At Rufus’s vaguely put-out reply, Andrea walked out without a word.

His stride gradually lengthened.

He had left a month ago telling Riley to rest quietly in the room ‘alone’ and to think carefully about whether there was anything to say to him.

Waving off Alfonso and the escort knights who offered to find Riley and bring her, Andrea walked around himself.

It did not take long to find her.

He simply followed the sound of noise wherever it came from.

His boots finally stopped at the entrance to the rear garden, where gardeners were moving busily to plant new seedlings.

A large-scale renovation had apparently begun. Soil had been turned up all across the rear grounds, and unfamiliar varieties of saplings and flowers were being planted.

Lady Talbot, who had little interest in outside affairs, had apparently already taken over the queen’s palace and plunged into wedding preparations.

Since he was the one who had engineered all of this, Andrea had no particular complaint.

It was only the raucous laughter drifting from beyond the fence that put him in a bad mood.

He stepped over the mounds of earth and looked over the hedge, and his brow drew together slightly.

Several of the Eli Palace attendants were out as well, apparently helping the busy gardeners move saplings and the like.

In the middle of them stood Riley, looking healthy and lightly tanned from the sun.

Laughing brightly over something, over and over.

And she was as meddlesome as ever.

“I’ll carry this.”

“Riley, they said you need to rest in the shade.”

“I’m not a patient anymore. It was never a serious wound to begin with.”

Riley swung her arms back and forth to demonstrate, then picked up a large water bucket and started moving.

A young, cheerful gardener tried to stop her.

“Hey, should you really be using that shoulder like that? You were shot.”

“I’m fine. You said the wedding is soon and this all needs to be done today.”

But before Riley could finish her confident declaration, her foot caught on a tree root and her step went wrong.

She went down hard, and the bucket tipped over on top of her, and in an instant she was rolling in the mud.

“Ugh!”

“Good grief, see?”

Andrea exhaled and reflexively moved to stride toward Riley, then stopped himself.

The gardeners and attendants had already rushed over, pulled Riley up, and surrounded her with a fuss. They were brushing the mud from her hair and clothes with towels and trying to guide her to the shade.

Watching the whole scene from a distance, a faint blue vein flickered at Andrea’s temple and disappeared.

He narrowed his eyes and gathered his composure, and then something even more aggravating unfolded before him.

“Honestly, helping out since morning and standing in the sun like that. No wonder you’re dizzy.”

“I’m not dizzy, I tripped.”

But no one seemed to be listening to Riley.

“Here, your big brothers will carry you over to the shade.”

Two men took hold of Riley’s upper body and one ankle each, ignoring her protests, and began carrying her over to the shade of a tree.

“Oh honestly, you really don’t have to do this.”

Riley made a show of objecting but was clearly finding it funny to be carried, and giggled.

Crack.

A vein stood out sharply on Andrea’s forehead.

The two of them were not done once they had set Riley down in the shade.

“It’s lunchtime anyway, so I’ll go to the kitchen and get sandwiches and some shaved ice, since you like it.”

Riley waved her hands with a delighted expression.

“Shaved ice? Oh, I’m not overheated.”

Even as she said it, her eyes lit up at the mention of shaved ice, and Andrea let out a short, involuntary laugh.

“Right, I’ll tell the head cook it’s for you and bring it back, so just rest here. No running around. We’ll be the ones scolded when His Highness returns.”

Robert ran off down the side path toward Eli Palace.

Shaved ice was a dessert for royalty and nobility, not something servants could ordinarily enjoy, but the people of Eli Palace had it surprisingly often.

They assumed it was because His Highness the Crown Prince was fond of iced desserts, but only Andrea and Riley knew the truth.

Andrea had simply noticed by chance that Riley loved shaved ice and kept requesting it from the kitchen.

Only the two of them knew that nearly all the sweet desserts and iced treats sent up to the crown prince ended up in Riley’s mouth.

Riley was licking her lips in anticipation when Robert returned before long with a tray of food.

In the meantime, Jayden had been wiping the sweat from Riley’s forehead and scolding her.

“Eat this and get your strength back. We’ll finish helping the gardeners.”

They all sat down together and began eating lunch in cheerful company, and at one point someone even treated Riley like a small child and fed her a spoonful of something.

Watching the scene from a distance, Andrea’s brow kept twitching with some unnamed displeasure.

Then, just as the attendants were finishing lunch, another problem arose.

Robert announced he was going to carry Riley on his back.

“Get on, you. Can’t have you collapsing on the way, so I’ll take you back to the ward.”

“I didn’t hurt my legs, and I didn’t faint either.”

But Riley’s protests seemed to fall on deaf ears.

“You nearly fell over just now. If you collapse on the way, we’re the ones Rufus will come after.”

Jayden joined in.

“Come on, get on, Raul. We’ve been carrying you around since you were young.”

Jayden, exaggerating that he had been carrying Riley around since she entered the palace at sixteen, grabbed her by the shoulders and started maneuvering her onto Robert’s back.

Andrea opened his eyes again, having squeezed them shut against the limits of his patience, and finally stepped into the rear garden.

The first person to spot him was Riley, who had been debating whether to get on or not.

“Oh? Your Highness?”

Riley, standing there awkwardly, opened her eyes wide and came running over.

“When did you return? Did everything go well?”

The chattering attendants quickly straightened up and bowed in respectful silence.

A hush followed.

The crown prince had appeared without warning, and his cool gaze swept the garden, lingering on the attendants who had been so familiar with each other. As his eyes moved, the only sound was the droning of bees.

But after a brief silence, everyone standing at attention opened their eyes wide.

His Highness the Crown Prince had suddenly bent one knee and offered his back to Raul.

“Get on.”

A quiet command, dropping into the still air where only butterflies and bees drifted.

Riley and everyone else had no idea what to do.

But the broad back spread out before her radiated a stillness that brooked no argument, and Riley had no choice but to climb on quietly.

As Andrea walked out of the hushed rear garden with heavy, deliberate steps that suggested barely contained anger, she could not bring herself to ask a single thing.

She only stayed curled against his back, watching his mood carefully, afraid the rapid beating of her heart might somehow reach him through it.

Of course, she had no way of knowing then. That such a thunderbolt of a command was about to fall on her.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“……Pardon?”

Being carried back and set down at the bedside had felt overwhelming and fluttering and wonderful.

But then, just as she was about to ask when he had returned, the words fell on her like a bomb.

“Leave the palace.”

Riley blinked, not quite understanding what she had heard. Andrea repeated it in a flat, toneless voice.

“Leave the palace by the end of this month.”

The shock hit like a lightning strike, and Riley’s eyes went wide and trembled.

A long silence stretched between them before she could manage a voice, and even then it came out cracked.

“Wh, why all of a…… m, may I ask the reason?”

She had forgotten entirely that leaving the palace to live as she pleased had been her wish all along, and her eyes filled with tears.

It felt like turning a corner in an alley and coming face to face with something she had been running from.

But Andrea spoke slowly, kneading the back of his neck as though something was sitting uneasily with him.

“You already know why.”

He lifted his lowered gaze and met her eyes.

“I know you’re a woman. And your real name, Riley.”