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The maid wrung their hair again and brought in a vase from outside.

Rieta and Noel briefly breathed, tense, because that vase was the same precious vase that they had glued a note on before.

Was there still glue residue on it?

Fortunately, they were still awake, for the maid brought a bouquet wrapped in thin paper and decorated the vase beautifully.

“Whoa….”

Rieta was deeply impressed.

It was amazing for such big and pretty flowers to bloom in winter.

“Are there no flowers in the kingdom?”

“There are. We give them to people we like.”

The maid laughed at Rieta’s story and said, “The people of the empire do too, my princess.”

Of course, Rieta knew of it.

She remembered the male protagonist giving flowers to the female protagonist several times.

In particular, his wintertime bouquets were quite romantic. It was normal to cherish a gift that was hard to come by.

“These are the flowers that the Duke himself picked from the royal garden. They’re to be used as decorations. I guess he wanted to show it to the princess and young master.”

The Duke was so romantic.

In fact, she thought it wouldn’t be too off to liken him to the lead of a romance novel.

He showed kindness towards children and stayed faithful to one lady.

If Noel was such a duke, he would definitely catch his beloved female lead.

“The Duke is really romantic.”

Rieta said so, looking at Noel with a gaze of hope.

‘Learn from this. This is exactly what you need.’

Did her desperate stare work?

Noel, concentrating on Rieta, nodded slightly.

‘He understood!’

Rieta, deeply moved, almost hugged the angelic Noel.

Soon he blushed slightly, fiddled with his cheeks, and answered.

“Yes, that’s right. My father is romantic.”

“Right? I think so, too!”

Rieta looked at him with a face that asked for him to say more, like ‘I want to be like my father.’

“That’s right. He’s really cool.”

“Right, so what did you feel from the Duke?”

“……Uh, my father is the best?”

“……”

Rieta sighed heavily at Noel’s conclusion.

How could he not connect the dots? The road to seduction was too long.

******

Since then, Rieta and Noel dozed off in front of the stove.

It was exhausting to play outside on a snowy day.

The Duke, who came to the family room bearing a letter from the Kingdom, hesitated for a moment.

He was sorry that he couldn’t wake the two children up because they were sleeping happily on each other.

“…Duke?”

Suddenly, Rieta woke up, slowly rubbing her eyes.

“Apologies. I interrupted your sleep.”

“Uh, it’s not… I was about to get up.”

“You should, because you have to sleep at night.”

The Duke sat face to face with Rieta and took out a soft handkerchief.

“You must have drunk hot chocolate.”

“Yes?”

Rieta thought ‘What do you mean?’, but soon, she understood.

The Duke carefully wiped Rieta’s mouth with a handkerchief.

“Uh..”

Rieta flushed with embarrassment.

Even Noel, who was sleeping next to her, had chocolate on his mouth.

Just as Noel woke up, the duke wiped his son’s face clean.

“I’m here to give you a message, Princess.”

“…To me?”

He nodded, somewhat hesitant, but soon handed her a letter.

Rieta recognized the name in Kingdom text on it at once.

“…..!”

The Duke carefully observed how Rieta’s expression changed.

He had been worried that the sender would ruin Rieta’s mood, but it didn’t seem so.

Rieta’s face brightened at once after she checked the letter.

She rushed to open it.

“That must be a nice letter.”

“Very, very much!”

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

The rumpled, thin letter began with a friendly greeting.

‘Princess Rieta, whom I have missed, how are you doing?’

Rieta just read one sentence, but her friendly voice seemed to ring in Rieta’s ears. The sweetness of sugar came to mind.

Ah, what would she do?

Rieta hugged the letter unconsciously, her heart souring.

*****

The letter sent by Rieta’s maid was mixed with bad news and good news.

First of all, the bad news was that King Liz had a new concubine. This was to be expected.

He even planned to establish an institution to select beautiful women.