The Princess Gets Her Legs Bound
The princess had her legs bound.
All because the Duchess of Valencia insisted I stay the night in Rebecca's room.
"Pardon my bluntness, but I'm afraid that won't do."
"......Mother."
Rebecca and I both reacted with dead-serious expressions.
The fact that I harbored feelings for Rebecca wasn't the issue here.
Yes, the princess and I were engaged, but we were, quite literally, only engaged.
Legally speaking, we were still a man and a woman with no relation to one another whatsoever.
So how could we possibly be sharing a bed already?
Among nobles married off for political reasons, I'd heard there were even couples who never shared a bed after the wedding.
For Rebecca and me—two people who hadn't even held a wedding ceremony—to sleep together was unthinkable. It flew squarely in the face of proper etiquette.
It was the words of the Duchess of Valencia, Rebecca's own mother, but there were things that were possible and things that simply were not.
"Why not? I'd have thought you'd both be delighted."
The Duchess seemed genuinely unable to comprehend our stricken reactions.
From her point of view, Rebecca and I were a couple who thought nothing of trading pecks on the cheek, after all.
It was hardly surprising that she didn't understand.
But what could I do?
As I'd said before, I couldn't exactly explain that it was merely the penalty from a chess wager.
It amounted to digging my own grave, but somehow I had to salvage the situation.
There was simply no way I could actually share a bed with Rebecca.
It was far too early for that, and Rebecca clearly wouldn't want it in the first place.
"Engaged or not, we haven't even been married yet. How could we possibly share a bed already?"
And so I laid out, quite logically, all the reasons why sharing a bed was out of the question.
With logic this airtight, surely even the Duchess couldn't argue back—
"As I mentioned just now, I myself was married off at seventeen. You and Rebecca are moving far too slowly."
"......"
I had never hated myself more than in that moment, for believing she'd have no rebuttal.
This was the Duchess of Valencia, a woman who had survived over a decade in high society—a battlefield of nobles in all but name.
There was no chance whatsoever that I, a mere fledgling chick in the aristocratic world, could out-argue her.
But I had tried my best. Anything to win the argument.
Though I can say with confidence that it accomplished very little.
"I've already told my parents I'd return home by tonight, so......"
"You can simply tell them again."
"I'm not feeling well at the moment......"
"I have plenty of digestives on hand."
"I can't sleep without my own blanket and pillow......"
"The young lord Albert already has bedding and undergarments here at the ducal estate, so worry not."
'......She has my undergarments too?'
Even the bedding was hard enough to comprehend, but undergarments as well?
Just how thoroughly prepared was this woman?
The undergarment revelation was, frankly, shocking.
Just as the Duchess's meticulous preparations left me too stunned to continue arguing—
"......Mother. If we were to share a room, there's no telling what might happen, so I don't believe it counts as sharing a bed."
Rebecca took the baton.
Under normal circumstances, I'd have bristled at the implication—what exactly did she think of me, that "anything might happen"? But right now, it was the best possible answer for persuading the Duchess, so I nodded along vigorously in agreement.
Truly, surely, no one could refute an argument like that.
"No telling what might happen, you say? What a delightful thing to hear. Personally, I should like to see my grandchildren sooner rather than later."
Of course, that thought lasted less than three seconds in my head before the Duchess's bombshell obliterated it entirely.
I honestly wondered if I'd misheard.
Grandchildren. A child between me and Rebecca.
How could the Duchess of Valencia—a woman who was supposed to overflow with grace and dignity—say something like that?
"Mother!"
Rebecca shrieked, her face burning crimson at her own mother's mortifying remark.
"My, my, my poor ears. Why must you shout so?"
Your mother's ears are perfectly fine, I'll have you know.
The Duchess replied while making a show of covering her ears with her hands.
Watching her, I could sum up everything I felt about the Duchess of Valencia in a single sentence.
'......Why is she so infuriating?'
She was, without exaggeration, the most infuriating person in the world.
I was merely an observer of this conversation, nothing more.
And yet the sight of her mouthing off while pretending to plug her ears was enough to get my blood boiling just from watching.
It made every insufferable expression Rebecca had ever worn look like child's play.
And if I was this worked up, I could only imagine how Rebecca, the actual target, must have felt.
Indeed, the only reason the princess was holding her tongue was that her opponent happened to be her own mother. Had it been me, or anyone else, a hailstorm of loathing and insults would surely have flown.
