“I just said it because it was absurd that someone of the Grand Duke’s stature would date you out of all people….”
“Is that an insult or a compliment?”
While Chloe stood bewildered, Leah leafed through the newspaper and let out a deep sigh.
“I should have known when you were rarely home, yet spent every waking moment cursing Grand Duke Berk….”
“What?
I did that?”
“If I hadn’t seen Miss Grace, our school librarian, secretly kissing Assistant Keres—the very man she cursed every day—I would never have believed it of you.”
Remarkably, before Chloe could even utter a word, Leah seemed to have already accepted the preposterous notion that her sister had been secretly courting the Grand Duke.
As Leah rambled on, Chloe realized the secret to her sister’s quick acceptance lay in the diverse relationships she had observed at her women’s university, the romances she had witnessed, and the multitude of romance novels she had devoured.
“They say intense animosity is indistinguishable from a lover’s quarrel.
To think that would be your story.”
Of course, the newspapers, which had recklessly sensationalized their supposed romance, had also played their part.
Having devoured the articles, Leah came to believe without a doubt that the intense animosity Chloe felt while working overtime every day had unwittingly transformed into a thrilling love affair.
“It’s just like a novel!”
Chloe didn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified.
She longed to shout, to beg her sister not to accept it, but the words wouldn’t come.
If she were to blurt out, “I entered a contract marriage,” and Leah accidentally let it slip in public, it would be a disaster.
It wasn’t that Leah was immature or indiscreet; her sarcastic wit was usually reserved for family.
Still, there was no need to disabuse her sister of this self-made conclusion.
After all, wasn’t this misunderstanding precisely what Curtis desired?
So, Chloe just forced a smile and nodded.
“Y-yes… that’s how it happened….”
“Well, the Grand Duke ‘is’ undeniably handsome.
There are plenty of girls at my school who cut his picture out of the newspaper to add to their collections.”
‘Are all the students at that school blind?’ Chloe grumbled inwardly.
Regardless of her thoughts, Leah was utterly absorbed in admiring the drawing room.
“Look at this.
The furniture is incredibly luxurious and sturdy.”
Befitting the mansion’s white exterior, the interior was exceptionally elegant.
The sisters, having arrived at dawn, had been hastily given their own separate house on the estate.
As Chloe had never set foot inside the Berk estate before, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she was, but even a glance told her it was a wonderful space exuding class.
“This is incredible!
We have plenty of wealthy and noble students at my school, but I bet not a single one lives in a mansion this grand.
Even the curtains are so soft!”
Leah ran a hand over the curtains, then coughed softly.
“This place must have been empty for ages,” she observed.
“But I still love it!” she added, spinning once around the drawing room.
To put it in perspective, the drawing room alone was larger than the entire modest house on Martin Street where Chloe and her siblings had grown up.
“If you marry the Grand Duke, will you be living here from now on?”
“…Probably?”
“This is wonderful!
Iris will adore it when she wakes up!”
Chloe scratched her cheek awkwardly.
She had initially hesitated to bring her siblings along.
Her rushed decision to marry was one thing, but having her family reside at the Berk estate felt like an entirely different matter.
However, Leah had been persuaded more easily than expected, and watching her marvel at the mansion brought Chloe a measure of relief.
“Eric doesn’t know, does he?”
She was referring to Eric, their twenty-one-year-old brother, who was living in a military academy dormitory in a small city some distance from the capital.
Naturally, he wouldn’t know.
“I’d meant to send a telegram, but… well, he probably….”
He had likely already found out from the newspapers plastered across the market stalls.
Eric, the most hot-tempered of the siblings, had probably already clutched the back of his neck and collapsed.
Leah giggled softly, perhaps imagining Eric’s reaction as well, before letting out a sigh.
“It would be a blessing if Mother and Father even saw a newspaper.”
Chloe silently stroked the hair of her sleeping sister, Iris.
Unlike Chloe or Leah, their youngest sister, with her dark skin and silver hair, was only ten years old.
It was an age where yearning for one’s parents would not be unusual, yet even Iris rarely mentioned them.
Not expecting anything from their parents was an unspoken rule among the Amboise siblings.
“Still, it’s a relief, Chloe.
Since your groom is the Grand Duke, perhaps they’ll hear of your marriage through the rumor mill?”
Just as Chloe was about to retort, “And what would be the point of that?” Leah’s eyes twinkled with a hint of expectation.
“If all goes well, they’ll come before your wedding, won’t they?”
“…Before my wedding?”
“It’s been a little over three months since you were discharged from the Navy, so the wedding must be at least nine months away….”
Leah’s reasoning was not unsound.
‘But that’s not it at all.
How do I explain this?’ Chloe’s eyes darted about awkwardly.
“That’s… not quite right.”
“Why?
When are you getting married?”
“…Next week?”
Leah froze.
Meanwhile, at the main building of the Berk estate.
“What is the mood in the annex?
I need to summon Warrant Officer Amboise for a discussion.”
Second Lieutenant Noel Monfils, who was just handing him a shirt, paused at Curtis’s words.
