But Andrea raised an eyebrow, looking as though he did not quite follow.

Roso clicked his tongue in exasperation.

“You make scandal after scandal and yet you’re this naive? You need to start initiating ambiguous contact now. For instance, playing with her hair, blowing lightly against her earlobe, pressing your lips briefly to the back of her neck while clasping a necklace around her. She’ll tremble at that. After that, if you press your lips lightly to the upper curve of her chest, she’ll be gasping and making all sorts of noise.”

Andrea’s eyebrow twitched as the explanation grew increasingly crude, and Roso wrapped it up in one sentence.

“The key point is to gradually raise the intensity and build anticipation.”

“……”

It was leaning heavily toward the physical, but Andrea turned the advice over in his mind regardless.

“But how does someone like you, a gay man, know any of this?”

“We’re all the same!”

Watching Roso bristle, Andrea involuntarily pictured him and some opera tenor in an intimate scene and grimaced.

Even so, the advice had merit, so he gave a half-hearted wave of his fingers.

“Hmm…… go on.”

What Roso was saying, in the end, was that since he had only provided visual stimulation so far, attempting tactile stimulation might reawaken her feelings.

A faint ray of hope seemed visible, and Andrea began gathering up his wounded pride.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

He had not managed to bring Queen Fabienne to execution, but Andrea had dismantled the cornerstone of the parliamentary faction nobility.

The effect was being felt directly in the running of state affairs.

Once he had demonstrated such an overwhelming difference in power, even the court newspapers that had persistently belittled him went quiet.

More than quiet, they reversed their position entirely and began publishing praise of the crown prince’s distinguished achievements, his administrative ability, and his diplomatic skill.

In short, from Andrea’s perspective, everything was moving with the wind at his back.

The king was neglecting state affairs to prepare for his grand wedding to Esena Talbot, and Andrea’s authority grew steadily more formidable.

He had no intention whatsoever of returning the power he had taken to the king.

Of course, Edwin and Nina occasionally asked whether the Minerve’s blade should now be turned toward Lady Talbot and her family.

When the balance of power shifted, the targets of scrutiny shifted with it.

But Andrea was surprisingly relaxed about it.

“The Talbot Viscountcy is nowhere near building real influence, and Esena Talbot won’t be carrying any royal heirs anyway.”

The king had already become infertile after inhaling Akera’s Claw fumes for a full month.

So before Esena Talbot could reach the age where she might want to throw her weight around the way Fabienne had, she would feel her beauty beginning to fade and spend her days desperately trying to hold onto the king’s affection.

In that sense, Fabienne’s act of rendering the king infertile had turned out to be quite a stroke of luck for Andrea.

“Then shall we wrap up the Blanc Ducal House’s embezzlement and personal scandal cases?”

“No. Keep digging.”

The corner of Andrea’s mouth curved with a cold edge.

There was no need to expend much more effort on a family already stripped of their title and territory, but he had not managed to seize their assets. The backlash from the senior members of the nobility council had been too fierce.

Even so, his intention to slowly strangle the Blanc family’s finances and bring them to complete ruin had not changed.

“Bernay and Nina, keep up the good work. I’ll assign more informants.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

Nina responded with a bright smile, clearly pleased by Andrea’s trust.

She was, from his perspective, a capable and loyal subordinate.

Over the course of their work, any noble the Minerve had targeted with an article had been unable to hold out and eventually capitulated. Nina’s pen in particular had become a master instrument of destruction, dismantling the businesses of high-ranking nobles and exposing their every corrupt act.

If the Minerve had not been a secret publication, someone would have poached a talent like hers long ago.

Nina had also been quietly delighted when Edwin hinted that she might be given a status that would allow her entry into noble society.

The elevation in rank was welcome, but more than that, she wondered whether doing more for His Highness the Crown Prince might earn her greater recognition.

Whether he might, just once, see her differently.

But Andrea, who had never noticed and had no need to notice the admiring look Nina directed at him, rose from his seat with indifference.

He had been growing restless since receiving Roso’s detailed coaching on romantic technique recently.

“Leaving already? You haven’t been to the club lately, and we haven’t seen you at the salons either. Is something the matter?”

Bernay asked.

Even in the thick of fierce political struggle with the queen, the crown prince had always made time for leisure, and now he had cut himself off from everything unrelated to official duties.

Roso joined in with a meaningful smile.

“He’s busy with a romantic pursuit.”

“Oh, is this the real thing this time? Who on earth is it?”

They all knew that women always gathered around Andrea, but he had never once had a genuinely serious relationship, despite what the world assumed.

In the midst of all this, only Nina’s expression went slightly rigid.

Roso committed the rudeness of calling out to Andrea’s back as he turned to leave.

“You understand, don’t you, Your Highness? You have to move to the next step right away! Every relationship goes cold if you miss the timing, so hurry! I wish you success!”

The tactless outburst made Andrea’s expression turn dangerous, but sitting in the carriage on the way back, he turned Roso’s advice over carefully in his mind.

Then he leaned back with ease and murmured.

“At least there’s a way to recover. That’s something.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Andrea stopped by Riley’s favorite dessert shop again.

A box decorated with gold foil wrapping was set on his knee, and the carriage came to a stop in front of 1 Meymond Street.

He passed the maid at the door and went straight up to the second floor, where Riley was sitting among a collection of odds and ends, wiping them down with a dry cloth.

The odds and ends in question included a knitted lamp shade, a brass candlestick that looked like an antique, a wool rug, an embroidered wall hanging, and a silver sugar bowl.

Before Riley could even greet him, Andrea dropped onto the sofa as though it were his own home, and she offered a weary bow.

“……You’re here.”

She was quiet for a moment, then added in an ambiguous tone.

“You seem to have a lot of free time lately.”

It was a polite observation, carrying the implication that his visits were perhaps too frequent and too unannounced.

Alfonso, who had followed in a moment behind, rubbed his tired face and answered on Andrea’s behalf.

“He does have quite a lot of free time lately.”

Alfonso moved to sit in the chair beside him, then stopped short at Andrea’s pointed look.

The order came swiftly.

“Alfonso, shouldn’t you be heading back to the palace and getting some work done?”

Alfonso shook his head, then conceded and lifted himself back up.

He had been quite surprised to learn that Raul, whom he had known for years, was a woman named Riley, but not more surprised than when he realized Andrea had feelings for her.

Either way, his own work had piled up considerably from accompanying the crown prince on his frequent outings, and his employer was making it blatantly obvious he wanted to be alone, so Alfonso left in a mild sulk.

The maid came up with the tea shortly after and then also left, and the two of them were alone again.

Riley let out a small sigh, stood with the upright posture ingrained by years in the palace, and poured the tea. The moment she set down the teapot, Andrea pulled her toward him.

In an instant, Riley found herself seated right beside him.

She was clearly still not used to sitting side by side with Andrea, and her startled reaction made him smile.

He had felt a pang when she left the palace, and had wondered more than once whether letting her resign had been a mistake, but looking at things now, there were advantages.

Riley was no longer always by his side the way she used to be, but they were no longer employer and employee.

A freer arrangement. The kind of conduct that would have been somewhat improper inside the palace could be attempted here under the banner of ‘free courtship.’

Still, Riley remained stiff, and Andrea laughed quietly at that before picking up the most generously cream-filled item from the desserts he had brought.

“You need to put on some weight.”

He had thought she looked frail even when he believed she was a young man, but knowing she was a woman made it even harder to bear.

How could anyone go through life with a neck and limbs and a waist that slight.

And on top of that, wandering around alone outside the palace without the faintest idea how dangerous the world was.