Edith looked straight into Wilfred’s face. His eyes remained cold. Still, he was listening to her, and that was enough.

“The princess substitutes for the salt.”

“In exchange for salt, Grand Duke Angelic promised to send Princess Lucille. But since Princess Edith has come, should we send rock salt instead of sea salt from now on?”

“Ignorant about rock salt.”

Wilfred seemed momentarily at a loss for words.

“…It’s a rock made of salt that comes from mines.”

‘Such a miraculous thing exists…!’

Edith struggled to contain her excitement and mulled over what she’d heard. If chunks of salt came from mines, they would require a different processing method than salt from the sea. 

Since Aberdeen didn’t have such a thing, they wouldn’t have the technology to process it either. 

At the same time, she understood that the phrase ‘rock salt instead of salt’ had a similar meaning to Aberdeen’s idiom ‘chicken instead of pheasant.’

Without averting her gaze from Wilfred, she carefully enunciated each word.

“Trust and sincerity that fall short of expectations lie beyond Aberdeen’s intentions. On behalf of His Grace the Grand Duke, I apologize. However.”

The fact that a grand duke of a nation broke his promise and sent a different daughter was Grand Duke Angelic’s responsibility. 

The fact that the royal marriage was overturned for the sole reason of wanting to drive Edith away was Lucille’s responsibility. It would be a lie to say she felt no injustice, but she couldn’t disgrace her homeland’s honor before hundreds of nobles and knights of the royal palace.

Even though she was the daughter of a despised grand duchess, even though she was a substitute inferior to Lucille who was sold for salt, Edith was a princess of Aberdeen.

“However, if I am inferior to my elder sister Princess Lucille, you may send rock salt instead of sea salt.”

‘If I get driven back to Aberdeen now, I’ll never be able to marry anyone for the rest of my life.’

…Already branded as a ‘bride’ by the Goddess Frieze, she had no choice but to marry anyway.

The Crown Prince maintained silence for a moment. Edith simply waited.

“Lord Dunsany.”

“Yes…? Yes, Your Highness.”

The duke, who had been in a daze, answered in a hurry. Edith didn’t miss the flicker of displeasure that crossed his face.

“I, Wilfred Hartwell, will take Edith Jeremiah von Seymour, daughter of Grand Duke Angelic of Aberdeen, as my wife.”

Wilfred declared.

* * *

“It’s late at night, Your Highness.”

Bernard, the chief court secretary of Osborne Palace, said. 

His green eyes, full of worry that made older women want to protect him, were shadowed as always today. The culprit was usually his employer.

“Shut up.”

Wilfred didn’t even look up from the secretary’s report. Because of that thing, Bernard hadn’t slept a wink even after returning from his welcoming party duties. 

He’d sent so many pigeons while handling the wedding preparations from outside that his arms felt like they’d fall off. Couldn’t the Crown Prince go to bed now?

“But tonight is Your Highness the Crown Prince’s wedding night…”

“You seem quite energetic even after going all the way to Wordsworth and back.”

“What do you mean…?”

“I’m asking if you can keep going for twelve hours straight.”

Keep going at what, anyway. Bernard traced back from twelve hours, to being energetic, to Wordsworth, to the wedding night, and soon realized what the conversation was about. 

Unless one was so virile they could ‘do it’ for twelve hours straight, even now near midnight wasn’t really that late.

Even seeing the flustered secretary, Wilfred didn’t sneer. Now Bernard felt anxious when the Crown Prince didn’t sneer at him.

This was bad. What had upset that capricious Crown Prince now?

“Is there some problem with the report—”

“How many people came to the marriage ceremony today?”

“Including the royal palace nobles and their families, plus nobles who came up from nearby regions, it’s just under three hundred.”

“How much did those things drain from the royal treasury?”

“If we count through the last day of the banquet… let’s see, we expect to blow through about fifty million crowns.”

The celebration banquet for the Crown Prince and Crown Princess’s marriage would be held inside and outside Osborne Palace for three days starting today. If King Joffrey weren’t ill, the cost would have been double.

“They eat like pigs, yet their asses are as heavy as hippos.”

Wilfred badmouthed them. The royal family had an obligation to receive guests as honored visitors and feed and house them for three days. Considering that more than half those guests lived in Osborne, the lodging costs were a waste. 

And what about those who, in their drunken excitement, damaged the castle’s furnishings?

Just thinking about it made Bernard sick of it. Even now, if he opened the window, he’d hear the raucous noise from the great banquet hall and the castle courtyard all the way here.

“Should we stop serving alcohol today?”

“Just post more guards outside.”

On days like this, young ladies who ruined their reputations always appeared in droves. There was even a saying that if you went under Osborne Bridge ten months after the Crown Prince’s annual birthday celebration, you’d trip over babies the storks had brought. 

This was what happened when you caused trouble on exactly this kind of day and couldn’t clean it up in time.

“Still, send anyone who wants to gorge themselves all night to the second-floor ballroom.”

Right below the balcony attached to the ballroom was Osborne Palace’s pride—a deep pond.

“If anyone falls in and drowns, tell them to bring their own carriage and haul the body away.”

