Chapter 139

"You weren't doing very well, were you."

Tears flooded Friedrich's eyes in an instant.

I can't cry here like a child. Not in front of all these people. The moment her reproach landed, the ground seemed to drop out from under him.

Then something curved around his chin and lifted it.

Through blurring vision, a face appeared — devastatingly beautiful, even now.

That face smiled, and whispered.

"Don't cry."

Soft fingers moved gently along the corner of his eye.

She had told him not to cry, so he couldn't — but her touch was so impossibly tender in this moment of all moments that his heart refused to obey.

"I told you to smile, husband."

A small thumb pressed lightly at the corner of his mouth. Friedrich collected himself, and drew his lips upward.

And when he saw Her Highness mirror his smile back at him — somehow, the tears…