The next day, about an hour after lunch.
Among Uriana's attendants, a young lady named Cecil came to visit Relia.
She couldn't even meet Relia's eyes and spoke with her gaze lowered, as if shy.
"Princess Uriana wishes to invite Sir Raymond to a tea party. Could you come to Her Highness's palace in about an hour?"
"Ah... a tea party..."
As Relia hesitated, the attendant grew anxious, worried she might hear words of refusal.
"I understand. Oh, may I go with Sir Lut?"
When Relia asked this, the attendant breathed a sigh of relief but quickly shook her head.
"No, you may not. Today's tea party is a very private, small-scale party. We want Sir Raymond to come alone."
"...I understand."
As Relia reluctantly nodded, the attendant gave a small smile and left.
'A private, small-scale tea party.'
Just hearing those words felt burdensome. But it was an opportunity.
She was already feeling quite harassed by Lut, who had visited that morning.
He came early in the morning and burdened Relia with several books.
Looking at the titles: "How to Capture a Woman's Heart," "Speech Techniques to Captivate Women's Hearts," "Women Hate These Types of Men," and so on.
They were all similar books.
Lut gave her these books and earnestly requested.
"Sir Raymond, you must absolutely capture the hearts of Princess Uriana's attendants. Like a very, very lighthearted playboy."
"...I understand."
"Oh, wait! However, that doesn't mean you should cross the line. If you harass any ladies or deeply wound their hearts, I won't let it slide!"
Lut suddenly glared at Relia with righteous indignation, as if she had become some scoundrel.
What is this...?
Relia was so dumbfounded that she was speechless.
"......"
"Of course, Sir Raymond, you don't seem like someone who would do that. I'm just saying this in case."
She wanted to curse at him, but Relia held it in.
If she had her way, she wanted to make a baldness potion from the 'Alchemy Lottery' item recipes and feed it to him. Imagining Lut going bald and being rejected by Princess Uriana made her feel a bit better.
Anyway... Relia had no intention of actually seducing the young ladies.
'But I can pretend to be a playboy.'
She could just brag about having met many women in the past.
'As long as I don't get caught.'
This was an opportunity. At a small-scale tea party, she would have plenty of time to talk with Princess Uriana.
If she praised Lut a lot, Princess Uriana would probably come to like him more.
After returning from the tea party, she could urge Lut on.
'I'll tell him I praised him a lot to the princess today, so he should go confess right away. I should tell him now's his chance.'
Relia made up her mind firmly and was about to head to the wardrobe. Just then, someone else knocked on the door.
Going out to check, it was Romeo and Calix.
From their attire, the two seemed to be on their way out somewhere.
"Where are you going?"
"We have some business. We wanted to let you know in case you were looking for us."
At Romeo's words, Relia nodded, then suddenly said "Ah!"
"Could you help me for just a moment? Princess Uriana invited me to a small tea party... Could you help me pick out some clothes?"
"What kind of clothes? Playboy-like clothes?"
Calix asked while trying to hold back a chuckle, and Relia glared at him.
"Fine, I'll pick them for you."
Romeo walked confidently to the dressing room and picked out some clothes.
The clothes he chose had a neat yet elegant feel.
When Relia came out after changing, Romeo even tied her cravat himself.
Calix leaned crookedly against the doorframe and watched. In the middle of doing so, he narrowed his eyes.
No matter how he looked, Relia had many similarities that overlapped with Leo's appearance from childhood.
That firmly pressed line of her lips, or that tense look in her eyes.
'Do cousins normally resemble each other like that?'
Calix recalled his uncle's children from his memories, then erased the thought.
It might differ from person to person, but he himself had no resemblance to his cousins at all.
Neither in appearance nor personality.
In the first place, they weren't on good terms like Leo and Relia. Calix and his cousins were worse than enemies.
'By now they must be rejoicing that I've gone blind.'
He scoffed internally.
"How do I look?"
Just then, Relia finished dressing and asked with a nervous expression.
"You look like a playboy who'd captivate noble ladies."
When Calix said that, Relia narrowed her eyes.
She looked just like an angry squirrel. Calix snickered, trying to hold back his laughter.
Relia seemed to suppress her anger for a moment, then thanked Romeo. Finally, she asked the two who were about to leave the quarters.
"You two are popular with women, aren't you? How can I look like someone who's dated a lot?"
It was a question she asked because she had to put on such an act at the tea party right away. After all, the two were popular enough with women to be featured in private magazines.
"We're popular, sure, but..."
Romeo trailed off.
Calix had a sullen expression.
"Unfortunately, I've never dated anyone, so I don't know. And that guy is actually a bit afraid of women..."
"Hey!"
Calix shouted. His cheeks started to redden.
As Romeo laughed like a villain, Calix grew annoyed, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and dragged him away.
Relia swallowed her laughter as she watched the two walk away.
She heard that many people had secretly grown close while going through hardships together during the war with the Guanglong.
It seemed her friends were exceptions in that regard.
'Calix is still afraid of women.'
No wonder.
Calix seemed to treat her a bit more comfortably than before, after she started dressing as a man.