“Please tell me the truth. Where in the world are you going?”
“To my Second Brother’s mansion.”
Yellodia confessed honestly.
Ever since parting with Edward yesterday, Yellodia had wanted to tell her second older brother the news of her engagement.
To be even more honest, she wanted to bring her Second Brother along as a chaperone to meet Edward again.
When she had opened her eyes in bed that morning, she had been so frantic to run immediately to her Second Brother’s mansion that she could barely stand it.
“Young Master’s mansion is somewhere you visit with servants in tow. Very ordinarily, just like siblings from other great mansions do.”
Masa emphasized the word “ordinary” with both hands planted on her hips.
“Then I’d have to send a visiting request card by courier and wait for a reply. That is very, quite troublesome, I tell you. It usually takes two hours just for the courier to go back and forth.”
Yellodia emphasized “very” and “quite.” She even gave “two hours” a special accent as she pronounced it.
*Why must she be so thoughtless at a time like this?*
Masa looked at her mistress—who was already seventeen years old and would even become an adult in a few months—with an expression that suggested she dearly wanted to sigh.
“I won’t get in the way, so please let me accompany you this time. It’s absurd for a noble lady with a fiancé to go out without so much as a single maid.”
“That was before I put on this outfit. I’m not traveling to some far-off country. I’m merely going to my Second Brother’s mansion.”
“But I’m worried!”
Masa answered passionately.
Yellodia, who had wanted to avoid exactly this sort of thing, felt a sigh rising within her.
Yellodia’s outings had been officially recognized by the people of Duke Savier’s household for a very long time. Strictly speaking, they were divided into official outings and unofficial outings.
Official outings were trailed by the Duke’s household four-wheeled or two-wheeled carriages with servants in tow, but unofficial outings did not have many attendants following. No, there were many cases where Yellodia went out alone.
This outrageous behavior had begun when Yellodia was thirteen.
She had been weak since birth, and around her thirteenth birthday, she had fallen gravely ill.
A burning fever surged through her whole body, and for ten full days she could not regain consciousness.
Her dry cheeks were deathly pale, and a dense shadow of death hung over her unfocused eyes.
“Mother, Yedi is here. Right here.”
As Yellodia rambled in her delirium, Duke Savier and her older brothers were seized with heart-wrenching grief and anguish, steeling themselves.
They were preparing to send her somewhere more comfortable.
On the eleventh day since the fever had taken her, Yellodia woke from her light sleep and slipped out of her bedroom and escaped the mansion without anyone knowing.
What marvelous coincidence had led her first attempt to success was impossible to know.
She had simply thought that if she was going to die like this, she would rather die outside the mansion.
Whether gloomy or lonely, she did not care. She wanted to watch people living their ordinary daily lives.
The transgression she had committed for the first time in her life was sweet like a dream.
Dragging her boiling-hot body, Yellodia freely wandered the streets of the imperial capital, then returned to the mansion and fell asleep before her lonely mother’s grave.
But it was not an eternal sleep.
Like a miracle, Yellodia overcame the illness, and from then on, she came to possess the right to go on unofficial outings.
It was a right that Duke Savier had granted his daughter who had returned alive, defying death, with a heart full of reverence.
“No matter how much His Lordship has permitted it, I cannot stand by. Please let me go with you.”
“It’s not to the extent that you need to worry. I’m saying a secret attendant follows me.”
There hadn’t been any reason for Masa to worry this much from the start. Yellodia did not actually go out alone.
Every time Yellodia went on an unofficial outing, Duke Savier secretly dispatched escort knights to follow her.
It was a natural protective measure for a father worried about his daughter.
Yellodia knew this as well, but she had never openly shown it.
She and the knights knew of each other’s existence, yet they pretended the other was not there. It was, so to speak, a tacit agreement.
Masa spoke with a face set in firm resolve.
“Regardless, I want to go out together.”
“Masa.”
“I am your lady’s maid, my lady. It is lonely guarding your room alone, and I hate sending a flower-like young lady outside the mansion—teeming with ruffians—all by herself.”
Yellodia let out a deep sigh.
It seemed the words about the escort knights following had bounced right off Masa’s ears.
