Chapter 3

Haah.

A deep sigh escaped from Alexei’s elegant nose.

His beautiful liege, Avgenia, glanced at her chief aide seated at the desk by the office door.

“Lexie. Are you angry?”

“What reason would I have to be angry?”

“Because I was late today.”

“The Mage Tower Master understood, so everything worked out, didn’t it?”

His reply was cold and sharp, showing clear displeasure.

Hmm, Avgenia felt a familiar awkwardness.

It was always like this. On any day when she brought a man into her bedroom and disrupted the schedule, Alexei would be gloomy all day.

He must think she’s pathetic……

‘No matter how much he knows about my situation, someone like Lexie would never understand, not in a lifetime.’

Smiling bitterly to herself, Avgenia studied Alexei seated across from her.

His hair, simply parted and not slicked back, his shirt stiff and neatly ironed, his suit perfectly tailored.

He wasn’t dressed up, but as always, he was impeccably clean and neat. With such striking looks, what need was there for embellishment?

Alexei, who had started visiting the palace as her companion since he was five, had always been that way, as far as Avgenia knew.

Clean, tidy, and thorough.

Of course, at five, he could only do so much, but……

Raised from birth as the heir to Ramantus, the boy truly became the perfect Young Master.

If not for political reasons, the Duke of Ramantus would have sent him to Ramantus estate to begin the process of becoming its lord long ago.

As an only son, his future held few uncertainties.

Unlike herself, who, despite being a princess, couldn’t see even a step ahead.

‘I might be the only blemish on his perfect path……’

Avgenia easily fell into self-mockery, stood up, and slowly approached Alexei’s desk.

Her chief aide, nose buried in documents, glanced at Avgenia approaching and began scribbling furiously, like someone trying to escape.

‘Doesn’t even want to make eye contact……?’

Avgenia couldn’t see that the tip of his ear, hidden by his hair, was turning bright red.

Just because he seemed to avoid her didn’t mean Avgenia wouldn’t approach him.

She disliked it when Alexei was in a bad mood.

Of course, since she was the cause, it was like giving both the disease and the cure……

But she couldn’t help it, and it had been that way for over ten years.

Avgenia perched on the edge of Alexei’s desk. The desk was as neat as Alexei himself, so even with her sitting on it, nothing was disturbed.

Her airy dress draped along her body and flowed over the corner of Alexei’s desk.

Gulp, Alexei, pretending to focus on the documents, glanced at it from the corner of his eye, his throat burning.

“I’m really sorry, Lexie. Yesterday was important, so you told me to restrain myself just this once.”

“It’s not your duty to always accept your aide’s advice, Your Highness.”

He replied quickly, without looking up. Clearly angry. Alexei bit his tongue, regretting his blunt response, but Avgenia, unaware, felt quietly downcast.

“Well, you know. I can only pretend to enjoy it when someone pushes in……”

One of the bourgeois guests from last night’s dinner had requested a private audience with the Second Imperial Princess, so she had no choice but to respond.

That was the life she had chosen.

A libertine who never refuses a man.

The unreliable legitimate daughter of the late Empress, unfit for power.

Avgenia fiddled with her fingers on her lap, her rosy eyes shining sadly. Blink, blink, her slow eyelids made her silver lashes flutter.

Alexei stared, entranced, for a long moment.

“Ah, um……”

Only after he realized he’d been silent for a while did Alexei hastily try to fill the awkward gap.

“I know that you don’t refuse men in order to create scandal and thwart those who want to make you a contender for the throne, Your Highness. As your aide, I have no right to comment on decisions made for political reasons.”

It was a plain statement of fact. To Avgenia, it seemed like he wanted to end the conversation quickly about an unimportant topic.

Well, that’s just how Lexie is.

Avgenia finally smiled softly. As she tilted her head and looked up, Alexei’s profile, absorbed in documents, came into view.

Thick eyebrows, a faint crease between them, a strong brow bone and sharp nose defining a firm face, and blue eyes shining keenly in the center.

