The golden eyes she met were a little different from the emotion she had just felt.
“I may have the Word of Command and can subdue things by force, but you have no escort, nothing at all.”
At the unexpected answer, Liselotte’s eyes widened.
Of course, no. From the start, she had never even considered that she herself was included in the reason he opposed it.
In her surprise, a brief silence settled.
Beyond the inner doors, voices mixed with the faintly resonating orchestra music filled the terrace dimly.
The hazy night air and the brilliant lights of the Great Hall reflected through the windows outlined him clearly even in the darkness.
She looked at him quietly.
His slightly furrowed eyes met hers clearly.
‘So, right now…’
“…You were worried about me?”
At Liselotte’s question, his brow creased briefly.
“It is only natural for a husband to worry about his wife. And you are a bit…”
He lightly swept his gaze over Liselotte’s face.
“Very small.”
After a short pause, that was the carefully chosen line he came up with.
She could roughly guess the countless words that must have passed in that gap.
“Just be honest and say I’m weak.”
“Not to the point of being weak.”
“Sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword, you know.”
“A pen is not a self-defense weapon.”
“The nib of a fountain pen is sharp too. If I stabbed someone with it, at the very least I would go to trial for injury. Since it’d be a first offense, I probably wouldn’t get a sentence, though?”
“You cannot sever an arm with that.”
“Oh, are we really taking it that far?”
She was sure that when she had read the novel, it had been rated suitable for all ages.
When she refused to back down, he seriously rubbed his chin.
His intention to somehow persuade her with words was admirable, but since he took things literally, his chances of winning were not very high.
Perhaps because he had only ever dealt with subjugations, he tended to take everything at face value.
Though he seemed unaware of it.
It wasn’t that he had no worries.
Part of what he said was correct. Eren was rather large, and Liselotte was small in comparison.
People of the North were basically big-boned. Perhaps because of that, even Marsha was taller than Liselotte.
In the Capital, she was on the average side, but in the North, she oddly fell into the particularly small category.
Hiring outsiders had diluted it somewhat, but the average build of the Keilos household was still larger than hers.
That basic difference was probably also why they endured the cold so well.
On top of that, she had exaggerated and complained as an excuse, so misunderstandings were bound to pile up…
Liselotte planted both hands on her waist.
Squaring her shoulders bravely, she asserted herself confidently.
“This is me fully grown. Accept it.”
“If he puts his mind to it, you won’t be able to take a single punch.”
“You heard it earlier, right? As long as I don’t give him bread, I win.”
“There are ways to kill people other than brute force.”
He did not look like he intended to back down.
Neither did she.
‘Seriously. You cannot exactly argue with someone who says he’s worried about you.’
Fine. Since it was his household, Liselotte decided to take a step back.
“If you are really worried, how about making it temporary while we are in the Capital?”
Liselotte looked up at him with eyes full of anticipation.
This much should be within the range of something they could agree on.
She clasped both hands tightly together, mustering her whole soul.
“I will always stay in the safest place.”
“Is there such a place?”
Liselotte pointed at him.
“By the Grand Duke’s side.”
‘Haha! With this, he won’t be able to refute it!’
Had he not said himself that he could handle things?
In any case, in the Capital, she planned to show as harmonious an appearance as possible.
At the very least, it would be more than enough to quiet the rumors stirred up by her prolonged war of nerves with Diana, so was it not killing two birds with one stone?
After briefly knitting his brows and thinking it over, he asked again seriously.
“It sounds like you are saying you will take me with you everywhere.”
“That wording is a bit off. Let’s call it accompanying each other, shall we? It is not as if Your Highness is being dragged around.”
“Sometimes, when I talk with you, it feels as though I am being dragged along.”
“Thank you! That means I am doing very well.”
Liselotte placed a hand over her chest for all to see, lifted the hem of her dress with the other, and gently bowed her head.
“How very irritating.”
A brief staring contest ensued.
In the fierce battle where neither yielded an inch, Liselotte shamelessly winked one eye.
In the end, the staring contest concluded with Eren letting out a sigh.
“Haah… All right.”
“Wow!”
Unlike her who burst into cheers, he remained firm.
“However, I will have the contract notarized with a Word of Command.”
“I accept! If anything seems suspicious, you may even kill him on the spot, Northern-style.”
She was that confident about Hedmilton.
Only then did some of the tension leave Eren’s eyes.
“Shall we write the contract now?”
Afraid he might change his mind, Liselotte quickly opened the inner doors.
Calling over a passing maid, she said quietly.
“Could you bring some paper and a pen? Not letter paper.”
“Yes, I will bring it right away, Your Highness.”
The maid, who had been trembling since the moment she was called, crossed the banquet hall at a quick pace, her face deathly pale.
Someone’s gaze followed the hurried-looking maid, so out of place with the warm atmosphere inside the Great Hall.
The gaze clung persistently, all the way until the moment she opened the door used by the staff and slipped out, as if being chased.
It was Valen, among the group that had been watching since the moment Hedmilton bowed his head to Liselotte.
He wondered what kind of trouble she had stirred up this time. Since she tended to raise her voice at every banquet, he assumed this was one of those incidents again.
‘But it is too quiet for that.’
He gave Hedmilton, who had ended up as Jeyord’s vacant armrest, a once-over.
They had never spoken directly, but thanks to Diana, it was a familiar face.
The nobles were casually bringing up the recent rumors about the East, but none of it reached his ears.
He cast a sideways glance at the inner doors leading to the terrace.
For some reason, Liselotte was smiling brightly as she talked with Eren.
At her peals of laughter, Eren responded with something in an even tone.
It was an expression he had never seen before.
Unable to believe it, his face twisted sharply as he stared intently at the scene.
***
“This is a temporary contract stating that you will be hired as an aide only while we are in the Capital.”
Having summoned Hedmilton to a waiting room, Liselotte held out the contract she had just finished writing on the table.
Eren, seated in the seat of honor, watched the entire process with a rigid expression, like a gatekeeper.
Perhaps worried that the golden eyes staring holes into Hedmilton might feel oppressive, she continued speaking at length.
“Your salary will be paid properly. The termination benefits will come out on the day the temporary contract ends.”
Hedmilton skimmed over the contract at a glance, then took out a fountain pen from his breast pocket and signed it.
At his attitude of not even properly reading it, she was horrified.
“No, Hedmilton! A contract is something you should doubt and read thousands of times! You should assume anyone handing you a contract is a swindler!”
“You wrote it, Your Highness.”
At that utterly contextless trust, Liselotte felt like she was about to collapse, clutching the back of her neck.
She covered her mouth in shock.
“Do you even know what I might have written in the contract?!”
Most of the contents were probably fine, but she had filled the termination clauses rather densely.
And if even the slightest harm were to come to Liselotte or House Keilos, the Word of Command attached to the contract would activate.
It would automatically dissipate upon termination of the contract, but it was still an unsettling issue.
However, Hedmilton showed not a shred of doubt and was remarkably clear-cut.
“It is fine. You are even providing treatment for my grandmother with the High Priest, something I could never dream of affording on my salary. That is enough for me.”
Hoo… Liselotte quietly reached out and tapped his shoulder with one hand.
Rarely this serious, she compressed what she wanted to say and delivered it as if squeezing it into a single sentence.
“It is a contract that says if you betray the North, you die on the spot.”
Hedmilton, for his part, merely blinked and tilted his head.
“My life is linked to my body, is it not? I said I would repay you with it, so that’s not wrong, is it?”
