Lucrezia decided to be brazen.

“Yes, he is my nephew from my family. He is Gianobi, the son of my second elder brother, Stefano.”

The Latin teacher Giovanni, who had come before, was a fifth cousin to Lucrezia, but this time it was a closer blood relative. It seemed she was trying to properly take care of him.

Arabella, who had just finished a month of confinement, interjected tactlessly.

“Ah, that ugly brother?”

“You, just shut up and stay quiet.”

Lucrezia growled at Arabella from the head of the table, lowering her voice, and the dejected Arabella covered her nose with her plate and just ate her rice.

“There aren’t many relatives in the house, what else can I do? If there were relatives on my husband’s side, of course I would have brought them, but there aren’t any, so I’m doing this.”

It was a story that subtly pointed out that Cardinal De Mare was an orphan and had no relatives on his paternal side. Sure enough, when Cardinal De Mare heard this story, he did not answer anything and only let out a sigh.

“What is that brother doing these days?”

In response to Isabella’s question, Lucrezia gave a lengthy answer.

Words such as promising future, kind, diligently preparing for the future, etc. came out, but if we summarize it by removing all the embellishments, in the end, he was not a knight, nor a squire, but a servant of a knight.

A servant of a knight learned martial arts from the knight in his spare time, and in return, he did chores such as pulling the horse the knight rode, dressing him in armor, feeding the horse, etc. without pay.

If it was the case of a noble boy from a knight’s family working as a servant of a knight, he would usually be promoted to a squire around the age of twenty, but if it was the son of a family who had been doing other work and was currently working as a servant of a knight, there was really no guarantee of when he would be promoted to a knight.

In most cases, they sucked the backs of their parents for 5 or 10 years, dreaming of being knighted and rising in status.

In other words, when a boy with some money in his family was not smart enough to have a job such as a lawyer or a merchant, but farming and the like were too boring and he didn’t want to do it, he chose this position of a knight’s servant as a way to defer his career choice.

“Isn’t that too low of a rank?”

In the end, Cardinal De Mare couldn’t stand it and made a remark.

It wasn’t something to say to his wife’s nephew, but strictly speaking, Lucrezia’s family wasn’t even a real in-law family, as they had been sucking Cardinal De Mare’s blood for the past 20 years or so. It was only natural that the words didn’t come out nicely.

But from the standpoint of Lucrezia, who actually heard those words, it didn’t seem to be the case. She snapped back, irritated.

“Did I say to marry Gianobi to her? It’s just for him to briefly be her debutante partner! If I don’t make Gianobi do it, do you have any relatives to be her partner instead?!”

When Lucrezia acted like this, it was usually followed by at least three days of a chilly atmosphere, a barrage of nagging, and an attack of lamenting her situation. When that happened, Cardinal De Mare had to walk on eggshells in his own house.

Cardinal De Mare waved his hands, holding his forehead at the oncoming headache.

“Yes, yes, there are no people! It’s all my fault for not having relatives! Do as you please!”

Lucrezia’s ability to take action was remarkable. Her nephew, Gianobi, had already departed from his hometown of Taranto territory a week ago after receiving a message from Lucrezia.

At the time when Lucrezia unilaterally informed Cardinal De Mare that she would bring Gianobi during the lunch of the Cardinal De Mare family, he had already crossed the city boundary of San Carlo.

Arriving at Cardinal De Mare’s residence that afternoon, he was immediately invited to a tea party and introduced to Ariadne.

“I am Gianobi de Rossi, invited by the lady of this house. The mansion is completely magnificent. Wow, have you all been living this luxuriously by yourselves?”

As befitting a son of a family that relied on Lucrezia for all living expenses, Gianobi was a greedy person who did not know gratitude and was good at finding fault.

He was a young man in his early twenties with a short stature, a thick neck, and short arms and legs. His small eyes, cheeks full of flesh, and his chin made him look even younger than his age.

The three sisters, Isabella, Ariadne, and Arabella, sat in the girls’ reception room and looked at this ‘cousin’ with different thoughts.

Arabella was the simplest.

‘He is ugly, as I said.’

Ariadne felt a sense of shallowness in the young man’s appearance.

‘His eyes are turbid.’

Isabella smelled the scent of a fool before Gianobi even properly entered the reception room and sat down.

‘That style. He’ll listen well to me.’

Gianobi had no idea what the three sisters under Cardinal De Mare were thinking as they looked at him, and he greeted his aunt with a triumphant attitude.

“Aunt Lucrezia! This is the first time I’ve seen you since my grandfather’s funeral five or six years ago. Have you been well?”

“Gianobi. I heard you’ve been living diligently these days.”

“Of course.”

Gianobi sat Lucrezia and the sisters down and boasted about himself.

He mainly talked about how great the knights were, who the great knights were recently, what was the topic among the knights, as if he were a knight himself, and despite visiting his uncle the cardinal’s house, he implied that being a knight was a much better profession than a clergyman if knighthood went well, and he was very proud.

After boasting about himself for a while, Gianobi turned his gaze to the sisters.

“Ah, by the way, one of you is the lady I have to take to the debutante.”

He looked the three sisters up and down and dismissed Arabella.

“You’re a complete kid, so not you.”

Arabella’s expression crumpled, as she hated being treated like a child the most.

Turning his gaze to the side, Gianobi’s face brightened up when he saw the pure and delicately beautiful Isabella, but he had also heard some things.

In the De Mare Cardinal family, there was a beautiful eldest daughter who was a treasure, a mediocre new second daughter, and the original youngest daughter.

