Kneel, Your Grace
Among the countless aides who had come and gone over the past year, she alone had set the unprecedented record of lasting three months.
After setting the documents down with crisp, disciplined movements, she saluted and left again.
The two men, who had not said a word from the moment Chloe entered the room until the moment she left, only looked at each other once the door had closed.
Curtis was the first to speak.
“…She was from the navy, wasn’t she?”
“Curtis.”
Noel shook his head.
But Curtis was already opening a file from his drawer and leafing through Chloe Amboise’s commissioning review documents.
A family of 1st-Class Honorary Knights.
Former navy.
And, blessedly enough, a special hereditary title.
“Her family must be rather poor.”
Noel hurried to stop him.
“Curtis, no.”
Curtis, who had been turning through the papers, lifted his head with a frown.
“I’m not saying I’ll go and prod her about it this instant. More importantly, if this goes wrong, I may truly have to go through with a marriage. The difference in status is too great.”
“…”
“Trying to avoid Glintland may leave me with an even more troublesome aftermath to clean up. If possible, it would make far more sense to find a genuinely suitable match within the next fortnight, coordinate our stories, and make a proposal.”
“I’m relieved you think so. Truly relieved, but…”
Noel let out a small sigh.
In the end, the two of them decided to search as hard as possible for a clever, plausible young lady who could serve as Curtis Shan Berk’s shield within the next fortnight.
But it was impossible.
A proposal, by its very nature, was something managed by the elders of the family.
No matter how coveted a match he might be, in the eyes of those elders, Curtis was a man hated by the King, and his temperament and position made him an extremely awkward prospect. How could they possibly narrow down young ladies who met all the conditions, make discreet contact with the heads of their families, and arrange a proposal within fifteen days?
In the end, Curtis reviewed Chloe’s file once more.
And at today’s banquet, he had appointed Chloe as his assistant.
Curtis finished explaining with a weary look.
Then he added, “…I did have the warrant officer in mind, but I thought the odds of it actually coming to this were low.”
None of that, however, explained to Chloe why she had been made to endure such a thing at today’s banquet.
“Originally, I intended to show you the situation, then carefully ask for your cooperation.”
Cooperation.
The red brooch in her hand felt smooth beneath her fingers.
“You mean you were going to ask me to pretend to be your marriage prospect.”
“…Rather than marriage, I was planning to ask you to pretend to be my lover for the time being.”
As he said that, Curtis covered his eyes with one hand.
Chloe felt distinctly sour about it.
Well, she understood.
He could hardly have known that the King would suddenly bring up the marriage proposal to the Duchess of Glintland first. If he had only said something light, like that he was in a relationship, then the King could have declared on the spot that since love or whatever else no longer mattered and a proposal letter had already been exchanged, Curtis should marry.
“Well, now that things have come to this, there’s no helping it.”
Chloe scratched awkwardly between her brows.
At her words, Curtis flinched, lowered his hand, and looked at her.
His expression said he could not believe what he had just heard.
“…Do you understand what you’re saying right now?”
“I do.”
“I think I need to confirm that what you understand and what I understand are the same thing. Explain.”
“Why, it means that the heart of His Grace Grand Duke Berk, present here in this very room, has been captured by the beautiful and intelligent former navy woman, Warrant Officer Amboise, who is now to become the Grand Duchess.”
If this had been any ordinary day, what would Curtis Shan Berk have done?
Without a doubt, he would have frowned at Chloe, who joked without smiling, and asked something along the lines of, Do you find me amusing?
And after that would come self-discipline punishment.
But right now was unmistakably an emergency.
“…There’s a great deal I could say, but for now, let’s call that roughly correct.”
Curtis’s answer proved it.
So this really is an emergency.
As Chloe thought that, Curtis’s next question came.
“And?”
“And, in the face of His Majesty the King’s pressure, which is practically a natural disaster, I belatedly realized my love and decided to accept Brigadier General Berk’s proposal, darling.”
Curtis, who had briefly gone blank at Chloe’s casual tone, soon cleared his throat and collected himself.
Then he thanked her.
“Thank you.”
Chloe asked back brightly, “For what?”
Curtis asked with a troubled look, “…Were you not just saying you would help me?”
Chloe smiled and said nothing.
Curtis looked at her for a moment, then spoke again.
“What else do you need? Whatever you want…”
“Did you know, Brigadier General?”
She cut Curtis off and rolled the brooch around in her hand.
The red brooch was round and glossy, giving a pleasant sensation against her fingertips.
