After finally leaving the euphoric state of having my darling call my name as I called hers, I looked at the baron who probably had an incredible face since coming out of the state."You want to know why I"m courting her"
"Yes"
"Cecile she"s a great woman"
"I don"t mean to be rude but we don"t lack great women in our Empire Your Highness"
I nodded.
"You know I loved her since I was kid. Unfortunately she was not available at the time. Wouldn"t be delightful to marry someone you love?"
"...yes" he answered me with a disagreeable face.
I chuckled.
"Of course for an Emperor is almost impossible to do it. We must consider all kind of things to our future Empress or concubine. Plus love is not something our lovely n.o.bility looks for in their sovereign"
I look outside the window. My country is a beautiful place with amazing people living on it. All my life all I wanted to do is to improve my subjects lives and enrich my nation. That"s why I"m still the running as heir of throne and putting with all the s*it from the royals and n.o.bles all these years.
Even my love I was willing to give up. After all I wasn"t going to start a war and let millions die because of this petty reason.
But now I don"t have to do this anymore. I can just simply combine the useful with the pleasant and everything is going to be perfect.
... well, that"s is if she accepts my pursue.
But I"m confident in myself!
"Cecile Dubois. The only daughter of the Prime Minister, is known to be the perfect image of what a lady should be by the n.o.bles and an angel by the common people. Plus she has one more ident.i.ty known to everyone the biggest business owner of the kingdom. If she one day decides to stop her products, this kingdom will face a crises"
I tapped my finger in the armrest.
"Not only this kingdom. Our Empire will also face some difficulties since she not only imports large quant.i.ties of materials from there but we also import many of her products or of her family fiefdom"
I took my eyes back and looked at the baron that was flabbergasted. Yes, Cecile now is actually a very dangerous person for both nations. She controls too much of our economy that not even my father or this country"s king can mess with her.
Actually the best option was probably have someone to deal with her in silence on the beginning. But because of her family and status, it wasn"t easy. In my investigations I fount that both sovereigns tried to undermine her business a bit, but it was so easily solved by her competent subordinates that she probably didn"t even know of their attempt.
My investigation also showed that...
"And as the cherry on top of the cake, she has one more ident.i.ty"
The baron looked at me intently and I smiled.
"She"s the owner of the biggest underground organization of this kingdom. So do tell me dear baron, which lady do you know in our Empire that could rival her? I will gladly meet her when we go back"
The baron became silent. Not that I expected anything more. Cecile is truly a scary person when you think about it. She is loved so much by the n.o.bility that when Albert broke their engagement, he and his fiancée were ridiculed behind their backs and ostracized. Well, not that that piece of ice noticed. He has fallen too deep to that girl. Is laughable actually.
She is also loved by the commoners and has a large inst.i.tution of charity that develops one of the most outstanding people here. Most of them go work for her, but those that don"t are now everywhere. Other n.o.bles house, important guilds like the medical a.s.sociation and the pharmacist a.s.sociation, the guards, the royal castle and some of them even manage to get small n.o.bility t.i.tles.
All this was started by her kindness when she was a kid, and now after more than ten years the people who benefited from it can easily mobilize the kingdom if they want. And all of them is deeply grateful to her and idolizes her to the maximum.
She also controls the economy and the underground of the kingdom. I"ll say again, that Albert actually broke his engagement with her is laughable. With one word from her his kingdom or at least his family sovereignty would be over. Fortunately for him, she really likes his family and has no thoughts about the throne.
"Having her by my side is like having this kingdom by my side. Do you understand now Baron?"
He nodded hastily and patted his chest.
"That woman is truly scary"
I laughed to his comment.
"Nah. Don"t you think she"s cute?"
He looked incredulous at me.
"Do you know that her aim was never any of this?"
Yes. Knowing her, she probably just wanted to be richer so she made some business. She felt this people were poor and she helped those that she could. She didn"t want embarra.s.s her family so she trained harder than anyone else to be the Queen.
"That"s why she"s cute. Her sincere feelings for each thing she does is what attracts people to her like b.u.t.terflies to the most sweet flower"
And I"m one of these b.u.t.terflies. Since young her sincerity it"s the nectar that drowned me and made me deeply addicted.
"So I want to make her my Empress. I don"t wish no one else by my side"
"And no one else would be if not her" I smiled thinking in all the ways to approach her and invite her to follow to my territory.