“De Mare’s young lady! You’re early.”

Octavio de Contarini, who had already arrived, greeted Isabella warmly. It was quicker than he greeted Camellia, Isabella’s friend, or even Letizia de Leonati, the host of the party today.

Isabella accepted Octavio de Contarini’s greeting with a radiant smile on her beautiful face.

“Isabella. Please call me Isabella. What is there to say about family names between us?”

“Would that be okay, beautiful Isabella?”

Camellia de Castiglione, who saw the engaged couple whispering to each other, clenched her fan tightly, but there was no one to help her.

“Oh my, Isabella!”

“Letizia.”

The hostess, Letizia de Leonati’s young lady, also warmly greeted Isabella.

Isabella accepted her friends’ greetings with a smile on her face.

‘See? Julia de Valdesar. No matter how much of a young lady you are, people like me better.’

However, Julia de Valdesar, the young lady herself, did not seem to be impressed by Isabella’s power show.

She had seen Camellia shivering as Isabella stole her fiancé’s attention, but she did not pay much attention to it and handed her shawl to a handsome domestic.

Despite her father’s high position, he was a court aristocrat with no base in the provinces, so he had to maintain a good relationship with the metropolitan archbishop.

Julia saw the foolish antics Isabella was causing, but she didn’t intend to interfere, and she certainly had no intention of helping Camellia, who was of the same ilk as Isabella.

Julia de Valdesar, who was leisurely scanning the guest list, once again caught sight of the earlier domestic.

‘He really is handsome.’

He was a servant who was too handsome to be employed by the Leonati baronage.

‘Even if he was in the royal palace, not a baron’s house, his beauty wouldn’t be strange. Why is he working in a place like this?’

Julia de Valdesar vowed to ask Letizia de Leonati about the domestic’s background later.

That opportunity came sooner than expected.

“He’s a domestic who recently started working at our house.”

Lady Leonati pointed to the handsome male servant with her chin.

Even if he was a servant, she should at least call him by his name, but seeing her only point with her chin, the Leonati’s house didn’t seem to be a place that cared for its employees as humans.

“He’s originally from the Gallic Kingdom, but he had to immigrate to Etruscan in a hurry.”

Octavio seemed to frown slightly.

“After the death of the former king of Gallic two years ago, many people were expelled from the Gallic Kingdom for treason.”

Octavio looked at the extremely handsome domestic with an unfriendly gaze.

“Could he be a rebel who fled to the Etruscan Kingdom?”

“Oh my, is a noble working as a domestic in Letizia’s house?”

Isabella laughed out loud.

“Serving a noble, it feels like I’ve become royalty.”

Octavio meant to say that the servant could be part of a rebel group and that they should keep their distance and expel him, but Isabella didn’t care at all about the ‘important political implications’ or ‘rebel group’ that Octavio was talking about.

She was completely focused on the possibility that the handsome domestic might be a noble.

Lady Leonati, superficial as she was, felt the same way.

“If he’s a noble, it explains a lot. He speaks both Etruscan and Latin, being from Gallic. He’s wellmannered and knows poetry. He’s handsome and smart for a servant, which is nice. And elegant too.”

Unable to suppress her curiosity, Julia asked Lady Leonati.

“What is his name?”

“…Francis.”

“An unusually elegant name for a commoner.”

Octavio, who couldn’t hide his displeasure, abruptly intervened. Isabella, with a lovely smile in her eyes, scratched Octavio’s irritating spot.

“For a commoner, she looked too much like a courtesan—.”

Isabella, sitting next to her, glanced at Camellia and looked her up and down.

“Our Camellia, you came in a pretty dress we haven’t seen before today, did you dress up a lot after getting a tip from Leticia about a handsome domestic coming?”

Camellia de Castiglione was so surprised that she waved her hands.

“No, what am I to do. I really didn’t know, I had no idea there was such a handsome domestic in the House of Leonati.”

“Oh my. So, Camellia also thinks that domestic is handsome?”

Isabella’s power of persistence was not ordinary. The young Lady Leonati was already very good at assisting Isabella.

“What are you talking about, Camellia. Didn’t I mention in my last letter that we have a new very handsome domestic in our house, and that you should come and see him next time?”

At Lady Leonati’s words, the young lords and ladies seated around them teased Camellia raucously.

“Are you lying because you’re embarrassed?”

“Lady Castiglione, you shouldn’t do that with your fiancé beside you!”

Camellia’s face turned bright red, and the young people teased her once more, saying that she was embarrassed, and Octavio’s face, her fiancé, went from red to blue.