RAMHM Chapter 156

A Starlit Night

Rhodness's face went the color of ash in an instant.

"I'm not asking to be your Crown Princess. I want to be your wife."

His rigid, frozen face flushed red, then pale, then—just like that—crumbled.

"So don't be my Crown Prince, either. Just be my husband."

A tear I'd been holding back finally slipped free from one eye, and Rhodness, unable to hold himself any longer, lurched to his feet.

He pulled me into a crushing embrace and laughed, helpless and undone. He was breathing so hard my own chest rose and fell with it.

"Adrienne, you really are—. You really are—"

He held me as if he meant to crush me, nearly lifting me off the ground, and pressed kiss after kiss across my face.

"You had to play me right to the very end."

His hot mouth landed on my face again and again. I let the laughter come, mixed in with the tears, and didn't hold it back.

While he held me and kissed me, I kept my eyes open and watched the stars glittering around us. The scattered light seemed to spill and fill my vision completely.

"Stay in my arms forever, Rienne."

Usually people ask you to stay by their side forever, don't they?

That thought hadn't even finished forming before his mouth found mine again.

In the breathless, tangled mix of our breath—

Rhodness's threat—that he would keep me in his arms forever and never let go—pushed its way into my mouth.

"I'll do anything, as long as you stay in my arms. The strong, gentle knight you used to dream of. The hero who slays monsters. The emperor who puts the whole world beneath his feet. All of it, as long as you stay beside me."

I laughed at terms so overwhelmingly in my favor.

He didn't even need to go that far.

Because I myself had no intention of letting this enormous, beautiful thing—the brightest star in the world—out of my arms, either.

Despite not seeming tired at all, Irene and Nora had arrived at the Grand Ducal estate early that morning, and Adrienne's group found themselves gathered around the tea table.

"There's word that the Emperor has shut himself away in the Imperial Palace ever since announcing the new Crown Prince."

"The party was only yesterday evening. Where on earth did you hear that, my lady?"

"I've been in and out of the palace for years now—did you think I wouldn't know that much? But more to the point—Your Highness... no, my lady, where did you and His Highness the Crown Prince go off to yesterday?"

Adrienne, who hadn't slept a wink all night, gave a tired, awkward little smile.

"Well? Going to tell us, little sister?"

Bliea, eyes a bit hollow, stared her down.

Adrienne's face went red. She said nothing. Lips shut tight.

She'd accepted the most dazzling proposal in the world, and the two of them had rolled around on that hill like children.

She meant it literally—they had truly tumbled and rolled. Adrienne had been drunk; Rhodness, drunk on her, hadn't known what to do with himself.

After rolling and embracing and kissing for a long while, Rhodness had drawn a small box from inside his coat.

And then, truly astonishingly—

truly outrageously—

her brightest star, her most beautiful beast, had refused to simply slide the ring onto her finger.

His mouth, which had been pecking kisses along her lips, trailed down her neck, her shoulder, and finally her bared arm, settling thickly against her hand.

And then, finally, taking the ring between his lips—

he had slid it onto her finger with his mouth.

Wet, and ticklish. Her white finger, slipped into that mouth she'd always craved, came away damp.

When Rhodness wiped it clean again with his own lips, then deliberately curved his mouth into a smile and rubbed his cheek against her palm, Adrienne had lost all restraint.

Wicked, wicked Rhodness!

Looking back on it now, what else could it have been but him goading her into kissing him first?

Even someone as composed as she usually was could hardly be blamed for losing patience after that!

In a place that beautiful, surrounded by all that light, with a man looking at her like that—not kissing him would have been a crime.

"Little sister, why do your eyes look like they've drifted off—not to this world, but to Abadhelia?"

Bliea murmured beside her, and Adrienne surfaced from the heated recollection of that early morning.

Adrienne touched the finger that still held a trace of warmth.

She'd snuck back at dawn and pretended to have just woken up, and in the rush, she hadn't managed to take the ring off.

She didn't even need to imagine how everyone gathered here would react the moment they saw it.

"Oho—"

Bliea, who'd been ready to tear the estate apart looking for Adrienne since the night before, caught the small movement instantly.

A chill ran down Adrienne's spine for some reason. Bliea, smiling wickedly, had quietly caught her wrist and lifted it.

Catching the morning sun, a diamond the size of a child's thumb flashed, putting its own radiance on full display as if demanding everyone look.

"Goodness! His Highness the Crown Prince has proposed to my lady!"

Irene, who had taken a keen recent interest in marriage, gasped at the sight of the ring on the fourth finger alone, hips lifting off her seat as she clapped both hands over her mouth.

"There were rumors the levirate law hadn't been repealed yet because His Highness had his heart set on my lady—and it turns out they were true!"

Nora, with her keen eye for jewelry, read straight through the gemstone to Rhodness's intent behind it.

"The Grand Duch—Your Highness!!"

And then a shrill voice rang through the parlor loud enough to shake it.

Every head turned toward the entrance.

There stood Madame Leblais, an elegant hat on her head and both arms loaded down with luggage.

Having already made the "Miracle Sisters" her muses, the Madame had taken it upon herself to personally design every dress the twins wore.

She had been spending her days in a state of bliss ever since the original muse, Adrienne, had returned.

She had also, quietly, been keeping watch to see whether Bliea might feel slighted if she paid Adrienne too much attention.

But Bliea couldn't have cared less about the Madame's attentions, having maintained a strict policy of "always go bold," so it was only natural that the Madame had begun gently gravitating back toward Adrienne.

So when she saw the radiant diamond ring on Adrienne's hand, and heard the voices carrying through the door, the Madame simply couldn't contain her excitement.

Madame Leblais's nostrils, elegance being the highest value she held in the world, flared quietly.

