Look at This?
As soon as Conrad left the bedroom, the nobles erupted in protest.
He ignored their uproar completely and strode on without breaking pace.
Regina’s reaction, however, was very different when she heard the news.
“There are certainly a great many people being rude to His Majesty.”
It was Conrad and his knights who were defending the Fredericks Empire by clearing out the monsters gathering near its borders.
“If they realized who it is that’s keeping their worthless lives intact at this very moment, they wouldn’t dare speak so carelessly…”
Perhaps because she had once been treated in much the same way, a chill ran through her chest.
The Imperial Palace steward reporting to her stiffened at the cold edge in Regina’s voice. After confirming the tremor in his shoulders, she spoke again, calm as ever.
“What about the Empress Dowager’s Palace?”
“Duke of Messer came by late last night, Your Majesty.”
“The Duke of Messer? That makes him part of the Empress Dowager’s family.”
“He is Her Majesty the Empress Dowager’s elder brother.”
“I see.”
The steward had been about to list the sins they’d committed over the years, but at the voice from outside, he quietly clamped his mouth shut.
“Your Majesty, the steward from the Empress Dowager’s Palace has arrived.”
It was absurd enough that, first thing in the morning, they would casually send their own steward to the Emperor’s bedroom.
Sending one’s personal attendant to the bedroom of a newlywed bride who had spent her very first night there was not merely a breach of imperial etiquette; it was an outrageously rude thing to do.
Regina made up her mind.
I won’t show them any mercy.
At the very least, she had intended to make some allowance, to spare them a little face for the sake of being an elder of the Fredericks Empire. But now even that thought had vanished completely.
With a faint curl at the corner of her lips, Regina rose from the bed and slipped on a robe. At her gesture, the maids hurried into motion, and the steward immediately brought over a chair.
“To send someone at this hour… perhaps the etiquette in the capital is rather different.”
Deliberately invoking etiquette, Regina swept her gaze over the surrounding maids and the steward.
Their averted eyes and awkward expressions told her this was not the first time something like this had happened.
Enemies openly insulting the woman of the Emperor, as though it were nothing.
Understanding that, Regina let a quiet smile bloom and softened her tongue.
“Show them in.”
Seeing her expression change so quickly, the steward from the Imperial Palace rubbed his arm.
So the mate of a beast was a beast as well.
The one chosen by His Majesty the Emperor was certainly no ordinary woman.
He took a single step back, vowing never to incur Regina’s displeasure.
Seated in the chair, Regina faced the Empress Dowager’s Palace steward head-on as he entered through the open door.
The more arrogantly he swaggered, the more the warmth in her blue eyes drained away.
“I greet Your Majesty the Empress.”
The steward from the Empress Dowager’s Palace merely dipped his head in a perfunctory greeting toward Regina.
“Again.”
“Pardon?”
“I said do it again.”
At the icy voice, the steward’s mustache trembled. But Regina simply looked at him with regal composure.
Though the steward’s head was plainly higher than Regina’s, it felt as though a blade had been pressed against his throat.
Suddenly cowed, he reflexively bowed at the waist.
“I-I greet Your Majesty the Empress.”
“You’re clasping your hands wrong. Again.”
The voice, full of cold disdain, rang through the bedroom. Not only the steward from the Empress Dowager’s Palace, but everyone else in the room, froze in place.
They had not expected Regina, who came from such an insignificant family, to know court etiquette this well, and the steward wavered.
“Can the Empress Dowager’s steward really not manage even something this simple?”
“Th-that is not the case, Your Majesty.”
After underestimating Regina and being thoroughly humiliated for it, the steward from the Empress Dowager’s Palace hurriedly straightened into a proper posture.
Even at the end, Regina’s expression remained dissatisfied, and she let out a sigh as though she had no choice.
“I’m still not pleased, but since I can’t oppress someone sent by the Empress Dowager, I suppose I have no choice.”