Wilfred set down the report like he was throwing it. It was a record from when the welcoming party left Osborne until they returned escorting Her Highness the Crown Princess. 

Its contents had probably displeased the Crown Prince. It was entirely Aberdeen’s fault for sending the wrong princess without any warning.

Nevertheless, Bernard couldn’t even guess at the Crown Prince’s true feelings in insisting on accepting Princess Edith as Crown Princess, but since his duty was his duty, he had to fulfill his responsibilities.

“…Her Highness the Crown Princess’s quarters have been prepared in the inner chambers of the East Wing.”

The inner castle of Osborne Palace had annex buildings added to the east and west of the main castle, called the East Wing and West Wing respectively. 

The East Wing was where queens, crown princesses, and princesses had resided for generations. It had also been without an owner for the past four years.

Even hearing ‘East Wing,’ Wilfred showed no particular reaction. Bernard felt relieved only inwardly. Wasn’t His Highness once reluctant to even walk in that direction?

“Bernard.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not telling me to go there now, are you?”

‘So he still doesn’t want to go there.’

Though his job for three days was to look after the guests coming and going inside and outside the castle, the royal palace had plenty of spare rooms. Bernard’s concern was something else.

“Then, Your Highness. Surely not even tonight…?”

‘It’s the wedding night, you know? On the wedding night, you’ll make Her Highness the Crown Princess come find you herself?’

Wilfred seemed to read the meaning behind the secretary’s trailing words. And for once, he kindly added an explanation.

“With three hundred outsiders swarming my house, you want me to spend the night in the Crown Princess’s room that even the castle’s menial workers now know about?”

Wilfred’s older brother and King Joffrey III’s eldest son, Crown Prince Ambrose, died in battle at the Barracks Extermination War at exactly Wilfred’s current age. 

About a year later, Ambrose’s younger sister—Princess Gwendolyn, two years older than Wilfred—died in an accident. 

House Hartwell had always been plagued by numerous short-lived princes and princesses, and even King Joffrey, who was supposed to steadfastly protect the throne, was confined to his bed. 

This meant that Wilfred’s life was far from secure as well.

After inheriting the Crown Prince position following Ambrose’s death, Wilfred was exposed to countless assassination threats, and twice he’d really almost died.

So Wilfred slept in a different room every day. Of the dozens of rooms across part of the main castle and the entire West Wing, few people knew which ones were truly the Crown Prince’s ‘bedrooms.’ 

Secret passages shared only with royalty and a very few close associates also changed irregularly, and the rooms connected to these newly created secret passages became where the Crown Prince slept. 

Because of this, half the guard believed they protected the Crown Prince every night, but those truly protecting the Crown Prince were the other half who had no idea of this fact.

There was a kind of pattern to the changing rooms and a code to indicate it. Those who fully grasped this were Wilfred himself, the captain and vice-captain of the guard, Count Peregrine who was the Crown Prince’s right hand, and chief court secretary Bernard Doville.

Right now, Wilfred was saying he’d spend the wedding night in one of those ‘bedrooms’ too.

“But Prince Wilfred… Her Highness has already retired to her chambers…”

When a king or crown prince took a consort, the wedding night was spent in the consort’s room. 

This meant welcoming and respecting the woman who married into the royal family, but it was also a custom established so the king could freely come and go to his mistress’s room without being self-conscious when he kept a mistress.

Conversely, since it was somewhat undignified for the legitimate consort to go searching for the king’s room in the middle of the night, usually after the honeymoon ended, a couple’s room purely for sleeping together was prepared deep in the castle. 

By now, Her Highness the Crown Princess would be waiting for His Highness the Crown Prince in her new quarters according to that tradition.

“Then tell her to wait there all night.”

Bernard swallowed a sigh.

“No, no. I’ll send someone to Her Highness the Crown Princess right away. Which route should I use to bring her?”

“The corridor.”

The corridor, not a secret passage.

That meant Wilfred didn’t trust the Crown Princess.

* * *

Edith didn’t feel like she’d gotten married.

About eight hours had passed since the wedding ceremony consisting of marriage vows, ring exchange, perfunctory kiss, marriage proclamation, and the seemingly endless congratulatory speeches and songs in between. 

How she escaped the hall, how many Osborne citizens formed a sea of people outside the royal palace, how long it took to circle the royal palace once according to custom—such things remained only as vague impressions, like viewing a painting.

What awaited Edith next was paying respects to His Majesty the King, who lay unconscious in the deepest part of the inner castle. 

Though people came and went day and night, the sick person’s room had that characteristic musty smell. While she paid her respects as she’d learned, her husband waited expressionlessly beside her for the ceremony to end.

As soon as they withdrew from there, a long receiving line of nobles working at the royal palace, attendants and maids followed. In the brief moment they withdrew, she changed dresses and the bell rang announcing the start of the banquet.

She felt like she’d met half of Fenwick’s population in just one day.

‘I’m tired.’

The maids bathed her, dressed her in a chemise and nightgown, then left with wishes for her to rest well. Of course, Edith knew well that someone was waiting at a distance where they could come running if she called out. 

However, Osborne Palace’s security seemed much tighter than Aberdeen Castle where she’d lived. This was probably because there were more people at the royal palace than usual today.