“Where is His Grace?”

As soon as she returned to the estate, Ariadne asked about Kieron’s whereabouts.

However, each servant she encountered gave a different answer. To make matters worse, Derrick was also said to be away.

“Shall I inform His Grace when he returns?”

“Mm, no. I just wanted to check something. It’s fine. You don’t need to tell him separately.”

Lost in thought, Ariadne gently shook her head as one of the servants approached her carefully to ask a question.

There was nothing specific she wanted to say to him.

“Let’s go up, Jay.”

“Yes, my lady.”

As she went upstairs with Jay, Ariadne thought to herself.

She was fairly certain that she had seen Kieron from the carriage earlier.

However, given his habit of going wherever he pleased without informing anyone except Derrick, she couldn’t be sure what she had seen.

Puzzled, she simply concluded that he might have had business nearby, and dismissed the matter.

“Did you enjoy talking with the young masters earlier?”

Once they had entered her room, Jay closed the door and asked her a question. She must have meant the time she had spent with Jade and Heidel.

Ariadne took off her bonnet and nodded.

“Yes. It was fun. Her Highness the Princess was delightful too.”

“…The princess?”

Jay’s eyes widened in shock.

It seemed that she hadn’t realized that the woman standing next to Heidel was the princess.

Ariadne laughed softly at Jay’s startled reaction.

“Of course. Heidel wouldn’t be accompanying some random young lady. She’s obviously his fiancée.”

“Oh… wow. I really had no idea. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever seen the princess’s face before.”

Jay, stumbling over her words, suddenly let out a small gasp, her eyes going round.

“Th-then… she didn’t hear us talking earlier, right? Martin and I kept wondering who that young lady was, and we talked so much…”

Jay’s face gradually lost its color. She was probably imagining treason or a breach of etiquette.

Ariadne gently patted her on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Jay. They chose to sit far away on purpose so that we could talk in private. Only someone like Brother Hern would be able to hear us from that distance.”

She was right, everyone had been so absorbed in conversation that they hadn’t heard a thing.

Jay let out a shaky sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank goodness. I really thought I was about to lose everything I ate today.”

“Haha, you can’t go ruining a good meal like that.”

Ariadne laughed out loud at the sight of Jay clutching her chest in relief.

She didn’t bother mentioning that, even if they had been overheard, Princess Sylvia was hardly likely to punish her personal maid for something so trivial.

That would only make Jay more anxious.

“So, my lady—are you going to be a bridesmaid?”

As she helped remove Ariadné’s earrings, Jay raised the question.

It was strange — from that distance, Jay couldn’t have overheard the earlier conversation, so how did she know?

“…Did you hear us talking somehow?”

“What? Of course not. I only know because Young Master Jade asked you to think about it before you two parted.”

“Oh… right, of course.”

When Ariadne looked at her in surprise, Jay quickly waved her hands to insist that it wasn’t anything unusual.

For a moment, Ariadne wondered if Jay had unusually sharp hearing. Like Jay had done earlier, she let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“It would be nice if you did it. It’s such a good opportunity.”

“Opportunity? It would just make everything uncomfortable. I’d rather attend the wedding and celebrate peacefully.”

Ariadne shook her head. If she stood in that position, it was true that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the ceremony. Even if she agreed to it, she would run away the moment it was over.

This was her beloved brother’s wedding and a rare opportunity to re-enter society, if only temporarily. She didn’t want to spend it on the run like a fugitive.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips.

She felt guilty about turning down Sylvia and Heidel’s request, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to endure what would come afterwards if she stood in that place.

That position had never been meant for her. It belonged to Sylvia’s older sister, Lorelei — the bride and a senior member of the imperial family.

Regardless of how tense the relationship between the sisters was, Lorelei deserved that position.

People were already whispering because Ariadne had withdrawn from society after her marriage. If she were to take Lorelei’s place as well, the gossip would become unbearable.

And Ariadne knew she wouldn’t be able to endure that. Not after clashing with Lorelei early in her marriage.

If it hadn’t been for her, Lorelei would have become the duchess — she could not take that place from her a second time.

“It’s Brother Heidel’s wedding. I don’t want to feel uncomfortable there. I just want to enjoy it in peace.”

So she steeled herself to refuse again, determined not to clash with the same person twice and risk leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

***

“The Duchess of Ambrose, she seems like quite an amusing person.”

It happened on their way back from meeting Ariadne.

Encountering her had been a coincidence, but sharing a table with her and speaking to her was something that Sylvia had long hoped to do at least once.

