Conversation between the Duchess and her maid

　The inside of the carriage was filled with a heavy atmosphere.

　Marie still doesn't show any emotion and keeps her mouth shut.

　The carriage runs slowly. Coming much more slowly. I guess he thinks I'm depressed. You can just tell that Rudd, the driver, cares about you, Your Grace.

"...Marie, do you think I'm wrong too?"

No matter what anyone tells me, I have no intention of changing my behavior. Melfina's life has been a series of hardships since the beginning. She was never rewarded. Now that she has regained her memories, she should have thought that she didn't care what other people thought of her.

Still, she never considered that she might end up hurting others by trying to get her way. Melfina is a child of a noble family, and she has hardly ever lived in a territory and has never had close friends of her generation. Although she often visited orphanages, no one around her had anything to say about her interaction with the orphans there.

It is clear that as an aristocrat, there are very few patterns of interaction with people other than aristocrats. Just because I don't care, that's not enough. Instead of Melfina being blamed, a young boy is sometimes attacked verbally.

"In my position, I have no right to dictate Melfina-sama's actions, but if you don't mind my personal opinion."

"Yeah."

"Melfina-sama is not wrong."

When I was told this clearly, I turned my gaze towards Marie, which I had been averting due to the awkwardness. Marie was also looking straight at Melfina.

"This is simply a matter of hierarchy. Melfina-sama is the mistress of the Duke's house and the lord of the Enkar region. Melfina-sama is in a position where she can criticize how she behaves in the territory. There is no one who has that right. The only person who has that right is His Excellency the Duke, but this right applies only to his role as a husband, not as a lord."

The voice continues unabated. Marie seemed to have firm ideas on the matter.

"It is the exclusive authority of the feudal lord to decide how to manage his territory and what kind of land he would like to develop, and if I may say this at the risk of being disrespectful, even the royal family has no right to the nobility. Meddling in the management of a territory is something that is rarely done unless it is extremely unethical. Anyone who is familiar with aristocratic society should be aware that doing so will lead to the defection of the aristocracy. It's the right thing to do."

"Yes...that's right."

Aside from the new nobility established by the royal family, the term nobility can be traced back to local powerful families. The basic relationship between the royal family and the aristocrats is that one particularly powerful family is called the royal family, and the other families form contracts in exchange for alliances and loyalty.

Even though they respect the royal family, aristocratic families are essentially equal to the royal family, and their territory is equal to the territory of their own country, and tax rates and the enactment of territorial laws are left to the discretion of the lord. If it is issued, it will be interpreted as interference in internal affairs.

Local aristocrats are the ones who look up to the royal family as their main source because they can maintain the independence of their territories without being invaded.

In fact, one of the things that Melfina learned was that in times when the royal family was less powerful than it is now, it was not uncommon for regions to become independent and secede to become principalities or principalities. Nobles look up to the king, but they are not representatives of the royal family. It is up to the lord to decide what kind of territory he wants to make, and now that Melfina has become the official lord of the Enkar region, no one will criticize her for acting like a king here. Marie says that blaming her lord for her behavior is a mistake.

"Even more so, for an escort knight to interfere with the words and actions of Melfina-sama, who is visiting the territory as a lord, is something that should be blamed. Therefore, regarding the question of whether Melfina-sama was in the wrong, I will answer that she is not wrong."

"Yeah..."

With Marie's words, the problems between her and Cedric were gradually being sorted out.

Cedric treats Melfina not as the "Lord of the Enker region" but as the "Duchess of Ordland."

That's why, as a wife, she frowns when she sees behavior that seems strange, and when someone whose identity is unknown approaches her, she takes action to protect Melfina. As a knight, she has nothing wrong with that.

"Thank you, Marie. I feel a little refreshed."

"I'm glad I was able to help you. Also."

"Yeah?"

"I have a younger brother. I went to work early, so I couldn't really care about him, but I thought he was cute. I want a boy of that age to be carefree and smile. I have feelings."

Marie turned her big eyes towards me and smiled slightly.

"So, I felt happy that Melfina-sama cared about that boy."

I feel a kinship with Marie, who looks like my sister, and I can't help but smile. Melfina also had a younger brother. She was born with the love of her parents that Melfina never got. Her feelings for her brother are complicated, but she adores him as her sister. Her feelings that her younger brother is cute are certainly in her heart.

"I need to talk to you properly, Cedric."

"Yes, please do so."

As if Marie had finished speaking, she fell silent again. However, the silence inside the carriage felt less heavy than before.