"Never. Absolutely not. Your Highness the Grand Duch—no, soon to be Crown Princess! You will let me handle your wedding gown, won't you?"

Thump. Thump.

The luggage in the Madame's hands fell to the floor.

In what felt like an instant, Madame Leblais had crossed all the way to the tea table.

"Shall we begin work today??"

Her eyes had never shone with such desperate brightness before.

"The very best of everything."

"Yes, sir."

"Ah—that, I'll handle myself. Adrienne's quite particular. Nothing will satisfy her unless I'm the one choosing it."

"It's usually Your Highness who's particular, if I may say."

"...Is that so?"

Is it, though?

Neil doubted his own ears and glanced between Vincento and Rhodness. Rhodness was not, as a rule, a generous enough lord to simply accept that kind of impudent answer.

Being Crown Prince suited him a little too well, didn't it.

The man who'd shown so little enthusiasm even for his own investiture party had somehow, ever since the party ended, gone from cold and arrogant to something with spring quietly seeping into his face.

Neil had always wished for a kinder, more understanding lord, and yet—for some reason—something twisted unpleasantly in his stomach.

"Something good happen, Your Highness?"

"Ah. Did I mention I'm getting married?"

"Sir?!"

"I take it Vincento didn't mention it."

Neil only then grasped the situation and swept his eyes between Vincento and his lord's desk.

The difficult, headache-inducing tasks had always, by rights, fallen to Vincento.

Lately, though, those same tasks kept landing on Neil's own desk, while Vincento ran himself ragged elsewhere instead.

And was it his imagination, or had even Vincento's perpetually stern expression gone soft, as if some of that same spring had spread from Rhodness to him too?

"Is it—is it the Countess Acacia, or—"

"Adrienne, obviously. What nonsense is that?"

After watching the whole fuss over the Countess for so long, "Adrienne, obviously" felt like a personal betrayal. Neil scratched his quill across the page with rather more force than necessary.

Vincento, busy calculating the budget for the grandest wedding Rhodness was demanding, frowned sharply.

"We're over the inner palace budget. Even Her Majesty the Empress will be shocked."

"Don't think about the budget. Prepare the grandest wedding possible, no matter the cost. I told you clearly I'd pay for it myself out of my own funds. You knew that from the start—why are you whining about it now?"

At that, Neil, remembering Bliea's distant, wistful smile from before, finally spoke up.

"At that budget, you might as well hold the Crown Prince's investiture ceremony you skipped entirely. A wedding more lavish than an investiture—there's no precedent for that!"

Neil had only meant to take Bliea's side, having grown fond of her these past months, and he'd raised his voice without thinking—but the silence that followed snapped him back to his senses instantly.

Neil's face went groveling in an instant—eye-corners drooping, head tipping up toward Rhodness, pitiful.

"Neil. That's the first useful thing you've said in a while."

"...Sir?"

Contrary to every expectation of a coming scolding—

Rhodness was stroking his chin with an expression that said I never thought you had it in you.

"The Crown Prince's investiture, then. Let's hold it. But arrange it so people leave saying it looked more like the Crown Princess's investiture than mine. Understood?"

"Sir? Your Highness! There's no precedent for holding an investiture like that when the two of you aren't even married yet. The investiture's centerpiece is supposed to be you!"

"Do it anyway. A red-eyed Crown Prince has no precedent either. Adrienne's called a saint now—how about she's the one who sets the crown on my head? How does that sound?"

"Your Highness!"

Vincento's face went the color of ash at the sheer scale of what his lord intended to build even larger.

As always, the cleanup would fall entirely to Vincento.

The official proposal letter arrived from the Imperial Palace.

Gregory, who was staying temporarily at the Grand Ducal estate while still handling household affairs in Bliea's stead, had gone half out of his mind the moment the letter arrived and was already processing the paperwork.

And along with the proposal letter came something for me, rolled into a scroll thick enough to make anyone flinch just looking at it.

Inside was a wedding preparation list and explanation, packed dense from edge to edge, as if it had been waiting for this exact day.

Bliea had started reading with interest at first, then thrown it aside, complaining there was too much text, while Yona and Marge took it up with shining eyes.

"Why is the wedding being held so soon?"

"Even a modest Imperial wedding takes at least a year to prepare, and he wants this done in a month? That's absurd. There's so much to do on our end!"

"Now, now, Marge—look at this. I don't know much, but aren't these things the bride is normally supposed to provide herself?"

"Goodness, he's gone and made up his mind, hasn't he. They've already finished redecorating the late Empress Letina's old palace. And Her Majesty the Empress apparently gave her blessing without a second thought."

I flipped through the list Rhodness had drawn up, dazed.

I'd figured, at best, he'd splurged on this one enormous diamond ring.

Apparently punishing nobles hadn't been the only thing keeping him busy.

"It even looks like the wedding gown is already finished."

"What did you say?"

Madame Leblais, who by now had practically relocated her entire workshop to the estate, came striding over with murder in her eyes.

She huffed through her nose, then suddenly went wide-eyed.

"Wait. This is the gown I started a few months ago—the one I've been pouring my whole heart into?"

"Excuse me—?"

"The client never gave a name, but I was told it was a wedding gown for a princess from some distant kingdom. Budget didn't matter—they wanted the finest in the world, so that's what I've been making. Of course, I was already planning to make my lady's even finer than that one, once I got started on it, but—"

A wedding gown for a "princess" from some distant kingdom?

I pressed both hands to my cheeks, which had gone hot all at once.

I didn't need to explain anything further to Madame Leblais.

"...I think it's mine."

That dress had clearly been commissioned in advance by none other than wicked, wicked Rhodness.