Chapter 45

Just returning from the ball hosted by the Sees royal family, Ruitas Ladus was perplexed.

A moment ago, a maid who had come to replace the water pitcher had quietly placed an envelope next to his glass, saying that she had been entrusted with a letter from a noble person.

While Ruitas often received love letters, this method of delivery was entirely new to him.

Usually, he would receive letters from familiar noblewomen who would drop them into his hand as they passed by, or from maids who were familiar with his face and would hand them to him directly on behalf of their mistresses.

Of course, there were times when letters were delivered directly to his residence, but in such cases, they would be handed to Ruitas by his butler or secretary.

Certainly, it was unheard of for a letter to be delivered directly to Ruitas by a maid from the mansion.

On the table, formal invitations to tea parties and dinner parties were neatly sorted. This was the work of Fen, his secretary who accompanied him to Sees.

Such social engagements were important, and he had to be particularly selective.

He had to accept invitations from the royal family and high-ranking nobles, and attend as many as possible from noblewomen who were in the spotlight in society or from nobles with whom he had a personal relationship.

For other invitations, he would politely decline.

Ruitas was a busy man, and he couldn't afford to attend every event.

Ruitas picked up the envelope next to his glass.

Since it had been delivered in this manner, bypassing the usual procedures, it was undoubtedly a letter meant to be kept secret.

It might be an unusual invitation from a noble he had declined, he thought, flipping the envelope over, but there was no name of the sender.

"Would they go to such lengths for a mere entertainment?" Ruitas felt disheartened and threw the envelope back onto the table.

It was the second day of their stay in Sees.

The ball, which had started in the evening, continued even after the royal couple retired, and many nobles were still in the ballroom. Ruitas, who had just arrived in Sees yesterday, couldn't keep up and finally returned home just before midnight.

Still feeling the fatigue from the journey, Ruitas stretched widely.

He loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and carelessly threw his evening jacket over the back of the sofa.

Given Ruitas's status, it was common to have a maid to take care of him, but Ruitas, who had taken care of everything himself during his days as a squire, found no inconvenience without a maid.

Especially here, in the diplomatic residence owned by the Ancheise royal family in Sees, the servants were trustworthy, but he was hardly familiar with any of them. It was far more comfortable to do things on his own rather than be constantly attended to by an unfamiliar maid.

Ruitas, who was well-mannered and gentle, was often sent abroad. This time, he was visiting Sees for about ten days on the emperor's orders.

Incidentally, the purpose of this visit to Sees was to celebrate the pregnancy of the Sees queen. Ruitas was carrying the congratulations from Emperor Alex and Empress Via.

The personal letter and gifts from the two emperors had been successfully delivered to the royal family, and now he was smoothly attending the national celebrations and various luncheons and dinners.

By the way, the empress of Ancheise was also pregnant, but there was no such excitement in Ancheise.

There were already a prince and a princess, and a lukewarm atmosphere prevailed, as if it didn't matter whether the third child was a boy or a girl.

On the other hand, the Sees queen was attracting a lot of attention both domestically and internationally.

After all, the current king had no male heir.

The four children from the previous queen were all princesses, and the current queen, who had married from Galantia two years ago, had also given birth to a princess last year.

This was her second pregnancy, and the whole country was holding its breath, hoping for a male heir this time.

As a result, this topic was always a hot topic at any social gathering.

If a nobleman had a son the same age as the prince, he could be a future candidate for a close aide, and if a daughter, a candidate for the crown princess. The enthusiasm for childbearing among the nobility had increased, and recently, there had been a steady stream of good news from various households.

For Ruitas, it was a matter of no concern, and he could watch the scene with amusement, but the queen, who was at the center of all this attention, must have had a lot of worries.

Ruitas couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Being a queen is not an easy job."

... To be clear, the reason Ruitas started to use such a frivolous term as "job" for the queen was due to the empress of his own country.

It was definitely not his own idea.

When Emperor Alex had a difficult expression on his face over an important matter of state, the empress had casually said, "Being an emperor must be tough, huh?"

