Chapter 68
“The Annex”:
“I could even discard the name Count Axel! Ha ha ha!!”
“From the way you speak, it sounds like you’re deeply attached to magical engineering. To say so lightly that you’d abandon even that—it feels terribly frivolous.”
My words came out sharp again. Dandelion widened his eyes and straightened his posture.
“Is that how it seemed to you? Oh dear. Is that why I failed to persuade you, Princess?”
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Even if I went to the Kingdom of Rundra, I could continue researching magical engineering! I was only speaking about status and names, Princess!”
Dandelion clenched his fist and lightly struck the table. It wasn’t rough or aggressive.
“I never abandon people. That goes even more so for my lover. And even more so if she is my wife.”
It was his usual, unremarkable tone. Dandelion picked up the maple leaf resting on the table and placed it on the back of my hand.
“If it were a wife as beautiful as you, Princess.”
Dandelion smiled. I felt the lightness of the maple leaf on my hand. After meeting his gaze for a moment, I slowly opened my mouth.
“You’re being rude.”
Still so lighthearted—Dandelion truly was.
His eyes went round in surprise, and he tilted his head.
“In what way?”
“That you don’t even know is why I’m saying this.”
“I praised you, and that was rude?”
“Of course.”
“Even though anyone could tell at a glance how beautiful you are? A village child passing by would say so. Even an eagle flying overhead would call you beautiful if it saw you.”
I acknowledged that he was an impressive man. His status, his resolve to abandon that status, and the fact that everything he had ultimately been achieved through his own ability—I acknowledged all of it. Dandelion was someone who seized what he wanted for himself.
And yet, from the moment he first saw me until now, I still felt that he didn’t truly like me. He only ever said that I was beautiful.
The reason I didn’t feel insulted was perhaps because he didn’t fully understand himself.
Dandelion rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, then tilted his head sideways, lifted it, lowered it again, and continued.
“Then how should I speak to someone this beautiful?”
“Ask your etiquette tutor.”
“Then may I take you as my etiquette tutor, Princess?”
Good heavens.
I turned my head away.
On the way back, Dandelion drove the carriage again. This time, Sir Matisse rode inside with me.
Sir Matisse sat upright in silence the entire way back. When the ducal residence finally came into view, he spoke.
“Sir Kharis and I attended the academy at the same time as His Highness Shade. When we left the kingdom, the Crown Prince personally instructed us to serve you well, Princess.”
“Is that so? You were my brother’s friends?”
Sir Diego had once mentioned that he was the same age as Shade. There were only a few royal academies in the capital.
It wasn’t a strange coincidence that Sir Diego and Sir Matisse—men talented enough to become royal knights—had attended the same academy as Shade.
“Our duty is not only to ensure Your Highness’s safety, but also to prevent ill-intentioned individuals from approaching you.”
I smiled. I had wondered why Sir Matisse had circled around the topic by bringing up Shade.
“You’re talking about Count Axel, aren’t you? Does he seem like a bad person?”
Sir Matisse paused to choose his words.
“It’s… ambiguous. That is the problem. He’s certainly a strange man. I don’t know what I should do to face you with a clear conscience, Princess.”
“Sir, I feel the same way. I don’t dislike what Count Axel shows me.”
Even just today—it had been that way. Watching him with his friends was fascinating, his personal history surprising, and his way of seizing things revealed sides of him I had never imagined.
After that, Sir Matisse said nothing more.
Dandelion let me down at the ducal residence. The moment he jumped down from the driver’s seat, he called out to me.
“I thought long and hard while driving the carriage, Princess.”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t even tried to guess what he’d been thinking about. He was that kind of person.
“You are more beautiful than today’s maple leaves.”
He beamed with satisfaction, so I said nothing more. Saying we’d meet again, Dandelion cheerfully drove off alone in the empty carriage.
Earlier, he had tucked a maple leaf into his ash-brown hair. I realized he must have taken the one I’d left on the table.
