Ventorino Kingdom — Budding (10)
Lloyd Antifeol.
The heir to the Antifeol ducal house, one of only two ducal families in the Ventorino Kingdom. His status was high enough that no one would have questioned it if you counted him among the kingdom’s ten most important men. Even if he only hung on by a thread at the very bottom of that list.
And these days, things were even better.
After all, he was engaged to a beautiful princess of his own age.
For any other man, it would have been a dream come true. But Lloyd himself had been deeply troubled. No—he had been troubled.
Haa, thank goodness. Looks like she’s finally cheered up.
Seeing his fiancée Clara wandering through the garden with a bright smile, Lloyd let out a relieved breath.
Until just a few days ago, the atmosphere between them had been grim.
It had been their first real fight since the engagement.
For him, every day had felt like having the life drained out of him.
What was more, Lloyd didn’t even know what he had done wrong, or what he was supposed to do about it. If he hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place, how could he know? The one who had been in the wrong was Clara, not him.
He couldn’t pinpoint the cause, but the main reason for the fight had been Clara’s sharp temper and the way she’d snapped at him. Of course, Lloyd’s own obtuse behavior had added a little fuel to the fire as well.
In any case, after that, the two of them—the couple everyone had once envied as the very picture of sweetness and harmony—had slowly started to crack. They’d begun bickering over trivial things, and the kisses they’d once exchanged like a greeting had become rare. At their worst, they didn’t even speak.
Lloyd had been anxious.
He loved her sincerely.
If their relationship went wrong, he wasn’t sure he could bear it.
So every day, whenever he came up with a new way to make amends, he would apologize to her. If he had no reason to apologize and still had to grovel, then what was the problem with saying sorry for something he was even a little guilty about? It was only an apology, after all.
And yet Clara’s mood showed no sign of improving.
She kept saying she wasn’t angry, that everything was fine. But Lloyd adored her far too much to be fooled by such obvious lies. He could tell perfectly well how displeased she was.
For a few days, she would seem a little better, then she would sink back into that same gloomy, troubled look, as though she had fallen into deep thought again. If she was going to be relying on him as her beloved fiancé, he wished she would at least lean on him a little, but Clara kept insisting that she was fine and left him no room to interfere.
That had been the situation until not long ago.
"Lloyd! Come here quickly!"
Seeing her call out to him with a radiant smile, his own mouth couldn’t help but lift. This was the royal garden he had seen many times before, and yet she still looked so delighted.
He thought she was truly a girl of innocent sweetness, untouched by the world—a beauty so lovely and adorable it was as if a goddess had descended to earth.
"Hahaha! Flowers won’t run away, so take your time, my love!"
After shouting that to Clara, he rushed toward her in a few long strides and opened his arms wide to catch his fiancée.
"Eek~."
"Oh! I misjudged that! There’s a flower here that looks like it’ll run away if I don’t catch it quickly!"
"Hehe, you really do love your jokes."
"Jokes? Well, I suppose that’s true. You really are more beautiful than any flower!"
Even while he was spouting such greasy lines that the guards on duty in the garden looked physically ill, Lloyd didn’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed. He believed that openly expressing affection was the best way to strengthen the bond between a man and a woman.
If it were up to him, he would have loved to hold her tight, and not just with words but in every other way possible, too.
But before she was his fiancée, she was a princess.
Anything beyond a kiss was too dangerous.
Even aside from that, a part of him wanted to cherish Clara more carefully. Compared to his own mid-twenties, she was still a young woman, and he wanted to preserve as much of that lovely maidenly innocence as he could.
That was when it happened.
"With you standing in the midst of all these flowers, even the flowers themselves seem to… sniff, sniff… hm?"
A strange smell drifted from somewhere in the brilliantly blooming flowerbeds of the garden.
"This is…."
Lloyd frowned.
The scent wasn’t one he was very familiar with, but it wasn’t difficult to identify.
"No, there’s no way the royal garden would smell like urine…."
"U-urine…?"
At the sight of Clara blushing and stammering, Lloyd realized his mistake. It was a far too direct and vulgar expression for such an innocent, pure maiden. He should have said it more delicately; he immediately felt he had slipped up.
"Good heavens, I apologize. That was an indecent thing to say."
"N-no, it’s fine…."
"At any rate, I’ll have to speak to His Majesty and recommend dismissing the gardener."
"What?! W-why…?"
"Because if a smell like that is spreading through the garden and no one has even bothered to clean it up, that’s nothing less than negligence. And more than that, they’ve left the place open enough for an animal to wander in. That’s a problem as well. As far as I know, no one keeps animals in the royal palace, so it must have come from outside."
"W-well, I suppose so…."
Clara’s ears were now red as well, and she lowered her head completely. Watching her, Lloyd decided he should change the subject. Part of him wanted to summon the gardener himself and slap the man across the face, but this was the royal palace. And it was the royal family that employed the gardener. He had no right to lay hands on him carelessly.
Still, Clara’s shy expression is adorable too. Maybe I should try teasing her like this more often later?
It might have been a cruel thought, but Clara, strangely enough, was not the type to blush easily.
That was precisely why the rare moments when she did were so striking. As long as he didn’t take it too far, he found himself thinking that this much teasing ought to be fine for a fiancée, and for a future husband and wife.
Lost in that excited train of thought, he made a mistake that wasn’t quite a mistake.
"Though that smell really is strong. Just what kind of animal could it have been…."
To Lloyd, it had merely been a soft mutter to himself. Unfortunately for him, that tiny whisper reached Clara’s ears.
"…What?"
"Ah, dear me. Sorry. I suppose you heard me. I just meant that the smell was a bit strong."
