"That simply won't do. Your Highness can't possibly et those two ladies dressed like this."
St. George Avenue was bathed in the amber glow of the gas lamps. The carriage parked beneath one, though slightly out of place, seed to fit perfectly with the quiet night. A crow flew across the night sky. The coachman, standing guard in the darkness, glanced up and exhaled a puff of white smoke from the corner of his mouth, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
Inside the carriage, Julia, ever the dutiful maid, imdiately objected to Jenkins's suggestion, a sentint echoed by both Dolores and Alexia. The two won inside the house would be sharing a ho with them for the rest of their lives; their first eting couldn't be so casual. Thus, even if they were only a wall and a courtyard away, an imdiate introduction was out of the question.
"I've already invited them to stay at my house from now on, for their safety," Jenkins added.
He didn't, however, imdiately invite Alexia and Dolores to stay as well. The summit between their two nations hadn't even begun, and as heirs to their respective royal families, Jenkins and Dolores absolutely could not do such a thing. Not to ntion, a princess living with a man before marriage would be a national scandal. Jenkins had no desire to give the gossips in the streets and pubs more to talk about.
Alexia and Dolores understood his reasoning, but the princess wasn't one to be left behind at the starting line. She thought for a mont and proposed,
"Jenkins, now that you're a man of status, it must be difficult to manage the household, and you don't have anyone to look after you. Even with those two ladies staying with you, I imagine that won't change much. Why don't I have Julia stay with you for the ti being? Of course, I know you hate being followed, so she will only appear as a maid at night when you're ho. When you leave during the day, she can return to my side."
Everyone in the carriage knew what she was planning. Julia seed to want to object—not because she disliked Jenkins, but because she didn't want to leave Dolores.
"When I marry Jenkins, you'll be with anyway, so you might as well get used to it now. Besides, it's only at night, and it's not like I don't have other servants. Julia, Jenkins really does need soone reliable to look after him. He may be brilliant, but his daily life is a complete ss. He eats out more often than he eats at ho."
The maid looked conflicted but eventually nodded in agreent. The three won made the decision without asking for Jenkins's opinion, not that he would have objected anyway.
Next, he brought up taking the girls back to Maidenhaven Road to et his parents. Alexia told him to arrange it as he saw fit; they could et the ladies currently in his house before that dinner.
Then Jenkins asked Dolores about the Creation Slate. Last year at the Gem Assembly, Dolores had provided Constantine Sir with a clue, but sadly, the level nine demigod had ultimately chosen the irreversible path of rging with a Cursed Item.
"Yes, I rember," Dolores said with a smile. She recalled it clearly.
"Fighting that madman, Constantine Sir... that was the first ti we spoke alone, wasn't it?
"The information about the Creation Slate was sothing I heard by chance, so I can't guarantee its authenticity. I don't even know what it really is. I only know that a fragnt of it once appeared near Nolan. If you want to know more, I'll project back to Ruen tonight and check my old letters. There should still be a record of it."
Jenkins nodded at her words. While the Creation Slate wasn't of imnse value to him at the mont, it was still useful. With that settled, and seeing that it was getting late and the ladies in the house had probably finished their argunt, he prepared to head back. But Alexia stopped him.
"So, have you decided how you want to spend your birthday?"
"My birthday?" Jenkins was taken aback, only then rembering Alexia had ntioned it so ti ago.
"It doesn't matter, any way is fine. I'm not married yet, but I've already moved out, so I don't need to go back to Maidenhaven Road for my birthday. I'll probably just buy a cake for dinner. Chocolate will be the one who really benefits from that."
Inside the house, the cat gave a prim nod, quite satisfied with Jenkins's arrangent. Jenkins couldn't care less about any birthday, because it wasn't his birthday at all.
"How can you be so casual about it?" Dolores imdiately chided.
"Wait a minute, I really don't need a birthday party."
"Then at the very least, we should all have dinner together. And we want to give you a gift," the princess insisted. And so, Jenkins promised to invite everyone to his ho on his birthday, assuring them it wouldn't be a makeshift affair.
The carriage carried Alexia and Dolores away. The night had grown deep, and they needed to rest. In a few hours, they had to attend the welcoming ceremony for the King of Cheslan's arrival in Nolan.
After watching the carriage disappear around the corner, Jenkins turned to Julia in her maid's uniform.
"Aren't you hot in that?" he asked, voicing a question he had long wondered. Julia's uniform was by no ans thin.
