Later, the day of Princess Cassandra’s birthday celebration approached.
‘I don’t like things that are too flowy because they’re uncomfortable to move in… But it’s awkward to wear something casual to a royal palace celebration.’
I was choosing which dress to wear.
“Young lady. Lord Rowe is waiting outside.”
“He’s here already?”
Mary, who had entered the dressing room, delivered the news that Jade had arrived.
‘Why did he come so early?’
I went to the window and looked outside.
I could see Jade and Blanche standing, leaning against the carriage.
‘When did Blanche go out? She seems happy to see Jade after a long time.’
Blanche, who was beside him, was jumping up and down excitedly.
“Hoho, Blanche said you can take your time getting ready since she’s with him.”
“Let’s choose the dress first, Mary.”
“Yes, young lady. Which dress will you wear?”
Due to Jade’s unexpectedly early arrival, I didn’t have the leisure to keep pondering.
“Since the weather’s getting warmer, something that shows the shoulders would be good. I’ll go with this one.”
I chose a silk dress with pearl chains along the hem, giving an elegant feel.
The dress was dyed in a soft blue color.
“It matches your eye color well, young lady! Of course… when you wear the pendant, your eyes will turn pink.”
Mary expressed regret as she fastened the pendant around my neck.
“Oh my, young lady. It seems you’ve lost more weight than last month.”
Mary worried as she tightened my corset behind a partition.
“It’s summer. The heat makes me lose my appetite. I’ll probably gain it back soon.”
After finishing my hair by braiding and pinning it up, I went outside.
“My lord! You look amazing today! Where are you going?”
“To the palace. There’s a celebration.”
I heard Blanche and Jade’s voices near the carriage parked in front of the main gate.
“Oh, it’s Mom!”
“Lady Blanche! Don’t hug the young lady too tightly! You’ll wrinkle her dress!”
Blanche, who was running towards me, slowed down at Mary’s cry and hugged me carefully.
“Hehe, Mom is so pretty today! Like a fairy living in the sea!”
“Thank you, my baby.”
I patted Blanche’s cheeks a couple of times and looked up at Jade.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen that look.’
Jade, with all his bangs swept up, was in a blue formal uniform.
It was refreshing to see him dressed up from head to toe after so long.
“Oh my, you two. Did you coordinate your outfits? The only difference is the shade, they match exquisitely.”
Mary smiled, looking back and forth between Jade and me.
“Th-There’s no way, Mary. I just picked this in a hurry earlier.”
“Larien.”
More than that, Jade seemed to have something he didn’t like.
‘Why is he acting like that again?’
His voice calling my name was darker than usual.
“Can’t you wear a different dress?”
“Jade. It’s just showing a bit of shoulder.”
He seemed displeased with the shoulder-baring design.
Changing the dress now would delay us.
It’s not even that revealing, rather it just emphasizes the shoulder line.
“Let’s go quickly, Jade.”
“……”
Jade still showed his displeasure without answering.
‘He’s so narrow-minded. And what business is it of his what I want to wear?’
Blanche jumped up trying to get into the carriage.
“Blanche!”
Jade caught Blanche in mid-air and set her down lightly.
“Shu Shu wants to go too! Mom, take Shu Shu with you!”
“You can’t go.”
“Why not!”
Blanche puffed out her cheeks and glared at him.
“Do you have an invitation?”
Jade pulled out an invitation stamped with the royal crest from inside.
“Aw, Shu Shu doesn’t have one of those…”
“Blanche. You need an invitation to attend today’s celebration, what should we do?”
I tried to soothe Blanche, who was stomping her feet, and signaled to Mary with my eyes.
“Mary, macarons.”
“Ah, that’s right! Lady Blanche. I’ll give you macarons. Come inside now.”
Fortunately, Blanche was persuaded by Mary’s offer of macarons.
“Macarons? Okay!”
Blanche, who answered energetically, tugged on Jade’s leg.
“My lord. What do I have to do to get an invitation?”
“When you grow a bit more, and reach the age where you have to attend celebrations even if you don’t want to.”
“Then how many nights do I have to sleep?”
“How many nights, you ask?”
At Blanche’s question, Jade mumbled some numbers.
‘He’s going to calculate that again.’
It was his habit whenever he did mental arithmetic.
“It’s about 12 years until your debut, so roughly 4,380 days.”
“Shu Shu can’t count past 100 days…!”
At his answer, Blanche sat down on the ground, planting her hands.
“Then you can count to 100, 44 times.”
“Not that, isn’t there a slightly different way? How can I grow taller quickly?”
She looked like she would follow whatever method Jade told her.
“Jade, tell her eating carrots will work.”
I whispered softly in Jade’s ear, trying to correct her picky eating habits of disliking carrots.
“…Eating carrots might make you grow faster.”
Hearing my words, Jade recited with his eyebrows raised.
“C-Carrots? But I hate carrots! Shu Shu won’t eat carrots even if she goes to the Carrot Kingdom!”
Blanche grabbed her pigtails in disappointment.
“There’s no such thing as a Carrot Kingdom.”
“Yes, there is! The carrot knight from the Carrot Kingdom might come and make Shu Shu eat carrots! You don’t know that, and you’re telling me to eat carrots! You’re mean!”
Blanche, who started to cry while speaking, ran into the mansion.
I signaled Mary with my eyes to follow her.
“The one who should be called mean isn’t me, but you, Larien.”
Jade, who seemed dumbfounded, chuckled and helped me into the carriage.
“More than that, isn’t the Carrot Kingdom so cute? Last time, she said she was hiding the carrots in the potage by covering them with a blanket.”
