She followed him to the cabin, wearing only pajamas and a robe, and saw him off. As she was combing her tangled hair, she felt embarrassed when she caught eyes with Sir Daniel through the gap in the door that the Grand Duke had opened.
“It’s been a while, Sir Daniel. Haha…”
The knight, perhaps embarrassed, gave her a brief greeting, then glanced at the Grand Duke and went to the fence where the horses were parked. The Grand Duke, who had gone out the door, turned and faced me. After a night where she felt like she was drunk on a potion, she was embarrassed to even face the Grand Duke.
“Are you feeling okay?”
She nodded, avoiding eye contact.
“I’ve been in a daze since last night.”
Because the Grand Duke last night was not the Grand Duke she knew.
“But really…”
“Huh?”
“Is this your first time?”
“…I can’t believe this is someone with 10 years of experience.”
She smiled and waved her hand.
“Be careful and come back.”
The Grand Duke bowed his head and kissed her.
“See you in two days.”
On the way back to the village on his horse, Daniel kept glancing at Elliot. The eyes looked like they were dying to make fun of him.
“Ha.”
Only then did Daniel laugh.
“I remember you said that Your Highness is a conservative person.”
“Laugh as much as you want. Because I can play generously no matter what you say now.”
Daniel shook his head. No matter how he teased him, it wouldn’t work. Just looking at that face made it look like he had been to heaven.
* * *
The victory banquet had a more wild and free-spirited atmosphere than the balls the Grand Duchy sometimes held. That’s because most of the banquet guests were knights of the Grand Duke’s family who led the war to victory. Everyone was so absorbed in the joy of victory and the joy of returning alive that they seemed to have forgotten that there was a high-ranking guest called the Duke. The Duke of Monette was sitting across from the Grand Duke in a row at a long table inside the banquet hall.
She was the only commoner at this table. She sometimes felt that people in the Dukedom she had never met glanced at her with uncomfortable eyes.
“Father, tomorrow I will show you the torch that I embroidered while praying for the well-being and victory of you and my brothers.”
The princess seemed very excited to have her father and brothers come.
“Bella’s embroidery skills, which were otherwise outstanding, have grown to a surprising degree.”
“This father is worried that your hand may be sore.”
The princess was the youngest, and the daughter of a Duke, so it was obvious at a glance that the family members were happy.
“I have a grandmother. Don’t be discouraged.”
It was a moment that reminded her of what her grandmother had said to her when she was young, every time she looked at the children with their mom and dad with envious eyes. A bright red, ripe strawberry appeared before her eyes. As she absentmindedly took the strawberry the Grand Duke offered, his fingertip tapped her protruding cheek.
“It’s like a squirrel preparing for winter.”
He glanced at her once, looked straight ahead again, and then made eye contact with the princess. His eyes were full of envy.
“Bella, your complexion has gotten better while I haven’t seen you.”
The Duke, who was looking at her and her daughter closely, spoke to her daughter.
“I don’t need to ask you to know that the Grand Duke’s family took care of my wife and daughter both materially and spiritually. From the northern front to the rear here, the debt the dukedom owes to the grand dukedom will never be forgotten for generations to come.”
As the Duke expressed his gratitude to the Grand Duke, the Duchess stood by his side.
“Indeed, thanks to the generosity of the Grand Princess and the Grand Duke, I was able to live comfortably as if it were my own residence.”
“I thought so. I’m glad it wasn’t just my idea.”
Luna responded to the Duchess’s words, which were clearly highly sarcastic, with her sincere words.
“I’ll hold on because today is a good day.”
…she decided, clenching her fists before the banquet. She seemed to be seething inside, unable to let go of what she had accumulated.
“How polite and upright the Grand Prince and the Grand Princess were. I guess this is all thanks to Miss Hazel being a great nanny, right?”
The Duchess has now turned her arrow from the children to Hazel.
“I really meant it. The Grand Prince and the Grand Princess are now big enough to run their estates, so they won’t need a nanny soon, right? Miss Hazel will need to find a new employer, and I hope the Monettes will consider it. The grandchildren are so troublesome…”
“Duchess.”
The Grand Duke firmly interrupted the Duchess.
“Miss Hazel is here as my lover, not as her nanny, so she expects the respect she deserves.”
“Don’t forget that soon you will no longer be a nanny or a lover.”
She heard a small whispering sound next to her. What was she talking about? She turned around in surprise, but Luna was chopping up the meat on her plate with her mouth closed.
‘Did I hear it wrong?’
