“Hmm? What’s that? That sounds like you think I’m an idiot.”

“Pardon……?”

“Did I look like the kind of spineless fool who falls for a woman just because she bats her eyes a little.”

Julian clicked his tongue, scrunching his right brow.

You weren’t that simple?

Margie asked with her eyes.

“I’ve been involved with more than ten women up to now, but every one of those relationships started because they pursued me. I never wanted any of them.”

Involved with over ten women before turning twenty. What kind of life have you been living, Julian Windsor…… I despise slovenly men even more than ugly ones. Ha. Your Highness, truly, there is not a single thing about you I find admirable from head to toe. To think that someone as dissolute as this shares blood with someone as pristine and beautiful as Frederic……

“But then, for the first time in my twenty years, a woman appeared that I wanted to pursue myself. It’s a bit funny, and strange, and surprising, and I’m curious about you, and above all, you have the most mysterious beauty of any woman I’ve ever met……”

The green of Julian’s eyes deepened as they settled on Margie.

Neither Margie nor Frederic knew it. Julian Windsor was, in fact, notorious for falling fast and hard, a hopeless romantic with no brakes whatsoever.

In short, he never turned anyone away and never chased anyone who left, a legendary libertine by any measure. The reason he could be this serious about Margie alone was that Frederic remained Julian Windsor’s idol to this day.

Everything his cousin did looked good to him, looked admirable. He often imitated him, and sometimes used his power to take things that belonged to him.

‘Good lord, Julian’s at it again, making Frederic miserable.’

His brothers muttered it every time the youngest acted up, pitying Frederic.

“That you, of all people, happen to be his wife when you’re the one who stole my heart…… fate has a cruel sense of humor……”

His *buse of power had reached its peak.

Margie Flynn carried the particular allure of being ‘my brother’s woman.’ For a prince who had never been denied anything or left anything untried, it offered a thrill he had never once experienced. Where else could someone as distinguished as me ever find such a base and forbidden pleasure.

“Your Highness, enough!”

Margie shook her head violently and cried out.

Ugh! I don’t want to hear any of this! Stop talking!

She wanted to clap her hand over his mouth. Unable to do that, she settled for covering both her own ears.

“My. You’re quite startled.”

Julian clucked his tongue with an expression of sympathy.

“It’s probably your first time receiving a confession from a prince of the realm rather than some unremarkable man off the street. Being startled makes sense.”

He had entirely misread why she was distressed.

“Your Highness. That’s not……”

When did I ever say I wanted a confession from you? When did I ever want to play the role of a prince’s sweetheart. I have absolutely no intention of divorcing Frederic! My standards have been raised by Frederic, and your mediocre looks simply don’t satisfy them!

“Then what is it?”

Julian blinked in confusion, then let out an ah and narrowed his eyes.

“Right. I understand. You’re worried about being pointed at as a divorcee who became a princess?”

“No, Your Highness. I……”

“I’m the one everyone in the kingdom knows as a man who was broken up with. What’s so remarkable about taking a divorcee as my bride.”

Julian’s fussing outpaced Margie’s protest.

“My royal parents’ objections? I can handle that. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I have no plans to inherit the throne. My dream is to live quietly on the estate and income the royal family passes down to me. So don’t worry. If I don’t become a ruler, you won’t need to make public appearances, and you certainly won’t be pointed at. Come drain the royal treasury with me and live happily.”

“Ha……”

Margie gave up trying to respond and closed her eyes.

“Margie Flynn. Divorce Frederic and come to me. I’ll treat you better.”

“……”

“I would never let my wife wander in and out of pawnshops. No matter how little money I had, I would absolutely never……”

“Your Highness!”

Margie had heard enough. She grabbed his collar with both hands.

“Do you think I went to a secondhand shop because I had no money?”

“……?”

“The Flynn family, the wealthiest household in all of Oslande! Has no money! Needs quick cash! An idea that absurd! What breathtaking ignorance of this kingdom’s economy must one possess to even imagine it! I strongly suggest you find yourself a new tutor, Your Highness!”