The smile on my face wouldn’t stop because of Blanche, then I saw Jade’s body shaking.
‘He reacts right away when the carriage starts moving.’
He didn’t seem to get used to riding in carriages lately, even though he kept doing it.
‘We can’t go to the palace in beast form, so.’
It was pitiful to see him trying to endure by clenching his fists.
“Jade, are you okay?”
“…No. Larien, hold my hand please.”
“Alright.”
When I held Jade’s left hand, he interlaced our fingers diagonally.
“Jade. I said to hold hands, not interlock fingers.”
“This or that, it’s the same.”
He showed a sly smile and gripped tightly.
‘Since it’s uncomfortable to see him trembling like before, I’ll just leave it.’
Warmth spread to his hand that had been cold.
‘Come to think of it, his hand is really big, white, and slender.’
With our fingers interlocked like this, the size difference was obvious.
“But, Larien. Why are you trying to make the child eat carrots when she hates them?”
“If she dislikes carrots and becomes a picky eater, she might not eat other vegetables with similar textures.”
“Hmm, if I remember correctly… didn’t you hate carrots when you were young too?”
I was annoyed that he brought up my childhood, so I pulled my hand away.
“When did I ever. You must be thinking of yourself.”
“…Have you forgotten? Blanche takes after you.”
Jade crossed one leg and spoke in a low voice.
“She doesn’t resemble me at all. If she hadn’t manifested as a wolf, I might never have known she was my daughter.”
I was surprised by Jade’s words that she didn’t resemble him at all.
“No. You just don’t know. She may look similar to me, but you don’t know how much Blanche resembles you.”
“How… does that kid resemble me?”
“She’s left-handed like you. And, the way her mouth becomes round when she smiles…”
…is like Ayla’s.
‘Come to think of it, is being left-handed the only thing she inherited from Jade?’
As I tried to recall the similarities between Blanche and Jade, I thought of one thing.
“Ah, personality!”
“Personality?”
“Your personalities are subtly similar.”
Of course, Blanche was relatively better. Once you taught her something, she understood and corrected it right away.
‘But she often talks like Jade.’
Like saying her friends are noisy and stupid. Or taking control of the conversation to get what she wants.
“…Of all things to resemble.”
Knowing that his personality wasn’t good, he clicked his tongue.
“The celebration hall is the Diamond Hall, right?”
“Yes.”
The carriage was entering the palace grounds, heading towards the celebration hall.
Jade took out black leather gloves from his jacket and put them on.
“Jade, aren’t you hot?”
“Our hands might brush against each other there.”
I wondered why he was wearing them in this heat, but I understood immediately.
It was to avoid touching people as much as possible.
[This is the timeline separator]At the entrance of the Diamond Hall, the palace celebration venue.
The attendant who checked Jade’s invitation cleared his throat to announce our entrance.
‘Even though I attended Ayla’s wedding from the back, it’s been a while since I’ve come to a palace celebration.’
My throat went dry from nervousness and my heart started beating faster.
“Larien.”
“…Huh?”
“Take my arm.”
Jade took my hand and made me link arms with him.
My heart beat even faster against his firm arm.
“Entering Duke Jade Rowe and Countess Diane Boston!”
As the doors opened wide on both sides, the gazes of those inside were fixed on us.
“Oh my, were Rowe and Boston close? I didn’t know you two would come as partners.”
“The Boston count’s daughter was the flower girl at the duke’s sister’s wedding, wasn’t she?”
I could hear all the murmurs speaking with interested looks.
“Isn’t this the first time the duke has brought someone as a partner besides the Belaste princess?”
Male lead is a Destined Young Husband (Female-dominant)
One-sentence summary: Wife-master, listen to my explanation!
Li Ruantang, a young lady from a prestigious family, stumbled and fell. When she woke up, she saw a noble and beautiful young man sitting by her bedside, wiping away tears.
The young master had slightly reddened eyes, and his every move exuded charm.
The sight made Li Ruantang’s eyes hot and her heart flutter. After all, she had made a bet with the young master Meng from the neighboring family. If she couldn’t marry a husband before the end of the year, she would have to admit defeat and give up the jade she had worked so hard to obtain.
Outside the window, the flowers were in full bloom.
Rather than losing the bet, the jade, and her face, Li Ruantang calculated that it would be better to seek marriage with the young master in front of her, killing three birds with one stone.
…
Meng Jun never thought that an accident during a spring outing would lead to them rolling down a cliff and into a river, yet still survive.
Now they were trapped in an unknown village, and Meng Jun had overheard that the family who had rescued them had their own intentions.
After all, it was Li Ruantang who had lost her mind and sought marriage first. He was only trying to protect himself!
Glancing at Li Ruantang, who was listing her own merits, the young husband’s voice softened, and he blushed as he lied, “W-wife-master, Wife-master, don’t you remember me?”
The young husband’s voice was clear and handsome, coaxing Li Ruantang’s heart to be soft and sweet, and she spared no effort to protect him.
It wasn’t until they returned to the capital that Li Ruantang suddenly remembered.
When they had fallen off the cliff, in order not to implicate Wei Yunruo, whom he secretly admired, the young husband had instead pulled her, who was slightly farther away, down the cliff with him…
Short summary by Yuushi L: Initially, the male lead (ML) liked another girl, while the female lead (FL) liked the ML. Both fell off a cliff. The FL temporarily lost her memory, and the ML, fearing others might take advantage of him, claimed FL was his wife while they were staying in a village. Later, when they returned home, the FL regained her memories and remembered that the ML liked someone else, so she kept her distance from him. However, during their time living together in the countryside, the ML’s view of the FL had completely changed. From this point, his pursuit of the FL begins.
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