Chapter 9 Because They Wish to Meet

Belvant carried Marietta, who as yet still could not stand, to her room and placed her on her sofa.

“Thank you very much, Sir Belvant. I am glad you invited me today.”

Marietta unconsciously gripped his shirt as though to say “please don’t go!” as she thanked him with her somewhat clouded blue eyes. At the bewitching sight, Belvant’s self control rattled against the chains of his reputation, and he was momentarily shaken. Belvant very nearly succumbed to the wicked demon whispering in his ear “Since she’s already your fiance, what’s the problem if you kiss her some more?“. However, feeling a cold thirst for blood from Sierra, he turned his ice blue eyes away from those rose petal lips, and his large figure drew back. If they had been alone, just like that Belvant would have been driven to push Marietta down upon the sofa, kissing her all over and reveling in her sweet cries.

“Take some time and rest.”

Tightly stowing away his thoughts, Belvant kept his face expressionless as an iron wall, giving Marietta one more glance before leaving the room.

Ah, so dreamy…

Even though that intense glance had only lasted a moment, her chest tightened, and the lovestruck woman could only sink into the sofa with a sigh.

“Are you safe, Lady Marietta?”

Sierra called out as she prepared some herbal tea to calm the heart, thinking the sight before her one of Marietta collapsing in exhaustion after the terrible date with the general.

“Yes, I am fine. It is just that, because of various things, I feel somewhat perplexed.”

Remembering Belvant’s warm, flexible muscles, as well as how he had taken her first kiss, Marietta blushed as she grew happy and excited all over again, covering her face with her hands.

I’m so embarrassed. Embarrassed, but at the same time, I want to be hugged more and more! Kyaaaa!

“Princess, what… What on earth happened…?”

“That’s right! Say Sierra, I wonder just what that was?”

It was a deep kiss, but-

“It was so warm, and I felt filled to the brink when it slid inside.”

It being a tongue.

“I didn’t know a man’s would be so large. I was stuffed so full that it nearly hurt…”

The tongue inside her mouth, that is.

“P-Princess, you don’t mean-“

How could that be! Was her precious princess saying the general worked her like a violent wolf?

“Afterwards, I wasn’t even able to stand. How embarrassing.”

“Princess…”

There is no way, despite how they weren’t even married yet?! And to be so thorough that the princess couldn’t stand afterwards?

“Oh drat, my shirt buttons are misaligned…”

Noticing a small sense of discomfort across her breasts, Marietta gave a shy laugh as she unfastened her buttons. Thereupon, Sierra was greeted with a new shocking sight.

“Princess, those red marks-!”

“Huh…?”

Stuck fast to the side of her white breast remained a mark, evidence of Belvant’s vigorous assault.

Sir Belvant’s face was upon me right here, and then, with his lips, against my breast…

“Nooo~!”

Recalling the yearning figure of Belvant burying his face into and kissing her breasts, Marietta shrieked and swept her shirt closed.

“That’s not it, Sierra, this is, you see-“

“That savage, doing such a thing to a princess’ body before her marriage…”

With tears in her eyes, Sierra ground her teeth.

“And to do it out in the open, despite it being the first time! Princess, are you not in any pain?!”

“Hm? No, it doesn’t hurt at all. I was surprised since it was my first time, but there was somehow a pleasant, fluffy feeling.”

“Pleasant?! It can’t be, is he some sort of genius lady-killer? That beastly general?”

At last, Sierra’s innermost thoughts spilled out in their entirety, and Marietta could only respond with a blank look.

It would take a full hour of one question after another until the anxious Sierra would obtain the full truth of the matter.

The next day and thereafter, Marietta’s heart was aflutter.

The sheltered daughter inexperienced in even a light kiss, who dauntlessly admired the burly, manly, fearless, beautiful young man (not to mention several other attributes Marietta considered) to nearly the point of idolization, was embraced, glued to that young man, completely at the mercy of a hot, sticky adult kiss. The shock she had taken was nearly enough to leave her reeling. Marietta wondered if she had been thoroughly deceived… Receiving that sweet kiss, being rendered wholly captive to the adult man’s charm, she was imprisoned, body and mind, in her powerful feelings.

Moreover, since her current task was to help plan her marriage with that lovable general, throughout the day, her head was filled with nothing but Belvant.

Leading to the current situation. Before she had met Belvant, merely looking into his portrait had been enough to satisfy her. Actually meeting the man himself, seeing the original article, touching him, breathing in his scent… Well, anyway, with the various things she had become acquainted with, she was no longer able to endure with the portrait alone.

How I wish to meet with Sir Belvant again. To meet, and to have him hold me close. And, and then…

Not knowing what to do with these unmanageable feelings, the pining Marietta could only heave a heartrending sigh.

Here I am wishing for him, but what if Sir Belvant isn’t thinking of me at all, I wonder? For a gentleman like him, I must appear quite immature, and my b-breasts, they aren’t as prominent as a young lady’s at all! Perhaps, Sir Belvant does not care much for this engagement…

In her solitary anguish, Marietta was moved to tears.

