CH 33

When Cain woke up in the morning, he was surprised to see not Ilvalino, but the butler, standing by his bed. 

The butler told him that his confinement was over, and before he knew what was happening, Cain found himself being dressed in clothes for some special occasion.

He was going to have tea with the Crown Prince, in a meeting arranged for them to make up. Elise and Dismaya had given orders to inform Cain this morning, on the day of.

“Tea?! And today, no less! I haven’t had enough time to strategize!” cried Cain.

“Precisely,” said the butler. 

Cain had been brainstorming ideas, such as sending the Crown Prince an apologetic letter with a gift or attending an event the Crown Prince would be at to apologize to him directly, or having his parents arrange a meeting with him. He had been thinking of how he should conduct himself in each of these scenarios.

He had been trying to get Ilvalino involved in the Crown Prince issue and had him collecting information on the royal family’s schedule.

“You will be having tea at the royal palace, but after that, you will have lunch there, as well. You’ll leave as soon as breakfast is over. Now, let us go to the dining room,” said the butler. 

Cain shot Ilvalino a look that said, “Did you know about this?” Ilvalino shook his head and gave him a squinting look that said, “Of course, I didn’t.”

“Ilvalino. In this situation, you are to keep a straight face and shake your head so slightly that only your master would notice,” said the butler. 

“You too, master Cain. When checking something with your chamberlain, you should do so in a way that’s undetectable to those around you,” said the butler.

The butler led the two boys out of the room. Cain walked ahead, followed by Ilvalino and the butler. 

“What sort of strategies were you working on, Master Cain?” asked the butler, in a very low voice. There was no scorn in his voice, and he didn’t seem to be gloating that Cain’s strategies were useless now.

Still, Cain couldn’t help but frown. His mind was that of a man in his thirties, after all, and his sincere efforts to manipulate the situation to his benefit had been thwarted.

“I heard that the Crown Prince would be participating in the upcoming Queen Sponsored Poetry Club meeting, so I was going to get my confinement orders lifted so that I could also attend. 

Just as it was with the Embroidery Club meeting, the announcement that the Crown Prince would be attending the Poetry Club meeting was supposed to be known only to the existing members.

The main reason for this was thought to be because the noble families with Count Status and below would complain that it wasn’t fair that only the noble families with Marquis Status and above were permitted to attend. 

Surely, there were other reasons involved, but Cain didn’t know about them. 

“I’m surprised that you knew about that, despite not having left your room,” said the butler. 

The butler peered over at Ilvalino next to him, without turning his head. Ilvalino remained expressionless.

While he was in confinement, Cain had started putting some time aside every day to read books on poetry. He even wrote a few poems himself. They were all odes to Diana. Naturally, Ilvalino got wrapped up in poetry, too, and he wrote some poems, which he showed to Cain only. They were promptly destroyed, immediately afterward. 

“Also, there were talks of our family joining inspection of the royal knights’ practice maneuvers in the afternoon on the day after tomorrow. I had planned on jumping in front of the royal carriage and nearly getting run over so that we would be even,” said Cain.[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

The schedule for the royal family’s inspections and formal visitations were public knowledge, and it was information that anyone could find out about, but the routes that they would take to get to the destinations were top secret. 

This was, of course, for the safety of the royal family, and for the guards’ convenience. 

“For this coming inspection, the royal carriage was to pass by our manor, two roads down from the rear gates,” said Cain. 

Cain was saying that he knew about the top-secret route that the royal carriage would take. The butler had his usual calm smile, but on the inside, he was shocked. 

How could Cain, who had been confined to his room all this week, have known about this information? The butler couldn’t judge whether the carriage would really be heading down that route for a military inspection the day after tomorrow, so he decided it was possible that Cain was lying about the whole thing.

This could just be Cain’s way of exacting a little bit of revenge for being told that he would be going to have tea with the Crown Prince that very day. The butler knew that even though Cain was usually a very well behaved boy, when anything that had to do with Diana didn’t quite go his way, he had a tendency to come up with elaborate ways to rebel against the situation. 

“Apparently, it was a good thing that this meeting was sprung on you. As your parents, the master and mistress of the manor clearly know you very well,” said the butler. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Apparently, they hadn’t shown much interest in how my studies were progressing,” said Cain. 

“That’s because they believed in you. They had faith in the reports that you were progressing at a fine rate. Besides, those reports weren’t wrong, were they?” asked the butler. 

It was somewhat true that he was progressing at a “fine” rate. Then again, it was a complicated situation, since Cain had been purposely distancing his academic life from his parents.

Cain didn’t want his parents to interfere with his studies or physical training by saying that he was pushing himself too hard. 

He wanted to take advantage of this optimized body that he was given as a “Potential Suitor” in the game. He meant to train himself as much as possible so that he would be strong enough to defend Diana in any situation. 

“Well, it’s all for nothing if I don’t know about what’s going on in my own house,” said Cain. 

Cain had thought he was doing well by finding out about this poetry meeting and its status as “another gathering to find friends for the Crown Prince,” as well as the secret route that the royal carriage would take to get to the military inspection. 

If these clothes for a special occasion had been prepared, the servants in the house must have known about today’s tea session. 

“Ilvalino may serve you, Master Cain, but most of us serve the master and mistress of the house,” said the butler, bluntly letting Cain know how things stood.

While it was a reassuring thing for the duke’s son to have a close confidant in Ilvalino, if he were to make enemies with his parents, he would only have one person on his side. 

“Now, today’s breakfast will be croque-monsieur,” said the butler, opening the door to the dining room. All of Cain’s family was already present, and Diana was wearing an apron. 

As a small act of protest, Cain frowned as he greeted his parents.