As I walked toward the mansion entrance, the butler Mason opened the door from inside.
“Good evening, Mason.”
“Welcome back, Princess. I hope you had a pleasant day.”
Mason bowed deeply and politely.
One evening before dinner, Cedric came to my room.
“Good evening, Duke.”
“Good evening, Princess.”
After exchanging greetings, Cedric extended his hand toward me. I placed my hand atop his. When I looked up at him, I saw myself reflected in his cherry-colored eyes.
“I wished to ask whether I might share dinner with you this evening, Princess.”
“That sounds lovely!”
“I had the meal prepared in the annex.”
He smiled, and I smiled as well. I had attended a party in the annex garden before, but I’d never been inside the building itself. From afar, I’d only known it as a small structure covered in ivy.
And the moment I crossed the threshold of the annex—it felt like a fairy tale.
Crimson walls and white trim—the annex had a completely different atmosphere from the main ducal residence.
Cedric had once said that the ducal family valued tradition. That hadn’t been a lie. The annex preserved a very old interior style. It felt even older than the ancient rooms of the Rundra royal palace.
Long ago, the three founding kingdoms had shared the same language and architectural style. I recognized this design as belonging to that era.
“Duke, the annex interior feels very antique.”
“It hasn’t been renovated for a long time.”
Carved columns lined the marble floor like works of art along the corridor.
“I feel like I’ve become a princess from an old fairy tale!”
Those kinds of stories often began in small mansions just like this.
“You are a very precious princess, after all.”
Walking beside me, Cedric made a rather unexciting remark. When I stopped and let go of his hand, Cedric walked a few steps ahead.
“And you, Duke, are unmistakably a duke of the real world.”
“Yes. That’s how it turned out.”
There was a hint of amusement in Cedric’s eyes as he turned back.
Seeing him standing in the center hall of the old annex felt like a scene from an ancient painting.
I thought how well Cedric’s neat features suited this antique residence.
His rigid speech, more formal than that of his peers, and his constant courtesy reminded me of the etiquette of ancestors from centuries past.
“Even so, you suit this annex incredibly well, Duke.”
“Do I?”
“It’s like this very old-fashioned ducal style matches a man like you—who doesn’t feel like a young man of this era.”
“I can’t easily deny that, considering I’m not quite sure what young people of this era are like.”
I laughed softly.
“You’re distinguishing yourself from other young men.”
“I am aware that I can be somewhat formal.”
“Formal… that’s not entirely inaccurate.”
I smiled gently. I knew a more precise expression.
“It’s just that today, you feel like someone living in a different time.”
Before Cedric could respond, I added,
“You’d look wonderful even in the ceremonial uniform passed down through generations of the ducal family, wouldn’t you?”
Cedric realized I was teasing him again and smiled back.
“If we look hard enough, we might even find women’s attire as well. Reenacting a scene from centuries ago with you in the small banquet hall would be delightful.”
“That would be like a fairy tale.”
Imagining Cedric and myself dancing in old ceremonial dress within this mansion made the image feel like an illustration from a storybook.
Cedric guided me toward the dining room.
“We’ll have dinner first, and then I’ll show you around the annex.”
Following his lead, we passed through an arched doorway on the first floor and entered the dining room.
Cedric pulled out a chair for me. I sat at a large table that filled the small dining room. Cedric and I sat across from each other on the narrow sides—another very old-fashioned arrangement.
There had been a fairy tale I loved as a child. Before I could read, Daemond used to hold me with one arm on the sofa and read it aloud to me. I wondered if the mansion in that story had looked just like this annex.
“Why did you say you wanted to show me the annex today?”
“There is something here I wished to show you, Princess.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“A map.”
“I see.”
I replied, cutting into the grilled fish that arrived as the first main dish. After that, we continued our meal, chatting idly. Sitting across from Cedric in such a fairy-tale-like place was genuinely enjoyable.
