Alfonso couldn’t believe his luck. He thought he wouldn’t be able to meet her, and he had to hold back his feet that wanted to go find her. He walked to fulfill his duty, but the person who appeared in front of him was her. He even thought that God had given him a gift.

“Ari, right?”

A smile also spread across Ariadne’s lips. It was hidden by the mask, but that warm breeze was conveyed to Alfonso as well.

“Yes! How did you end up here?”

The words “What about the Grand Duchess of Larisa?” came up to her throat, but Ariadne didn’t want to let Alfonso know that she was aware of the Grand Duchess of Larisa. It was a struggle to maintain her pride, however little.

‘Since you’re not telling me, I’ll pretend not to know along with you. When everything is resolved, come back to me as if nothing happened.’

Strictly speaking, since Alfonso had never told Ariadne that he liked her, Ariadne thought this was just her own presumptuous thinking.

So she absolutely never spoke her thoughts out loud and kept them tightly wrapped and buried deep in her heart. But the smile that rose on her face and the liveliness that circulated throughout her body as soon as she saw Alfonso couldn’t be hidden no matter how hard she tried.

“I was wandering around the garden and ended up here. I was walking aimlessly and there you were.”

In Alfonso’s mind, Larisa was already erased cleanly. He forgot his mother’s warning as well. They talked about each other’s fine appearance, the masquerade ball, and their future schedules.

“When mid-November comes, the entire court will leave for Taranto. You’ve never been to Taranto before, right?”

“Yes, I heard it’s the hometown of His Eminence the Cardinal and ‘mother’, but I’ve never been there.”

Cardinal De Mare was an orphan, so he had no particular family or estate in Taranto. Lucrezia’s relatives were people better not seen.

Moreover, he was a clergyman belonging to the Holy Congregation in charge of managing the Diocese of San Carlo, so he was not in a position to go down to the southern palace with the Etruscan court even in winter.

“It would be really nice if you could come along too. The Prince’s Palace can send an invitation.”

Having said this much, Alfonso bit his tongue. Ah, it’s not a sure thing.

But he really wanted to go to the southern palace with her.

The scent of the sea felt through the dry air, and the evergreen shrubs that were dark green and olive green, unlike the deciduous trees of the north, unique to the south. He wanted to show her everything.

He wanted to feel proud looking at Ariadne’s eyes that were rounded in surprise at the sight she was seeing for the first time in her life, and he wanted to continue showing her amazing and beautiful things so that her curiosity would not fade.

“An invitation?”

But Ariadne herself tilted her head. The Prince’s Palace would not be in a position to invite an unmarried young lady, an outsider woman, to the southern palace right now.

Alfonso hastily made amends.

“Well, there are various circumstances, so it may be difficult to send invitations in the name of the Prince’s Palace. But my cousin Bianca is in Taranto, you know.”

In front of Ariadne, not wanting to disappoint her, Alfonso revealed his initial idea that he had not even brought up to his secretary Bernardino yet. It was unlike the always cautious Alfonso.

“Bianca of Taranto is the only successor to the leaderless duchy, and she always comes with us to spend time when we go to the southern palace. If you receive an invitation from Bianca, you can naturally visit the palace in Taranto.”

The relationship between Prince Alfonso and Bianca of Taranto was not bad for cousins. Alfonso was a kind cousin brother, and Bianca was a gentle cousin sister.

In other words, it was a relationship where Bianca would be willing to listen to Alfonso’s request to invite Lady De Mare. So, although he had not yet heard Bianca of Taranto’s opinion, Alfonso first threw the idea to Ariadne.

Again, it was very unlike Alfonso’s behavior.

Ariadne smiled brightly. Bianca of Taranto was someone she really wanted to meet too. By then, the Grand Duchess of Valois would have returned to her own country.

“That would be really great! Please invite me!”

While Alfonso and Ariadne were having a friendly conversation at the abandoned fountain, there were two uninvited guests heading towards the abandoned fountain. The first of those uninvited guests was Isabella De Mare.

While being grounded, Isabella was even banned from exchanging letters, so she was only able to contact her friends right before the masquerade ball.

