Chapter 4.2

“Why on earth… no, you never said… then why did you say you didn’t have to marry…?”

“Because I thought the rumors were true. Of course, I tried to muster the courage to speak, but I thought you liked Sir Dein, and Sir Dein liked you, so I couldn’t say it… that I also liked Sir Dein.”

It was the final confirmation. Olivia, who had gritted her teeth to protect Violet, was despondent as if she had lost everything in the world.

And there was a man who looked equally ridiculous. Dein, who had been listening beside her, was frozen with an expression he had never worn before.

For several seconds. The words that flowed into his ears finally entered his mind, and he wrinkled his smooth forehead.

“Why are you confessing to others here? You should be saying it to me.”

“Well, I wanted to say it, but I missed the timing for three days…”

At his dissatisfied urging, Violet blushed and trailed off.

Seeing her cute, flushed cheeks, Dein quickly relaxed his brow and smiled.

“Ah. I was so distracted by other sounds that I didn’t give you a chance to say what I needed to hear.”

“That’s not it…!”

“Next time, I’ll make sure to give you a chance between moans, so please tell me. Don’t just think it.”

“Oh, Sir Dein!”

Violet, red to her ears, glanced at Olivia, but it was no use.

Already, only seeing Violet, he clung to her with an unhidden smile. It seemed they were already lost in a world of their own.

“Again, properly, say it while looking at me.”

“Ah…”

His large hand gently stroked her waist, wrapped around her body. At the blatant, sensual touch, Violet, who had become sensitive over the past three days, let out a small gasp without realizing it.

Dein seemed to like it, as he began to move his hand from her lower back to the edge of something delicate beneath the soft flesh.

Olivia’s blood boiled at the unbelievable scene unfolding before her eyes.

She had given him power he couldn’t have dared to possess without her help, and now he dared to covet her sister.

“You, how dare you with my sister… my sister…!”

Seeing Olivia tremble with rage, Dein snorted and threatened.

“Well, ‘someone like me’ already has that lovely sister.”

“Ugh… you!!”

Finally, Olivia let go of her composure. She snatched Violet and pushed her behind, ready to grab Dein’s hair.

Olivia poured out words that were hard to understand, and Dein listened indifferently, occasionally retorting.

In the midst of this thorny fight, Violet didn’t know what to do, and Evan, who had been standing back, leaned slightly towards her.

“I told you, didn’t I? Olivia can’t control a horse like this.”

When she turned her head, Evan whispered playfully in Violet’s ear.

“If you forcefully ride, it won’t consider you its master and will throw you off, and she’s someone who would break the leg of a horse that doesn’t follow her.”

Only then did she understand what he had meant. But that wasn’t the important thing now.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“Yes. Once they calm down a bit. They’re both beyond control when they’re excited.”

Evan spoke in a tone that wasn’t frightening at all. The childish argument between a commander of the empire’s knights and a princess was unbelievable.

The commotion, lacking any decorum, continued for quite a while at the entrance of Moel Palace, but the conclusion was one.

In the end, Dein succeeded in keeping Violet in his arms, and Olivia had to admit that all this was beyond her control.

* * *

The rumors about Dein and Olivia quickly subsided. The new fact that overshadowed them was so intense.

On the last day of the banquet, Dein’s appearance, clinging to Violet, confirmed that the secret rumors he had spread about Moel Palace were true.

If they delayed the marriage talks here, Violet risked being caught up in strange scandals.

And as Dein expected, the Emperor and Olivia cherished her too much to let that happen, and they had already lost the will to argue.

The hero of the empire, who achieved a perfect victory, gained not only unwanted power and honor but also the woman he had long desired.

The wedding preparations progressed quickly. It was the kind of momentum that shortened the return of the expeditionary force, which would have taken a month, to fifteen days.

And up until a week before the grand wedding, Dein, unconcerned with the busy preparations around him, was frequently visiting Violet’s palace.

As if to make up for his past foolishness.

“Even though you were so eager to visit, why did you always return so quickly whenever we met after the engagement?”

In the outer garden of the palace. Seeing the man who appeared before her again today, as she enjoyed a leisurely tea time for the first time in a while, Violet tilted her head.