The steward, finally raising his head, bit down hard on his lip. Regina only smiled at his continued defiance and said,
“You should send someone a little more skilled in etiquette next time.”
It sounded almost like a mutter to herself, but her voice was loud enough for everyone present to hear.
Being scolded for not even being able to perform proper etiquette despite being a steward sent his face burning red with humiliation.
His eyes seemed to rise sharply in offense, but soon enough he composed himself and made his expression look indifferent.
Oh?
Look at this?
Seeing how skillfully the steward hid his expression, Regina guessed there was definitely something to it.
Clearing his throat, he bowed politely to her.
“This is a message from Her Majesty the Empress Dowager. She has said that she will send people to the Empress Palace where Your Majesty will stay, so they may help you adjust.”
“To my palace?”
“Yes, Your Majesty the Empress.”
The steward, full of confidence as he looked at Regina, continued to act impudently.
“There is a shortage of staff in the palace, so until new people can be selected, Her Majesty said she would personally oversee matters.”
“I see.”
“The maids and stewards have already gone to the Empress Palace, so please do not worry.”
Once again, the steward bent deeply at the waist, a slippery smile spread across his face. Having delivered his message in a one-sided fashion, he soon left the Emperor’s bedroom.
Even after he was gone, Regina did not move for a long while.
“More irritating than I expected.”
The maids tried not to let the casually uttered words register in their ears.
In the imperial palace, where repeating a superior’s words carelessly could be as good as a death sentence, they had long since learned to pretend not to hear what they heard and not to understand what they did understand.
Regina knew that well enough, which was precisely why she spoke aloud on purpose.
The nobles gathering around Conrad were one thing, but the Empress Dowager Chloe had moved faster than she had expected.
Which meant the marriage and the first night had already been exposed that very day.
There’s a spy around me.
Since she needed to find out whether that spy belonged to the Imperial Palace or to the temple, Regina decided to lay a trap.
“Steward.”
“Yes, Your Majesty the Empress.”
The Imperial Palace steward answered at once and stepped forward.
“I’ll be moving to my own palace, so make the necessary preparations.”
“At once, Your Majesty.”
At the steward’s gesture, the maids moved as if they had been waiting for the order. Watching Regina being attended to with such practiced ease, the steward was only then able to leave the Emperor’s bedroom.
He needed to inform Conrad in the council chamber of everything he had just seen and heard.
“This is nonsense!”
“Exactly! The Empress hasn’t even been approved by the state council!”
Conrad regarded the faction nobles of the Empress Dowager with indifferent eyes as they flew into a frenzy, insisting such a thing was impossible.
Before long, the corners of his lips began to rise slowly.
Not realizing that his mood was growing colder by the moment, the nobles were too busy heaping slander upon Regina one after another.
“Perhaps because she comes from a minor family, she doesn’t know court etiquette very well.”
“Indeed. Otherwise, how could she possibly…”
There was even a nobleman shouting that she had passed the Emperor’s first night without proper procedure.
Since they could not speak carelessly to Conrad, the Emperor himself, they had chosen instead to attack Regina’s status and conduct.
Conrad knew all too well how vile these nobles could be, but each time he witnessed it, a deep sense of futility washed over him.
No matter what they do, they only ever pursue their own interests.
Very few nobles were truly loyal to Conrad or sincerely devoted to the Fredericks Empire.
And those people aren’t even here.
The nobles who supported Chloe had likely rushed over to challenge the secretly arranged national wedding as soon as the news spread, so there was every chance those others would eventually appear at the palace as well.
Leaning lazily against the armrest of the throne, Conrad said as little as possible, revealing nothing of what he felt.
“In the first place, choosing the Empress is the Emperor’s exclusive right, isn’t it?”
His tone sounded gentle at first hearing, but no noble present could have failed to catch the blade hidden beneath it.
The noisy nobles fell silent the moment they heard Conrad’s heavy voice.
“I’m not sure when it became decided that the state council would determine who sits at my side.”