Eager to make up for her mishap in the bath, Riley put her skills to quick use.

“Hmm…… the gold buttons stand out nicely on this uniform, so I think simple onyx cufflinks would be the better choice.”

Today, as always, she dressed Andrea however she pleased, according to her own eye.

She re-folded the tip of his pocket square into a sharp point and adjusted the angle of his watch chain so only a sliver of it showed.

What Riley aimed for was an effortless elegance.

Refined and polished without being overdone.

The irony, of course, was that achieving something that looked effortless required very careful calculation.

She would not call it a boast, but she did take quiet pride in the fact that her own contribution had played some part in the crown prince’s extraordinary popularity throughout the kingdom.

His looks alone were enough to overwhelm everything else, naturally, but there was such a thing as secondary charm.

Riley had an innate eye for putting things together well. Whatever her hands touched seemed to acquire a certain flair.

After showing flashes of that instinct here and there after her arrival, she had been put in charge of His Highness’s dressing room, and before she knew it, she had taken on the notoriously demanding role of personal dresser.

Combining the many fine garments, precious jewels, cufflinks, and silk ties as she saw fit and putting them on the crown prince had quietly become one of Riley’s small, private pleasures.

She was selling him as a character in a cheap serial novel, yes, but her loyalty ran deeper than that might suggest.

Pinning the gold braid insignia to the shoulder of his uniform, Riley muttered to herself.

‘Nobody thinks about our crown prince as much as I do.’

She gave the lapels of his jacket one final adjustment and stepped back. Andrea strode forward.

He glanced at her trailing behind him, and as he passed the table in the sitting room, he gestured toward one end of it with his eyes.

“Brought that back yesterday. Eat it if you want.”

“Oh, Poinsson cookies!”

Andrea was always a little prickly with “Raul,” but every time he went out, he would quietly bring something back.

“A grown man getting that excited……”

He watched the attendant snatch up the box from the famous dessert shop with sparkling eyes, let out a small amused sound, shook his head, and walked out.

“Have a good day, Your Highness!”

Riley’s voice suddenly brimmed with energy. She gave a proper, respectful bow to her master’s retreating back and set about cleaning the bedchamber.

Her hands moved a little faster than usual as she dusted, her mind already rushing ahead to the approaching illustration deadline.

‘I need to draw His Highness’s back view from earlier before the memory fades……’

In the end, Riley finished the cleaning in a rather slapdash fashion, hurried back to her room, and got back to work on Captain Alain.

The pose of him leaning over the heroine came out far more naturally this time, and Riley was satisfied.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

An office in the heart of the capital, Tennetcy.

“You’re here, Your Highness? You’re always handsome, but you look especially fine today.”

“Seriously. We all drank together and you’re the only one who looks perfectly fine. That’s not fair.”

Aiden and Roso, sprawled across the office sofa nursing their hangovers, needled Andrea as he walked in.

Both were sons of noble families, but they used the cover of running a secret press as an excuse to treat this place as their personal den.

The others present were likewise childhood friends who had run together since their academy days, and in private they were all perfectly comfortable with one another.

Having apparently not gone home and slept crumpled up together in the office, they greeted Andrea’s immaculate arrival with a chorus of jeers.

“How much more of the attention do you plan to hoard? Don’t tell me you actually finished your entire morning schedule before coming here.”

“I did.”

Andrea answered without missing a beat, settled into an empty chair, and crossed his legs. He clicked his tongue.

Looking at his friends’ bird’s-nest hair, sleep-creased cheeks, and wrinkled shirts made him genuinely question whether the people he commanded were doing their jobs properly.

He clicked his tongue once more and got straight to the point.

“I came to look at today’s proof.”

He had come in person to review the issue before they broke a bribery story.

“Right, today’s ten thousand copies are already loaded and waiting for distribution to each district.”

Even dead drunk, they had apparently handled what needed handling.

Edwin produced a fresh copy, and Andrea began flipping through it with an air of indifference.

A cold gleam flickered in his grey eyes. He was one step away from burying a political enemy.

“Don’t give him a moment to breathe. Break the actress scandal right after.”

“Yeah, that one’s queued up too.”

The parliamentary faction nobles had, at some point, taken control of several press outlets and were using them to distort Andrea’s every move and stoke resentment against every bill he put forward.

He had left them alone while he was with the military, but the time had come to start cutting out the opposition, and so he had founded 〈Daily Minerve〉 as a counterweight.

His plan was to use this secret newspaper to show them, slowly and deliberately, that crossing him would cost them ten times over.

He was also fully aware, of course, that the one orchestrating the press campaign targeting him was his stepmother, Queen Fabienne.

‘I’ll squeeze the life out of it. Slowly.’

A flicker of something like amusement passed through his languid, serpentine grey eyes.

Meanwhile, Roso was fingering the edge of Andrea’s sheer organza pocket square and asked,

“Our crown prince always sets the trend. Where does something like this even come from? Is that little attendant Raul still handling your wardrobe?”

Andrea raised one eyebrow, paused for a moment, and answered with the air of someone wondering why it was any of his business.

“Why do you ask.”

“Because I want to steal him. That kid has taste, genuine taste. It’s his fault all the ladies flock unfairly to Your Highness.”

Roso’s complaint earned him a rebuke from Bernay.

“You think that would actually help? The face is a different matter entirely. Besides, you have no interest in women anyway, so why do you even care.”

“Come on, I’m just saying. And in the world of men like us, how you dress matters more than your face.”

“Good grief.”

The lot of them were still bickering without any intention of getting up from the sofa when the office door opened and a woman with dark brown hair pinned high walked in briskly, arms full of documents.

“Hey, Nina.”

Nina stepped lightly into the room, noticed Andrea was there as well, and dipped into a curtsy.

“Your Highness, you’re here.”

The only woman among 〈Daily Minerve〉’s small staff, Nina was also a graduate of the Royal Academy’s journalism department.

She was of common birth, but Andrea had recruited her for her strong academic record and her sharp, incisive opinion pieces skewering the times.

Above all, he had judged that having at least one common woman’s perspective in the room was essential for responding quickly to the shifting currents of public opinion.

In any case, the five founding members had been running the paper in secret without taking on any additional staff, and while they might look at a glance like a group of idle young lords lounging about, they were each talented in their own right and driven by their own convictions.

Nina, who had a particular knack for reading the mood of civilian public opinion and its subtler undercurrents, held out a magazine.

“Your Highness, I think you ought to take a look at this.”

Andrea took the magazine she extended toward him, and Nina stepped in close beside him to explain.

“It’s a new publication, but sales have been surging recently. The overall tone is the same as other gossip rags, so I looked into why, and it turned out to be the serialized novel at the back.”

“Why, what’s it about.”

Roso and Bernay, who had been lounging half-prone on the sofa, stretched their necks forward with interest.

Andrea flipped through the magazine page by page with an expression of mild indifference.

The political commentary was thin, and it read like an ordinary publication living off celebrity gossip.

Was it really so remarkable for something like this to enjoy a sudden surge in popularity among the general public?

Andrea offered a flat assessment.

“A low-end tabloid like this can’t build a solid subscriber base with any particular demographic.”

But Nina pushed back immediately.

“Actually, it already has. Particularly among women. The issue is that the readership is gradually spreading through word of mouth into the salon circuit.”

Andrea tilted his head. Nina opened the magazine to the last page and held it out for him to see.