CH 143

Helene was frightened. It’s already been a week since Second Queen Amelie’s evening party ended. Only 1 week left until Helene’s soiree. Still, it’s hard to say that her preparations are complete.

In the first place, she only planned to invite people from her faction, with Flora being the only non-member so they could all embarrass and laugh at Flora. There can be no more thought for an evening party made for just that one goal. And if that’s all, Helene should have arranged simple dishes and drinks and arranged a certain amount of formality and appearance.

Evening parties only for Duke Bayen’s Faction are often held, and it’s easy to prepare for its standards. You just have to prepare a reasonable evening party as usual. If only people from the usual Houses below Helene were to come, there should have been no problem if she gave them the food and drink that House Bayen ate. Even so, it was an unexpected complication that Third Prince Ludwig decided to attend.

If only Ludwig and Flora were invited from outside their faction, and the rest were members of Duke Bayen’s Faction, the oddity of it all would soon be found out. If it’s only Flora, it doesn’t matter if it’s found out or not, but it’s very bad for Ludwig to realize, as well. In that case, Helene would have to send out invitations to the members of the royal family, as well as other noble’s factions.

She had to send invitations to everyone from the royal family, the Prime Minister’s family, the powerful dukes to the powerful marquises who are currently in the vicinity of the royal capital. Moreover, the Second Queen Amelie’s evening party had just been held, so quite a few influential aristocrats from far away were still staying in the royal capital. Under such circumstances, if an invitation to an evening party arrives from Duke Bayen, most of the nobles who attended the evening party hosted by Queen Amelie will probably participate, as well.

When it comes to an evening party where influential people from other factions are coming, they can’t hold a casual party. It’s better to start over again from the beginning rather than throw a boring party, and the quality of the party and how many parties you can prepare is where you can show House’s power. If you hold an evening party that other factions will look down on, it will become a serious matter that you may have defectors from your faction, worried about your inability to perform to your status. 1

Luckily, Helene found an ostensible reason to hold the evening party. Originally, there was no purpose or goal for holding the evening party, but thanks to the announcement of Ludwig’s becoming Crown Prince at Second Queen Amelie’s party, it will be held in the name of celebrating Ludwig’s formal appointment as royal heir.

Of course, when Helene sent the invitation, there was no way of knowing that Ludwig would be the Crown Prince, and the reason was not specified in the invitation.

However, thanks to Second Queen Amelie’s party, Helen can pretend, “House Bayen knew of the Second Queen’s Announcement before it was made public.”

House Bayen really didn’t know, or rather, to begin with, neither Amelie nor Wilhelm had any intention of declaring Ludwig the Crown Prince on that occasion, but it just happened as a result of the flow. However, if you set your evening party after such massive news is made public, and claim that it is a party to celebrate Ludwig’s new position, House Bayen can save face.

On the contrary, it would be possible to make them think Duke Bayen was privy to confidential information that even other nobles did not know. The truth was even the royal family didn’t plan that, they’re just pretending they had, but they can’t say the royal family only made such an announcement as an afterthought, so there was no way that House Bayen could have known that.

Just using this evening party, you can pretend that you are advertising the information-gathering ability of the Bayen Duchy, in such close contact with the royal family and related parties, and holders of confidential information.

The Duke of Bayen himself, Lord Alto, praised Helene only on that point. Thanks to Helene’s soiree, House Bayen’s ability to collect information and their connections with the royal family can be widely advertised. You can expect a certain return on the expenses incurred by hosting.

However, it is only that way if the evening party is successful. If by any chance, the evening party inviting the royal family and influential aristocrats was a boring evening party, then the bad reputation would spread… they’d’ start saying, “Why even hold this sort of party after inviting so many people?” If that happens, it will not be worth the effect and expense of a celebration for Prince Ludwig. After Duke Alto told Helene that directly, she started to panic.

“There’s only one more week left… what in the hell am I supposed to do!?”

At Queen Amelie’s evening party last week, cookies, donuts, pound cakes, etc. were served, all of which were a hot topic of discussion among the nobles for the past few years. Although they publicly debuted so many years ago, the recipes are still royal secrets and have never been reproduced or served anywhere else.

