on pink stationery, folded neatly.

“One page.”

Jade named a surprisingly small number and produced a sheet of fine parchment that looked fit for drafting the deed to a grand estate.

“Let’s review yours first.”

He arranged the quill and ink he had brought in advance on the rock, then unfolded Rose’s oath. Rose watched the path of his eyes and waited for his verdict.

His eyebrows furrowed and twitched with every passing moment.

“Why is this so petty? What is ‘rights to the mantelpiece shelf’?”

“I always keep a decoration there. A small tree that has to stay up year-round, all three hundred and sixty-five days. Siset bought it for me when I was five.”

The reason Rose had gone so far as to put it in writing was that the decoration had nearly been thrown away more than once.

Anne had complained it was too worn out, having been bought secondhand at the market, and had objected to keeping a Christmas tree up in the middle of summer.

“Ha. Do you think this oath is a joke? You can put whatever you want wherever you want, that’s entirely up to you. Take this out.”

Jade complained with undisguised exasperation and crossed out the line with his pen.

“Hey! Don’t cross it out! You’re really saying I can do absolutely anything I want? Just try saying otherwise.”

“I said do whatever you want. ……No, but what is this, ‘punctual mealtimes’ and ‘reporting before going out,’ this reads like rules for raising a child. And what’s this about left and right sides of the chair? ‘No Mediterranean codpiece’?”

“A codpiece makes that part stick out grotesquely. Do you want women staring between your legs all day?”

“When would I, an inland person, ever wear one.”

“It’s apparently trending in the capital and I have a feeling it’ll spread here soon. I can’t have my husband walking around with that thing bulging out.”

“My husband…… even setting that aside, I don’t have strong enough opinions about fashion to wear something my household specifically asked me not to. Don’t worry about it.”

Jade cleared his throat with a hmm, his face slightly flushed, and continued.

“Anyway, even if you wanted to dictate the color of my undergarments every morning, I wouldn’t stop you, so scratch all of this.”

Delete. Delete. Delete.

“The heir of Ordo is renowned for flawless official documents, yet this is what her oath looks like. Our Rose has reached twenty-two without a shred of readiness for marriage.”

Nag. Nag.

Rose shuddered, feeling very much like Anne standing before Robert.

“Oh, be quiet. What makes you so qualified to lecture me? Let’s see yours.”

Rose set aside her thoroughly dismantled oath and unfolded Jade’s.