Leah Amboise.
The pretty young woman with dark blue bobbed hair, just like Chloe’s, couldn’t tell if what was unfolding was a dream or reality.
Just two nights ago, she had shared dinner with her youngest sister at the small house on Le Martin and gone to sleep peacefully, as always.
“Chloe is working overtime again today!
Iris, you like that, right?
I’ll give you the snacks Chloe bought for herself earlier!”
“I love snacks!
But I miss my sister.”
The memory of being moved by her incredibly kind youngest sister, Iris, was still vivid.
At dawn, it was her eldest sister, returned from the palace, who roughly shook the deeply sleeping Leah awake.
“Get up, we have to leave right now.”
“Huuh.
What?
Sister, what time is it….”
“Wake up!”
Her eldest sister was someone who spent more days not coming home due to overtime than days she did.
When she returned at dawn, she was the type of person who would take off her shoes outside the front door so as not to wake Leah and Iris.
But not only did that same Chloe wake her up by pounding on her, she was saying they had to leave the house right now?
Leah was naturally terrified.
“Finally?”
“What do you mean, finally… No, there’s no time to explain.
Just grab Iris and come out.”
“Even Iris?!
Did Mom and Dad finally cause trouble?!”
Only then did Chloe understand the meaning of ‘finally’ and looked at her second sister with a bewildered expression.
But considering they were sisters with parents who rarely contacted them and never sent good news, it was natural to think that way.
“I knew there would come a day when we’d have to flee by night!”
Leah nonchalantly pulled out a small bag she had packed for evacuation from under the bed and slung it over her shoulder.
Chloe rubbed her throbbing forehead, then gave Leah a smack on the head.
“Ouch!”
“Packing a bag was a good move.
Just bring that.”
Saying that, Chloe picked up the ten-year-old youngest, Iris, who was whining in her sleep, and quickly left the house.
Leah also threw a coat roughly over her pajamas and followed behind.
And immediately after stepping out the front gate, she was astounded to see a large, pitch-black carriage standing in front of their house.
“Sister, what did you really do…?”
“It just happened….”
The person who sent the carriage was, naturally, Curtis.
That dawn, as soon as he slid the engagement ring on her finger, the command Curtis gave Chloe was none other than a hasty escape.
If the sun rises tomorrow morning, your family will be the first to face trouble.
Bring them to the Grand Duchy right now.
The seal of the Berk Grand Duchy, which would typically be engraved on a carriage, was nowhere to be seen.
It had been removed for discretion.
It was a very timely measure.
Because immediately after the carriage departed in the pre-dawn darkness, the two sisters vividly witnessed reporters running toward Le Martin through the carriage window.
“I’m certain!
Chloe Amboise said she lives on Le Martin!”
“Let’s see, 138 Le Martin?”
If Chloe had been even a little late in drawing the carriage curtains, their eyes would surely have met those reporters.
“Sister, what is really going on?”
“I can’t explain right now.
You’ll know when we arrive.”
Leah had known for a while that Chloe had joined the Royal Guard.
Had a big problem arisen?
Leah looked at her sister’s grave expression and tried to suppress her anxiety.
The place they eventually arrived at was a huge mansion glowing white in the darkness.
Leah, holding Iris, dropped her jaw as soon as she stepped out of the carriage.
The place she was standing was the Berk Grand Duchy, considered a magnificent landmark even within the capital, Ibaneres.
A large white mansion built conspicuously next to a small lake near the royal palace, as if the exorbitant property values of the capital meant nothing.
It was a place the late King had built and bestowed upon the current Grand Duke Berk, the third Prince, when he was young, out of his immense love for Queen Mildred.
Because it was clearly visible from anywhere in the capital, it was a place no one in the city could not know.
To think she was inside the mansion she had looked up at while glancing sideways on her way to school, thinking things like ‘What kind of people live there?’
However, unlike her constant imagination that it “must surely be a happy and comfortable place,” the atmosphere of the Grand Duke’s residence was somewhat subtle.
“You must be Miss Amboise.
I will guide you this way.”
The person who came out to greet them in the Grand Duke’s residence, which was silent as the grave, was Second Lieutenant Noel, who looked slightly fatigued.