Ruitas had genuinely tilted his head, thinking, "Is being an emperor a job?" but the emperor himself seemed to like the term.

From then on, every time something unpleasant happened, the emperor would mutter, "It's part of the job, I guess," with a mix of frustration.

Speaking of which, Ruitas remembered that when the empress of Ancheise was pregnant for the first time, there had been a series of celebrations everywhere.

His brows furrowed, as it was around that time that Ruitas had been suddenly married.

The woman he had married was the daughter of a high-ranking official in Ancheise, and it was a typical political marriage. He thought their relationship was not bad, but his wife died in an accident within half a year.

She was caught in a landslide on her way home from a ball.

At the time, Ruitas was visiting Securt, and he was informed of his wife's death by a messenger and hurriedly returned to Ancheise.

The sudden news left Ruitas more bewildered than sad.

His parents, on the other hand, were deeply disappointed that their daughter-in-law, who might have been carrying a child, had died in an accident.

The day after the funeral, his parents hinted at remarriage, a day he would never forget.

To them, Ruitas was a tool to prosper the family. Realizing this again, Ruitas struggled to hide his disgust.

Thinking of his parents, Ruitas couldn't stop the bitter feelings that welled up.

He had hated his parents for a long time, ever since he was a child.

They tried to control Ruitas in every way.

Although he was cherished as the eldest son, it was not because they loved him, but because he was useful to them.

Unlike his rebellious teenage years, Ruitas could now control his emotions. However, there were times when his heart became uncontrollably agitated.

One day, when he was particularly frustrated, the empress noticed.

She seemed to think that the cause was the Tars ambassador, who had been causing trouble for Ancheise in trade issues at the time.

One day, when the empress saw Ruitas, she whispered to him from behind her fan, "Would you like to know the nickname I have for that ambassador?"

... The empress had a hobby of secretly giving nicknames to nobles she didn't like.

"I call him the biting turtle," the empress said, and Ruitas thought, "How about 'bald lord'?"

He was quite fed up with the ambassador.

"Bald is a bit too direct, don't you think?" the empress tilted her head seriously and suggested, "Sparse lord would be better."

... It was less direct, but it felt more insulting than bald.

Still, the way the empress expressed sparseness was so innovative. Ruitas was genuinely impressed.

After that, he didn't get as angry when the "sparse lord" said anything, and he found the conversation very meaningful.

Worried that he might have a nickname himself, Ruitas asked the empress directly, but she replied solemnly, "I don't give nicknames to family or the emperor's friends."

So Ruitas decided to push a little further.

"What about my father?" he asked, and the empress froze with a smile.

"Hohoho, I would never give a nickname to Lord Ruitas's father."

But she must have given him a funny nickname.

Thinking that, the frustration that had been gnawing at him disappeared as if it had never been there.

Being around the empress made him feel better. Supported by the empress, who was open and bright, the emperor seemed happy every day.

The family was very close, and the other day, Prince Romaris had spotted the emperor and happily called out, "Brother!" and ran to him.

Incidentally, among the three close friends of the emperor, Ammon had married a strong-willed woman from a noble family and already had a son, and Gruuk had married a daughter of a mid-ranking noble last year.

Currently, Ruitas was the only one who was still single.

As a noble who should inherit the family, he was quite late in getting married, but he enjoyed the freedom of not being tied down by a wife.

He had no shortage of companions and, above all, it was relaxing.

His parents, who had suggested remarriage the day after his wife's funeral, had been silent for the past two or three years, which was rather eerie, but they were probably looking for a better match and couldn't decide.

To be honest, Ruitas was an ideal candidate for a son-in-law.

Being from a prestigious family in Ancheise and a close aide to the emperor with a smooth career, it was natural that he would be targeted.

Regardless of his inner qualities, the noble bloodline, status, and wealth were attractive to princesses and the families of young noblewomen.

As the heir of the Ladus family, he would eventually have to marry, but if he could have a little more time, he wanted to enjoy this freedom.

That was Ruitas's honest feeling.