In any case, staying a moment longer made me genuinely fear I'd end up sleeping right here after all—
Screeeech—
With the scrape of my chair, I rose to my feet.
"You truly mean to just leave?"
As I made my preparations to return home, the Duchess of Valencia caught me once more.
Her expression—one that promised something terrible would absolutely happen if I simply went home—was deeply unsettling, but—
"If I don't return soon, my parents will worry."
My mind was already made up: I was going back to the Zernias Count Estate, my actual home.
'About time I had Charles's cooking for dinner again, after so long.'
The dinner I'd missed could be remedied by the estate's chef, Charles, I decided as I moved to leave the dining hall of the Valencia Ducal Mansion—
"......I suppose there's nothing to be done."
Right up until my legs refused to move, accompanied by the Duchess's low sigh.
"......My lady?"
At first, I was simply baffled.
My legs, which had been moving perfectly fine mere moments ago, had suddenly stopped working entirely, as though they'd broken.
And that bafflement soon gave way to something far clearer.
'In the novel...... I believe the Duchess was mentioned as a magical prodigy.'
I'd remembered that in the original story, the Duchess of Valencia was actually more skilled at magic than Rebecca, the munchkin princess herself.
"......Release me, please."
"My, you recognized it was magic that quickly. You must have experienced quite a lot of it, young lord Albert."
The Duchess looked genuinely surprised that I'd caught on so fast.
"......You could say I've had my share."
I said this while casting a glance at Rebecca.
Nine times out of ten, the magic I'd experienced in this world had come courtesy of the princess herself.
There was hardly a spell I hadn't been on the receiving end of.
Fire magic, wind magic, water magic, ice magic, plant magic, earth magic—I'd been hit by nearly every attribute there was.
And I'd watched her wield nearly every attribute of magic with my own eyes.
Rebecca was already showing remarkable magical talent, as if to prove that the epithet "Munchkin Young Lady" hadn't been given lightly.
And there was no way her own mother, the Duchess of Valencia, didn't know this.
Perhaps that was why the Duchess seemed to grasp the meaning behind my glance in an instant.
"Well, Rebecca does take after me—her magical aptitude is exceptional."
"Then will you release me?"
"No. If I intended to undo it this easily, I wouldn't have cast it in the first place."
Needless to say, she did not dispel the magic on me.
And so, while the Duchess and I waged our utterly pointless war of glances—
An elegant voice drifted over from the seat across the table, where Rebecca sat.
"......Mother. Why did you bind me?"
It seemed I wasn't the only victim of the Duchess's magic.
The very princess whose face had been burning red at her mother's mortifying words now asked, in a voice both quiet and resolute.
To Rebecca, whose face clearly read I don't understand, the Duchess gave a simple answer.
"If I merely forced young lord Albert into your room, you'd never set foot in there yourself, now would you?"
"......"
Rebecca wore the expression of someone struck squarely where it hurt.
She had apparently been planning, should I be forcibly deposited in her room, to refuse to enter no matter what excuse she had to invent.
Had her opponent been anyone but her own mother, the Duchess of Valencia.
I could honestly rate that plan as a rather good one.
Everyone has a good plan or two up their sleeve. Right up until binding magic roots their legs to the floor.
Regrettably, Rebecca and I both had our good plans foiled the moment our legs were bound.
"Dorothy, Emma! Carry the young lady and the young lord to her room."
We had no choice but to move exactly as the Duchess willed.
'......Is this a situation that can actually be happening?'
Being carried like luggage by maids to my fiancée's bedroom, my body immobilized by magic—what an absurd spectacle.
I was genuinely tempted to question whether this place my eyes were open in was real, and not some dream.
"......"
Rebecca's expression looked equally lost in dark contemplation—she was probably thinking much the same thing.
After all, she'd never imagined her trusted maids would haul her around like a piece of cargo.
Fair enough, I suppose. Entirely fair.
And so Rebecca and I were carried through the air for what felt like an age, then tossed, in that very same state, onto the princess's bed inside the princess's room.
"The binding magic will wear off in one minute, so don't worry."
The Duchess left nothing behind but that parting promise of a one-minute release, and exited the room.
Click—
Not forgetting, of course, to lock the door firmly behind her.
My future mother-in-law was thorough to the very last.