They exchanged letters about where to meet, but due to the tight schedule, the masquerade ball date arrived before a definite conclusion was reached.

Based on the nuance of the letters exchanged until then, Isabella thought the meeting place was the entrance of the grand ballroom. But when Isabella actually went to the entrance of the grand ballroom, Letitia De Leonati and Camellia De Castiglione, whom she was supposed to meet, were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, what Isabella ran into was Julia De Valdesar and the rest of her friends. As luck would have it, they were wearing Colombina masks that only covered half their faces, so it was bad luck to run into them alone.

“…!”

Spotting Isabella from a distance, they covered their faces with fans and began whispering among themselves. At least that’s what Isabella thought they did.

So she couldn’t get close, but she snorted with all her might as if to say, ‘I’m the one ignoring you, not you ignoring me’, covering her mouth with a fan. Then she flutteringly left the grand ballroom.

After leaving the grand ballroom alone, she didn’t want to be seen by others, so she walked aimlessly to a place with few people, and that’s how she ended up here. Isabella sniffled, feeling like she was about to cry for no reason.

‘What a sight for the great Isabella De Mare to be in…!’

She should have just completely wrapped herself up instead of wearing a mask that revealed her face. Then she could have hidden among the crowd…!

But Isabella’s ordeal did not end there. Walking along the garden, stomping her feet in anger, Isabella heard people’s voices ahead and quietly moved, making her demeanor modest.

“…Grapes eaten at the palace in Taranto are truly a delicacy.”

“Really?”

A man and woman were flirting. But not only their voices but also the woman’s outfit was familiar.

‘Ariadne? Prince Alfonso?’

Isabella’s eyes widened for a moment as if they would pop out. It was so annoying she felt like she would die. Isabella hurriedly hid her body behind a shrub block and eavesdropped on their conversation.

“There’s an old vineyard behind the Taranto palace. They say the vines are too old now to harvest for wine, but the grapes that naturally fall from the old trees are the sweetest.”

“Can you eat them after they’ve fallen on the ground?”

“Well, you’re not going to eat the skin anyway, right?”

Isabella listened to their conversation with her ears on fire, plotting to rush out and ruin the reputation of the two if they had even a slightly lewd conversation. But the conversation between Alfonso and Ariadne was as wholesome as could be.

‘Ah, so frustrating!’

In contrast to uninvited guest #1 hiding behind a screen in the garden to eavesdrop on the conversation, uninvited guest #2 boldly walked through the garden and headed straight for the fountain.

Cesare had shown up at the masquerade ball today in the perfect attire of a ‘plague doctor’.

The plague doctor mask had a long beak-like nose that descended, resembling a bird that had risen from hell. Usually the mask was white with nothing drawn on it, but his was made by the Collegioni, so from the eyes, small and elaborate fleur-de-lis patterns were engraved on the entire mask with black enamel and onyx.

The mouth part was wrapped in black velvet cloth, and everything from head to toe was also covered in black and red velvet, making it impossible for anyone to recognize him.

He was confident in his beautiful appearance, but he also wanted to confirm that his popularity was not due to his looks.

For that reason, trying to see if he could still appeal to the opposite sex while wearing a mask that hid his identity was an amusement Cesare tried every year at the St. Michael’s Day masquerade ball.

Moreover, this year he had a more practical reason. Count Cesare had been ignoring and not replying to letters from his female comrades whom he had been in contact with.

Since there were quite a few such people, Count Cesare was worried that he might meet a resentful ‘old friend’ if he attended the ball.

So, in case he ran into a ‘friend’ who was saddened by the lack of reply, Cesare chose an outfit that no one could tell at a glance was Count Cesare.

Still not reassured, Cesare delved into the deserted garden for fear of meeting one of his ‘friends’. The Queen’s Palace side was one of his favorite hiding places.

Before moving into an independent mansion in San Carlo city at the age of 13, young Cesare lived with Countess Rubina in the ‘Mistress’s Quarters’ deep inside San Carlo Palace. When Countess Rubina shouted and got very angry for some reason, as a child he would hide in the Queen’s Palace to avoid his mother’s eyes.

