Chapter 460 The duke’s visit (1)
The days passed by quickly and we received word two days later that the duke would be arriving soon.
It was the scout team on the edge of our territory that had noticed the duke's carriage and immediately sent word to the town to inform us.
When that happened, Rose started running things with even more of an iron fist than she did before. This time, I wasn't able to escape since I was the count and the lord of this place, so I had to prepare myself to greet the duke.
As such, I was dragged off by a few of her maids and made to sit still for several hours as they prepared what I would be wearing to greet the duke.
Actual formal wear was much more troublesome than normal formal wear, this was something that was used to impress the guests that came, so there were many different parts to it.
From the clothes to the accessories to even the smallest details of my hair, it all had to be perfect.
So I was basically turned into a dress up doll before the duke arrived.
But there was one good thing that came from this.
Rose also had to put on formal wear and…the moment that I saw her, my breath was taken away.
She was already a beautiful woman, but when she went all out like this…there was nothing that I could say.
In fact, there was a part of me that wanted to bark for her, but I held myself back in the end.
The two of us were dressed up like this as we waited in our manor for the duke's arrival.
Since I was a count and she was a countess, it wasn't as if we could wait outside for the duke.
We had to wait for our people to pick him up and bring him here.
During this, it really was uncomfortable sitting there since we were just waiting without having a thing to do.
If we moved around too much, it would ruin our formal wear and give a bad impression. So we had to sit as still as possible until the duke arrived.
Finally, the duke's arrival was announced and we stood up to greet him.
To our surprise, we found that it wasn't just the duke that came, but also his wife.
The way that they acted, it was almost as if they were on vacation rather than visiting the territory of another noble.
But that was just how it was for nobles of higher rank, they felt less pressure in situations like this since the pressure wasn't on them. They didn't need to worry about offending others, it was others that had to worry about offending them.
So they could just act as casual as they wanted, there would still be people that would try to flatter them.
After they came in, I stood up and walked over to the duke before saying, "Duke Beauchamp, it is an honour for us to have you visit our territory."
This time, I had completely changed how I addressed the duke.
Before, I had been overly courteous and had addressed him in a very respectful manner.
But this time, I addressed him properly as a noble of slightly higher ranking.
That was because now that I was a count, that was what was expected.
If I were to keep acting like I had done before, then it would have been insulting.
After all, trying too hard made things seem fake. If I were to keep acting humble like I did before, then all it would do is offend the duke.
The duke looked at me with narrowed eyes when he heard me addressing him like this.
Seeing him look at me like this, I couldn't help feeling a bit worried…
But then the duke revealed a smile and said, "Count Zwein, you're too kind. I should say that it is an honour for me to come to your territory."
Rose revealed a surprised look in her eyes when she heard this, but I quickly patted her hand to calm her down since I was already used to this.
The duke knew that I was a part of Shadow Garden, so he had acted this way when I had been in Bright Water City.
I was already used to hearing him talk like this, so I said with a smile, "Then it could be said that it is both of our honours to be here today."
The duke was surprised by this, but he revealed a faint smile as he nodded in response.
After that, the four of us all sat down and some tea was prepared for us.
Since they had just arrived, we didn't get right into business and talked about some small things that weren't important.
We were just letting the duke and the duchess settle before getting into it.
However, the duke was the one that changed the topic to a subject that hurt him quite a bit.
"Where's Veronica? Shouldn't she be here?" After he said this, he looked around as if he was searching for her.
But there was no place that she could be since we were in the living room of our manor.
If she was here, he would have already seen her.
Both Rose and I revealed awkward smiles when we heard this.
We had tried to get Veronica to come with us to meet the duke, but she had refused.
It wasn't as if we could force her to come with us if she wasn't willing, so we had no choice but to meet the duke and duchess without her.
Now that they had brought the topic up, we had no choice but to give the excuse that we had already given.
Rose said with a smile, "Lady Veronica has been interacting with our dwarven friends quite a bit recently. They invited her to help out with their forging today, so she couldn't cancel and had no choice but to miss this meeting. Of course, she will be coming to dinner tonight."
The duke revealed a bitter smile when he heard this.
He looked at the duchess and both of them had bitter smiles on their faces.
When we saw this, we couldn't help feeling worried about this and I said, "If you wish, we can send someone to get Lady Veronica and have her join us."
The duke just shook his head and said, "There's no need for that."
He looked at us with that bitter smile as he said, "We know what kind of personality our daughter has, so there's no need for you to give excuses. It's clear that she just didn't want to come see us."
When we heard this, the two of us suddenly jolted and panicked.
We were about to offer up more excuses, but the duke just raised his hand and said with the same bitter smile, "There's no need for you to make excuses for her. There's nothing that you can do if she doesn't want to see us."
Then after a pause, he said, "But that does mean that she's having fun if she's still willing to stay after all this time."
We couldn't help revealing a bit of worry when we heard this.
There was a bad feeling that filled us after he said this…
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