Had this been the usual Curtis, he would have summarily executed Chloe long ago and been done with it.
However, he was the man who had brokered the truce with the three kingdoms.
This meant he was someone capable of immense endurance, of tirelessly racking his brain to achieve his goals.
Disposing of Chloe in this situation, simply because she angered him, was out of the question.
The moment he canceled this engagement, he would be forced to proceed with the move to Glintland he had worked so hard to avoid.
Thus, struggling to maintain his composure, he asked, “Fine.
I cannot deny that you have me at a disadvantage in this round.”
“Thank you,” Chloe replied, a hint of satisfaction in her voice.
“That wasn’t a compliment,” Curtis snapped.
“I’ll ask just one thing: What do you gain by having me undergo disciplinary action?”
Money, honor, everything else seemed irrelevant to her.
What he meant was: why abandon all that and deliberately provoke him, just to achieve ‘this’?
He tried to maintain his composure, but he couldn’t prevent an ominous tone from seeping into his voice.
Chloe felt it too, and she chose her words carefully after a long silence before speaking again.
“First off,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, “it would be rather amusing.”
“What on earth…” Curtis began, bewildered.
“Like the thrill of disciplining a superior who doles out punishment for collective responsibility at the drop of a hat,” she finished.
Curtis’s jaw clenched.
“Or perhaps there would be the satisfaction of taking revenge for suddenly falling out of favor with His Majesty the King, all after assisting a superior at a banquet ‘on my day off’,” Chloe added, her voice dripping with mock indignation.
It was so absurd that Curtis scoffed.
“Just for that?”
Chloe didn’t miss the flicker of dismissal that brushed across his face.
“Do you think it’s ‘just for that’?” she challenged, her voice low.
Curtis immediately shot back sharply.
“Then is it not so?
I understand, Officer Amboise, that you’ve served in the military for quite some time.
Are you truly unfamiliar with the chain of command?
If you are so dissatisfied with disciplinary action, how have you managed your military service until now?”
“I should be the one asking you that, Your Highness,” Chloe retorted, her voice even.
“Asking what?”
“About the chain of command.
Between you and me, right now—who is the superior?”
As Curtis posed the question, Chloe crossed her arms, rose, and stepped directly in front of him.
Curtis flinched instinctively.
Her pink eyes, which he rarely saw clearly because she always bowed her head with a polite “Yes, sir,” were now staring straight at him with an uncanny intensity.
“Of course, in terms of rank, you are superior, Your Highness.
However, it seems you don’t quite understand what marriage entails.”
Curtis tried to lean back, but there was nowhere to go.
“What are you talking about?
Do I become your subordinate if I marry you?”
“Naturally, the Kingdom’s laws state that spouses are equal.”
Chloe immediately pulled back, settling comfortably against the sofa once more.
She then shrugged, holding her palms out as if weighing options.
“I informed you that during negotiations, it’s usually advantageous to specify terms and compensation.
But there’s something more crucial than that.”
“Making a proposal that considers the other party’s position.”
Curtis, having barely regained his composure, cleared his throat.
Chloe waited until he had settled on the sofa opposite her before continuing.
“What Your Highness requires of me is to become your nominal wife and face the full brunt of His Majesty the King’s attacks.
For that purpose, you are offering compensation.”
“…And?”
“My family cannot be excluded from that equation, can they?
Marriage is, after all, a union between families.”
A sharp realization struck Curtis.
Chloe glanced at him and pressed on.
“Since you seem to understand what I’m implying, allow me to ask you directly: In this marriage, do you intend to employ my entire family and compensate them as well?”
Naturally, she didn’t mean for him to literally hire her family.
Curtis understood her meaning perfectly.
Why had he considered Chloe a candidate from the start yet delayed choosing her until the very end?
It was due to the excessively low status of the Amboise family.
He had already fallen out of favor with the King.
That was his current predicament, but if he married her, the number of people mocking the Grand Duke of Berk would multiply a hundredfold.
He didn’t wish to be ridiculed on top of being demoted.
But looking at it from the other side, all Curtis had to endure was ridicule.
On the other hand, how much would the Amboise family have to endure?
If Chloe Amboise of the Navy became Chloe Sean Berk, a massive wave of societal pressure would likely crash down upon the Amboise household.
Gossip, scrutiny, endless invitations, whispering… those would likely be just the tip of the iceberg.
