As neither the King nor the Grand Duke opened their mouths, the nobles also couldn’t speak freely and remained silent.

Floyd was tilting his head halfway and drinking tea, thoroughly enjoying this awkward atmosphere surrounding him. Suddenly, as his lips curved up slightly, his ash-gray eyes turned towards Lucas.

“Ah, Crown Prince. I heard you got married? The wedding was so quiet that I didn’t even know about it. If I had known, I would have sent a nice gift.”

Lucas’s face contorted. Barely holding back the urge to spit out curses, Lucas replied.

“I heard the Grand Duke spent an enormous amount of money on just an engagement ceremony. Isn’t that too extravagant? I know you’re rich, but you should act like a nouveau riche in moderation.”

“Oh, did that seem extravagant? I thought I held it modestly, but I didn’t consider that it might appear lavish to the Crown Prince’s eyes.”

Saying this in a roundabout way to mean ‘It’s not much money to me, but it seems enormous to you’, Floyd added with a charming smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“Bastard.”

Though muttered very softly, the garden was so quiet that the nobles at nearby tables heard it. The nobles who heard the Crown Prince’s vulgar curse turned pale, pretending not to have heard as they lifted their teacups.

“Picking up a woman someone else threw away, and even getting engaged to her, of all things.”

Despite the knife-like criticism, Floyd’s smile didn’t crumble.

“If you put it that way, the Crown Princess is the same. Didn’t she take a man thrown away from here and marry him?”

Lucas’s voice was low, but Floyd didn’t lower his. Because of that, now even the nobles far away noticed what conversation was taking place at the royal table.

Elise’s face turned red, and Lucas clenched his fist.

“Who threw away whom? Do you think that thing could have thrown me away? I was the one who threw her away.”

“Ah. Then you have terrible judgment. To throw away a princess and get in return only…”

Floyd didn’t finish his sentence and glanced at Elise, then shrugged. But since it was clear what he was going to say, Lucas stood up abruptly.

“This is incredibly rude! How dare you to a country’s Crown Princess!”

“To the Crown Princess?”

Floyd tilted his head to the side.

“What did I do to the Crown Princess?”

Lucas was at a loss for words. He couldn’t continue the words Floyd had swallowed.

“Please sit down, Your Highness.”

Christine reached out to grab Lucas’s sleeve and whispered softly.

“Please just sit quietly.”

Lucas sat back down in his chair, grinding his teeth. He tried to act as if he was fine, but the flush on his face didn’t subside. Floyd sat cross-legged and sideways, enjoying the view of Lucas’s face with great pleasure.

“Grand Duke, did you come here to fight?”

Christine asked gently.

“Of course not. I came to congratulate, but the person to be congratulated is acting up for some annoying reason, so what am I supposed to do? I can only act up along with him.”

“Acting up!”

As Lucas tried to stand up again, this time Elise pressed down on his thigh to make him sit. Then she said, as if intending for him to hear.

“Your Highness, you, the Crown Prince of Gania, are elegant just by existing, so is there any need to deal with such a vulgar person? Let that person spout crude curses alone.”

Even at the words insulting him, Floyd didn’t erase his smile. He sat with his arms crossed and nodded greatly as if deeply agreeing with Elise’s words, and said.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m a frivolous, vulgar, and uneducated guy, so I’ll keep spouting curses here, and the Crown Prince should please sit with his tail tucked like a dog that lost a fight and just listen to my curses.”

Fearing Lucas might get angry again, this time Christine preempted.

“This is really unbearable, Grand Duke!”

“Bear it, Queen. Try to bear it. What will you do if you don’t bear it?”

A heat haze shimmered around Floyd. Even the nobles at the next table felt the heat flowing from him. Floyd glared at Christine with darkly sunken eyes.

Christine once again realized that Floyd was no longer the young boy who trembled and cried while enduring harsh punishments to save his mother.

“The Grand Duke of Torkan personally came to congratulate the Crown Prince, so you should endure and accept the congratulations. I endured the Queen, so the Queen should endure me too. Isn’t that fair?”

Christine gripped the armrests of her chair tightly.

She had already confirmed the military force Floyd brought when entering Gania. He did bring the five wing commanders of the Ratean Grand Duke’s knights and a few knights, but it was far too few to face a country.

