“—Eh?”
Sieghardt removed the cream that had been on Leah’s cheek with his lips.
Feeling the warmth on her cheek, Leah stared back at him in stunned silence.
“Lord Sieghardt…”
Right beside her was Sieghardt’s dazzlingly handsome face.
“What?”
His beautiful cerulean-blue eyes—so much like Paul’s.
They seemed as if they might pull her in, and as Leah met his gaze, her cheeks flushed.
“Um… just now…”
“It was on your cheek. Sweet cream.”
As he stared at her intently, Leah’s eyes wavered.
(The same face as Paul… the same voice…)
It was as if he were alive and standing right there. Her heart felt like it might break.
They ended up staring at each other at such close distance for a moment, but Leah finally lowered her eyes.
“Um… I’m sorry. If you had told me, I could have wiped the cream off my cheek myself. And I can eat the cake myself too.”
“No.”
He rejected the idea immediately.
“W-why…?”
“You’re worried about how much you’re eating, aren’t you? I’ll manage it for you.”
Sieghardt made the suggestion casually.
“You can eat as much as you want until I tell you to stop.”
“…Alright.”
“Come on. The chefs put a lot of effort into making these for you. You should eat.”
“…Understood.”
The Crown Prince personally fed Leah.
Since they were so close, she felt self-conscious at first, but as she continued eating the delicious cake, she gradually stopped worrying about it.
(This is unbelievably delicious… I’m so happy…)
As she savored the cake blissfully, she noticed that Sieghardt, sitting beside her, had turned his head away.
His shoulders were shaking.
“…? Lord Sieghardt? What’s wrong?”
Tilting her head, she asked, and he turned back to face her.
“What do you mean?”
His face was the same as always—expressionless.
“Next, this one.”
He cut a slice of tart, placed it on a plate, and once again tried to feed it to Leah.
Leah looked at him suspiciously.
“Lord Sieghardt… were you perhaps laughing just now?”
He denied it with a perfectly straight face.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Here—this is another sweet you like.”
Although she remained suspicious, Leah couldn’t resist the delicious sweets.
Sieghardt smiled with satisfaction.
“Watching you eat so happily is interesting.”
Leah, focused entirely on eating, failed to catch the words he muttered quietly and instead picked up her teacup.
“Lord Sieghardt?”
“It’s nothing.”
He lifted the corner of his lips slightly and shook his head.
◇◇◇◇◇
“So your engagement to the Crown Prince has been decided.”
“That’s why I’ve been so busy lately.”
Isaac, whom she hadn’t seen in a while, came to visit the ducal residence.
They sat at the table in the reception room, chatting for the first time in a long while.
Since becoming engaged to Sieghardt, Leah had been assigned even more tutors, and she also had to visit the imperial palace, so she hadn’t been able to find time until today.
“Doesn’t it feel suffocating?”
“There are a lot more lessons now, so I do wish I could stretch my wings a little.”
When she was little, she had been able to run freely across the grasslands.
But she didn’t dislike going to the imperial palace. The sweets served there were delicious, and she had realized that Sieghardt wasn’t a bad person.
And sometimes, the smiles, gestures, and glances he showed unexpectedly resembled Paul so much that they made her heart skip.
Spending time with him sometimes made her feel overwhelmingly sad.
She didn’t tell Isaac about that. Sieghardt was a different person, and talking about it would only make her think of Paul even more.
As they exchanged updates about their lives, the area outside the room suddenly became noisy.
“Something’s going on.”
“Maybe Father has returned from the territory.”
“Then I should greet him.”
(But he’s come back much earlier than expected.)
Looking absentmindedly out the window, Isaac asked Leah,
“By the way, before, you said you wanted to marry someone like your father. Is the Crown Prince like him?”
“No, not at all. He’s not like Father.”
Her real father had been a very gentle man.
Sieghardt was a little frightening. But she thought that, deep down, he was actually kind.
More than time spent with anyone else, Leah liked the time she spent with Sieghardt the most.
(Even though it always fills me with complicated feelings…)
Just then, a low voice came from near the door.
“What are you doing?”
Startled, Leah looked toward the voice and saw that the door had opened.
Sieghardt was standing there.