“My lady, what if I collapse from worrying about you?”
“Fine. Then you’ll have to wear men’s clothes too.”
“My? Me? It wouldn’t suit me at all.”
Even as she said that, childlike curiosity flickered in Masa’s eyes.
Yellodia immediately dashed cold water on it.
“Masa, you’re taller than me and broader-shouldered, so it will suit you even better.”
“That is a bit… a hurtful comment.”
Before Yellodia could change her mind, Masa went into her dressing room and threw on a suitable pair of pants and a shirt.
“It suits you quite well, actually?”
Perhaps because even to her own eyes she looked like a dashing young man, Masa stood before the mirror and sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck.
“Shall we go now, then?”
Yellodia shrugged with a reluctant expression.
＊ ＊ ＊
The office of the Knight Commander was sweltering like a steam room from the midday heat.
Fabian Savier stood ramrod straight, conscious of his neck beaded thickly with sweat.
His broad shoulders and massive frame had not budged for dozens of minutes, like the model of a reliable and mighty knight.
However, Fabian was constantly grumbling to himself about the damned empire’s fickle spring weather and the unnecessarily thick uniform of the Imperial Guard.
Of course, all his complaining was happening inside his mind, and his expression alone was impeccably solemn.
Finally, the Knight Commander stamped the joint training results report that Fabian had written.
It was around the fifteenth time Fabian had imagined plunging his head into cold water.
“I’ve heard the news. My sincere congratulations.”
“…Pardon?”
Fabian rolled his eyes sluggishly. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, but he paid them no heed.
He pondered what he might be congratulated for by the Commander, but the only thing that came to mind was the betrothal news of his third sister, Hesder.
Yet such an important decision could not have been made in his absence, and nothing else came to mind.
“Ah, could it be…!”
Fabian quickly grew excited, his eyes brightening. Could his wife finally be with child?
But soon Fabian’s expression froze stiffly.
There was no way the Knight Commander, his superior, would learn of his wife’s pregnancy before the husband himself. Unless every servant in the mansion had declared a strike at the same time.
Then what on earth was it?
“I heard your younger sister is seventeen this year. It seems His Imperial Majesty took quite a liking to her.”
“…Pardon? What?”
Not knowing what his superior was talking about, Fabian slowly rolled his eyes.
Above all, his younger sister could not be… seventeen? Seventeen?
“Surely, you don’t mean Yedi?”
“Oh, did you not know yet? Rumors are flying through the Imperial City that Duke Savier’s youngest daughter and Baron Adrian are holding their engagement ceremony at the end of next month.”
“W-what did you say?”
Fabian was so bewildered he could barely breathe, racking his brain to recall who Baron Adrian was.
But no matter how hard he wracked his head, he could not remember that damned name Adrian.
He had been frantically busy with joint training with the Ranfel Knights, so he had paid no attention to rumors circulating in the imperial palace. From the start, unless it was related to the Emperor’s life, he had no interest whatsoever in social affairs.
The Knight Commander corrected Fabian’s ignorance as if it were no big deal.
“The baron His Majesty personally granted a title to last month. The central figure who achieved a great victory in the Battle of Phoenicia—you also praised him with the rest, did you not?”
“Surely! You mean *that* Baron Adrian?”
When Fabian slammed the office desk with his palm, a loud *bang* rang out. Startled by the noise, a servant waiting outside opened the door and came in.
“How could someone like Baron Adrian be engaged to our Yedi? Could it be that you are mistaken, Commander?”
“Well, from what I heard, the engagement ceremony date has already been finalized… It should not be a baseless rumor. I heard it from His Imperial Majesty’s chamberlain.”
Fabian’s shock quickly turned to rage.
*What son of a bitch dares lay a hand on Yedi…!*
Fabian ground his teeth. Before he knew it, the bridge of his nose was burning red. It felt as though steam was whistling out of his ears.
He could not even remember his past self who had praised Baron Adrian as a great hero who led the Battle of Phoenicia to victory.
“N-now, where are you going?”
The Knight Commander urgently asked Fabian, who was turning on his heel with quick steps.
Fabian answered, his eyes blazing like a tiger’s.
“I request special leave for a Class One emergency!”