“Lady Marietta, are you feeling unwell?”

She was down with the sickness called Love.

For Sierra, who could never imagine that Marietta had fallen for the general at first sight, she was unable to recognize Marietta’s innermost anguish. As such, she could only think that Marietta’s strange state was brought about by the fatigue and mental strain of arriving in a foreign country for marriage.

Before long, the fact that Princess Marietta had hidden herself in her bed became something quite different by the time it reached Belvant’s office.

“Marietta is in poor health then?”

Adlan, left subject to a steely glare, wanted nothing more than to hide, thinking ‘No no, it’s not my fault!’

“Well, an important young lady was abruptly made the wife of an unknown man from another country, and before she could compose herself, was brought along to an unknown place.”

Furthermore, her companion-to-be was the country’s most feared man, to whom no one attached even the thought of a ‘warrior’s sympathy’ (?).

“The circumstances seem discouraging, so isn’t it natural that she would be tired? I think she’ll be healthy again with a short rest.”

“Is that truly the case? It isn’t some dreadful sickness?”

Adlan flinched as the low voice pressed him for answers.

“No, well, since I’m not a doctor, I can’t state anything definitively, but…”

“I shall go meet with Marietta.”

“Huh? Right now?”

“I will know nothing if I do not see the situation with my own eyes.”

“… Right, that’s the sort of guy you are, huh? Alright, we have mountains of work here, but a short get-well visit should be fine.”

With a conclusion reached, Belvant stalked off with a grimace, his childhood friend Adlan following him along to Marietta’s room with an unintentionally broad grin.

“I wish to meet Marietta.”

“Oh, r-right away.”

Arriving with a face that seemed to suggest he was challenging her to a duel to the death, the maid on duty cowered. In that moment, Sierra appeared, her hand reflexively gripping a knife she had prepared in the folds of her skirt as she firmly blocked Belvant’s path.

“… On what business have you arrived?”

“I’m only here to ask after my fiance’s poor health.”

“Sorry, miss maid.”

Adlan called out, leaning his head around the gargantuan roadblock that was Belvant.

“I hope you understand at a glance that she is unable to meet anyone? If you do not, general, various things might become complicated here.”

“Understood. Well then, I shall go hear from the Princess.”

Marietta, oblivious to the minor disturbance occurring next door, was out on her balcony, leaning against the handrail as she thought of her beloved General Belvant Fargus and sighed.

“Sir Belvant…”

“Please wait!”

“Marietta!”

With the thumping of footsteps, the door was thrown open, and Belvant’s figure appeared with haste just ahead of Sierra.

“Sir, Belvant…?”

At the abrupt appearance of the very person weighing on her heart, Marietta was frozen mid-turn.

“Ah…”

In the instant Marietta’s eyes grew cloudy, Sierra had already leapt forward and interposed herself between her lady and Belvant.

“General Fargus, what is this audacity!”

“I’ll be intruding.”

Placing one hand on her shoulder, Belvant easily brushed Sierra aside, and the general stood before Marietta. Adlan did his best to pacify the maid as she trembled with anger.

“Right, we’re being quite rude, but we’re just concerned about the princess. There’s no strange pretenses involved at all, so could you forgive us?”

“Marietta, I hear your health has been poor?”

Belvant completely ignored Aldan’s mediation as he softly gripped Marietta’s right hand, his eyes meeting hers.

“Are you well enough to be out of bed? Are you properly taking your meals?”

“Sir Belvant…”

Tears welled up from her eyes.

“I-I… so, lonely…”

Thanks to the trembling of her lips, the princess was splendidly misunderstood.

“So you’ve been lonely? That’s right, it makes sense that you would grow lonely, separated from your acquaintances in a faraway country and secluded in your room.”

What bad luck, the meaning shifted!

“There are various places I wish to bring you still, but if I were to neglect my considerable workload… Marietta, come.”

“Eep-!”

Suddenly swept into the air with a single arm, Marietta’s tears were cut off with surprise. She quickly clung to his neck, where she caught once more a faint whiff of his scent, her face blushing.

“I guess I’ll be able to bring you like this.”

With Belvant’s face spontaneously appearing just in front of her own, Marietta could only dip her head, hiding the brilliant smile that bloomed across her face. An overwhelming feeling, a staggering joy, made tears sprout in her eyes once more.

“Please release the Princess! What do you have to say for this outrage!”

Sierra shouted, misunderstanding those tears as a materialization of fear, as she somehow blocked the general’s apparent kidnapping. Adlan was at her side, attempting to pacify her with “It’s alright, so calm down, he isn’t going to eat her! No, really, calm down Miss Maid, there’s no need to use that knife!”

Sir Belvant, I’m so glad. How dreamy, how lovable; I’ve been blessed.

Ach, as it is, if there were a bed… No, how could I.

Marietta’s face bloomed like a flower, and she clung to Belvant with a gentle squeeze, her warm, sweet scent nearly stripping Belvant of his reason.

The sight of her ecstatically embracing her lover was like a violent gale through the hearts of everyone else present.