“Ah. Duchess Graham.”

Julian’s green eyes, still smirking at Frederic’s irritated expression, drifted slowly over to Margie.

“Lovely to meet you. I’m Julian Windsor.”

The same emerald irises as Frederic’s, proof of royal blood.

“The honor is mine, Your Highness.”

Margie answered politely and pressed a light kiss to the back of his offered right hand.

Julian Windsor had adored his maternal cousin Frederic Graham since childhood.

His older brothers, first, second, and third, had everything handed to them by birth despite having nothing in their heads. They excluded and ignored their much younger baby brother Julian. Frederic was the one who had looked after him better than any blood brother. He knew more than those hollow older brothers, and his beauty was incomparable to theirs, men who had the nerve to critique other people’s appearances while being thoroughly unremarkable themselves. His dignity, befitting royal blood, was of course a given.

The young Julian had made Frederic Graham his role model. He worked incredibly hard to become like his cousin. Everything Frederic ate, wore, read, said…… He followed and imitated and idolized all of it without reservation. Perhaps owing to that passionate effort, Julian became the sharpest of the king’s heirs and the most striking in appearance, enough to draw comments that he resembled not his three royal brothers but his maternal cousin, the son of Graham, and wasn’t it suspicious how similar they looked.

Then came the news that this cousin of his was getting married.

That arrogant man is getting married? As a live-in son-in-law, no less? Has the sky split in two?

His first instinct was to tease Frederic mercilessly, this idol of his who had somehow become just as insufferable as the first, second, and third brothers. When he heard the woman who would become his sister-in-law was his own age, he had sneered, you treat me like such a child, I assumed you’d want someone mature by your side, and yet here you are taking a wife who’s practically a child herself.

The day of the wedding, Julian had been swept up in the chaos too. He managed to secure a spot in the second-floor chapel and watched the ceremony from there, cheering, or rather blessing, the occasion. He was too far away to get a proper look at the bride’s face.

“I was at the wedding but this is my first time seeing you up close.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Up close you’re far more……”

He hadn’t expected much, knowing better than anyone that his brother had been sold for money.

Delicate features on a slender frame, clear skin, a fullness that didn’t erase her femininity, and an urban elegance stripped of any trace of rusticity…… Did you save a kingdom in a past life, brother?

“……far more striking in the hair.”

He hadn’t mentioned that the wife was this pretty.

Unable to look away from Margie, Julian reached a hand toward her hair.

“Tea is ready. Please come inside, Your Highness. No need to waste time standing out here.”

Frederic moved faster. Before Julian’s fingertips could reach her, he stepped between them and stopped his hand.

“Oh. Someone who didn’t know better might think you were preparing for a sparring match rather than tea.”

Julian looked at his cousin’s eyes, blazing green with fury, and burst out laughing again. Hahahaha!

“If that is what Your Highness wishes, I have no particular reason to decline. Though perhaps His Majesty the King should be informed first. That his youngest son seems to have picked out a burial plot in the Graham duchy, where his late mother once spent her honeymoon.”

“I want to say something harsh but I’ll hold back once, for the sake of my poor late mother.”

“So this is the benefit of having my mother gone.”

Good heavens, these are royals and this is what they talk about. What is wrong with them!

Margie nearly cried out at their brazen family insults but pressed her lips together and got through it.

“……Note for my headstone: I wish for the destruction of the Graham family.”

“We’ll send the invoice for the headstone to the palace.”

“Fine. Get the most expensive one. Don’t spare the cost.”

“That seems to be beyond my concern, Your Highness.”

“You never let anything go. Can’t you just let me win once? I’m a prince, you know?”

“Yes. Your Highness is entirely correct.”

“Ha…… I won and still feel like I lost.”

They say all nobles are quietly unhinged, and they were right. These people are out of their minds……

Just that morning Margie had been in helpless awe of Frederic’s presence and his overwhelming, testosterone-charged authority. And now here he was, apparently willing to die on the hill of this childish verbal sparring. Oh, good lord……

Was he always like this? Or was he deliberately being juvenile to match a cousin four years his junior? Margie stared quietly at Frederic’s broad, still-perfect shoulders and shook her head, then trotted after him.

