[Six hours before the party.]

The duke has been invited to the young lady’s birthday by his best friend, the Baron of O’Dea Calum. He knew Calum for a long time after they received the knighthood together. And they have been through enough together for Dean to consider Calum his best friend.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” the first conflict between the friends was formed by those words and over a certain Belmar, who was then just a commoner, was born to a respectful couple. Calum did see her first, but she chose Dean first.

But their relationship had been doomed from the beginning, seeing Belmar liked finer things and even though Dean could provide them. He still had a strict mother who would not give him money. to buy cursed jewels, which were illegal, because she knew their existence itself was already illegal.

“You will marry her; she is stronger and wiser than that woman you keep around.” His mother had fiercely said, and he refused, for a week. It only lasted a week because, apart from spending his money recklessly, Belmar bought a cursed jewel behind his back and paraded it around the whole north claiming Dean bought it for her. And that, risking his entire livelihood and the lives of the entire Neferpitou family was the breaking point of their relationship.

But many would say he chose Magnilda because it did not work out with Belmar. Which, in the short run, was true. But the poised woman had seduced him to a point of no return for the third day of their relationship. “Would the duke like to spar with me?” strange words for someone to fall like that, but Dean remembers being defeated in a Second, because he was too distracted. “You know if you miss Belmar that much, you can just go and see her.” Words he had vowed would never leave her mouth.

“Are you marrying Magnilda?” Calum had asked one day before announcing he had already married Belmar secretly. And, he had never felt so peaceful. “Congratulations, I am happy for you.” He had watched his friend try to love a woman who kept demeaning him for years and from his view, he had seen how pitiful his love for that woman was.

“Your Grace, may I have a word?”

“Magnilda? What brings you here?”

“I was thinking of the meeting with the delegates of Drucia tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, I called the Archimage to make a visual massage.”

“But tonight, we are going to Lady O’Dea’s birthday.”

“Um, your grace.”

“Is that how you call your husband now? Did I perhaps anger you in some way?” he pitifully asked.

“Dean,” she sighs, “me and the Baroness do not see eye to eye. I will not be attending.”

“She did not send an invitation, did she?” he sighed, “Please prepare, you will be coming with me.”

“Dean, I am not going.”

“But you are my wife, and my wife should come with me.”

“But it would not be good for me to go.”

“I want my wife with me,” she says. Still, when he approaches, it puts his heart at ease, but what fills his heart is her, allowing him to touch her. “Please, I really like to see your beautiful face next to me tonight.”

“Fine.”

“You will wear that beautiful dress. You have been putting it off for too long.”

“I will wear that dress you have been forcing me to wear.”

“Thank you.” He brushes his lips to hers and sees as she closes her beautiful gray eyes, “maybe we should stay how tonight.”

“What, no you said you would go support Lady Olivia’s birthday. Why would you change your mind so quickly?” He mischievously smiles at her, making her flinch at his actions. ‘The immoral man’ She mumbles before rushing to change for the party.

He loved Magnilda for all the entirety of their relationship, and he knows he will continue to do so. “You do not know for sure; you are saying that because we are with child.”

The words she had excused his confession using, but as time went on, she could not deny it any longer and Dean Neferpitou was the one to make the icy knight of the north blush.

But tonight, he arrives at a birthday party with a happy woman in his hand who had just let him touch her since their fight and is confronted by a screaming 11-year-old calling both his precious icy knight and equally icy daughter an abomination.

“I ask again, Baroness, what nonsensical words is that child saying?”

“Dean, it is not what it seems to be, Olivia was just throwing a tantrum because of Azura….”

“Please do not blame my daughter, for not teaching you proper manners.” The duchess spoke, making Belmar snort.

“Did the Baroness just snort at my wife, the Duchess of Quica’s words, Baron.” He had dealt with this unreasonable woman long enough. It was only a few seconds, but he still felt it was too. much. He didn´t need to explain himself to her. Only Calum had kept him from killing her repeatedly when she insulted his wife.

“I apologize for my wife’s bad manners, Duke, I will surely scold her.” Calum bows his head to the duke, forcing his wife to bow as well.

“That is not enough. I want to know why the child thinks and believes that my husband is her father.” She calmly asks, making Calum shiver. He knows well enough that if she speaks calmly his head is good as cut off. But his wife, who does not understand the threat the duchess posed, just snorts at the question.

“I had just joked about it one day when I had talked about the duke and I´s  previous scandals. We were very enthusiastic. back then.” She replies smugly, looking down at the duchess.

“But I remember our relationship ending indefinitely. Before our respective marriages, I had never even had a conversation, let alone being intimate with any other woman that is not my wife.” She gasps at the duke's words; mummers fill the room yet again.

‘Did you hear that? The duke did not associate with her.’

‘Huh such a shameless woman, still holding on to the married man.’

‘She is married herself, to a wonderful man at that.’

“Ah, Duke need not worry about children’s brains….” She tries to salvage the situation.

“You did not refute the claims that she was the duke’s daughter and let her believe that on her own, Belmar.” Calum shouts, “You let our child believe that she was not my child.”

“Calum.” A rock and a hard place Indeed, Belmar had never been the one to choose between these two friends, but it seems the friends were not choosing her side tonight.

“How much do you undermine me as your husband?”

“Father, it is all the duchess and her daughter’s daughter.” Olivia defends her mother.

“What did they do?” Calum looks sadly at the child who had been fed lies.

“They… um, father saw how the duchess looked at me.” Olivia had loved her mother dearly; she had never found fault in her words since she was a little child.

“You were insulting her marriage and daughter.”

“Calum, please calm down, Oliva is still a child,” the Baroness reasoned.

“You are right, you are the one I should be reprimanded for not teaching our daughter proper manners.”

“Please solve whatever issue within family, but I will not let them disrespect not only me, but my wife and daughter goes unnoticed. I have done enough favors to the Baron as my friend. Overlooking the Baroness’s mistakes. It will not happen anymore since the Baroness doesn’t seem to want to change.”

“Dean,”

“Baroness, do you still plan to be shameless to the very end, what authority allows you to call me such an intimate manner?”

“Your Grace, I humbly apologize.”

“That is not enough. I will be sure to send the Neferpitous decisions regarding your actions today.”

And with that he and his whole family along with the crown prince had left the room. The look of Olivia consoling her crying mother had filled many with not only disgust but also sympathy for the child who has been burdened with adult problems.