‘Why, why are you refusing? Is it because you’re still hurt by how I treated you back then?’

‘There is nothing to be hurt about. I forgot about you completely back then. I intend to keep doing so. Goodbye.’

‘What was that?’

Andrea’s well-shaped brow shifted. Whether it was from the intense sparring session at the training ground or from those last words, his heart was beating in a way that felt unpleasant.

Thoughts came rushing in from all directions.

‘Were those two already acquainted?’

Then why had they acted like strangers in front of him?

Because of the nature of their relationship?

Or had something developed between them after they were brought together through him?

No, wait. ‘I forgot about you completely’ was the kind of thing people said about former lovers.

A cold, foul feeling washed over him from head to toe.

Parnelli was said to have had countless romantic entanglements regardless of gender. Could it be that he and Raul had also——

But when?

The image of Raul dressing up carefully and going out every weekend came to mind.

Hah, had the boy been seeing someone back then? Where had they even met?

With that middle-aged man and his vaguely cloying manner?

He did not actually look middle-aged at all, but Andrea began mentally disparaging Parnelli as his irritation surged.

They say artists are all sly and underhanded.

Was that why their tastes aligned so perfectly?

A grimy, ugly feeling crept through his chest.

But his reason soon stepped in to rein in the impulse.

‘No. It’s too early to jump to conclusions. I need to watch a little longer.’

His gaze turned cold. Andrea stared at the back of Parnelli’s head as the man glanced around and disappeared.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A few days later.

The king had been slowly recovering and had begun moving about lightly, even appearing in the audience chamber to receive reports from officials.

Rufus, who had prepared and delivered the antidote during that short period, said the king appeared to have been inhaling the vapors of Akera’s Claw for less than a month.

That matched the confession of the maid who had brought the poisoned incense burner into the king’s bedchamber, and so nothing fatal had come to pass.

“That tonic you brought did a great deal of good.”

The king had no idea he had nearly been slowly poisoned to death. He believed he had simply been suffering from accumulated fatigue and was now recovering.

Andrea had no intention of using this incident as a card to play just yet.

A more decisive moment needed to be created first.

Andrea smiled with the warmth of a dutiful son.

“Yes, it contains small measured amounts of precious myrrh essence from the eastern continent, along with cloves and sulfur and other medicinal ingredients, so please do take it without missing a dose.”

“Oh, it must be quite rare.”

Andrea continued to flatter the king, who was looking considerably better.

“And it is less the tonic’s doing than Your Majesty simply reclaiming your natural vitality. You have always been remarkably robust.”

The king stroked his chin in agreement.

“That is true. I am far from ready to be confined to a back room just yet.”

“Of course, that goes without saying. Even so, please avoid anything taxing for the time being. I will attend tomorrow’s cabinet meeting in your place.”

The king smiled with satisfaction.

“Having a grown son, and one this capable as my heir, is a comfort at times like these. Is that not so?”

The king turned to ask the chief chamberlain standing nearby, who responded with effusive flattery about His Majesty’s great fortune. In the meantime, Andrea rose from his seat.

“Then I will take my leave.”

“Yes, you mentioned a meeting with the state ministers.”

Andrea bowed briefly and turned to go, letting his gaze drift for just a moment to the stack of documents on the side table.

Something he saw there made the corner of his mouth curve upward.

“Now then. Time to go collect a confession.”

Jacket slung over one shoulder, the crown prince strolled down the corridor with the easy air of someone heading out for a picnic.

No one would have guessed he was on his way down to the dungeon to conduct an interrogation himself.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

After drinking down the rich mulberry wine the chief chamberlain had brought, the king finally picked up several of the documents Andrea had left behind.

Among them were items requiring his final approval, along with reports on state affairs and meeting minutes from the period of his illness.

The world had plenty to say about the crown prince, but the king regarded his eldest son with confidence.

At some point, Andrea had begun handling everything with flawless competence while never once overstepping, never daring to shake the foundations of power.

An heir this capable, and yet so measured and humble within his proper bounds. There was no way not to feel proud.

How fortunate he was.

‘The boy takes after Marietta’s character.’

His first wife Marietta came to mind today, quiet and resolute in her support, always thoughtful.

‘She was truly wise.’

He had betrayed her and remarried Fabienne. And if he was honest, he had been slowly regretting it.

Fabienne was greedy and self-centered, incapable of showing mercy to those beneath her.

She seemed to grow sharper and more vicious with every passing year.

“Tch. No virtue in her.”

When she was young and beautiful, that shallowness of character had been offset by the fresh appeal of a rose in bloom. He had loved her passionately, telling himself that thorns were simply part of the rose.

But now that Fabienne’s youthful bloom had faded, only the vicious thorns remained, standing out all the more clearly.

The second prince Henry, born of her, was foolish in many ways, having inherited his mother’s narrow temperament.

Thinking about his sharp-tongued wife and his dim, lazy second son gave him a headache, so the king decided to stop thinking about them.

He pressed his fingers against the corners of his eyes and decided he might as well work through the backlog of state affairs, and began turning through the documents.

Then his hand stopped.

Tucked between the open pages was a drawing. A semi-n*de portrait of a woman, calling to mind a flower just coming into bloom.

The king swallowed involuntarily and glanced around.

Everyone had left the room, fortunately, and his eyes dropped back to the document.

The woman in the drawing had a young, delicate face with an air of purity, and yet something about her was undeniably sensual.

Her body was covered just barely, in a way that seemed designed to provoke, and the moment he saw it his heart began to pound.

His gaze, which had lingered on her face, traveled slowly downward.

Full br*asts, shapely hips, a soft drape of fabric falling between her thighs, lush legs.

The body of a vigorous middle-aged man in recovery responded sharply.

‘Mmh……’

A faint sound escaped him at the abrupt stimulation. He cleared his throat to himself and picked up the paper. He assumed it was some low-grade theater pamphlet circulating among the public and clicked his tongue.

“Tch. How did something like this end up mixed in with official documents. Even if public morals have loosened in the capital, this sort of thing needs to be reined in.”

He had apparently been too permissive with the press and the arts.

And yet the king could not take his eyes off the semi-n*de portrait.

The drawing was rendered with such delicacy and depth it seemed almost tangible.

The shading was so skillfully done that the full curves seemed to shift and sway.

The king studied the woman in the drawing, wondering whether she might be a prima donna from an opera he knew or perhaps a high-class courtesan, and his body warmed slowly.

Something was stirring deep in his core when a knock sounded at precisely that moment.

Before he could hide the drawing, Andrea strode in.

He had his sleeves rolled up, whatever he had been doing, and crossed the room to the king in an instant.

“My apologies, Your Majesty. I left something behind. Ah, I see you were looking at it.”

Andrea glanced at the compromising drawing with perfect composure and explained.

“It is an anonymous pamphlet that has been circulating near the capital recently. It was deemed indecent and I have already ordered all copies to be confiscated.”

The king played along with equal composure.

“Yes, the level of explicitness is far too high to be distributed openly in the streets. This is not some back-alley illustrated booklet.”

Andrea studied the heightened color in the king’s face with a carefully neutral expression and added,

“The issue is less the level of explicitness and more that the illustrations are drawn to resemble real public figures with unsettling accuracy, which drives up sales. There was a case targeting me not long ago.”