Transmigrated As The Villainess' Boyfriend With A... SSS Harem System?

"What do you mean, my lord? She said yes."

"She thanked me. Can you believe that?" Zaleador said the word like it cost him something to chew on. "Two days before the ball, Lianza sent me a letter thanking me for it. She didn’t even dare come herself, that stubborn girl. I told her the house would survive the slight, that I would survive Varanian for her sake. But all I got was a thank-you." He sighed. "Her answer was very proper, very D’Tariel. I thought she wouldn’t accept... but she did it anyway."

"Why would she do that?" I asked, directly, before remembering that no one had given me permission to. But when it came to Lianza, I couldn’t help wanting to speak up, even standing in front of one of the Three Gods.

Zaleador didn’t seem to notice the insubordination. Or maybe he simply didn’t care.

"If I knew that, Elcronne, you wouldn’t be here."

I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

"Then why did she..."

"That’s the question that hasn’t left my head all week. I’ve turned it over and over and I don’t have a single answer that convinces me." He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "You return to Mayorka tomorrow. When you find out, tell no one before you tell me. No one. Not even her."

"Why not her?"

"Because if it turns out I’m wrong, my daughter will be in danger." He dipped his pen and wrote something. "And if I’m right, you’re the one in danger."

Why had Lianza accepted, when her father had told her not to? It was a question with no answer. Not unless you knew Lianza D’Tariel.

My fists clenched.

"I already have the answer, my lord."

"Do you? Then why didn’t you say so from the start?"

"Lianza carries too much," I said through clenched teeth, trying to hold back my anger. "She always has. Since she was old enough to understand anything, she’s put her duty as a noble above her own wishes."

"What did you just say?" Zaleador shook his head, clearly offended. "And who do you think you are, speaking for her?"

"I am..."

What could I tell him? That there was something between her and me that went beyond a simple bond between bodyguard and lady? In a society like Earolden’s, it was frowned upon for someone like her to be with someone like me.

"...her bodyguard," I said, and left it there. Even though right then I hated the man standing in front of me, he was still my king, and I had made sacred vows. "I protect her most of my time in Mayorka. And it seems I know her a good deal better than her own father does."

The moment I finished speaking, I turned and left. I gave no bow, no other gesture of courtesy; fury had blinded my mind, and I only remembered the breach once I was on the stairs, too late to go back.

My father was there, right between the door and the staircase. Close enough that he might have heard my conversation with the king, so I didn’t ask.

He was watching me, brow furrowed, shaking his head, his face darkened. In short, it was a look of disapproval.

His old-fashioned speeches about "honor," "manners," and "duty" could wait for later.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Now, you may never have slept in a room with no wall up north, so let me explain: it isn’t that the stone is missing. It’s that someone, long ago, decided that corner of the service wing didn’t deserve any, and put up oiled leather nailed to a wooden frame instead. It was still there, thirty winters later, shuddering every time the wind decided to try its luck against it.

No one ever explained to me why my room ended up next to the royal family’s wing instead of the usual one, in the wing where the rest of the staff slept, like every other Elcronne who had served before me. I suspect it was my father’s idea. I suspect, too, that it was hers.

Whatever the reason, ever since I was sworn in, I had slept beside Lianza’s room, both in Mayorka and here.

Even though I hadn’t seen her all day, I knew Lianza was here, in the D’Tariel castle, so I lay waiting to hear her. Whenever she was in distress, she cried through the wall, quietly, as if she didn’t want the world to hear her pain.

Whenever I heard her cry, I never knew what to do. Go to her? That would cause a scandal. Stay still and listen? That felt like some kind of betrayal. I was her bodyguard, the one who had solemnly sworn to protect her... and I couldn’t protect her from her own duty.

But that night, I didn’t hear her.

Sleep didn’t come easily. I lay awake for a while, waiting. Nothing. I pressed my ear to the wall that separated us, and my palm too, as if that would somehow help. It didn’t help at all. I felt ridiculous, but I kept doing it anyway.

Too many things were running through my head that night, and I barely slept because of it. The fresh news that Lianza had accepted the engagement despite what her father had told her didn’t help in the slightest.

Why did no one understand her? It didn’t matter what you told her: someone like Lianza D’Tariel would always put duty to her family first. The D’Tariel honor was the reason she lived.

And that made me sad.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Sunday broke clear and absurdly bright, for something so at odds with what I felt inside. I was fastening my cloak in the stable yard, Garchi shoved into the saddlebag — protesting, as if there existed a single place in the world he found acceptable — when I saw her.

"You were going to leave without saying anything," she said, and it wasn’t a question.

"Your father wanted to speak with me."

"I know." She crossed her arms, and the cold that followed her everywhere reached her hands first. Her glasses, fogged over, slid a little down the bridge of her nose. "I also know you’re not going to tell me what about."

That much I didn’t deny. It seemed to be enough for her.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked, with more care than I meant to show.

"Perfectly." She adjusted her glasses.

Of course it was a lie. She’d adjusted her glasses right after answering. Whenever she did that, she was lying. I’d spent three months learning to read that particular tell, and it had never once failed me.

No answer came. She didn’t seem to expect one, either.

She stood there looking at the horse for a moment, then at me, then back at the horse, as if she were deciding something.

Something she’d already decided a while ago, and only needed to say out loud to someone before it became real.

"I have a plan too," she said, with a smile as faint as a baby’s sneeze. "And I’m not going to tell you either."

"Why not?"

"Because yours belongs to my father, and mine is only mine; it belongs to me." She stepped close enough that Garchi stopped complaining. "And because if I tell you, you’ll try to stop me."

"Should I?"

Lianza let out a mocking breath. For a second, her hand rose toward her left lens — the gesture that meant she couldn’t take something anymore — and stopped halfway, as if she’d noticed it too.

"Figure it out yourself, Elcronne. We’re both keeping secrets for each other’s sake now. Welcome to the club."

She turned before I could say anything, and nearly all the cold left with her. I stayed there, sitting, a horse beside me, a cat that wouldn’t stop meowing...

...and with the uncomfortable certainty that I had just lost, without knowing exactly when, the one advantage I thought I had: that I was the only one lying.