A breathless exclamation escaped the lips of everyone who was secretly eyeing them. The mystery has been solved.
“To pamper his wife like that…”
“It would be stranger if they didn’t look like a couple.”
“Even if it’s all acting, I think love will sprout if they look like that.”
While everyone was watching, Lily couldn’t stand it anymore and burst out laughing at Damian’s sly attitude. Her laugh was purer than the one she did at home.
When the Grand Duchess laughed, he seemed to whisper something to her. Then, as if telling him to stop, the Grand Duchess smiled and scolded him.
“Watching them somehow feels ticklish…”
Everyone’s shoulders trembled. In any case, since the two seemed to be on good terms, their interest was halved.
“Anyway, there won’t be any problems on the alliance front for the time being. I don’t know if His Majesty knows about this.”
“Shh, watch your mouth!”
Everyone laughed haha, hoho, and scattered in search of other gossip. Marianne, who was secretly watching them, gritted her teeth.
“How could that be…”
A normal person would see the couple’s affectionate appearance and say ‘The scandal wasn’t true, indeed.’ but in Marianne’s eyes, armed with a sense of victimization, it was as if Lily was trying to hold two men in her hands.
Marianne tried to run away without realizing it, but she barely held back. In fact, she wasn’t supposed to appear here today.
She had to see, no matter how much Lilian covered her. Duke Blanchett ordered Marianne to be on probation for the time being.
It was the Duchess who soothed her enraged daughter.
“Your father is very angry when he looks like that, you know that Marianne. Originally, your father doesn’t like that family. This mother had already convinced him. The Grand Duchess will not live long.”
Marianne, who suffered from her anger, was calmed by the soothing touch.
However, the follow-up was ‘You can’t cause unnecessary suspicion, so first of all, don’t think about going anywhere and stay alert.’
Marianne’s complexion hardened again.
In the end, it was only after the Duchess promised her various gifts, including Neju Liappa’s dress, that Marianne barely agreed.
Even if her daughter was put on probation, the Duchess could not be absent from the opening party. But Marianne felt sad that her mother started dressing up instead of appeasing her, and she felt betrayed.
“My poor baby!”
Duchess Blanchett, not knowing what her daughter was thinking, stood up, hugging Marianne and encouraging her to be patient as she would bring good news soon.
Suddenly, Marianne began to suspect, that her mother, like her father, might be betraying her.
‘Right, both of them knew what brother was doing and hid it from me. If Madam Rachel’s maid hadn’t tipped me off, I still wouldn’t have known anything!’
She was anxious. Even the promise to kill Lilian seemed like empty words. And when she thought about it, she couldn’t possibly remain alone in the house.
Marianne hid behind the curtains and glared at Lilian’s back.
To Marianne, Lilian was like a destroyer who came to ruin her otherwise smooth life.
She wanted to let it out. To the Grand Duke, who must have been tricked by Lilian, she wanted to expose the truth hidden inside the girl who seemed gentle on the outside.
But now wasn’t the time yet. She had to endure it until she witnessed the decisive moment, or at least until Lily was alone.
***
“Oh my, Your Highness!”
“Your Highness is here, quickly!”
Today as well, Lilian was surrounded by the May Lily girls.
‘Oh.’
Damian was pushed back by more than three steps from Lilian while he was at a loss due to the unexpected attack of the girls.
“…?”
Even Damian couldn’t grasp the situation quickly because it happened in an instant. Naturally, the men came and stood next to him.
“Welcome to our gathering. Your Highness.”
They were men who knew Damian a little. They introduced themselves as ‘a group of miserable people whose partners were taken away by Her Highness’. Damian thought it wasn’t the first time the girls were making a fuss over Lily.
“Anyway, today is a really nice sight to see.”
In a ballroom decorated like a flower garden, girls surrounded Lilian, dressed in fresh turquoise.
“Today she’s like a Fairy Queen surrounded by little fairies.”
“That’s right.”
Unlike the men who collapsed because they knew it would happen but couldn’t hide their smiles, Damian’s expression was disapproving.
These people seemed to be okay with someone taking away their partner’s attention away for a while, but Damian wasn’t. He didn’t like the very existence of those who showed up and pushed him away from Lilian.