“For your information, I have three younger siblings who haven’t even finished school, let alone married.”
And that wasn’t all.
They would become targets for all sorts of malice.
Falling out of favor with the King was a given.
Though it was a hereditary title, they were a poor family, holding only a lowly Baronetcy.
For a family that had practically no presence to suddenly receive the attention of high society could never be a happy occasion.
Rather, it was closer to a calamity.
It was a blind spot Curtis hadn’t considered.
It was also the mistake of a man born into privilege, who had lived his entire life without ever looking down.
“Do you remember when I told you this afternoon that I didn’t have a dress for the banquet?”
“…I remember.”
“It’s not a matter of money.
My siblings don’t even know how to greet high-ranking nobles.
A family like ours has no occasion, nor any need, to meet high nobles.”
Curtis groaned, a low sound in his throat.
Chloe continued, enunciating clearly.
“I enlisted at eighteen for the steady salary.
I wanted to earn money to pay for my eldest younger brother’s tuition, and my goal was to marry my sisters off to respectable families.”
“I became Your Highness’s aide because my second younger sister wanted to study at a university.”
Chloe Amboise was the teenage breadwinner of a First Class Baronet household.
A minor title that, while hereditary, didn’t even come with land.
Children from such families naturally chose scholarly pursuits over useless etiquette or fancy dresses.
“For me to enter even a fake marriage with Your Highness doesn’t simply mean earning a lot of money.
It means I have to take my good-natured siblings, who only know how to study, on a dangerous adventure we never even imagined experiencing.”
Curtis knew this from the documents.
However, reading a summarized record was vastly different from hearing it directly from the person involved.
“To be honest, no matter how much money you offer, I don’t particularly want to do it.
But because of what Your Highness committed today, marrying you has become something I must do, regardless of my personal preference.”
“…I will pay the utmost attention to your family’s safety and any other issues.”
Chloe shook her head.
“Let me reiterate: ‘You’ are asking ‘me,’ Your Highness.
I want more than your simply ‘paying attention’.”
“For example?”
“At least in this marriage, I…”
Chloe hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
“I want to make it clear that I am the superior in this contract.”
“The superior, you say?”
“If you consider that my enduring grueling overtime by Your Highness’s side isn’t because I care about you, the meaning should be clear.”
Sometimes, a seemingly foolish question is necessary.
Curtis sighed, answering her unspoken challenge.
“You probably don’t mean a special promotion.”
Of course, Chloe didn’t believe Curtis said that because he truly didn’t know.
“For me to be officially higher than Your Highness, I would have to ascend to the throne as King.”
“I heard your remark about hanging from the gallows side-by-side with your siblings loud and clear…”
Curtis rubbed his furrowed brow, fatigue etched on his face.
‘Then why the disciplinary action?’ he wondered.
“Do you mean you want me to show through my actions that you, the Warrant Officer, are the superior in this contract?”
“…Precisely.”
The logic was clear.
Curtis’s mind unexpectedly cleared.
A man second only to the King, and above all others.
A man who had never bowed to anyone except his sovereign was asking a woman to marry him.
Yet, he hadn’t properly understood what that woman had to endure.
And so, the woman prescribed him a drastic remedy: action over words.
Vague promises of “paying attention” wouldn’t suffice.
Because what she had to sacrifice in this marriage were things that couldn’t be recovered, not even in a lifetime—her reputation, her family’s peace, and so on.
On the other hand, what price did Curtis offer in exchange for that sacrifice?
Curtis was overflowing with money.
So money was just an incidental condition of this deal; it couldn’t be the true price.
Therefore, she was saying that, at the very least, she had to drag Curtis down from his high pedestal and below her level.
‘I will grant your request, so swear it with action.’
‘Show me that you are at least resolved to step down from that elevated position and live as my subordinate, in exchange for what I have to bear with this marriage.’
Until just a moment ago, he had suspected his aide had lost her mind.
But following Chloe’s explanation, Curtis immediately accepted it.
Perhaps thanks to that clarity, the displeasure from moments ago and the suspicion regarding Chloe’s mental state had long since vanished like melting snow.
And that wasn’t all.
With such clear-headedness, a trust even began to sprout—a belief that this woman would precisely execute what he wanted from this marriage.
‘Mutiny?’
If he considered it a transaction he naturally had to perform as a party to the contract, it wasn’t something he couldn’t do, Curtis mused.