A Toast to Humiliation
Everyone standing from the banquet hall to the garden bent their knees and paid their respects.
And just as they were about to rise, every last one of them doubted their own eyes.
“Well, well. It seems the new Grand Duchess went to quite extraordinary lengths.”
Entering with the King as he laughed was a rarely seen beauty.
Isabelle la Glintland.
The Duchess of Glintland, and the guest of honor at tonight’s banquet.
Behind them, Glintland’s Foreign Ambassador hurried after them, sweating profusely.
“Oh my….”
Someone let out an exclamation layered with all sorts of meanings.
And no wonder. A diplomatic banquet was, by nature, meant to guarantee smooth relations and friendship between both parties.
So in a situation like this, the King should have entered first, then received the other party into the banquet hall with the proper courtesies.
In other words, Isabelle la Glintland should originally have entered after the King, escorted by the Foreign Ambassador.
But the King had walked in with Isabelle at his side as if she were his own wife.
For Glintland, this was a considerable humiliation.
“…Curtis.”
Chloe whispered softly to the Grand Duke beside her.
The Grand Duke smiled viciously.
“Anyone watching might mistake this for a matchmaking banquet arranged for His Majesty’s remarriage.”
Several ladies nearby turned their heads, pretending they had heard nothing.
“I am beginning to think I should never have come here.”
The Marquise of Flandre murmured quietly as she looked up at the King, who was making the opening declaration for the banquet.
Standing beside the Marquise with the Crown Princess, Crown Prince Frederick agreed.
“Only now? I have felt that way since this morning.”
If anyone else heard it, the remark might cause a serious problem.
Startled, Crown Princess Beatrice lightly tugged on Frederick’s sleeve.
“Your Highness….”
Seeing her frail-looking dark-brown brows knit together, Frederick smiled and wrapped his hand around his wife’s.
“Forgive me.”
But Crown Princess Beatrice, too, was not entirely unable to understand how Frederick felt.
In any case, that King was truly a man who thought only of himself, and his character was far too base for someone seated in the position of ruler.
The Marquise of Flandre could say it with confidence as well.
Right now, the King was terribly excited.
For one very simple reason.
There was no need to summarize or explain what the King was feeling.
Curtis Shan Berk annoyed him, and that Grand Duchess annoyed him even more.
Whether the two had married for love or not no longer mattered to the King.
All he cared about was humiliating the Grand Duchess, who had made a complete fool of him, in front of everyone, and making people say that Grand Duke Berk had no eye for people.
That single thought was enough to put him in such high spirits.
Even as the Marquise of Flandre sighed, she cast a sidelong glance at Isabelle la Glintland.
Wicked thing.
Her pinkish-brown hair contributed to her soft and gentle impression.
It was the sort of face that looked incapable of killing even a single ant.
And yet she was the greatest swindler in the world.
At least, that was what the Marquise of Flandre thought.
“If only Her Majesty the Queen had lived a little longer.”
She was referring to Queen du Solier, Frederick’s mother.
Frederick laughed like a sigh.
“Aunt, I think you remember Mother far too kindly.”
“At the very least, if the world were filled only with people like Her Majesty, there would be no such thing as war. She truly was a rare person.”
“There is another one right here, is there not?”
Frederick spoke while gazing tenderly at the companion beside him, and Crown Princess Beatrice widened her eyes as if to say, Me?
Queen du Solier had been someone who greatly feared others speaking ill of her.
She had married the current King when she was already twenty-eight.
For the queen of a nation, she had been rather old, but the rights and titles she possessed had been more numerous and higher than those of any noble young lady of her time.
The reason such a woman had remained unmarried until that age was simple.
As a child, she had suffered a fever that left her face scarred.
But a ruler’s marriage, in the end, was generally made regardless of appearance.
The King, who had been Crown Prince at the time, married the Queen and then made it a habit to say behind her back:
Come to think of it, I was the Crown Prince anyway, but because of that bastard Curtis, I got impatient and married too soon, before I could enjoy myself properly. With that face of hers, no one but me would have taken her anyway.
And yet, astonishingly, Queen du Solier never once hated the King for as long as she lived.
A ruler sometimes needs a little bravado, you know.
Queen du Solier, who had said that, passed away only a few years after the King ascended the throne.
Still, he is His Majesty’s blood kin. Please do not hate your young uncle too much. Hatred is an emotion that devours only the person who carries it.
Frederick remembered the King sneering in response, Is the Queen being kind to a handsome man because her own face is scarred?
He had been only ten years old then.
After the King left, Queen du Solier wept. Yet to the furious Frederick, she said, I made a mistake with His Majesty. So please, for your mother’s sake, do not be too angry.
“There are people in this world born rotten to the core. What amazes me is that one of them happens to be my father.”
Even as he said so, Frederick gripped the Crown Princess’s hand tightly.