To hide from the all-seeing Countess Rubina, the Queen’s Palace was the safest place.

Moreover, Queen Marguerite thought it was vulgar and beneath a noblewoman’s dignity to mistreat a bastard child.

Even if Cesare was caught freely roaming around inside the Queen’s Palace, no matter how much she hated the six- or seven-year-old boy, Queen Marguerite would at least outwardly admonish the child politely and feed him a snack before sending him back to Rubina.

Every time that happened, Rubina was anxious that her misdeeds had been reported to the Queen by her own son, and young Cesare was delighted that his mean mother who scolded him was being punished, so he repeatedly ran away to the Queen’s Palace.

Young Cesare stopped doing that after Alfonso grew a little older.

One day, when six-year-old Cesare was whipped thirty times with a discipline whip by Countess Rubina for getting three Latin dictations wrong, he ran away to the Queen’s Palace as usual and was playing in the dirt. Meeting Queen Marguerite in the garden of the Queen’s Palace, he blurted out what he had heard through the grapevine.

– “Your Majesty the Queen, they say you are my stepmother? Then can I call you mother too?”

Queen Marguerite replied with a face like a porcelain doll, her expression unreadable, but her voice kind.

– “That depends on whether His Majesty the King will recognize you as his son. Not now.”

Not immediately understanding the implications of those words, Cesare continued to come to the Queen’s Palace afterwards and cling to Queen Marguerite like a pubescent puppy.

Then one day, Cesare saw Leo III taking a walk in the Queen’s Palace garden with Queen Marguerite and young Alfonso, the three of them together.

The atmosphere between Queen Marguerite and Leo III was much colder than that between Rubina and his father, but their attitude toward their son, who was like a golden puppy, was as sweet as dripping honey.

– “Our son! My heir!”

Queen Marguerite was looking at young, incompetent, chubby Alfonso with a face dripping with happiness. It was a kind of gaze she didn’t share with Cesare.

The first to notice Cesare hiding and watching was Leo III, who was lifting Alfonso into the air and playing with him.

– “…!”

He entrusted Alfonso to Queen Marguerite, strode over and slapped Cesare on the cheek.

– Slap!

Cesare, who was suddenly slapped, looked at his father with surprised eyes.

– “Abama…”

– “How dare you come in here!”

Leo III sternly shouted.

– “Go back to your Emmy right away!”

– “I want to play with father and mother too…”

– “Who’s your mother! Who’s your father!”

Leo III seemed very surprised, worried that the young Cesare’s remarks would offend Queen Marguerite, who was standing behind and whose relationship with him was not that bad at the time. He drove Cesare away twice as harshly.

– “Spoiling you has made you not know your place and pounce! I said let’s play house and the kid doesn’t get it! Get lost! This is no place for you!”

Cesare looked at Queen Marguerite with desperate eyes, hoping the benevolent Queen Marguerite would stop Leo III. But Queen Marguerite wasn’t even looking in Cesare’s direction.

Suddenly, young Alfonso began to whine. She was busy comforting young Prince Alfonso, whose eyes were brimming with tears from being suddenly handed to his mother’s arms after having fun playing with his father.

– “Wahhh!”

– “Our son, were you surprised? Don’t cry, there there, our baby.”

There was no warmth to share with Cesare.

All of this belonged to that dazzling golden-haired baby. That plump golden lump took away the loving mother and the kind father.

After that, Cesare became a diligent young son who conformed to Rubina’s unreasonable demands. No matter how terrifyingly his mother scolded him for absurd reasons, his only ally was his mother. He never set foot in the Queen’s Palace again.

Was it because enough time had passed for the scars of the past to settle that he ended up heading towards the Queen’s Palace today? But it seemed he was destined to always face disappointment and frustration whenever he arrived at the Queen’s Palace.

An elegant woman in a golden dress, wearing the mask he had gifted, adorned with the bracelet he had presented, was amiably laughing and holding palms with the man he despised most in the world.