She sat back down with a pout, and Andrea let out a quiet laugh.

He reached over and smoothed Riley’s hair, which the wind had tousled. The golden hair that now swayed just below her shoulders made her look noticeably more feminine.

It was almost hard to believe that until just a few months ago she had been living as a man, and he had never known.

“I said I’ll buy you a new one.”

But Riley was still mourning the lost hat.

“Hmph, it’s not the same as the one I bought myself.”

“You received a salary at the palace too.”

“But it was the first one I received as a member of the Minerve.”

Riley had been taking a certain pride in having become a kind of journalist.

“Money I earned with my own talent is different.”

Andrea thought that bringing Riley on board had been the right call, both as a way to keep her from going off to work as a tutor somewhere else, and as the reason she was now walking around this pleased with herself.

But her habit of finding meaning in her own ‘independence’ and rejoicing in it was, for some reason, not entirely to his liking.

“Don’t mourn that secondhand hat. In ten minutes, something far prettier will be on your head.”

Riley tilted her head at the cryptic remark.

“Something pretty? Where are we going?”

Andrea brushed off her question and changed the subject, wrapping one arm around Riley’s shoulder.

“I asked first, remember. Has the director been coming by lately?”

“Oh.”

Riley rolled her eyes the way one does when thinking of a thoroughly tiresome person, then let out a long sigh. He was clearly a considerable nuisance.

“He shows up every now and then and says the same thing every time. I’m running out of even the faint goodwill I had left.”

Andrea laughed quietly.

He did not think poorly of Parnelli.

The reason was that even if Parnelli’s motives were transparent, he believed it was better for Riley to have at least one biological parent around as a kind of backing.

“And gets turned away at the door every time.”

“How do you know that?”

The offhand remark made Riley look at him curiously, wondering how Andrea could possibly know that Parnelli was always turned away at her door.

But he gave no answer, and simply stared at the shadow of clouds reflected in her eyes, watching them pass smoothly across.

His own reflection was there too, and that pleased him.

Andrea fell into these moments sometimes. Even when she was still Raul, those clear eyes would stir something inexplicably tender in him, and he would find himself staring.

“How do you know, hmm?”

Riley asked again, but he only smiled quietly, his eyes curving.

He could not tell her that he had stationed a few guards around her house.

He pressed a kiss to her pouty cheek and made up his mind.

He had considered using Parnelli and the Count of Radonel household as a kind of backdrop for Riley, but since she disliked it so much, he would restore the title of her mother’s family, the Spencer viscountcy, instead.

The Spencer viscountcy had been snatched up by a distant illegitimate branch with even less claim than Riley, bought with money accumulated through moneylending.

Creating a proper justification to reclaim it was easy enough for him.

The reason Andrea was in such a hurry to establish a proper status for her was simple. He was preparing for a wedding. One that skipped the engagement entirely.

“We’re here.”

At those words, Riley jumped nimbly out of the carriage without thinking and stood holding the door, waiting.

The habits formed from years of attending to him were still in her body, and they surfaced in unguarded moments like this.

The attendants were all taken aback, and Andrea shook his head as he stepped down.

With a slightly theatrical gesture, as though to remind her that he was the one escorting her, he held out his hand. Riley, her face a little pink, placed hers on top of it.

She lamented inwardly.

……The habits I built as an attendant come out without passing through my brain at all……

We’re courting now, so I should be acting more demure……

But the years she had spent as an attendant had been, in their own way, happy and peaceful, so she was not truly displeased with herself for it.

Being by Andrea’s side in any form had always felt right.

The word ‘romance’ settled over her with a new weight.

She still could not quite believe she had come to be in this kind of relationship with Andrea, but thinking back over the past few days, it felt natural.

All those moments teetering on the edge of going too far.

Or was it more decadent precisely because he never quite crossed that line? Should it be called not just a romance but a burning one?

Excited and a little resentful at the same time, Riley’s face went bright red.

She glanced sideways at Andrea and caught the perfectly sculpted line of his profile. He must have felt her gaze, because he turned his eyes smoothly toward her and smiled, his eyes curving.

Those attractive eyes and his elegantly swept hair caught the surrounding sunlight and shimmered more brilliantly than it, and she was on the verge of falling for him all over again.

But that fresh, fluttering feeling did not last long.

“……Where is this……?”

Riley had assumed they were simply heading to a theatre somewhere, and her eyes went wide.

The dazzling hall she stepped into was filled from end to end with white wedding dresses.

“We are honored by Your Highness’s visit to our atelier. As you instructed, we have prepared our finest works, each a testament to our designers’ pride and craft.”

The owner of the luxury atelier and all the designers had lined up and bowed deeply, and Riley stepped back with a start.

She tugged quietly at Andrea’s sleeve and looked at him with a question in her eyes, but he only smiled with infuriating ease.

A moment later, as the dresses were brought forward to surround her, Riley nearly had to shield her eyes.

The delicate embroidery and jeweled embellishments on each gown were so brilliant they were almost blinding.

“Every dress has been fitted to the young lady’s measurements, so they may be tried on immediately. There will be a second fitting afterward.”

The atelier madam’s polite explanation left Riley momentarily speechless.

Wedding dresses…… They had not reached any conclusion yet…… She had never agreed to his proposal……

But Andrea wore a relaxed smile that concealed his shamelessness, and spoke to the atelier owner on behalf of the speechless Riley.

“Why don’t you bring out whichever you think suits her best first.”

“Of course, Your Highness. I shall select the pieces that best showcase the young lady’s loveliness.”

As they moved with swift efficiency, Riley shot Andrea a look full of questions and unease, but he simply crossed his arms and turned his gaze elsewhere.

She tried to telegraph her feelings by twitching her eyebrows, but it was no use. Andrea was running his fingers idly along the edge of a crystal ornament nearby, pointedly ignoring her.

I told you I couldn’t do marriage, that I just wanted a passionate romance!

Are you going to keep this up to the very end?

You’ve never held back with anyone else, so why can’t we just have a season together?

Something twisted tighter and tighter inside Riley’s chest.

In the end, the two of them rode home in silence.

The reason was that they had engaged in a quiet battle of wills inside the dress shop.

Andrea had once again made clear that marrying quickly and courting afterward was not too late, while Riley could not bring herself to accept that.

The more he pushed, the more she arrived at the conclusion that marriage to him was simply not the answer.

But the longing to love him was real, so she thought she should have him fiercely for a season and then each return to where they belonged.

Of course, she did not say any of this aloud. She deflected vaguely, said she had not thought about it, and shook her head as though the idea was too much.

Andrea showed a flicker of frustration, then seemed to surrender and said.

“Right, I think I’ve been rushing things. I said it because I didn’t see the point in dragging it out. I’ll respect your feelings.”

Either way, setting aside the small quarrel born of their different hopes, the wedding dresses they had seen today had been genuinely beautiful.

Looking at herself in the mirror while wearing one, Riley had gone a little blank.