As usual, he was helping his handsome friend and superior change clothes in the mansion’s dressing room.
Noel addressed Curtis cautiously, his tone gently reasoning.
“Curtis.
Your Highness,” Noel began, “it has barely been a day.”
“It has been a ‘full’ day.”
But if Curtis Sean Berk were one to heed a scolding, he would not be Curtis Sean Berk.
Noel could only offer a bitter smile.
“Can’t you imagine how a young woman might feel, suddenly finding herself sleeping in an unfamiliar mansion overnight?”
“It was the late Queen’s summer palace.
There is likely no finer residence in the capital.”
“Curtis,” Noel pressed, his voice a soft warning.
Curtis wrinkled his nose and took the shirt from Noel’s hand.
Such a task rightfully belonged to the mansion’s servants, but nearly half of the Berk estate’s staff were, in essence, the King’s spies.
Curtis possessed his own territory, where he had planned to reside after the war’s conclusion, but the suspicious King had summoned him to the Royal Guards and commanded him to take up residence in the empty Berk mansion.
It was also the King who had personally sent the servants to the estate, citing “brotherly goodwill” as his motive.
To refuse would have invited double the trouble, yet having his every move reported to the King was equally intolerable.
Consequently, Noel had volunteered to be his trusted aide, a role he continued to fill.
Having previously served as Curtis’s adjutant on the battlefield, it was not an unfamiliar task.
“The butler was practically begging to be allowed into the annex.”
“That damned old man,” Curtis grumbled.
Philip, the Berk estate’s butler, was one of the servants the King had employed since his days as a prince.
He undoubtedly intended to report Curtis’s every movement to the King with the utmost astuteness.
The bedding ‘is’ quite old.”
It had been Noel who, just yesterday morning, had hastily prepared the annex for the three Amboise sisters.
The annex, Queen Mildred’s favorite spot within the Berk mansion, had been shuttered for ten years following her death.
Thus, no matter how quickly they cleaned, the aged furnishings were an unavoidable consequence.
“So?”
“I instructed them to swiftly replace only the bedding and curtains, using the bare minimum of staff.
I made it clear that any servant who dared speak a single word to the guests in the annex would be immediately dismissed.”
“Well done,” Curtis replied, stifling a light yawn.
Noel offered a bitter smile.
Thanks to Curtis having disrupted the banquet hall two nights prior, everyone—from Noel himself to the household staff—had been in a state of emergency for two straight days.
“Noel, my apologies, but you must let Warrant Officer Amboise and her family into the annex.”
“Curtis, you’ve finally…?”
“It just turned out that way.”
Curtis’s habit of omitting most explanations with that phrase was notorious.
Only after years by his side had Noel come to vaguely understand the profound deliberation hidden behind such brief pronouncements.
At times, it felt dismissive, almost arrogant.
But the one who was truly more exhausted was likely Curtis himself.
He was constantly calculating countless possibilities, performing a near-acrobatic tightrope walk between those computations.
He simply concealed it all behind a cold, unyielding expression.
An ordinary person wouldn’t sleep a wink from worry if they glimpsed even a fraction of the calculations he constantly performed.
Even now, since the banquet, the busiest person had undoubtedly been Curtis Sean Berk himself.
Upon returning to the mansion, he had forgone sleep to personally pen nearly ten letters.
Their contents were truly diverse, from a letter of apology to the Duchess of Glintland—a distant relative—for “failing to meet him at the banquet,” to correspondence informing estate managers and other agents of a new person slated to be incorporated into his rights as a titleholder.
And as soon as dawn broke, he had headed to the Prince’s Palace.
Since it was obvious the King wouldn’t permit his marriage, his purpose was to ask Prince Frederick to handle all the necessary processing.
The rumor that the King had banned the Grand Duke from the palace, having erupted in a furious rage upon seeing the newspaper, began to circulate right after the Grand Duke had met with the Prince and departed.
“I knew he would,” Curtis scoffed.
Curtis, of course, had laughed mockingly upon hearing the rumor.
After all, the location where the Grand Duke had sought the Prince’s favor was not the Royal Palace.
It was a truly swift and cunning measure.
Furthermore, immediately after, without a moment to catch his breath, he had concluded an interview with a reporter waiting at the Grand Duke’s residence.
As if he had anticipated this very scenario, the reporter was from a reputable newspaper that Curtis had personally selected beforehand.
Noel asked as he casually handed him a cravat.
“And Prince Frederick?”
“True to his bloodline, he expressed his pity for the woman who is to become my wife.”
His deadpan delivery was characteristic.
Noel, alone, managed a bitter smile.
Unlike the King, Prince Frederick was quite close to Curtis.
Technically, he was Curtis’s nephew, but thanks to a mere four-year age gap, they had forged an intimacy while studying together.
Unlike the King, Frederick possessed few insidious corners.
“How does he perceive the relationship between you and ‘Her Highness the Grand Duchess’?”
Curtis stared at Noel, a look of profound disgust on his face.