Princess Shu

Lance hurriedly took out the book he had on his side and opened it. Schuden’s gaze naturally turned toward it. It was not an ordinary book. Various colored threads were rolled up and attached one by one, and the name of the thread’s color was written on top in small letters. Lance asked in a timid voice.

“What, what color thread are you go, going to use for the knight crest?”

Schuden asked back in an icy voice.

“Do I have to decide such trivial things?”

“I, I think it’s better if you decide it yourself…”

Lance trembled. Schuden, who shook the soft designer’s heart with just a word, looked through the swatch book. He pointed out one color without hesitation.

“This one.”

Lance, who saw the thread chosen by Schuden, nodded passionately.

“It’s silvery-gray. It will look very good with the blue cloak. As expected, Your Grace’s discernment is as clear as the lake that reflects the sunlight and-”

“Leave.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

After praising Schuden for his discernment by calling out strange poetic expressions, Lance left without saying anything. Shaun gestured to the knight standing nearby to take Lance away. As Lance went down, Shaun stood there for a while to organize his thoughts. His intuition was something that could not be overlooked so he was appealing to Schuden to come clean.

A soldier’s intuition was scary. Shaun immediately spoke up.

“Your Grace, I have something to tell you.”

Schuden was looking at the documents that had just been sent to him. He said without raising his face.

“What’s going on?”

“It was something that happened the other day at tea time with the Marchioness.”

Schuden paused. He raised his gaze.

“Report.”

Schuden had already known that Valia had tea time with Shaun. Shaun even told him that nothing much happened. However, there must have been a reason for him to bring up this story again.

“The Marchioness wondered what happened to the tart that she sent the other day.”

“Hmm.”

Schuden nodded. He thought she forgot about the tart. He did not expect her to have asked Shaun about it. Perhaps, if the one in front of him was Valia, not Shaun, Schuden would have laughed a little. He knew Shaun’s personality, he never included anything unnecessary in his report so he must have said that the tart had all been eaten.

“So I told the Marchioness that you don’t like sweets…”

“What?!”

Schuden asked. Shaun held his breath in response to the unexpected harsh reaction. Schuden was caught up in a strange illusion as if he had been to the battlefield for a moment.

“In detail.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Shaun fixed his posture. It was his survival instinct as a knight and a soldier.

“A few days ago, the Marchioness was curious about how much tart you ate. So I gave my answer based on what I saw…”

If Shaun answered according to what he saw, he would say that Schuden ate it all. That was fine. Schuden’s eyes softened slightly. But that made Schuden more flustered. Shaun had an ominous foreboding that he would at least receive the wrath of his liege if he said what he was about to.

But Shaun was the commander of the Knights of Garth. Shaun was obliged to tell only the truth to Schuden, the liege of the order of knights. Even when he made mistakes in war, he got down on his knees and boldly confessed his faults. He did not know why it was so hard to do that now.

“Then, I told the Marchioness that you don’t like sweets…”

Shaun slurred the end of his sentence. A moment of silence passed. Schuden’s eyes were still fixed on Shaun. It felt like cold air was blowing. Shaun held his breath in spite of himself. Schuden said in a low voice.

“Shaun.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“From now on, do not add unnecessary opinions to what the lady is doing.”

Just report what you saw.

All of the knights in this barrack knew what those cold eyes meant. Shaun understood it in particular, and had engraved it deep into his mind.

“I will obey your order even at the risk of my life.”

“You’re under probation for a week.”

“Thank you for your generous disposition.”

The knights standing nearby did not know which part of that was a generous disposition and why Shaun suddenly got punished like that. Their conversations were too fragmented for the others to infer a detailed story. But they could tell one thing. They should not say useless things to the Marchioness!

“Leave.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Shaun went outside with discipline. The barrack had become as silent as a graveyard. Schuden lowered his gaze in the documents again. Strangely enough, he could not see the letters well.

‘If there’s any problem, Shaun would have said it first.’

Shaun did not necessarily mention it because of Valia’s unassuming reaction, but Schuden knew. Valia was someone who did not speak her mind. It had been a few days since she had tea time with Shaun, but she did not mention anything about the tart to Schuden during those few days. Valia’s attitude toward Schuden was the same as before. She smiled and blushed often.

As that was how Valia acted, it was ridiculous for Schuden to talk about it first. Not knowing what to say was a big problem. A husband who gave excuses about his eating habits to his wife? He would rather die than do such a childish thing.

‘It’s not like I’m a less grown kid.’

Ruining his image was a given, if not outright ridiculous. Schuden frowned at the strange suffering he was experiencing for the first time in his life.

What the hell is this feeling?

To put it bluntly, it was similar to the feeling of encountering an enemy ambush in an unexpected place on the battlefield. Schuden ruffled his hair.

