The dress below her slender waist was incredibly voluminous with unrestrained pleats, and the satin wrapping her delicate curves was a sky blue brighter than her transparent eyes. 

She looked adorable with the marten fur wrapped tightly around her, seemingly self-conscious about the evening dress cut deep at the back and chest.

Once that was removed, the line of her luscious br*asts would show. Her full br*asts, so ample one might wonder if her slender body could handle them, would stand out in contrast to her narrow waist. 

Perhaps she’d wrapped the marten fur because she didn’t want to show her exposed décolletage.

The pure white marten fur she wore was something he’d gifted her last winter. The noble young ladies of Rosbon, who knew nothing of frugality, were as sensitive to fashion as they were demanding, and that year marten fur was the expensive luxury item they desired.

He recalled Charlotte also favoring it and taking it to every gathering. Lennox wanted to gift Ann anything Charlotte did—no, anything the noble young ladies of Rosbon did. But Ann’s opinion differed somewhat from his.

“I’m not a noble lady. So…”

“Do you really think you’re any different from those women?”

Lennox recalled last winter when they’d argued on the balcony. It must have been the ball commemorating Count Hervonne’s birthday. 

She’d said she wasn’t a noble young lady like Charlotte, so there was no need to follow their fashions. That she only needed to maintain enough etiquette not to damage his reputation…

“It doesn’t satisfy me, so wear it.”

That one line had convinced Ann, who’d adamantly refused. After that, Ann wore the marten fur in front of him without fail. It suited her incredibly well, but it made him uncomfortable. And yet…

“Ann.”

“…Your Majesty.”

Ann called to him weakly. Lennox ignored the gazes constantly flying and landing on them and stood before her. Ann stared at him in disbelief, then bit her lip slyly. Lennox thought even that looked lascivious enough to kiss.

“It’s been a while, Ann. You’re incredibly beautiful today too.”

Lennox murmured lowly. Ann sealed her lips. Ann couldn’t understand how Lennox had appeared here. How had he known she was attending Countess Ilva’s concert? 

Her brow furrowed. She raised her gaze from the floor.

Whether he knew her discomfort or not, Lennox looked incredibly dashing today too. He’d swept his hair back cleanly to expose his forehead and wore a champagne-colored vest and dark navy tailcoat, with a silk hat like a refined gentleman.

He looked less like a king and more like a young gentleman from a high-ranking family with a high official for a father. Though he hadn’t dressed up particularly, was it because of his striking features? 

The compliment “incredibly beautiful” should have been for Lennox, not her.

Wasn’t it the conclusion among Rosbon’s noble young ladies that even Charlotte, called the queen of society, couldn’t compare to her fiancé Lennox? 

Though everyone was careful with their words because it was presumptuous and improper to make a fuss about the King’s appearance, truly Lennox was a dazzling man.

Dazzling golden hair like thread spun from pure gold, vivid violet eyes beneath neat eyebrows. His straight nose was high and stern, his lips red like roses. 

His elegant features were sharp and refined without a single blunt edge. His graceful bearing, along with the thick, solid body hidden beneath his formal wear, made noble young ladies’ hearts flutter.

“…Your Majesty is also incredibly beautiful today.”

Unable to bombard him with questions like how did you get here, what brought you here, she blurted out anything. Lennox smiled faintly, however he’d taken those words.

Ann glanced at him repeatedly. It wasn’t a lie. The King smiling before her was more beautiful than anyone else attending this gathering. This must be why there was a saying that the true rose of Rosbon was none other than the King of Las Palmada.

Ann turned her gaze from him with a somewhat cynical feeling. A hand in white gloves like the other gentlemen turned her chin.

“Are you still angry?”

“I’m not angry. How could I be angry at Your Majesty?”

“Even a snotty child wouldn’t believe that. Even my seven-year-old page knows how often you sulk at me.”

She had nothing to say. Gazes began gathering one by one. This was troublesome. A scandal with another man at a place she’d come to find a husband—and that man being the King who clearly had a fiancée.

