***

In the carriage going to the duke’s residence, the maids desperately pinched each other’s backs and held back their laughter. The nanny has also barely endured with her might, but she made an indescribable expression at regular intervals.

“Just laugh.”

His Highness said when he felt the situation. As soon as the people inside noticed little by little, they bowed their backs, and began to sway their shoulders. They can’t laugh outright in front of a young royal family member with a white band-aid on his forehead, so they chose another way.

The nanny chose a more sensible way than that.

“Your Highness, you’ve been sick a lot, haven’t you? Your Highness . ..You may have thought a lot about your fiance. We didn’t think about it…so we may have shown rudeness. Come here. I’ll hug you.”

Leonhardt sighed and was held in the arms of the nanny. Instead of concealing her own expression, the nanny, who obscured her prince’s view, stared up at the ceiling of the golden carriage and burst into laughter noiselessly.

‘Because I’m nervous when I think I’m meeting someone who will be my lifelong partner.’

The moment they heard that, the maids doubted their ears. ‘What are you trying to gain by selling your child?’,  isn’t that what he’s been saying just until the day before?

And the next moment they had to doubt from their ears to eyes.

The crown prince, without insanity, placed his forehead on the solid wooden desk.

Even if it’s a desk for children, but the child is the prince of a country, it must be of the highest quality.

Therefore, the desk was made of the finest wood and was invincible and durable. It was almost a miracle that Leonhardt, who had struck his forehead with such force on its surface, had not passed out.

The maids who put a band-aid on the red-colored forehead and then skillfully lowered the bangs that had been raised to cover the band-aids at the end of the day. For a long time, the maids pinched each other’s sides and forcibly held their laughter, thinking that if they laughed here, they wouldn’t be fired the next day, but rather their heads might be cut off for insulting the royal family member.

Leonhardt continued to recall his first meeting with the empress and repeated his regrets.

‘You can’t say spider web, you can’t just say spider web. Yeah rather… rather. . . What should I praise?’

However, no matter how much he looked back on his memory, it’s like a spider web. Nothing came to mind other than the heat because of being laughed at.

Leonhardt considered it sincerely fortunate that he was burying his face in the warm arms of the nanny.

Otherwise, this time the royal carriage window might have been broken by his head.

If Leonhardt met her this time, instead of repeating the stupid things in the same way, he decided to admire how beautiful her silver hair was.

And if he coaxed her out of the way as planned and made this engagement non-existent….

Can she really be happy?

“Look at his expression, is he expecting a little even though he’s a child?”

“Don’t you think so too? I think you can consider it that way even if it’s not an expectation, but more like excitement.”

“Shh, his highness will wake up. Somehow, I feel like I’ve never seen anything like today since I enlisted to serve his Highness.”

It was a feeling that the maidens’ chatter was gradually getting further away.

Could the empress live a happy life if she really did not have this engagement?

Can she meet someone who truly loves her and will devote everything for her?

Only after taking the place of the emperor could he understand why his father had to make an uninteresting deal with the Duke of Elysium.

As a family with a long-established dukedom that produced the imperial family and the first empress, there would be no awkward and uncomfortable relationship if they were put together in one place.

The imperial family and the Elysium formed an alliance in order to maintain a friendly relationship, at least expressively, rather than just looking at each other’s eyes.

The easiest and most regrettable way for each other.

It was a political marriage between the imperial family and the duke.

How ridiculous and miserable it felt to him, who was supposed to succeed to the throne, to have them tied together onto the same boat ever since they were unborn.

Maybe the attitude he showed to the empress was because that absurdness aggravated him.

However, it is not the innocent empress that he should be angry with. It was his father and himself who couldn’t strengthen the throne by themselves.

The eyelids became heavier and heavier. Leonhardt rubbed his throbbing forehead against the shoulder of his nanny, closing his eyes.

Regardless of whether the engagement was a part of the marriage proceeding or not, it seemed that getting used to the body of a child would be the most urgent task.

Until he fell asleep completely, he questioned himself endlessly.

What if the Empress was forced to sit in the Empress’s seat again?

What if she becomes an empress or queen of a country other than an empire?

No, no, I don’t need everything.

In the end, what if she met someone other than me but wasn’t happy?

Unable to answer the last question, he changed his plans.

‘Let’s change the certain future. She is the fiancée of the Crown Prince, who will become the Crown Princess, and eventually become the Empress. Instead of forcibly changing that future, I just need to change myself. I just need to make her happy. but… ‘

Leonhardt opened his eyes again, feeling his little heart beating jauntily.

One side of his heart was filled with the conscience that had disappeared when he became grown up, was coming back.

‘Do I deserve to make her happy?’

Leonhardt, forcibly blinked his closing eyelids, in his mind he’s asking for permission from the empress, whom he would soon meet.

“If you allow me, I swear I will do anything for you. Empress, my empress, can I love you? In this life only, may I make you happy?”