The three of them settled in a space that served as an annex of sorts. Cottage Garden was a small and modest building to begin with, so it was nothing grand, just the balcony attached to the guest drawing room.

“……Scotria runs hot in summer and cold in winter. On top of that, the soil isn’t suited for sprouting ‘Camille.’ Sensitive to temperature, soil, and humidity, ‘Camille’ can only be cultivated here in Oslande.”

“Ahh. I see.”

Camille was a tea leaf that drank the morning dew of spring and produced its fruit for exactly three days. Its distinctively bitter and unusual flavor had won over not only Oslande but the imperial family and nobility of the Scotrian Empire as well, making it Oslande’s finest specialty. The demanding cultivation method meant supply could never keep up with demand, and there had recently been formal legislative discussions about restricting the export of Camille abroad.

“The Scotrian Emperor is terribly envious of it……”

“Ah. Envious, was he……”

The three people around a table were facing one another.

The one talking was Julian. The one offering occasional responses was Margie. The one silently picking at his Camille with a flat, sealed expression was Frederic. The distribution rights for that Camille were, apparently, also monopolized by Ian Flynn.

Julian Windsor, fourth prince of the Kingdom of Oslande, had accepted an invitation from the Scotrian Emperor a year ago and spent an extended stay in the Empire. Then, roughly six months ago, he had returned to Oslande without warning.

The return was far less celebrated than the arrival had been. The marriage negotiations that had been the purpose of the visit had fallen through.

The Scotrian Emperor wanted closer ties with the neighboring Kingdom of Oslande and had put forward his daughter, Princess Marlene Steinhaur, hoping to make Oslande a vassal state through marriage.

Choosing Julian, the most irresponsible and frivolous of the three unmarried princes, excluding the eldest who was already wed, had been entirely the princess’s own decision.

The youngest prince is the prettiest, isn’t he? I can’t stand anything aesthetically displeasing. A man without looks is good for absolutely nothing. Less useful than the steamed cod on my dinner table……

The princess, a severe case of beauty obsession, had fallen instantly for Julian Windsor’s reasonably attractive face, refined air, tall frame, and gentlemanly, or rather gentlemanly-seeming, manners. It had seemed the royal marriage was all but decided, but……

“She turned cold on me, just like that.”

Julian was still visibly aggrieved, brow deeply furrowed.

The princess had announced the broken engagement unilaterally. Just as she had thrown a tantrum demanding Julian Windsor without asking anyone’s opinion, declaring a handsome man was all she needed in a husband, the break was equally sudden and unconsulted and completely without warning.

“A woman’s heart is a reed, they say. The princess who had been whining around me like a dog about to wet itself, as though she’d hand me an entire empire on a platter, suddenly stopped meeting my eyes, started ignoring my greetings, and ended up snapping at me that she couldn’t stand the sight of me…… The heart of a woman truly is beyond understanding.”

He fixed his gaze on Margie, the only woman at the table.

Margie’s attention had completely drifted by this point. Her head was entirely full of shopping.

‘We have shopping to finish from yesterday…… I’ve sent word ahead to some boutique owners I know. We’ll have to drive for quite a while to reach the city, but……’

Frederic had sworn to dedicate the entire afternoon to comforting his forlorn young wife, and Margie had been looking forward to it. If this uninvited prince hadn’t shown up unannounced, she would have had at least one new sapphire necklace from this season’s collection by now……

“First time in my life, you know? Being rejected by a woman? Me, Julian Windsor, getting turned down. Does that even make sense?”

Why exactly are we sitting here listening to a prince’s failed love story. Nobody asked. Nobody cares.

“That must be quite painful.”

Margie pointedly ignored Julian’s gaze and responded with the least amount of effort she had ever put into anything.