As the mood at the table became awkward, the Duchess exaggeratedly raised her voice tone.
“Oh, of course, of course. I was rude when I tried to praise Miss Hazel for raising the Grand Prince and the Grand Princess so well.”
“It’s admirable.”
Luna joined in with a smile.
“If you are accustomed to leaving your work to others, giving credit to yourself and giving credit to others, then it is only natural that you would do so.”
The Duke looked back and forth between her daughter, who was crying, and Luna’s cold face, and then he apologized.
“The Duchess’ words are truly dishonorable.”
Even though Luna hadn’t spoken yet, the Duke seemed to know roughly what had happened here.
“No. As a farewell, I would like to say thank you for making the daily life of the Grand Duke’s residence colorful, which was almost monotonous due to the master’s absence.”
If Luna made a fuss in her unattended house, she would show her shame and yell at someone to turn it off at once three times.
“Maybe I’ll see you at my brother’s wedding next time, right?”
The Grand Duke’s… Wedding ceremony? She was looking back at Luna when she heard an unexpected sound. His long fingers were intertwined with my left hand, which was resting on his thigh. Why was he playing with her hands all of a sudden? She squeezed the Grand Duke’s hand for a moment under the table so that others could not see it, and then let go. As he watched the subtle war of nerves on the table, his throat became dry. As she was tilting the teacup, she winced at the bitter pain.
“What’s the matter?”
Unfortunately, the Grand Duke saw it. Even though two days had passed, the swollen lips showed no signs of subsiding. She tried to talk him out of it because if she said that, he would naturally remember how he got angry.
“Nothing, ah…”
The moment the tip of the Grand Duke’s thumb lightly touched her lower lip, she flinched again and squinted her eyes.
“It’s a shame, but I guess I’ll have to skip the kiss tonight.”
…Tonight?
* * *
“Did you see it clearly with your own eyes today?”
The Duchess asked her husband in the living room of the annex, where only members of the ducal family remained.
“Wasn’t what I said right?”
“…”
The Duke did not respond. Even though a look of fatigue spread across his face, she paid no heed to his wife and continued to disparage the Grand Duke’s family.
“You have already told me that story.”
His wife sent letters to him, who was fighting for her life and death, constantly telling him about the usual nervous wars and arguments with the Grand Princess. When the Duke came to the Grand Ducal residence, what he saw with his own eyes was that his wife’s words were not true. The Duchess and the Princess behaved viciously at the Grand Duke’s residence and came under the notice of the Grand Duke family. It only confirmed that the rumors circulating around the garrison were true. The Duke touched his forehead and sighed. At first, he told her to go to his wife’s family, but he was a harsh father to her daughter and could not resist her daughter’s urging. The fact that he was in a hurry and didn’t have time to think deeply also played a role.
‘But I never would have thought you would have behaved so immaturely.’
While he was thinking about formally apologizing to the Grand Duke before leaving, his wife talked nonsense about what happened at today’s banquet and disparaged the Archduke.
“Did you hear the Grand Princess sarcastically saying that I, the Duchess, am not worthy of recognition even though I’m a distant elder? She didn’t understand what I was saying to stop, tsk tsk.”
No, she really said this out of disrespect for the Grand Princess and the Grand Duke.
‘What on earth has the young Grand Princess done to say that?’
When the Duke let out another long sigh, the eldest son who was sitting across from him spoke up.
“She is a Grand Princess, so it could be so. Shouldn’t she rather leave theGrand Duke and his witch like that?”
He added as his mother and sister blushed.
“Not for personal greed, but for moral duty.”
“Moral doty?”
The Duchess looked back at her husband and her son with puzzled eyes. In the past, men who would not listen no matter how much she argued about morality and had to stop the Grand Duke, spoke out about her moral loyalty. She meant that the men of her family learned something new that she herself did not know.
“What happened?”
After hesitating for a long time, the Duke closed his eyes and nodded, and his eldest son began to confess.
“It happened on the day the former queen of Billund was executed.”
He, who was in charge of escorting the former princess, Regina, to her execution, heard a shocking story.
“Is that idiot still being fooled by the witch?”
It was said that Hazel, the witch of the Black Forest, was the culprit who assassinated the former Grand Duke and his wife. And that too at the Emperor’s instigation. It was a final struggle that made it impossible to see Elliot, who defeated the, and the royal family who abandoned him happy.
“Oh my god…”
The Duchess was also shocked.
“We must inform the Grand Duke immediately.”
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
If you like my work please support me with Ko-fi or Patreon. Next post will be released on November, 11.
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