Before Bonita could shut her mouth, Olivia replied brightly.

“Yes. I said he’s my knight.”

“Your Highness, he belongs to the Nord Kingdom…”

Olivia cut off Bonita’s words before she could finish.

“That will change soon.”

It was not a forecast or a prophecy.

It was just a notice that the Nord Kingdom was not yet aware of.

Bonita looked at Olivia with an incomprehensible gaze.

And Olivia skillfully avoided such gaze and said,

“There’s no need to waste time in a power struggle with the duke.”

Her slender fingers picked up a lump of sugar.

“Didn’t the emperor say?”

As she put the sugar into her sufficiently cooled tea, Olivia continued,

“He would respect the will of the knight who is a guest of the princess.”

Bonita nodded with a hardened face.

“Yes. He did say that.”

“Exactly. That’s why he came looking for me.”

The duke could not freely command him, who was publicly declared as a guest of the princess.

Of course, the duke could arrange a meeting with any ‘guest’ from a foreign country.

But in this case, the rumor was that the princess valued this guest, so he couldn’t do that.

“I’m sorry.”

“I understand. The duke wasn’t present at the martial arts competition, so you’ll see him for the first time.”

At Olivia’s words, Bonita picked up the teaspoon without any response.

Not wanting to face her for long, Olivia raised her hand without waiting for a reply.

“You’ve come in such a hurry, you can’t delay any further.”

Olivia pulled the bell cord, and soon there was a knock.

“Come in.”

Cryer appeared without a sound behind the opened door.

Goosebumps rose on Olivia’s arm as she watched Cryer bowing very politely to the princess.

If a hundred people saw Cryer now, a hundred people would think of ‘knight’.

His solid and sturdy body, upright spirit, dignified movements, and extremely serious expression.

He was indeed the model of a ‘knight’ as if he had jumped out of a novel or a fairy tale.

Yes. He was so knightly that it was almost headtilting…

Olivia rubbed her goosebumpcovered arm and winked.

“Duke Bonita Hainder. And this is Cryer.”

Deliberately pausing, Olivia added,

“My knight.”

Bonita’s strong cheekbones trembled slightly, but it was only for a moment.

Cryer bowed to Bonita, but Bonita just put down her teaspoon without looking at him.

Looking at them, Olivia spoke.

“As I said earlier, there’s no need to waste unnecessary time. We’re all busy people.”

When she sought agreement in silence, Bonita’s tightly closed lips opened.

“Yes. There’s no need to delay.”

As soon as Bonita closed her mouth, Olivia turned to Cryer.

“Tell me.”

Olivia leaned comfortably back on the sofa as if she already knew the answer.

“Will you stay in the empire or return to the Nord Kingdom?”

It was a straightforward question.

There was no promise of giving him something if he stayed in the empire to catch him, or pressure to disadvantage him if he returned to the Nord Kingdom. Just a simple question.

Cryer, whose mouth was straight closed, opened it.

“I will stay in the empire.”

Just as the question was overly simple, the answer was very short and clear.

As soon as Cryer’s answer fell, Olivia turned her gaze to Bonita.

“Duke. Is there anything else to discuss?”

Bonita looked at Olivia for a moment and then shook her head.

“No. It’s enough, Your Highness.”

Her voice without any ups and downs and her calm answer.

The unexpected morning visit ended so anticlimactically.

Before Olivia could even dismiss her, Bonita rose and left the princess’s palace without ever looking at Cryer.

How much time had passed since Bonita had disappeared?

“That’s strange.”

Tilting her head, Olivia looked down at Bonita’s halfempty tea cup.

“What is?”

Sitting across from Olivia, Cryer crossed one leg over the other.

It was a disrespectful attitude that was completely different from when Bonita was there, with none of the knight’s demeanor, but Olivia nodded heavily at the sight.

“That’s right. That’s Cryer. You gave me the creeps earlier…”

“It seems like your true feelings are showing.”

Towards Cryer who was laughing, Olivia said seriously, her hand on her chest,

“My sincerity. It was really creepy earlier.”

Cryer, who had relaxed his legs and reached out to lightly flick Olivia’s nose, asked again,

“Enough with the nonsense, what’s strange?”

“Ah. Um. She’s not like that.”

The words came out of nowhere, but Cryer accepted them as usual.

“She treated me like a nobody, wasn’t she always like that?”

True to his words, Bonita didn’t even look at Cryer.

Ignoring him as if there was no value in even looking at such a lowly thing.

Looking back, although she hadn’t been consciously aware, she never once gave him a glance from the moment Cryer appeared until she herself disappeared.

Wasn’t that very, very unnatural?

“Yes. That’s too strange.”

I’ve met quite a bit with the Duke of Hainder at official occasions, but I never felt he divided people into classes.

“The Duke never treated people differently based on family or position, let alone status.”