She understood why he had been quiet. Just as she had a complex, he didn’t want to reveal his shortcomings from his status.

But seeing him so eager not to be apart, she couldn’t understand his past actions.

“I thought you didn’t like tea time.”

“I held back, even if I wanted to stay longer, because I didn’t want to seem like a clingy man.”

“Why?”

“I heard it’s not polite to stay long in a lady’s space.”

So that was why he acted like he hated it and left? Violet couldn’t help but chuckle in disbelief.

Thinking about it now, Dein himself found it ridiculous, but at the time, he thought so. It was when he was trying everything he had heard about how to appear like a nobleman, gentle and well-mannered, in front of Violet.

After an embarrassed cough, he pulled out a bundle of papers from his pocket and placed them on the table, as if to change the subject.

Fortunately, Violet’s pretty eyes followed the papers.

“What is all this?”

“These are the letters I sent to you throughout the war whenever I had the chance. The first Princess intercepted them, but she didn’t throw them away, having some conscience.”

Still harboring some resentment, Dein didn’t hide his sarcasm as he dragged a chair to sit beside her.

For Dein, who had climbed to a place he couldn’t dare reach and achieved a happy ending, the process wasn’t easy. Because of someone.

“She didn’t do it with bad intentions.”

Reading his thoughts, Violet cautiously defended Olivia. Seeing her take her sister’s side, despite the interference, Dein playfully gritted his teeth in a smile, finding her a little annoying.

“Right. Even though I gained the title of Earl and proposed to you, she kept the marriage talk at an engagement, saying, ‘Prove your loyalty once more in the defense battle, and I’ll consider it.’ She turned a six-month defense battle into a two-year conquest war and intercepted the letters I painstakingly sent.”

“….”

“She didn’t have bad intentions. She just wanted to remove an unsatisfactory brute from her adorable sister’s presence.”

Talking seemed endless. Although the intention stemmed from affection and couldn’t be reproached, Olivia was the greatest hindrance and villain to Dein, making his heart go round in circles.

“…But you don’t hate her, do you?”

Violet, feeling that she might have gone too far, awkwardly smiled and poked Dein’s arm.

The playful gesture quickly melted away the bitterness he had been chewing over.

He stopped pretending to be angry and looked at Violet. It was a gentle smile that would surprise others, even Violet herself, who wasn’t yet used to it.

“Didn’t I promise that day? It was what you wanted, Violet, and I’ll keep it.”

As the heated three days were coming to an end, Dein shared another fact with Violet.

‘From the start, the first Princess wouldn’t consider marrying me. She seeks to become the Emperor herself.’

‘I’ve never heard such a thing until now.’

‘The current imperial power is weak. Weakness means more danger and checks, and the deeper one steps into politics, the greater the danger. Both His Majesty and the first Princess didn’t want you to be caught up in that, Violet.’

It was a dream her sister couldn’t bear to speak, wishing her pretty sister wouldn’t get tangled in dangerous political battles.

But upon learning the unknown truth, Violet understood the facts she hadn’t realized due to misunderstandings.

To guard against nobles and strengthen imperial power, military power was needed, and Olivia chose Dein as the center.

It wasn’t to make Dein the Emperor but a choice for Olivia to become the Emperor herself.

Understanding it made more sense. Initially, he was chosen because, even if given power, he had a background that the imperial family could check.

Of course, his abilities and results exceeded their expectations and usage, which was a variable.

That day, Violet asked Dein to support her sister if he didn’t intend to become the Emperor.

The man nodded easily, leaving a whisper with a sticky kiss, ‘If that’s what my wife wants, then by all means.’

Of course, the arrogant pledge of loyalty, saying he would be loyal because ‘my wife’ wanted it, made Olivia burst with anger again.

Shrugging off the past lightly, Dein looked at Violet with expectant eyes.

His eyes sparkled with a peculiar sense of pride and satisfaction.

“More than that, aren’t you curious? The letters.”

“I’m curious.”

“Don’t you want to see them?”

“Oh… um… shall we read them now then?”

“By all means.”

Sending a gaze close to coercion, he finally gestured lightly toward the papers and leaned back in his chair, pretending to be relaxed.