Clothes really do make the person……!

The dress wrapped softly around the curves of her body and cascaded from the waist like a waterfall, and the pearl and jewel-dust embellishments made her whole figure shimmer brilliantly.

Perhaps it was the light, but her eyes seemed to sparkle like amethysts, and the color suited her flushed cheeks perfectly.

Her hair, just past her shoulders, looked more luminous than usual, and she let out a self-admiring gasp that she found a little embarrassing to recall.

Like, like an angel!

She had never found herself this lovely before.

It did not connect easily to the image of herself in a crisp palace attendant’s uniform, moving with sharp, disciplined precision.

She glanced at Andrea’s reflection behind her in the mirror, but could not read what he was thinking.

He wore an expression of someone cementing a decision.

……Am I being lured into a trap I won’t be able to refuse……?

No.

Riley gave a small shake of her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

That can’t happen. That’s a path to unhappiness for both of us.

She could not walk that road knowing where it led.

She could not understand it.

In the romance novels she had read, men tended to prefer keeping things to just a romance, so why was His Highness taking the opposite approach?

‘You’re welcome to take whichever dress you like home with you and try it on at your leisure before deciding. Some pieces are far more beautiful once worn than simply seen.’

Riley had been trying to leave without having tried on even a fraction of the dresses the designers had brought out when the madam made that offer.

Flustered and at a loss, Riley could not bring herself to refuse the gentle suggestion.

‘Then…… may I take just this one, the one I’m wearing now?’

‘Of course, Your Highness-to-be.’

The madam, who had taken it as settled that Riley would become crown princess, and the designers who had been standing in tense silence all broke into bright smiles at once. They had all been shrinking, worried that Riley’s hesitant expression meant she disliked the dresses.

Andrea too was convinced that trying on the wedding dress had changed Riley’s mind, and let the corner of his mouth lift slightly.

There it is.

He thought.

The advice had been right, that women would find their resolve about marriage once they saw and wore a dress for themselves. He had even consulted his nanny Madame Cuisine and tried today’s outing as a solution of sorts, and the result was not bad.

His satisfaction, however, did not last long.

Riley was not someone to be underestimated.

She had a separate scheme, and it was rather bold.

When she came out wearing the dress she herself thought suited her particularly well, she caught Andrea’s expression. He was staring at her with an uncharacteristically vacant look, and even the tips of his ears had gone a little red.

A wicked thought struck her.

He was slowing things down by insisting on marriage first, but if she put on this beautiful, snow-white dress and seduced him, might he not move forward on the physical front before the matrimonial one?

This too was something she had read in 『A Ballad of Flame and Loss』.

The novel said that men, upon seeing a pure white wedding dress, the symbol of innocence, were overcome with the desire to conquer.

Captain Alain had dressed his former lover in her wedding gown the night before her marriage to another man and shared one last passionate night with her. The novel described how the sight of her pure, innocent appearance had made Captain Alain lose his reason in an instant, despite their relationship having ended long before.

She was not endorsing infidelity, of course, but that chapter had been explosively popular at the time, and she remembered pouring everything she had into the illustration.

She had worked so hard to capture that bittersweet, *rotic atmosphere, and to feel her way into the emotion herself.

So……

If she wore this and seduced him, perhaps tonight she could finally have that passionate romance she was after.

Seated in the carriage, Riley glanced sideways.

Andrea had his back resting against the seat with his eyes closed, whatever he was thinking hidden behind that composed face. His hands were folded neatly on his knees.

A sudden pang of grievance rose in her.

Why did he act like a monk only with her. Well, he did respond to her advances, but the problem was that at a certain point he always pulled the reins and stopped at the line.

These days, Andrea felt to her like someone pointing at a tall tower called marriage that she could not possibly climb, and nagging her impatiently to hurry up and get there.

Huff…… in some ways he’s less mature than I am. Why does he refuse to consider all the complicated circumstances?

Riley sighed deeply, then glanced at the velvet box holding the wedding dress and let a meaningful smile settle on her face.

I picked a revealing one on purpose.

How should she go about it? Should she slip onto his lap while they had tea this evening?

Or perhaps suggest a waltz and try to seduce him that way?

She was turning various plans over in her mind when Andrea reached over and took her hand. Thinking she was smiling because she was pleased, he said in a soothing tone.

“See, you felt better once you actually tried one on, didn’t you? You don’t have to overthink everything. All you have to do is walk into the ceremony wearing that.”

He described a royal marriage, one of the most significant events imaginable, as though it were a casual evening outing, and Riley was left speechless.

The questions she had been swallowing all this time nearly burst out of her.

And what comes after? What about the royalist nobles pushing back? What about the approval of the elders and His Majesty?

And what about the standing you’ve only just secured?

I’ll go on being your weakness long after that…… hah……

All she could do was sigh.

In moments like this, he really did seem less mature than her. Though she herself was hardly better, scheming to make the most of his confession before anything else.

Andrea pinched the cheek of Riley, who was wearing that suspiciously crafty expression.

“Please stop overcomplicating things. Once you say yes, everything will be taken care of. And I promise I won’t push anymore after this.”

Andrea was, in his own way, surprisingly old-fashioned.

He wanted to save everything he longed to do with Riley for after the wedding, if he could help it. Perhaps it was because the image of her as a child was still burned into his eyes.

He knew she was an adult now, but the memory of her at sixteen, standing in an empty room with nowhere to turn, had lodged itself deep in his mind.

He wanted to hold her within the safety of marriage.

His desire for her was too raw, too animal, and he felt a measure of guilt about unleashing it on someone so transparent and bright. He was afraid that once he had her, he would not be able to stop.

He wanted to make her his wife first, and then have her as fully as he wished.

The word ‘wife’ surfaced in his mind without warning, and a faint flush rose to his face. He raised a hand to cover his mouth.

My wife……

The one who had been trotting around in front of him like a puppy all this time, now my wife.

A strange shiver ran down his spine.

……Right. Once she was his wife, his conscience would not reproach him for anything he did to this bright, guileless creature.

Unaware of what Riley was plotting, and convinced that she was inwardly close to accepting his proposal despite her outward reluctance, Andrea stepped through her front door in a wholesome and cheerful frame of mind.

And that very evening, not long after dark, things went sideways without fail.