The maid shook her head, saying it was nothing. She and Jenkins were no strangers; although they rarely t without Dolores present, they were friends, in a way.
Leading the maid into the courtyard, Jenkins gave her a brief tour of the house's layout, explaining that she didn't need to worry about cleaning—as long as she could make breakfast, that would be enough.
He placed his hand on the doorknob, but as he was about to pull it open, he suddenly realized that bringing Julia into his ho under these circumstances was probably not a good idea. He still hadn't completely resolved the situation with Briny.
But Jenkins had always been a decisive person. After only a mont's pause, he opened the door. Hathaway and Briny were in the living room and jumped at the sound of the door opening. They had thought Jenkins was upstairs.
"I was out taking care of a few things," he explained vaguely, which led Briny to assu he had climbed out the window. Before she could ask, Jenkins stepped aside to let Julia in. It was the first ti Hathaway and Briny had seen her. From her attire, it was obvious she was a maid, and a remarkably pretty one at that.
"She'll be the maid of the house," Jenkins announced.
"Dolores just ca to see and left her personal maid to take care of . We'll all be family in the future, anyway."
Briny's expression changed. She had read about Jenkins and the northern princess in the papers, but she never expected to hear him admit it with his own mouth.
Originally, he was supposed to wait for Hathaway's so-called "plan" to unfold before revealing this, but Jenkins had run out of patience. Since Briny already knew so of it, he decided to seize the opportunity tonight and lay all his cards on the table.
Hearing Jenkins return, the cat scampered happily down from the second floor. Jenkins caught it with a smile, then gestured for the three ladies to sit down. Julia, understanding what her dispatch from Dolores and Alexia's silent approval ant, did not refuse on account of her status.
Hathaway wanted to say sothing, probably thinking Briny would find this hard to accept. But Jenkins had made up his mind; he was done waiting.
The story of his relationship with Dolores and Alexia began last autumn with a "pen-pal letter" that the maid had misaddressed. It was because of that simple math problem that Jenkins had the opportunity to connect with Dolores. And it was because of those few letters that Dolores helped him publish his mathematics book, which in turn led to his chance to interact with the short-statured lady when Alexia went to the Inherited Sage Church to attend a lecture.
It all sounded terribly romantic, with a distinct sense of a fateful encounter, but that was only if the protagonist of the story wasn't your own man. Since Hathaway already knew, she wasn't particularly moved. Briny, however, was a maelstrom of emotions. She was angry, of course, but when she considered the tiline, she realized it was hard to say who had co first.
Then she glanced at Hathaway's reaction and knew she had been aware of this all along. The urge to shout at soone in the room grew even stronger.
"And that's how it happened," Jenkins concluded, keeping the story as concise as possible to avoid upsetting Briny any further.
"So, who have you slept with?" Briny asked bluntly, seeing as there were no outsiders present.
Jenkins lowered his head and quietly uttered three nas. Briny shot a look at Hathaway, but the red-haired girl was studiously ignoring her, her eyes fixed on Jenkins's cat.
"So what are you going to do now?" the blonde girl asked.
"You are all my wi—"
Realizing that saying the rest would only plunge him deeper into the abyss of scoundrel-hood, Jenkins changed his wording.
"I know this is wrong of , but I have no intention of letting go of anyone's hand. I refuse to be that old man, decades from now, sitting in a rocking chair and lanting who I gave up when I was young. That will absolutely not happen. I plan to beco the king of the Fidektri Kingdom and then... and the laws a little. It won't be difficult. Briny, I'm so sorry, but I want everything. I won't let anyone go."
By the ti he finished, Jenkins's face was beet red. He knew how shaless his words sounded.
But upon hearing that Jenkins had a plan, Briny actually let out an unconscious sigh of relief, though she imdiately started getting angry at herself for it.
"I can't believe you're this kind of person!" she said to Jenkins, her eyes red. Jenkins worried she wouldn't be able to accept it, but Hathaway, who knew Briny's temperant well, understood that tonight would likely be fine. If the blonde girl had sat there crying silently, that would have ant real trouble.
"When I first t you at Pops Antique Shop, I thought you were just a shy young man," Briny lanted. "I can't believe that in just one year, you've turned into... this."
Chocolate was quite displeased to hear soone scolding Jenkins like this. But, given that Briny wasn't wrong, and the cat also felt that Jenkins shouldn't be letting any more won into the house, it didn't stand up to defend him. Instead, it remained curled up on his lap, watching the interesting scene unfold.
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