Very badly too.
“Your Highness, they say the next song is a group dance! Please dance with us today, okay?”
Besides, what does this mean? Damian was stunned. He hadn’t even had his first dance with Lilian yet!
“I’ll be thrilled.”
If some bastard had asked Lilian to dance, he would have dropped them, but the opponents were young ladies.
In other words, the more serious he responded, the more ridiculous he’d seem.
“Oh my, but His Highness is here… I don’t know if we can go first.”
At the same time, the girls secretly pretended to be watching Damian.
They didn’t say they were really sorry or that they could step back, but it was a silent pressure that encouraged Damian to say, ‘It’s okay, so please come back.’
‘They’re clever.’
No matter how Damian disagrees, he couldn’t seriously go against young ladies. Especially in front of Lilian. These girls clearly had a sense of the subtle power relations.
The victory period of the fight was over, but only the dull Lily did not know it.
“Your Highness, in fact, I made a promise at the first banquet and couldn’t keep it.”
The girls clinging to the hem of Lilian’s skirt had subtle victorious smiles. Damian smiled, finding it funny as well. Grinding his teeth, even the veins secretly rose from his forehead.
“Did my wife say that… Have a good trip.”
Victory and defeat became clear.
The girls giggled, not realizing that they had provoked the bomb that would blow up Excelsior.
“You’re so generous!”
“Your Highness, let’s go quickly. Yes?
I want to quickly show you how to dance, Your Highness!”
Damian’s blood pressure rose at the words of the innocent girls, but Lilian just thought they were cute.
“Okay, don’t run. I’m nervous that you’ll fall.”
“Ah, yes…!”
Not only was the girl dissuaded but even the girls around her became shy. Damian, who was watching, was dumbfounded.
‘It’s because she’s like that.’
Damian touched his forehead, unable to hold back a sigh.
The men who saw Damian’s human side for the first time shared surprised glances. All of them had military experience, as befits the high nobility of the Empire, and they knew enough about Damian’s inhuman fighting prowess and his damning genius strategy.
To see such a great man sigh when his wife’s first dance is taken away by mere teenage girls. The world is truly wide.
“His highness is so outstanding in character…”
“Since he has a popular person as his spouse, he must be worried.”
“Cheer up, Your Highness.”
Give me your strength. Did he even have to fight with teenage girls?
…no. Come to think of it, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
When Lily was still in Islar, there was no time for pride and face.
It wasn’t a sense of shame, but the will to fight surged. Damian started thinking.
‘How do I overcome those clever things?’
It was then.
“Oh, Damian! My little brother! You were here!”
Emperor Claude Rupenwein appeared.
“When I announced the banquet, I thought you weren’t coming today because you weren’t there. But here you are.”
The Emperor stood in front of Damian with a generous smile on his face. Then, to encourage him, he tapped him on the shoulder.
“I hear you protected the west side of the imperial palace on the first day. How can you be so loyal?”
It was an obvious lie that the one and only Grand Duke had to act like a guard like a low-level knight.
‘Aha.’
Normally, Damian would have left him alone because he was annoying, but unfortunately, he was in a very bad mood today.
“I followed His Majesty’s order and went there. It’s strange to say ‘you heard it’. You should have known from the beginning, not because you heard it from others. Am I misunderstanding things?”
It was a good attempt but you could say the timing was bad. The Emperor quickly tried to rectify it.
“Damian, it’s not like that.”
“Don’t you remember? Or did I actually have a twin brother?”
If he comes, he’ll climb up.
His second brother still looked down on him. What kind of reaction would he have if he knew that the only restraint that kept Damian from touching him was the late Emperor’s will, ‘don’t fight between brothers’.
“You are still…the same, little brother.”
The current situation had a large self-inflicted aspect on Claude Rupenwein, who always forgot that his youngest brother was a mad dog.
“Should people change easily?”
Celebrating the auspicious 7th year on the throne, he tried to emphasize the generosity of embracing his youngest brother, who was at odds with him, but failed spectacularly, and the Emperor eventually became a target for Damian’s anger.
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