After being assigned as Curtis’s aide three months ago, Chloe had spent a life of nothing but overtime and suffering, cursing God all the while.
If there was a God, she had thought, then He certainly was not on her side.
But she was now convinced that all of it had been suffering God had prepared in advance for the sake of a greater happiness.
If God existed, He was unquestionably on Chloe’s side.
Otherwise, He would never have bestowed upon her an opportunity worth its weight in gold.
An opportunity for revenge against the superior officer she had always wanted to beat senseless.
“Love cannot be bought with money.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“I happen to be the sort of person who believes sincere action completes love.”
Of course, Curtis did not look as if he believed her.
But Chloe was sincere.
Chloe Amboise, who had been staring at the red brooch for quite some time, finally met his eyes and smiled until her eyes curved.
“First.”
“…”
“Kneel, Your Grace.”
The forehead of the most handsome man in the kingdom crumpled at once.
It felt fantastic.
At this point, it is necessary to look back on Chloe’s first day after being assigned as Curtis’s aide.
Surely she had not wanted to beat her superior officer from the very beginning.
“Chloe Amboise. As of today, I have been assigned as aide directly under His Grace Brigadier General Berk. My rank is Warrant Officer.”
That day, Chloe had been in a good mood.
It was a truly warm spring day.
The Royal Guard building where she had been assigned was extremely beautiful.
The contract with its incentives and rather generous allowance was even more beautiful.
She should have realized something was wrong when the members of the Royal Guard under direct royal command looked pitifully at the top of her head as she signed it.
“Warrant Officer Amboise.”
“I look forward to serving, sir!”
Chloe still remembered Curtis Shan Berk’s answer after she had saluted him like that on her first day.
“Have you any intention of cutting that hair short?”
“…Pardon?”
Chloe doubted her ears.
Her hand had gone to her hair before she realized it.
Since it was her first day of service, she had tied it up neatly and tightly in a ponytail.
Was something wrong with it?
“I don’t believe I spoke unclearly.”
At Grand Duke Berk’s expressionless question, Chloe answered despite her bewilderment.
“That was not included in the Royal Guard’s decorum regulations as I confirmed them, sir. If I have been mistaken, I will correct it.”
“You’re correct. It isn’t there.”
“Pardon? Then why…”
The Grand Duke, seated before his large desk, answered with his arms crossed.
“It seems you don’t intend to cut it. Continue reporting to work in that state.”
“Pardon? Your Grace…”
“Warrant Officer Chloe Amboise.”
Grand Duke Berk cut off Chloe, who was still asking because she did not understand the reason at all, without even listening.
“Ask me to repeat myself one more time and your pay will be docked too.”
Too.
The plural in that sentence gave off an overwhelming sense that if she answered wrong now, she was screwed.
Chloe, who had spent a long time in the military, shut her mouth by reflex instead of investigating that ominous feeling.
Seeing Chloe fall silent, Grand Duke Berk gave a light nod and pointed with his fingertips to the small room beside his office.
“Go there and do your work.”
“Loyalty. I will carry out the order.”
Chloe, who entered that room in a daze without properly grasping what was happening, was faced with a mountain of documents.
And, oddly out of place beside those documents, there was a clean desk with a small bed set beside it like a matching pair.
Thinking back on it now, it was absurd.
It was an aide’s office.
A bed in a space made for work?
Why was there a bed?
But Chloe at the time had been too flustered, and because she was so preoccupied with what the problem was with the length of her hair, she missed the significance of that bed.
Of course, she soon learned the truth behind, Have you any intention of cutting that hair short?
“Our Grand Duke likes things… clean.”
Those were Second Lieutenant Noel’s words.
The phrase “likes things clean” was far too mild and generously packaged. More accurately, it meant he was a germaphobe.
Curtis Shan Berk loathed having traces of other people left in his space.
That included not only other people’s hair, but also their body odor.
“If Warrant Officer Amboise had come with your hair down, he probably wouldn’t even have accepted your greeting…”
Only then did Chloe feel as if the mystery had been solved.
A germaphobe of the highest order.
Of course.
There was no way all nineteen aides had quit of their own accord.
Surely some, like Chloe, had needed the immediate salary, and even if they had not, having been the aide of the “war hero” Curtis Shan Berk would have helped their standing in the military in all sorts of ways.
But more than half of the aides had been driven out on grounds of filth.
One aide had been chased off because he smelled of sweat, while another had supposedly been expelled because he had been working overtime and had not had time to wash.
Of course, that alone could not explain all of Chloe’s ill will toward Grand Duke Berk.