She thought Floyd wouldn’t cause a big incident here, but seeing his ominously sunken ash-gray eyes, she couldn’t be certain of her thoughts. Floyd might not be able to face all of Gania’s forces, but he could at least kill all the members of the Pelur royal family present here.

Cold sweat ran down her spine.

Christine, who once wielded Floyd with the power to take away everything from him, now found herself in a position where she could barely breathe in front of Floyd, who had the power to take away everything from her.

At that moment, Roxiana lightly placed her hand on Floyd’s arm.

“Stop it. Okay? We came to congratulate, so let’s just congratulate.”

As she gently coaxed him, the heat subsided instantly. The people who had been terrified finally breathed sighs of relief, earnestly praying for this occasion to end quickly.

Lucas, who had turned pale due to Floyd’s power and was preparing to flee by pushing his chair back, slowly pulled his chair forward as the heat completely dissipated. Elise looked at Lucas in disbelief.

‘To try to escape alone. He should take care of me first!’

At that moment, Roxiana spoke.

“Come to think of it, Crown Princess. I heard you’re with child?”

Elise felt her heart sink. She didn’t want to bring up the pregnancy now. Roxiana might have heard the rumors circulating. It shouldn’t reach Lucas’s ears now when nothing was prepared.

Elise forced a smile at the corners of her mouth, hoping that Ranian would handle things quickly.

“Yes, thankfully.”

“Congratulations. If the child takes after the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, it will surely be a very beautiful child. I wonder if it will have blonde hair like the Crown Prince or auburn like the Crown Princess.”

“Yes, I’m very curious too.”

Elise spoke as if nothing was wrong while picking up her teacup. After drinking the half-cooled tea in one gulp, Elise discreetly checked Christine’s face. Christine was staring at Elise with a strange expression.

‘It’s Lucas and my child.’

Elise gently placed her hand on her belly.

‘This child is royalty. It must be royalty.’

She tried to remember if there was a blonde among the men she had been intimate with. One or two might have been blonde, though duller than the Crown Prince’s. Lucas grinned and wrapped his arm around Elise’s shoulders, looking at Roxiana.

“Of course it will be beautiful. The Crown Princess is small and fairy-like, so a very pretty child will be born.”

Floyd laughed.

“That’s right. The couple is petite, so a very small and pretty child will be born.”

Lucas, who had always been self-conscious about his small stature, couldn’t bear that moment that should have been laughed off.

“Floyd, you dirty bastard who picks up what others have dropped, how dare you spout nonsense! What’s so good about sitting next to a woman as tall as a telephone pole! Ah, did you think I’d be upset seeing you next to the woman I threw away? What should I do about this? I wouldn’t take such a giant-like woman even if given for free!”

The nobles, surprised by Lucas’s behavior, held their breath and watched Floyd and Roxiana’s reactions.

It was true that Roxiana’s height was excessively tall, as Gania valued petite women as beautiful. But to say such things to her face.

Moreover, throwing away Roxiana was not something to be proud of. Lucas had betrayed his fiancée and stabbed her family in the heart. Now that this tragedy was known to the world, it would have been right for Lucas to back down.

Joseph V and Christine sighed with pale faces, and Elise bit back a smile, finding Roxiana’s situation amusing. And Floyd laughed out loud.

“You say my fiancée is tall? Well.”

Floyd stood up abruptly. For a moment, it seemed as if his huge body filled the entire wide garden.

He took Roxiana’s hand to make her stand, wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her close, and said.

“She’s small. Very.”

It really was so.

Even though Roxiana wore high-heeled shoes, she was much shorter than Floyd and slender enough to fit snugly in his arms. His thick forearms made her waist look even slimmer.

Floyd looked down at Roxiana with narrowed eyes as if gazing at a brilliant sun, then kissed the top of her head.

It was polite not to show affection in front of others, but no one could point out his actions that seemed as if he couldn’t bear how lovable Roxiana was.

Floyd lightly brushed Roxiana’s hair, tucking it behind her ear, and when his eyes met Lucas’s, whose face had turned bright red, he lowered the ends of his eyebrows as if regretful.

“Ah, she might have been too big for the Crown Prince.”

“You bastard!”

“Stop!”

Christine shouted sharply. Lucas, who had jumped up, came to his senses as if whipped and looked around.

He had forgotten where he was and how many eyes were watching, blinded by anger. The nobles were looking at Lucas with very bewildered eyes.

They seemed at a loss for how to take and react to their Crown Prince repeatedly failing to provoke Floyd.