Translator note: Palace is the name of the Stuart’s territory. It’s a weird name, yeah.

Chapter 8 – The Tea Party Invitation

Three days after the Tanaka family meeting, the tea party invitation from the House of Count Stuart reached influential figures in Palace County and Houses who governed the neighboring counties…

Being far from the royal capital, the House of Count Stuart had been of middling rank in the aristocratic society, but… over the past three years, the quality of their silk fabric production had improved dramatically, and with it, resulting in a steady increase in sales. Furthermore, it had expanded into overseas markets so much that these days, the kingdom was known as the Kingdom of Palacian Silk.

Knockoffs existed, to some degree, but either by rigorous management of proprietary information or skilled use of the technology, no other products ever came close to the level of Palacian silk.

In other words, the House of Count Stuart was making bank. It was even rumored that this kingdom could be bought out by Count Stuart. As crazy as that sounded, it remained just a rumour.

As such, a tea party invitation from the Stuarts spread in the twinkling of an eye. The agenda was to find fiancées, not only for the eldest son George but for all three siblings …as Mother herself explicitly wrote, which further increased the number of hopeful invitees.

‘Feel free to invite your friends as well…’ were penned in the invitations, too, so the children of noble families throughout the kingdom were also headed for Palace County.

Melsa chuckled to herself every day as she picked through the letters requesting attendance.

“With this many suitors, it will surely be all but decided! My children’s marriage!”

At that point, Mother was still unaware… 

That among those letters were ones from the kingdom’s prince and princess.

The three siblings were still unaware…

That it wouldn’t end at just one tea party.

The father, Leonard, was thinking…

That he wanted, more than for his children, to find a wife for his younger brother Arban.

♠♠♠

Author’s note: It seems that it’s going to be a matchmaking party in the name of a tea party.