They are items that rarely appear at events hosted by the royal family, and even high-ranking, influential nobles have admitted to only enjoying them a scant few times. Due to their rarity and being a royal secret, these sweets are still effective cards to play even after so many years.

Of course, they were served at Amelie’s soiree, and many nobles enjoyed them. The people around them will probably think that Duke Bayen has a lot of confidence, holding another major event so soon after Amelie’s.

Everyone must be thinking they’re preparing an evening party that can compete with one hosted by Queen Amelie since they’ve already gone out of their way to gather most of the influential nobles and then set it 2 weeks after Amelie’s event. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go out of their way to hold an evening party at this time of year.

No matter how you think about it, if there are only about 2 weeks left between the parties, their guests would compare them. In that case, it is necessary to prepare something that can match it, even if it ultimately won’t surpass Amelie’s. The expectations of the people around her are higher than for their usual night parties, and they won’t be satisfied with just a small or quiet get-together.

Helene doesn’t think she can live up to the current expectations of those around them just by holding Duke Bayen’s usual events. However, there is only one week left to prepare. It’s doubtful that even a normal evening party will be ready even if Helene had another week, but there’s no way they can prepare anything better than one hosted by Amelie.

“You ladies should make yourselves useful as well!” Helene yelled.

“”Ye-Yes…!”” the usual quartet shouts as they stand straight at attention.

Thanks to Sophie, the quintet has dropped Emma. The now-quartet desperately racked their brains, but there was no way any of them could come up with a good idea.

To begin with, it wasn’t a sudden order from the blue, but after Ludwig invited himself to the event, Helene told the then-quintet to help her. Even so, they still can’t come up with any good ideas, so they know putting their heads together won’t make a lick of difference.

To begin with, there is no way that Sophie’s House, lower than that of Helene’s, can come up or prepare anything better than a duchy could. In fact, Sophie and the others were just pretending to be thinking, and they weren’t even planning on helping. They’d given up from the beginning because there was no hope they’d ever think up anything useful even now, anyway.

“Umm… Lady Helene…”

However, there was one person who was timidly trying to express her opinion.

“What is it? Do you have any good ideas, Christiane?” Helene asked.

Christiane von Rheingen actually had a few ideas. She kept worrying about whether to say them or not, but she ran out of time. She thought that if someone else came up with a good idea, she could just keep quiet, but now they’re all almost out of it. So she decided to take the plunge and give Helene her idea:

“You can’t prepare main courses on a large scale at this point,” Christiane said. “Besides, it’s impossible to make anything so elaborate on this schedule, and impossible to make anything better than the royal cooks.”

“And your point is?” Helene snapped, irritated and glaring at Christiane.

“My point is, the Bayen Duchy can’t compare with main courses, so you should compete with sweets,” Christiane said.

“Sweets? “Hah.. !” Helene scoffed. “Sweets are the monopoly of the royal family! Are you telling me you can prepare something that can surpass the likes of cookies and donuts?!”

Bang! She slammed the table, and Christiane is stunned. If it’s the regular courses, there’s nothing special about the taste, the type, or the cooking method. If you go to a high-ranking noble’s evening party, most of the standard items will come out. There is no big difference between what the royal family, House Bayen, and the other influential Houses will serve at their events during the beginning of the evening.

However, the royal family now offers special sweets for the finale, and that is one point for their parties getting more prestigious. Having the privilege of eating cookies, donuts, hot cakes, and pound cakes at royal evening parties has become a status symbol among the nobility.

There is no way you can prepare sweets that are as popular as the royal family’s when they have an exclusive hold on the best kinds. If Helene had something like that, she would have prepared it by now.

“There are the crepes that are in vogue right now!” Christiane said. “And I have one more thing to offer! Please let me prepa…–!”

“Crepes, you say?!” Helene shouts, cutting her off. “Do you think I don’t know what those are?! Crepes are just commoner food! You’re asking me to serve such lowly fare at a party by Duke Bayen, with our House’s long, storied history?!”