"Ah, yes… I… see."
Her reply was barely above a murmur, the end of her sentence trailing off in a way that made it obvious something was wrong.
"U-uh… my love?"
"What is it, Lloyd?"
"Um… a-are you… upset?"
"No. I’m fine."
…….
It didn’t look fine at all, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask any further.
He had already learned from experience that pestering her out of concern only made Clara angrier. So Lloyd could only wonder to himself.
Why was his fiancée angry? He had only muttered that the smell was strong.
"Honestly, how could you say that!"
Princess Clara spat out her rising irritation as she walked through a dark corridor.
Today’s date had been a disaster.
She’d been in a great mood when they ate a delicious meal at the restaurant and strolled through the royal garden. But the few words that had slipped from his mouth had ruined everything.
"It’s not Lloyd’s fault, exactly…."
For a moment, she made a weak expression, then shook her head hard.
"No. It’s Lloyd’s fault after all. H-he could have just not said that."
She could forgive everything else. But that one last comment, that final line, was unforgivable.
Of course, there was no way he could have known what had happened the night before. She had checked that no one was near the garden at the time. It wasn’t something she had done with her own hands, but her master had said so. If that was the case, then whether someone was there or not made no difference.
"Haa…."
Clara, hurrying down the hallway, slowed her steps slightly.
"Yesterday… mm, it was so good…."
She hadn’t expected it. She never would have guessed she’d end up taking a nighttime stroll in the royal garden.
True, the garden was the least secure part of the palace, at least compared to its size. Even the patrols were said to circle only the outer perimeter rather than enter the garden itself.
She’d had a bad feeling the moment he suggested meeting there instead of outside the garden, but she never imagined they would actually do that in the place. And yet it had felt wonderful. Not just like a simple night walk, but like she had truly become his slave—no, his pet dog. It was a shocking demotion to something even lower than a slave, but it was also an unprecedented, nameless kind of pleasure.
And then there was what had happened at the end.
It had been a shivering, uncanny experience, as though he had truly abandoned his humanity.
"Haaah…♡"
Just thinking about it was enough to send the princess’s cheeks burning with ecstasy.
"It would have been nice to meet in the garden again today…."
After letting the thought slip out, Clara shook her head and pushed it away.
No. I can’t think like that. Master is… Master, so… he must have a plan for everything.
It had only been a few days since Valdes caught her taking that nighttime walk and made her his. And yet she already found herself calling him Master even in her own mind, so completely had she been captivated and consumed by him.
Not in a rational sense. It didn’t mean she had fallen in love with him. It was simply the feeling she held toward her master. Her greatest love was still her family, and her fiancé, Lloyd. If she looked at it in terms of love alone, Valdes ranked a little lower.
"I wonder… what kind of play we’ll do today…?"
Still, because there was someone who would keep watch around her, cover her body if anything happened, and even make excuses for her, Clara was able to enjoy her night walk far more comfortably.
Thanks to that, she could even forget her worries about her father for a short while. Even her other concern—her mother’s adultery—didn’t trouble her much. That was only natural, given that her master was the other man involved. If anything, Clara had found herself thinking along other lines entirely.
She wanted to catch his attention more than her mother did.
"Haa…."
Arriving at the end of the secret passage, Clara soothed her overheated chest for a moment and carefully peeked through the opening at the other side of the wall.
It was a hole made so that, if someone happened to be standing in the alley, they wouldn’t discover the secret passage being opened. A precious magical material that could be seen only from the inside, and not at all from the outside.
"Ah♡"
As expected, Valdes was waiting outside.
Clara’s eyes shone. Under normal circumstances, she should have been the one waiting first. That was because, during these night walks, he was her master.
But she had deliberately set out a little late.
"You’re late for a slave. Still not properly trained, are you?"
"A-ah, y-yes… I’m sorry…♡ Please punish this perverted slave…♡"
Training. Punishment.
The name didn’t matter.
She wanted him to treat her a little more roughly.
As a slave, not a princess. As a female, not a woman.
She wanted to be handled in a way that would draw out the things buried inside her—things her beloved fiancé Lloyd could never give her. He could not do it, but Valdes could. He was a real male, and a master. A pleasure born from a relationship unlike that of lovers, unlike a bond of mutual affection—the pleasure of obedience and domination.
"Take it off."
"Yes…♥"
That was what she wanted.
With a soft rustle, the coat wrapped around Clara’s body slipped to the ground. Beneath it, the princess’s beautiful naked form was revealed. A pure female body raised on only the finest things—seeing only the best, eating only the best, and wearing only the best.
There was even a slight difference from when she walked alone.
Back then, she had at least worn something close to half-naked attire: a thin negligee and panties. But now she wore none of that. The reason was simple. Her master had told her not to wear them. That was all.
"Today, you’ll be a dog again. A filthy little bitch."
At Valdes’s words, she immediately lowered her body and placed both hands on the ground.
"Hnn, yes, that’s right… I’m Master’s filthy bitch…."
"What did I say a bitch should do?"
"Huh? Ah…."
The clever girl recalled the order her master had given her the day before.
"Woof…♡"
"That’s right. Good girl."
As his warm hand gently bent over her back and stroked her head, the princess panted with her tongue hanging out, just like a real dog.
"Yesterday, I only protected you with a magic tool, didn’t I? Today, I’m adding a few more things."
"Mmm…?"
Valdes took several items from his bosom.
"U, ah…."
At the sight of them, Clara’s eyes went blank for an instant.
There was a dog collar, a headband with puppy ears attached, and a matching tail as well—tools so obvious in purpose that there was no doubt how they were supposed to be worn.
"Now then, shall we put them on one by one?"
"W-woof♥"