His facial structure had changed a little over time, but those strikingly blue eyes had never changed since the young Alexei first entered the palace as her companion.

Feeling a bit nostalgic and playful, Avgenia reached out to him.

“Hm, so it’s only you who truly understands me, Lexie.”

She brushed aside some of his hair, which usually hid his face from those who admired the Young Master’s beauty, and lightly traced the area under his eyes, which rarely met hers……

“Ah, um……”

Alexei’s face instantly froze over, like ice.

Ah. No mercy.

Since childhood, Alexei had always shunned Avgenia’s attention. Until seven years ago, Avgenia had no younger sibling, she was a year and a half older and of higher status, so she had always doted on young Alexei. But at some point, Alexei began to reject it all.

〈I don’t want to be pitied by someone as intimidating as you, Your Highness!〉

After the boy Alexei said that one day, she could no longer kiss his chubby cheeks or ruffle his soft light brown hair.

Whenever she tried to grab his arm, his face would harden just like that.

‘He was like this even this morning, he really dislikes it, doesn’t he.’  

Avgenia let out a self-deprecating smile along her crooked lips as she withdrew her hand.  

Ha……. A deep sigh barely trembled out from Alexei’s mouth. Just how insignificant must she seem to him, for him to act so unreservedly? How many years had she been suffocating alone due to this indifference?

“……Well, anyway, if you cause disruptions at important times like today……. As a direct member of the Imperial Family, Your Highness, you may be deliberately ruining your reputation, but as an official, you might also seem irresponsible in the eyes of others. As your aide, managing public opinion is exhausting, so I only ask that you restrain yourself.”

“Why? If I seem irresponsible, maybe the old men will finally lose interest in me, don’t you think?”

“Your Highness, you intend to support the First Princess as the next Empress and contribute to her reign, isn’t that right? For that, you’ll need at least a minimum of trust.”

“Wouldn’t Duke Ramantus be pleased too? My adorable younger brother Nikolai has started learning the art of kingship, I hear.”

“……Father is just living in his own era, that’s all.”

Alexei sighed deeply again.  

A sigh? Avgenia tilted her head at the unexpected reaction. Was there some friction with the Duke because Alexei kept working as her aide?  

‘But the Duke probably left Lexie here as a sort of monitor anyway.’  

Whatever happened inside Ramantus was not something the Imperial Family could interfere with……. As Avgenia studied the lovely aide who never revealed his true feelings, she pursed her lips.

Alexei, chewing the inside of his lip hesitantly, muttered as if in passing.  

“Above all, spending nights with random men could also be seen as irresponsible……”

At that, Alexei firmly shut his mouth. Avgenia’s gaze narrowed.  

……So that was the real issue. Whether she was late for the luncheon with the Mage Tower Master or not.  

To that conservative stick-in-the-mud, how pathetic must she look? From the start, even claiming to be a notorious libertine to damage her reputation was probably inefficient in his eyes.

Avgenia’s coral lips formed a perfectly symmetrical smile. There was a hint of annoyance in it, a fact her companion of nearly twenty years couldn’t possibly miss.  

“Irresponsible? Men can just walk away after they finish, but I at least take responsibility for what I do.”

“……The fact that you invested a huge sum in the Mage Tower to develop magical contraceptives, did you think the aide’s office wouldn’t know? It’s officially called a population control policy, but Your Highness, you are volunteering as a research subject—does that make any sense? That’s why the Mage Tower Master was so cooperative with this research, anyway.”

He ended with another sigh.  

Avgenia, eyes half-open, studied Alexei’s face again.  

Whenever she did such things, Alexei was gloomy, and it only got worse over time. Even now, without looking near her face, he was only glancing at her skirt draped over the desk.

He couldn’t even hide how anxious he was, wishing his liege would hurry and leave the desk she’d invaded.  

‘……So honest.’

For some reason, feeling mischievous, Avgenia added a needless comment.  

“Is something bothering you? You keep sighing.”

Her feigned kindness was really a rebuke. Alexei’s face stiffened.