Enraged now, Helene hurled a wooden cup.

Christiane turned her face away, it struck her on the temple then spilled the grape juice inside it all over her.

Since Helene is constantly throwing and breaking glasses and cups in anger, she is longer given the ultra-luxurious transparent glassware and is forced to use much cheaper wooden cups. Alto’s foresight was correct, as justified by Christiane not being hit by glass. 2

“Oh, enough of this!” Helene yelled, her frustration reaching its peak. “You ladies, get out of my sight at once!”

The quartet is chased away, and once they’re out of Helene’s room, the other three snicker and scoff at Christiane. Even among her comrades, this was how she was treated for being stupid enough to recommend such lowly street fare as crepes and earning Helene’s disgust.

“Should I really be in a place like this?” Christiane wonders. But, she doesn’t dwell on the thought. Her House belongs to Duke Bayen’s faction, and she won’t be able to convince her parents of anything she says about their membership. Above all, whose faction can she hitch her horse to after? If you try to switch allegiances at a time like this, you’ll be sent to the very bottom and be in an even worse position than when you started. 3

Above all else… even if they were like this, they were childhood friends who had grown up together since their earliest years. Christiane met Helene when she was a child, was drawn to her entourage, and grew up with the other members. Helene, Sophie, Emma, and the rest of the two were all childhood friends who were together till now. Christiane could not abandon them.

There is usually a long line at this store, but when it’s closing time, no one queues up anymore. The outside door was closed, and through the abundant use of transparent glass that was this store’s signature feature, you could see a little bit of the staff cleaning up inside.

This is the crepe cafe attached to Caanza Trading Firm’s 2nd store. In front of it, there was a girl knocking on the door after closing time.

“Excuse me! Could you please just hear me out?” she asks.

The store clerks inside were aware of her, but they were confused about what to do and looked at each other.

At Caanza, as a key store policy, they will not accept any business or entertain any inquiries from anyone after closing time. If you make even one exception, there will be voices saying, “Then you should take my business, too.” or “You did it before, but why won’t you do it this time?”

That’s why they generally don’t do things like selling products to customers even though it’s off-hours or taking care of something because a customer had a problem. Because of the thoroughness of such training policy, the store clerks inside were at a loss, and couldn’t even walk up to her and ask her what was up for fear of doing the wrong thing.

“Haah… what in the hell is happening? You do know we don’t entertain business outside of opening hours, right?” said Bianca.

She had heard the commotion and came out from the back of the store, opened the front door again, and greeted the girl outside. She looked like a noble lady. However, it is the absolute rule of Caanza that she is not given special treatment just because she is noble.

And Bianca recognized her with one look. That girl is a customer who has visited the crepe cafe many times dressed as a commoner. She thinks she was Chris… something, she can’t remember exactly. Bianca sees her often, so she recognizes her, but she can’t listen to what she has to ask, so she barely hears whatever it was. Bianca only remembered she was “Chris-something” from chance overheard conversations.

“I’m sorry for coming at this hour,” the girl said. “I’m not asking you to sell the product now. I would like you to sell this product at a party in a week’s time! I don’t know if it’s allowed… and also, there are a lot of customers during the day, so that’s why I came now, so please forgive my rudeness.”

“Huh…?”

Bianca was able to understand what this girl was saying to some extent. She understood that she wants Caanza to sell the cafe’s crepes at an evening party. However, as only the assistant manager of this store, Bianca can’t accept jobs like this without permission, even if it is only a formality. While Bianca was wondering what to do with her, the usual conspicuous blonde girl passed by.

Bianca remembers this other girl well. She met her at the first store even before the second store was built. She has long blonde hair and light blue eyes. She comes dressed like a commoner or a merchant’s daughter, but she is a mysterious girl who doesn’t look like either of those disguises at all.

“Christa? Is something the matter?” the blonde young lady asks.

“Floto… Floto, I’m begging you! Pudding for the evening party next week! Please serve it at Lady Helene’s party!”

Even if Christiane von Reingen has to go against Helene, even without her permission, she tries to prepare countermeasures on her own, which is why she was running around trying to find something that would work.