Because he did not think himself all that admirable, either.
The Crown Princess looked up at him with frightened, widened eyes.
The eldest daughter of a march family, and the head of the Royalist Faction.
Frederick could not deny that her faintheartedness resembled his mother’s.
Though their marriage had been a political match, selected and refined with the utmost care under the name of a royal marriage, Frederick often wished she would smile more.
But the Crown Prince also knew that the person who stole most of her smiles was none other than himself.
“Have you exchanged greetings with the Grand Duchess?”
“…Yes.”
At the Crown Prince’s question, Crown Princess Beatrice carefully nodded.
He had already known that the day before the grand banquet, after the Crown Princess expressed her intention to attend, the Grand Duchess had come to greet her formally.
“What did you think? She seems quite amusing to me. Did you find her so as well?”
Beatrice gazed silently at the Crown Prince with her water-colored eyes, then after a brief pause answered, “Yes.”
The Crown Prince smiled.
“I would like it if you got along with her. I would like it even more if you found it enjoyable.”
“…Yes.”
The Marquise of Flandre looked at the Crown Prince and Princess and thought, Those two still have a long way to go.
Well, that was none of her business.
What concerned her more was the Grand Duke and his wife.
…I gave them a hint, so surely they made preparations in their own way….
But the truth was, she was worried.
Everyone seemed to think that, at most, this banquet had been held so the King could put the Grand Duchess through a great deal of trouble and then scold her before everyone.
The Duchess of Glintland looks so innocent, but she is truly a master player….
The Marquise lightly touched her forehead.
Just thinking about what was about to happen made her head ache.
Besides, there was an even more troublesome matter.
The ice the Grand Duchess had sent.
Along with the ice cream, the Grand Duchess had sent an enormous quantity of ice.
It was probably a coincidence.
Since the Grand Duchess had recommended Boulettes, she must have sent it in place of a gift while she was at it.
If she had thoughtlessly sent an expensive present, rumors might have spread that she had sent a bribe saying, Please look kindly on me.
Ice cream and ice.
They were things that disappeared once consumed, and while they seemed luxurious, they were not lasting objects, so they would not become fodder for gossip.
But the Grand Duchess could not have known.
That ice was something the Marquise needed more desperately than anything else.
After checking the gift, the Marquise had felt as though she had taken a blow.
To be honest, thanks to it, she had finally been able to breathe.
Before today’s banquet, when the King casually opened with, “It has been hot lately, has it not?” she had been dumbfounded.
Perhaps if he had at least offered her a glass of ice water while saying it.
In any case, she had relaxed, thinking she had repaid the debt by giving a hint.
And yet she felt as though she had once again incurred a great debt to the Grand Duchess.
That was why she could not help being so concerned.
“Auntie.”
The one who approached hesitantly then was Agathe Montpis.
She was with Countess Montpis, the Marquise’s close friend.
“I came to apologize for what happened then. I’m sorry….”
Well, even so, Agathe was rather honest and kindhearted.
Thinking that, the Marquise smiled.
When Agathe saw the Marquise’s smile, tears welled in her eyes.
Despite everything, it seemed she had been quite worried.
“Now! Let us all raise our glasses to celebrate the twenty-eighth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Glintland and Ibanes!”
Just then, the King loudly proposed a toast from the front.
The nobles, each and every one, raised their glasses filled with fruit wine and exchanged greetings as their eyes met.
“Thank you, Your Highness the Grand Duchess. Tonight’s banquet is truly delightful.”
Isabelle Glintland, her cheeks flushed, approached and said this when the banquet was well under way.
The sun had already set, and beautiful magic lamps had been lit all throughout the garden.
The garden trees, decorated with blue ribbons, glittered beneath the glow of the magic lamps, flaunting the wealth of Ibanes.
People moved between the garden and the banquet hall, laughing and chatting or dancing.
Chloe, who had just been talking with members of the Eleonora Society, brightened and welcomed Isabelle.
Isabelle was being escorted by the King.
Because just a moment ago, the two had danced together in the banquet hall.
It was simply astounding.
An aging King dancing with a beauty from abroad at a diplomatic banquet.
Chloe could not very well ask, Have you gone senile? so she answered with a smile.
“I’m glad the banquet pleases you.”
“Truly. I am also most grateful to His Majesty the King.”
As Isabelle Glintland said this, she took hold of the arm of the King with whom she had just danced.
The King’s mouth twitched.
“Though I may have failed to play matchmaker like the father of some common household, it is good so long as the friendship between our two nations endures forever.”
Since Chloe could not say, What absolute bullshit, Your Majesty, she immediately replied in kind.
“Thanks to Your Majesty, this humble person has received grace. I can only be grateful.”
“Good to know you understand that you are humble.”
Crack.
At the King’s reply, a fissure appeared in Chloe’s face, which had been forcing a smile.