There wasn’t a single servant one would expect to find in such a palatial mansion.
Second Lieutenant Noel quickly took Iris from Leah and guided the Amboise sisters.
The place they arrived at was an annex of the mansion, completely devoid of human presence.
Although it was cleaned, there was no one here either.
“Since it is too early, please rest for now.”
Second Lieutenant Noel spoke politely and closed the door to the annex.
What on earth was going on?
Leah was smart enough to always vie for first or second place in the law department of the women’s university in the capital.
Standing in that silent annex, Leah immediately deduced what had happened based on her sister’s behavior and words over the past three months since changing her duty station.
“Sister finally killed the Grand Duke….”
At the relief of finally arriving at the Grand Duke’s residence, Chloe, who had been slumping, raised her head in shock.
“…What?”
But Leah didn’t care this time either.
“Suddenly shoved into a suspicious carriage at dawn, and the place we arrive is a corner of the Berk Grand Duchy….”
“Um…”
“I guessed it from the moment you cursed the Grand Duke every single day.
We’ve come to be secretly executed because you finally couldn’t hold it in, haven’t we…?”
Chloe, who was speechless for various reasons, shoved a few copies of the freshly printed morning newspaper into Leah’s hands instead of explaining whether she was right or wrong.
Leah, who opened the newspaper while steeling herself for news of the death of Ivanes’ war hero, flinched.
‘Grand Duke Berk Declares Marriage to Aide He Was Secretly Dating’
And only then did Chloe whisper to her sister in a truly miserable tone.
“I’m getting married.”
Leah Amboise collapsed on the spot.
A teacup filled with warm ginger tea was placed in front of Leah, who had fainted and woken up.
Leah, who gulped down the tea, spoke calmly.
“Sister, let me ask you one thing.”
Go ahead.”
“Didn’t you curse the Grand Duke Berk out, calling him a ‘Bastard’ a few days ago?”
Chloe hurriedly covered the ears of ten-year-old Iris, who was still sleeping with her head on her lap, with both hands and replied, “I earned expensive tuition fees for you, and is ‘that’ the kind of language you learned at school, Leah?”
Leah scoffed at those words.
“Sister.
Do you know what I learned after paying those expensive tuition fees?”
“What?”
“That humans who want to avoid a question attack the questioner.”
“…That’s a wise saying.
It was worth working myself to death to earn that tuition.”
Chloe replied, subtly glancing away.
But she couldn’t avoid Leah’s sharp attack.
“Stop beating around the bush and tell me properly.
Marriage?
And with Grand Duke Berk?”
Law school truly seemed a fitting choice for Leah.
It couldn’t be helped.
Chloe took a deep breath and opened her mouth.
“I love the Grand Duke.”
“…Sister.
I think I need to go to the hospital.
I’m having hallucinations.”
To the answer given so shamelessly, a retort asking what kind of nonsense that was came back.
But Chloe stood firm.
Because Curtis Sean Berk had ordered her to maintain strict secrecy.
Something about how it absolutely must not leak to the outside.
He had firmly stated that family was absolutely no exception.
So Chloe gave a plausible excuse.
“Dating someone of the Grand Duke’s standing was a matter of state secrecy, so I couldn’t say anything.”
Leah’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Tell me straight.
You think I don’t know you?”
Chloe’s second sister was truly sharp at times like this.
She glanced at Leah, but it seemed Leah didn’t believe Chloe’s words at all.
“It would make more sense if you said you were getting paid by the Grand Duke to marry him.”
Damn it.
She knew it would be like this.
Even so, hiding it from Leah, whom she faced every evening for dinner, was impossible.
Leah, who had been unrivaled in quick-wittedness since childhood, seemed to have grasped the situation immediately.
‘Well, she’s watched me act like a miser right next to her for over ten years since I was young, so it’s understandable…’
Eventually, Chloe gave up on maintaining the pretense and awkwardly confessed the truth.
“Damn it, His Highness said I couldn’t even tell you.
Yes.
It’s true, I’m being married off.”
However, Chloe’s prediction missed the mark completely.
Leah, upon hearing her words, now wore a look of pitiful disdain.
“Sister….
Do you take me for a fool?
Who would pay money to buy you and marry you….”
“Huh…”