48
===
Lowering her eyes and making a pitiful expression, he couldn't help but laugh. The knights watched Aileen, who was laughing out loud, with affectionate eyes. Rohan added gently.
"It suits you well. You look much better."
His heart was relieved by the compliment delivered in a weighty voice. It might be empty words of comfort, but it still felt good. Aileen mumbled, touching her bangs shyly.
"Thank you, everyone."
They trapped Aileen in a hell of compliments long enough for her to feel like she was floating, and only then did they get to the main point.
"We and the soldiers will be in charge of escorting the wedding tomorrow. You can rest assured that we will be armed. If there are any bastards who mess with Madam, I will definitely...!"
Michele made a gun shape with her hand and pretended to shoot. Rohan grabbed her hand and lowered it, saying.
"We will make sure that nothing like that happens, so don't worry."
Rohan calmly explained how the wedding security would be carried out tomorrow.
"All the soldiers, including us, will be wearing uniforms. They are all familiar with Aileen, so you must not follow anyone you don't know."
"......"
She felt a slight dissatisfaction with the tone, which was like educating a child about abduction. However, Aileen, who had a record of one abduction and one kidnapping, listened quietly to the explanation without complaining.
"However, the number of soldiers that can be deployed to the wedding hall is limited, so our field of vision is limited."
Rohan sat Aileen down on a chair and spread out the floor plan of the Grand Duke's Residence on the table. He pointed to the red dots marked on the plan and continued his explanation.
"This is the location of the soldiers who will be guarding. The largest number of personnel will be stationed in the backyard where the wedding will be held..."
He took out a fountain pen and drew a large circle on the plan.
"Please stay in the wedding hall as much as possible, and if you enter the residence, you must use this passage. It is the safest route."
It was the front entrance that led from the garden to the residence.
"From inside the residence, you will be with Grand Duke Cesare anyway, but let me explain."
Rohan's fountain pen ran smoothly across the plan.
"You should always use the stairs in the center of the front. There is no chance that it will happen, but if there is an emergency, you must go here."
He drew a star on the most corner room on the top floor of the Grand Duke's Residence. Rohan, who drew a star with his bear-like hand, urged her.
"It's a must. We'll practice together later, but you have to be able to go alone. There are paintings on display in the room, and there is a secret passage behind the largest frame."
He said that emergency funds, dried food, and clothes to change into were prepared there, and the passage led to the outskirts of the capital.
After listening to Rohan's explanation for a long time, she became nervous. She couldn't help but imagine the terrible things that might happen at the wedding. Aileen swallowed hard and asked.
"Did you perhaps… receive any kind of warning?"
She wondered if that was why they were preparing so thoroughly. But Rohan answered no firmly.
"If we had received that kind of warning, His Excellency would have canceled or postponed the wedding. Until the culprit is caught."
He said calmly that he would send the blackmailer to the Guillotine or execute him by firing squad. He would set the wedding date again only after he had dealt with it properly.
"Aileen will not have to use this passage. We will make sure of it. But the reason why I am explaining it to you is to prepare for all possibilities."
Cesare had blood on his hands for a very long time. He first went to war as a boy soldier at the age of only 10. He came back alive even though he was sent to a place to die, and he was often called to the battlefield after that.
Of course, he had to kill the enemy in order to live. As new medals were added to Cesare's uniform, the number of people who resented him increased.
"As you may already be aware… His Excellency's enemies are both inside and outside the Empire."
Cesare's enemies existed not only in the Traon Empire but also in other countries. You never knew what might happen, like when assassins attacked the greenhouse.
Fortunately, within the Empire, Cesare had begun to slowly take control of the nobles. However, there was also a clear possibility that a madman like Mattio, the son-in-law of the former Speaker of the Senate, would do something crazy.
From the moment she was announced as the Archduchess of Erzeht, Aileen also became their target.
It was too big of a change for Aileen, who used to play with pieces of grass in the laboratory of a shabby inn and make and sell a few paltry medicines.
"I'm sorry to say such ominous things… but we will risk our lives to protect Aileen, so I hope you don't worry too much."
Rohan, who had given her poison and then medicine, was a little embarrassed. He gave an awkward smile. Aileen looked at the burn marks covering Rohan's face and answered quietly.
"...Please don't."
Aileen made eye contact with each of the four people. Only then did she continue.
"I hope you don't risk your lives. I'll be careful too. I'll stay only in the security position."
Then everyone suddenly became quiet. Rohan clenched his molars tightly, then answered in a faintly trembling voice.
"Yes, Aileen."
After the detailed explanation was over, she went with Rohan to the route he had mentioned. Rohan was very pleased when Aileen memorized all the explanations she had heard once.
And then came the wedding day.
***
Aileen went to bed early the night before. She decided to go to bed early no matter what, because she had to get up before the sun rose tomorrow, but it was impossible to do as she pleased.
She tossed and turned with nervousness and fell into a doze, and had to get up again after only a few hours of sleep. From then on, she was dragged around by the employees in a daze.
Every time she closed and opened her eyes while half asleep, the scene changed quickly, but she couldn't fall asleep after taking a bath in a tub full of flower petals.
Several employees stuck to her and carefully decorated Aileen. The employee who was doing her makeup kept admiring her and showing her a hand mirror, but Aileen just smiled, avoiding the mirror slightly.
The owners of the dress shop came around the time the morning sun rose.
They had been up all night until the night before, holding on to the wedding dress until the very end, and their eyes were dark. Their unique and sophisticated clothes, which had been nowhere to be seen, were gone, and today they were all wearing the same shabby work clothes. A woman, probably Belleza, said in a hoarse voice.
"How have you been? I would like to ask you in detail how you are doing, but we don't have time, so let's start working right away."
Then all three of them rushed at Aileen with a look that even felt like madness. Aileen felt a slight chill and was frozen in place.
She put on a chemise and drawers and tightened the laces of the corset. She didn't put in any padding to inflate the skirt, but to create a naturally flowing outline.
Then, everyone put on white gloves and began to put on the wedding dress. They wore gloves to prevent fingerprints from getting on the pure white dress. The hands that delicately tied the ribbons and trimmed the clothes were very serious.
Finally, when Aileen's decorations were all finished, the three women, who had been enemies, shed tears of emotion and held each other's hands.
"We…, we created such a masterpiece…!"
The dress shop owners, who were dabbing their tears with handkerchiefs, covered Aileen's face with a veil and tried hard to sell their wares.
"Please make sure that we can make the clothes you will wear in the future."
"The three of us! Together! We will make it and offer it to you."
Aileen thought to herself that if an ugly person wore it, it might tarnish the reputation of the dress shop, but she couldn't pour cold water on their excitement, so she stayed still.
Finally, all the preparations were finished, and it was time to go to the wedding hall.
The front was a little blurry because of the veil. But for Aileen, who always covered her eyes with her bangs, the blurry vision even gave her a strange sense of stability.
Aileen slowly headed to the wedding hall with the help of the employees. It was the moment she left the residence and came outside.
The music of cheerful melodies, people's conversations, laughter, and the chirping of birds were all mixed together and poured out. Along with the gazes of the guests who were all looking at her.
The people who had been chattering noisily until just now suddenly became quiet at the appearance of the bride.