Glancing at her fiance, who had looked unusually troubled since earlier, she remembered the woman they had just met, his younger sister.

Ariadne Ambrose was far more charming than Sylvia had expected.

When Heidel first told her about Ariadne, Sylvia had imagined the duchess to be nothing more than gentle and naïve, but she was wrong.

She might have been sheltered in some ways, but she wasn’t clueless. She wasn’t a delicate greenhouse flower who needed constant supervision and help at every turn, as Heidel had once described her.

She didn’t look fragile enough to require such constant care.

“There was definitely a bit of exaggeration in what you told me, but she really was adorable.”

“I told you—Rene is adorable.”

“But she didn’t seem weak or helpless enough to need someone looking after her all the time.”

“She’s softer and kinder than she looks. If you take your eyes off her for a moment, it makes you uneasy.”

“Isn’t that just how you siblings think? She seemed braver than I expected.”

Upon hearing Sylvia’s words, Heidel frowned, clearly displeased.

He appeared to be reconsidering whether his sister really was that kind of person for a moment, then he let out a small laugh.

“Well, Rene is older than I am.”

First comes marriage, then comes love.

There was a hint of longing in his quiet mutter.

He was probably thinking of his little sister, who remained vividly present in his memories.

Sylvia watched him, then smiled.

“Then tell me how to persuade that grown-up sister of yours. I really liked the duchess.”

“…Can you not call her ‘the duchess’?”

Heidel spoke with a displeased huff, his brows knitting together.

He had disliked Sylvia calling Ariadne ‘the duchess’ ever since they first met.

And whenever she asked why, his answer never changed.

“Then what am I supposed to call the duchess if not the duchess?”

“Just call her Ariadne. Hearing ‘Ambrose Duchess’ puts me in a bad mood. It reminds me of the duke.”

He found it irritating simply because it reminded him of the Duke.

Despite Kieron being her husband and a duke of the Empire, Heidel’s dislike of him never wavered.

His brothers felt the same way.

Hern, the stern yet courteous commander of the Knights, and Hermes, the bright and lively Master of the Merchant Guild — no matter how different their personalities — all wore the same annoyed expression whenever their beloved youngest sister’s husband was mentioned.

Sylvia remembered noticing how identical those expressions were despite their different faces, and thinking that siblings truly were alike.

At the same time, she found herself wondering again why they disliked the Duke of Ambrose so intensely.

“He’s still a duke of the empire. Compared to other incompetent heads of noble houses, he’s quite capable. And he’s always working so hard.”

“That has nothing to do with it. Even with all that support behind him, he can’t be bothered to care about whether Rene even leaves the mansion.”

His answer never changed. It was simply because Kieron was Ariadne’s husband. Despite that, he did not take proper care of her.

How dare he not treasure her the way she deserved!

Having grown up with distant siblings herself, Sylvia had always found the Peyton siblings fascinating: so unusually close and genuinely devoted to one another — so unlike most noble families.

How could they care so deeply and wholeheartedly with no suspicion or hidden motives?

Simply because they loved one another.

“The duke is busy. And the Council of Elders has been refusing to cooperate, from what I heard.”

“If he’s that busy, he shouldn’t have taken her in to begin with. She gets lonely so easily—how could he not pay attention to even that?”

They were afraid their sister might feel lonely.

They were afraid she might get hurt.

They were afraid of every possible scenario that might cause her pain.

They were peculiar siblings.

This only made Sylvia want Ariadne as her bridesmaid even more.

She could, of course, invite Ariadne directly to the palace, but as both the beloved daughter of the Peyton family and the mistress of a ducal household, personally bringing her into the palace would carry far too many risks.

“Honestly, I really do want Ariadne to be my bridesmaid.”

“And that conclusion came from… what exactly?”

“Nothing special. Just… where my thoughts led me.”

In response, Heidel let out a brief laugh, which Sylvia joined in with.

If being a bridesmaid meant spending more time with the bride than anyone else while preparing for the wedding, perhaps Sylvia would understand why the Peyton siblings were so close and loved their youngest sister so fiercely.

Perhaps she would even find a way to look after Ariadne’s awkward younger brother.

Sylvia whispered the sincerity behind her seemingly casual words to herself and looked out of the window, her eyes filled with quiet anticipation.

“So help me think about it. How can I persuade your sister?”

She was determined to find the answer, no matter what it took.

She would find it through Ariadne Ambrose, the duchess who seldom appeared in society, rarely stepped beyond her estate, and was the safest person in the entire empire to trust with a secret, the one through whom not a single word would ever escape.