Ann shook off the King’s hand gripping her chin and stepped back three paces from him. Lennox moved closer by as much as she’d moved away. 

Then he wrapped his arm around her slender waist and tilted his head. His breath touched her earlobe. The fine hairs stood on end and a current shot through to her toes.

“…Your Majesty.”

“There’s someone I want to introduce you to.”

“Pardon?”

“Your prospective husband.”

Ann turned to look at him in surprise. Lennox wore a faint smile. She felt something collapse inside her chest.

* * *

“My name is Hughies.”

“He’s my guard. He served in the navy in Calasa until last year.”

Ann looked up at the man with her hands clasped neatly together.

His face with black hair swept neatly back had an incredibly strong and stubborn impression befitting a soldier. 

His smoothly extended nose bridge, thick neat eyebrows, and round jade eyes like chinaberry fruits held a somewhat cold air, and his sharp jaw suited his stubbornly closed lips well.

Ann blinked repeatedly. The man had dark skin, perhaps from serving long in the navy, and though polite, his expression was monotonous. 

With a height similar to Lennox’s, broad shoulders, solid frame and considerable build, he looked similar enough to the King standing beside him to be brothers.

She could see why there’d once been talk of them being half-brothers.

Ann sealed her lips before the man who introduced himself, then barely parted them.

“My name is Ann Rosenthal.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Rosenthal.”

“…I’m also very pleased to meet you, Count Altuart. I’ve heard much about you from His Majesty.”

She kept adjusting her expression to soften her stiffly frozen face. 

But right now, being introduced to a prospective husband while held in Lennox’s embrace, she couldn’t soften her expression at all. Ann chewed over the stories about Hughies she’d heard at Rosbon’s court.

Hughies de Altuart. The man who’d inherited the family following Count Altuart, who’d passed away years ago, had the King’s wet nurse as his mother and was said to have had a very strong friendship with him since childhood.

Though he couldn’t continue that friendship because his mother died early, if there was anyone who could be called the King’s friend, it was Count Altuart—only him. Ann looked at him darkly, somewhat stiffly.

Lennox, who’d brought his own guard before her calling him a prospective husband, still held Ann’s waist deeply even before Count Altuart. 

Hughies extended his hand to Ann, who stared at him blankly. Ann, who’d been looking at him, extended her hand. Count Altuart gently took her hand.

Lennox watched blankly as his friend kissed his maid’s hand. Unlike Ann, who looked only at Hughies’s face half-dazed, Hughies’s gaze rested on his hand holding Ann’s waist.

“I also heard about you from His Majesty. You’re incredibly beautiful and lovely, just as I heard.”

He hadn’t meant to say lovely. In truth, it was close to a piece of his true feelings that had slipped out carelessly. 

Hughies shut his lips tightly, ashamed of himself for putting such words on his tongue. Though he’d called his adjutant’s young daughter lovely, he’d never had the experience of calling an unmarried young lady lovely.

“Ann is lovely indeed.”

A cold, dry murmur rang in his ear. Hughies raised his gaze and stared at the King. He wore a crooked smile while gently stroking his maid’s waist. Hughies stared at him silently. The conversation they’d had in the carriage suddenly came to mind.

“Ann is the loveliest woman I know.”

“I heard she’s Your Majesty’s maid.”

“Originally she was Mother’s maid.”

Lennox smiled broadly. Hughies didn’t respond. Why he’d made the Queen Dowager’s maid his own was obvious.

The story that the King had no feelings for his fiancée was quite widely known. 

How indifferent he was to the woman who would become his wife was a rampant story even in Calasa’s narrow and remote society. 

To think he was in love with a commoner-born maid from the Queen Dowager’s palace. Hughies, who’d been looking out the window, turned his gaze.

“She’s the most beautiful jewel I possess. The most valuable one. The one I don’t want to give away.”

“You’re giving such a woman to me as a wife?”

The King looked at him. His gloomy gaze was dry. Hughies clenched his fist.

“I never said I’d give her to you.”

“Then…”

“Ann will forever be my woman. You can’t touch a single hair on her head.”