His red eyes suddenly subsided.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

These days, Valia was busier than before. Her visitation to the Imperial Palace was the day after tomorrow, and High Priest Philemon’s visit to the manor was scheduled a few days later. However, Valia had always left the time before and after dinner to be empty. She would come to meet Schuden, and was very happy to have dinner with him.

Schuden had never come in past dinner time, either. Even if he had documents to deal with, he would postpone it after dinner. Thanks to this, the couple had always had dinner together ever since they got married.

It was not only Valia who felt that the chef was putting more and more effort into the food these days. It was a peaceful mealtime, and time of laughter for the employees.

After mealtime, Valia read the internal budget ledger in the study.

“…”

Even though she had been reading it constantly for several days without being lazy, there was still more to see. Valia guessed alone that much budget was enough for a year’s upkeep of a small kingdom. The overflowing zero’s for each amount of money surpassed that of the founding contributor.

‘But is this really possible?’

In the past few days, there was only one document that Valia had been paying close attention to—the budget proposal to cover the backyard. The expected detailed amount received during the day easily exceeded Valia’s imagination.

‘Surely his standard unit of value is different from mine…’

Valia flipped through the documents and raised her head slightly. She glanced at the man sitting right in front of her. The dark reddish-blonde hair and red eyes could be seen through his eyelashes. A man good looking enough for a sigh to come out. A handsome man with an impressive cold and dark atmosphere–Schuden Garth

They left each other’s offices empty and sat side by side at the table in the study. All of this stemmed from a single word from Valia. There were documents that she had not seen yet and she wanted to check them all before she went to sleep. She thought that since Schuden also had documents to deal with, they would work in their offices and meet in the bedroom later. Schuden responded simply.

[Is it okay if we work together?]

Actually, while listening to those words, Valia understood it as doing each work in each other’s offices. But it turned out, she was the only one who thought so. Valia nodded and after a while, documents to be checked, writing supplies, and hot tea were prepared on the table in the study. It was really in the blink of an eye.

‘…It’s good, though.’

Frankly speaking, it was. Valia was always excited whenever she was so close to Schuden, her heart felt like it was going to explode in bed. But at this distance, her heart was pounding moderately, so it was a passing score. When Valia lowered her eyelashes and secretly glanced at him, Schuden, whose eyes were still fixed on the documents, asked her.

“Valia, is there something on my face?”

Valia flinched as if she was a thief that had been caught in the middle of sneaking around. She thought she was peeping carefully but it seemed that he saw her. Valia could not say directly that she was taking a peep, so she held out the document as if holding on to a lifeline. But fortunately for her, she had a legitimate business to ask right around.

“Schu, about this document.”

Schuden looked up without finishing reading the document. He immediately recognized the document she had handed out to him. It was a document that had been approved as an exterior internal budget just a few days ago. He wondered if there was any problem. He looked at Valia.

“Are there any problems with the documents?”

“No, there’s no problem. That’s not it… I just don’t think it’s necessary to build covered walkways.”

Even though Valia said so, she was a little worried. She was worried if she stepped out of line. If Schuden showed signs of displeasure, she was prepared to apologize immediately, but he said something unexpected. 

“But you got rained on.”

“…That was my mistake. Whenever I go out for a walk now, Sarah always prepares an umbrella. It’s not like I will die just from getting rained on.”

Schuden stared at her silently for a moment. He had never seen a noble who spoke similarly to his usual thoughts. Surely her tone was much softer. Schuden smirked.

“Do as you wish, dear.”

“Pardon? Really?”

“Yes. The project has not started yet, so you can reject it.”

Valia’s face brightened up. Schuden tilted his head slightly as he saw her filling out the cancellation signature on the document she was holding.

‘I don’t know what her standard of being happy is.’

It had always been hard to understand how people feel, but it was particularly difficult for Schuden to grasp Valia’s feelings. She smiled when she saw him. She was happy when they ate dinner together. Just by not coming home late, her expression brightened up. It was consistent until now. But she did not like it when he spent money on her. Rather, she asked to reject it.

Everyone liked to spend money for their honor. It was not a gender problem, it was just a human problem.

‘I also don’t know her standard of asking questions.’

She had no problem asking about my private expenses, so why did she not ask trivial and minor questions? For example, tarts. Or what she heard from Shaun.

In fact, Schuden had no idea how to bring it up from the moment he returned home.

“Hmm, Schu.”

“Yes, Valia.”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Go on.”

Schuden looked at Valia. Whenever she wanted to ask something to him now, he was thinking that she probably was going to ask something related to work. Now Valia was just like a little chick trying to learn hard at work.

“About the tarts.”

The words she spoke were unexpected.

“Do you…hate sweet foods?”