The Flynn family’s wealth was Margie’s pride and her very reason for being. To belittle the Flynn fortune was to deny the existence of the Flynns themselves, and Margie had learned that from Ian Flynn, who had learned it from his father, who had learned it from his father’s father, across generations of careful early instruction in self-worth. In a kingdom where the class system still ruled with an iron hand, the only reason an honorless and humble family could endure the contempt of the highborn nobility was that inherited pride, cultivated from the earliest age. Her fury at this moment was entirely justified.

“……!”

Julian could not believe it. That a mere woman had seized his collar so roughly. That she was raising her voice at him, a prince.

No one had ever treated him this way. He had been born into the royal line and received nothing but reverence from his very first breath. Of course no one had. Anyone who dared would have been beheaded by royal decree.

“Most of all! Bringing up a divorce between Frederic and me! Even from Your Highness, that was truly crossing a line……”

Margie poured out her fury like someone who had lost all composure.

What kind of madwoman is this……

The nerve.

Julian’s breath caught. And at the same time……

Thud! Thud!

His heart began pounding on its own. It was the moment the noble prince discovered, for the first time, a rather unconventional taste for being handled roughly.

“M, Margie…… I think I might…… have fallen in love with you……”

“Please close your mouth, Your Highness!”

“I’m in love……! Mmph!”

“Try saying anything like that in front of Frederic!”

“Falling in love isn’t a crime……, mmmph!”

“Not a word in front of my husband, please! If he gets the wrong idea, I won’t be held responsible for what he does to Your Highness……”

“Your Highness, we’ve arrived at the duchy.”

The moment Margie succeeded in physically silencing Julian’s babbling, the coachman announced their destination.

Bang!

The carriage door flew open at the same instant.

“……Welcome back, Your Highness.”

The one who threw the door open and offered a perfunctory greeting was Frederic.

“……!”

The sight that greeted him the moment he opened the door was Margie and Julian, faces flushed, staring at each other from very close range.

“……I wondered where you’d gone so early without a word. Here you were, Margie.”

“Frederic?”

“Get down, darling.”

Frederic’s molars ground together audibly as he wrapped an arm around Margie’s waist and hauled her up roughly.

“Oh……!”

Her body swung in a wide arc and ended up dangling in his arms, pressed against him.

“Your Highness. Please rest comfortably. We’ll head in first.”

“Huh? Oh? Wait?”

Julian stared blankly at Margie’s retreating back, tucked neatly against Frederic’s broad chest with both arms around his neck, and stumbled over his words.

By then, Margie and Frederic were already well ahead, disappearing inside the house.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Just before Margie and Julian returned from the capital to the duchy, a phone call came through to Frederic’s study.

“Graham? It’s me, Kingsley.”

Kingsley was one of the regulars at the poker games held at the Somerset villa. He was also the one who had been loudest in criticizing Frederic for selling the watch, going on about what kind of premium it could have fetched.

“What brings you to call.”

“Nothing much. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, and I was curious how thrilling it would be to hear your miserable voice through a telephone line. More than anything, I thought I’d disrupt your honeymoon out of spite.”

“I didn’t have an expensive line installed to listen to nonsense like that. Call charges aren’t cheap either, so if there’s nothing to say, I’m hanging up.”

“Come on. You’re loaded through your in-laws, why the fuss over small change……”

“Pathetic of me to have lent an ear to drivel not worth hearing. I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Really. You can’t take a joke at all. Live a little, will you!”

At Kingsley’s urgent pleading, Frederic reluctantly lifted the receiver he had been setting down and brought it back to his ear.

“It’s nothing much, I just thought I saw Duchess Graham a little while ago.”

“My wife?”

Frederic echoed the words and glanced out the window toward the garden.

She had been at the balcony tea table with Julian not long ago……

The evening sun was already sinking low. He checked the hour and minute hands of the desk clock and only then felt a pang of guilt for having irresponsibly left his wife to her own devices under the pretense of getting work done.