Without a word, Enoch buried his face in the towel the butler held out to him. Conrad was mistaken now.
He was a housekeeper to a marquess, and an improved general in this war.
What did his master not know that the vassal knew?
“Ben. What I ordered last time.”
“Ready, my lord.”
The butler politely held out a bundle of papers.
‘Asa Nobilis’
Conrad’s eyes widened as he recognised the name on the papers.
“No! How could you have known about this and kept quiet all this time? How could you have known that I was in financial trouble, and yet you kept quiet about……!”
“Calm down, Conrad.”
The butler calmed the agitated Conrad.
Enoch had a towel around the nape of his neck and was poring over the reports. He knew a little about Agatha Nobilis, actually.
She’d been married twice before he’d lost both his parents and been thrust into battle.
‘She was thirteen then, I believe.
She was three years older than him, so she must be about twenty-three now. I had just heard at the Improvement Ball that she had recently been divorced for the sixth time.
The butler, who had succeeded in keeping Conrad quiet, added an aside.
“I hear that once she came of age, she was granted her independence of marriage by His Majesty. Since then, she has been married three times, all divorced, including the latest.”
“How remarkable, Nobilis. Even if she had an inheritance, she wouldn’t be able to divorce so easily. Isn’t that proof of the immense power of the Nobilis?”
Conrad marvelled. In noble families, the immediate female line could not succeed to a title, but had the right of inheritance.
In Agatha’s case, she was the only remaining direct descendant, so all the property was hers.
Her history, her lineage, and a fortune second only to the Yellow House.
Her power was immense. She even had the emperor as her godfather and was childhood friends with the crown prince.
“Assassination or kidnapping attempts?”
“Frequent. She’s the only one in the immediate line. I think she’s been chilling out since her divorce and is looking for an escort for her outside activities, but most venerable families are reluctant. It’s a paid escorting job, so there are honour issues and…….”
“So the next in line is a foreigner.”
“Yes. That’s why His Majesty the Emperor is paying so much attention to Nobilis’s succession.”
If all the men in the immediate line die, the next in line passes to the fang line. If a woman was alive in the immediate line, the succession would go to the children she had married.
Here, relatives were divided.
Some preferred to be loyal to the next in line rather than to an uncertain heir, and some distant clans attempted kidnap marriages.
The latter knew that Agatha could not be easily manoeuvred, for the right to call the knights to order and to invoke family discipline rested with the patriarch.
Hence the frequent assassination and kidnapping attempts.
Enoch, who, upon returning to the capital, had stripped his kinsmen of their privileges as patriarchs and sent them all out of the capital, sneered bitterly.
“Let’s go to my office.”
Upstairs, he sat down at his desk and went through his papers.
As the butler prepared tea, Conrad stood at his desk and swallowed hard.
“I wonder what the Lord will conclude?
Ever since he’d received the news, Enoch had known the dangers of this job.
A skirmish involving an astronomical fortune.
In this, Nobilis’s powerlessness was not to be expected.
The Knights of Nobilis had been disbanded when Agatha became the sole heir at the age of five, and even after she came of age, she was not a member of the Order, so he could not order her to join.
All that remained was an army that could not enter the castle.
Even that was without a leader, and it was doubtful that it would be in the same condition eighteen years later.
“My lord…….”
“……?”
Enoch stared at the document Conrad held out to him through narrowed eyes.
“Report on Household Finances.
“…….”
It was a pain in the temples.
“Yeah. It’s never been easy.
Nothing in his life had been easy since he was ten years old and forced to fight in his sister’s forced marriage.
Sweet rewards come with a price.
And he has no prejudice against paying for escorts.
When did honour ever pay the bills?
“Yes.”
“Hooray! At last, at last, we’re off the hook for our finances!”
As Conrad paced frantically around the room, Ben the butler set down a pot of deftly brewed tea in front of him.
“I’ll put in a word with Nobilis Youngae.”
“Very well. You take care of it.”
A few days later.
Rumour had it that the Marquis of Aratus had responded positively to Nobilis’ words.
Unlike the Aratus family, whose poverty made it difficult for them to socialise, Agatha, who had become a force in social circles, could hear the rumours from home.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear the good news, Lady Iris……”
Agatha immediately wrote to Iris Domunia to express her joy at the news and hastened her preparations.
Although they had confirmed their intentions, nothing was yet certain.
It was an essential procedure to find out the level of nobility and the nature of the family before entering into a contract.
In that sense, the existence of a crown prince who could naturally send invitations to all nobles without being introduced was invaluable.
Even if his personality was poor, his status was something that could be trusted.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Agatha was escorted into the palace by the guards.
She arrived at the crown prince’s palace, but it was not the crown prince who greeted her, but his chamberlain.
“Welcome, my lady.”
“Where is His Highness?”
“He is still in his bedroom.”
Sure enough, her hunky boyfriend was still in bed in the middle of the day. The crown prince’s chamberlain casually opened the bedroom door.
“Get up!”
Barging in, Agatha kicked the crown prince’s faceless body as he groggily groped for the bed.
“Ugh, who……, Agatha?”
“Wake up, I need your help, Your Highness.”
“…….”
It was not the demeanour of someone asking for help at all, but neither the crown prince, nor Agatha, nor even the chamberlain seemed to care.
“I told you not to come in when I’m sleeping, must you insist on waking me?”
“Then get up, you spend half your day in your bedroom and outside, and if I don’t wake you, when do you expect me to tell you what I’m here for? I’ll be waiting for you at the patronage, so get cleaned up and get out.”
“……Ah, really.”
Grumbling, the crown prince, Anthony Roxiba, rose from the aesthetic bed.
His naked, muscular body was stunning, but now so familiar that it made no impression on Agatha.
Agatha immediately turned to the chamberlain.
“Get him cleaned up and take him to the great hall. We’ll dine there, so be prepared.”
“Yes, my lady.”
She could hear him muttering something about just being a prince, but of course no one was listening.
It must have been about twenty minutes since Agatha had been alone at tea in the patronage.
The Crown Prince, wet-haired and casually dressed, strode over and sat down across the table, his eyes still bleary but somewhat awake.
“What else are you doing today?”
“Don’t you want to organise a hunt?”
“Why again. Invite someone. Ah, you said you put in an offer of escort to the Marquis of Aratus, did he confirm?”
“Yes. I’d like to try my hand at brokering a deal, Your Highness.”
“In return?”
They were godfather’s son and goddaughter, more like sixth cousins with a shared pain, but nothing was free for Anthony Roxiba anyway.
“A horse I’ve been eyeing.”
“Very well, I will have an invitation sent out immediately, my dear Agatha.”
A stern-faced Anthony barked for the stationery to be brought at once, and the letter, written on the spot and bearing the crown prince’s seal, set off for the Marquis of Aratus.
It had been nearly a week since Agatha had made her intentions known.
The Prince’s feast was quickly set on the table. It was there that Agatha, snatching a sweet dessert, frowned at the unexpected attack.
“How many times do you intend to marry, and are you going to write a new chapter in the history of Imperial marriages?”
“What have I done, look around you, including your highness. You’re not a proper husband.”
“So Old Lady Neuta and the Godmother divorced because she couldn’t stand him?”
“That’s on him for neglecting them.”
A man who was good as a knife at work, but indecisive about his chores.
That was Theodore Neuta, her sixth ex-husband. Anthony tapped the report on Enoch Aratus that had somehow come up.
“So. Is he a candidate for your seventh husband?”
“I don’t know, I’m in need of an escort right now. Oh, and there’s sure to be a raid when I get back today, so lend me an escort, Your Majesty.”