Ruitas sat on the sofa and drank the water in his glass in one gulp. He was still a little tipsy, and his throat was unusually dry.

He unbuttoned two more buttons on his shirt and, remembering, slowly reached for the envelope from earlier.

Inside was a single sheet of notepaper.

There was only one line of text, and at the bottom was the signature, "Sedia Caines."

The name Caines suggested that this was from a relative of the Caines lord, who had married the king's cousin. But did this family have a daughter named Sedia?

Ruitas tilted his head, and in the next moment, he realized that this was the name of the emperor's half-sister and almost fell off his chair.

Sedia, the third princess of the Palaisis Empire, was six years younger than Emperor Alex.

Incidentally, the fourth princess, Viatrix, was adopted by Emperor Palaisis after Sedia was born, so she was a year older than Sedia but was treated as a younger sister in the family tree.

And now, as the empress of Emperor Alex, she was both the sister-in-law and the sister-in-law of Princess Sedia, a complicated relationship.

Well, the empress was not the issue now.

Ruitas tilted his head, wondering why she was reaching out to him now.

Actually, Ruitas didn't have much information on Princess Sedia. She was not a particularly important princess for Ancheise.

Because her mother was the emperor's mistress, it was difficult for her to marry into the royal family, and she was supposed to have married the heir of the prestigious Caines family in Sees when she was seven or eight.

He couldn't remember the name of her husband. He had heard that the man was frail and had secluded himself in a house with good air after their marriage.

By the time Ruitas visited Sees during the stable reign of Emperor Alex, the man had already passed away.

Without making a social debut, she had lost her husband and had no children, so she probably had no opportunity to appear in society.

Ruitas had visited Sees several times since then, but he had never met the princess in any social setting.

Ruitas gazed at the letter thoughtfully.

The paper was plain, with only the Caines family crest, and there was no scent or watermark.

It simply read, "Can I meet you in secret without the knowledge of Lord and Lady Caines?"

Ruitas vaguely thought that she must have some favor to ask of him.

In Sees, a widow was obligated to remain with her husband's family for the rest of her life.

As the widow of the heir, she could have been given a place in society, but Princess Sedia had never appeared in public.

She might have been treated poorly.

In any case, it was important to meet and hear her out, but his schedule was almost full from the next day. No, wasn't the afternoon free before the Tedes ball?

Ruitas checked the schedule prepared by Fen and muttered to himself that he could make time on that day.

He should gather as much information as possible about Princess Sedia. He would send a messenger to the capital first thing in the morning, and the response would take five or six days.

Whatever the princess wished, he should be prepared to do his best to accommodate her.

As he carefully placed the letter back on the table, Ruitas suddenly wondered what he would have done with this letter if the empress had not married the emperor.

The princess was not particularly beneficial to the empire.

Emperor Alex had shown no interest in his siblings.

If this had been an official letter from the Caines family, he might have dealt with it, but a letter delivered in secret like this, he probably would have ignored and crumpled it up on the spot.

He would have reported it to the emperor upon his return, but Emperor Alex would have been fine with that.

Ruitas sighed deeply.

Now, he couldn't do such a thing. ... Because the empress would be furious.

Moreover, Emperor Alex himself had changed his attitude towards his family.

If Princess Sedia was seeking help, he would probably do his best to assist her.

There were nine more days left in his stay in Sees.

This time, there were many invitations to celebrations, making it difficult to decline, but depending on the situation, he might have to consider declining some invitations.

Ruitas reached for the bell pull.

He needed to tell Fen to keep the afternoon of the sixth day free and to gather information about the princess.

He asked the maid who appeared to call Fen and whether she could deliver a message to the sender of the letter.

If Lady Sedia was afraid of Lord Caines finding out, he couldn't send a messenger in advance. Ruitas asked the maid to tell the sender that he would visit on the afternoon of the sixth day, and the maid nodded in relief.

In the quiet room after the maid left, Ruitas opened the letter from Princess Sedia again.

The handwriting was graceful and unassuming.

It was a gentle script that made him want to meet her.