Taranto was located at the very southern end of the territory, so the story of the ‘girl who sees through the truth’, which was ringing loudly in San Carlo, seemed to have not been delivered yet.

Even Gianobi, who was not good at self-objectification, knew that the eldest daughter, who was famous for her beauty, was not his match. His date for today was not the beautiful eldest daughter, but the second daughter who was said to be dull.

Gianobi, who licked his lips in disappointment, extended his right hand to Ariadne. It meant for her to place her left hand on top of his hand for a hand-kissing.

“It must be you. Gianobi de Rossi. Your cousin brother.”

Ariadne’s left eyebrow rose high into the sky. Sancha’s two eyes, who was standing behind, also spewed green light. If it weren’t for Lucrezia, Sancha might have hit Gianobi with a tray.

Ariadne hid both hands behind her back. Gianobi’s right hand, which was stretched out in front, was left alone in the air, embarrassed.

“The hand is a bit…”

With her mouth, she politely conveyed a protest, saying ‘Are you short-spoken?’ Gianobi was Lucrezia’s nephew, and he was practically a stranger to Ariadne, who did not share blood with Lucrezia. They were not in a relationship to speak comfortably at the first meeting.

However, Gianobi’s tone changed to a quarrelsome one, perhaps because he was offended that his gesture of kissing her hand was ignored.

“Our aunt! Huh? She’s your mother, so I’m your cousin brother, right. Hey, can’t a cousin brother speak comfortably to a cousin sister?”

It was an attitude that called for a fight, but in principle, everything Gianobi said was correct.

In San Carlo, it was a virtue for an acknowledged illegitimate child to regard the legal wife as their own mother and act accordingly, and it was courtesy for those around them to act as if the illegitimate child was truly the child of the legal wife.

The problem was that hand-kissing had a sexual nuance, so it was not done between real relatives. Despite talking about being a cousin brother, rushing to do a hand-kissing had a very impure intention.

Ariadne gritted her teeth, smiled, and nodded.

“Gianobi oppa. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s do the hand-kissing next time when I’m not wearing gloves.”

It was etiquette for a gentleman not to request a hand-kissing when the lady was not wearing gloves.

If a hand-kissing inevitably had to be done when the lady’s hands were bare, it was manners to do it in the air without the lips and hands touching, but judging from Gianobi’s behavior, it seemed he would not observe such manners at all.

However, if she pointed out his mistake, the guy in front of her eyes would obviously make a fuss, saying, ‘I was going to kiss in the air, of course, what do you take me for?’

Ariadne decided to overlook it magnanimously, thinking that she was just a sensitive person rather than engaging in petty quarrels.

But Lucrezia was not the kind of person to not add a word to it.

“What’s with the hand-kissing, why are you being so fussy with family members. Gianobi oppa must be disappointed.”

“Ariadne is a bit blunt. If she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like it, and she doesn’t consider other people’s circumstances. She has no flexibility at all, that girl.”

Isabella, her mother’s soul mate, intervened and joined in making Ariadne a strange person. If she sat here any longer, it seemed she would not be able to have a good time. Ariadne decided to attempt a quick escape.

“I will be back in a moment…”

Ariadne excused herself, saying she would go to the restroom for a while. She was going to lock herself in the restroom for about an hour and then slowly return.

Seeing Ariadne getting up from her seat, Gianobi clicked his tongue.

“Wow. You’re really tall.”

Ariadne turned to look at Gianobi at the unpleasant sound.

After entering Cardinal De Mare’s residence, Ariadne restrained her diet to the extreme, but she still grew tall like a water-soaked bamboo, already reaching 3 piedi 10 dito (about 166 centimeters). It was quite tall for her age.

Gianobi, who would walk in together at the ball as Ariadne’s debutante partner and dance the first dance with her, happened to be small even for his age.

“You’re wearing heels even though you’re that tall?”

Ariadne unconsciously looked down at her shoes. They were shoes with low heels about 1 dito (3.6 centimeters) high.

“I’ll give you a piece of advice since I’m your cousin brother. Listen well.”

Gianobi began a long speech in a triumphant manner, as if he were giving out an incredibly important secret tip that no one asked for.

“These days, women think it’s okay as long as they stand out, right? So they wear high heels and all that, but that’s really inconsiderate. A woman who knows how to make the man next to her stand out is the one who truly stands out.”

Gianobi said boastfully.

“Wear shoes without heels on the day. A truly wise woman should do that.”

Lucrezia was looking at this scene with a satisfied face, and Isabella was holding her belly button and enjoying it like watching a fire across the river.

Only Arabella, Sancha, and Ariadne were on one side, staring blankly at Gianobi as if looking at something disgusting.

Ariadne still managed to smile gracefully at everyone, including Gianobi, and succeeded in leaving the room.

As soon as the reception room door closed with a thud, Ariadne’s smiling face turned sour.

She abandoned the idea of returning in an hour, and told Sancha, who followed her out, to inform them in 15 minutes that Lady Ariadne was not feeling well and could not have more tea today, and then she said with a stiff expression.

“I tolerate most things, but this seems a bit off.”

“Yes. I think it’s off too, my lady.”

A servant sent by the butler arrived to inform Ariadne, who had returned to her study, that a letter had arrived. The envelope the servant brought had a golden decoration drawn on it and was sealed with a red wax stamped with the initials AFC.

“It’s from the prince, my lady.”

“The answer is obvious.”

Ariadne and Sancha looked at each other’s faces and nodded.