Chapter 68
68. Family
2022.04.24.
Arthur’s voice continued from the darkness.
“I even had the arrogant thought that maybe I could be with you. On the way back from the war, everyone was talking about the women they’d left behind in their hometowns.”
“…….”
“I also had to think about how to deal with ‘Julius,’ who had treated me and the conscripts that way. Your thoughts were sometimes included in that.”
“…….”
“What should I do with you.”
Arthur paused briefly and let out a small chuckle.
“To confess my foolishness, I thought the worrying was something only I needed to do. I believed that if I decided to be with you, I could keep you by my side.”
“…….”
“I didn’t even consider that you might have reasons not to want to get involved with me.”
Reina gazed up at Arthur silently.
Arthur quietly brushed her hair, his gaze directed far away as he continued speaking.
“I used to mock the arrogant nobles who believed they alone had the right to choose. I laughed at the fools who mistook a woman’s kind words for affection. But I was doing the exact same thing.”
Arthur’s voice was calm.
“You probably never even gave it a thought.”
Arthur looked down at Reina and asked plainly.
“You have a family you need to protect, so you wouldn’t want to get caught up in the dangers I carry, right?”
“…….”
Reina’s answer was already set.
Arthur seemed to know that too.
But Reina didn’t get the chance to express it.
Because Arthur added with a serious face.
“What if… I’m kind of… handsome?”
“…….”
Silence fell.
For a moment, Reina stared at him, unable to comprehend his words.
“…….”
Arthur muttered to himself.
“Figures. A good face is pretty useless after all.”
“…….”
After a stretch of silence.
A soft ‘pfft’ escaped, and laughter burst out.
Reina ended up laughing so hard tears came to her eyes, choking with giggles.
“Is it that funny?”
Arthur said, sounding a bit hurt, as he tousled her hair.
It seemed deliberate, playful.
“Ahem. I’m sorry,” she said, wiping away tears, but she couldn’t stop laughing.
For quite a while.
* * *
Arthur chuckled softly and began to speak.
My handsome face probably takes after my mother.
I’ve never seen her.
They say she was a great beauty.
And so, Arthur began to tell the story of his family.
My mother was an actress.
She caught the eye of His Majesty the Emperor during a performance in some city.
I was born, and my mother named His Majesty the Emperor as the father.
But he didn’t acknowledge it.
My mother was a famous lead actress who worked with many male actors.
I don’t know how many men she could have pointed to as the father.
But for His Majesty the Emperor, the fact that I might not be his only one
seemed like an important issue.
Well, I get it. He’s the emperor.
He couldn’t afford to look ridiculous.
It might have hurt his pride to say he wasn’t sure if I was his child or not.
Around the same time, Empress Maria was heavily pregnant too.
“…….”
His Majesty the Emperor refused to acknowledge even the possibility that I was his son and stayed silent,
and my mother died of puerperal fever just a week after giving birth to me.
They say the emperor never even visited.
From my late mother’s perspective, that was a bit too much.
“…….”
But anyway, even if he’d come early, it probably wouldn’t have changed much.
Apparently, he did see me a few months later.
They say the emperor showed no interest in me, who bore no resemblance to him.
I took after my mother, so there was no obvious proof I was the emperor’s child.
And that was the end of His Majesty’s interest in me.
“…….”
Arthur looked at Reina and grinned.
These days, it’s all the talk that my gray eyes resemble the late Emperor Alexander Luisaik II,
but apparently, I had blue eyes when I was very young.
As everyone in the empire knows, the emperor has purple eyes.
My hair was black, like my mother’s…
Black hair and blue eyes aren’t a look found in the imperial bloodline.
And my mother had red eyes.
But the child had blue eyes.
“So, it seems His Majesty the Emperor, who saw me as a newborn, thought I wasn’t his child.”
“…….”
Reina gazed quietly at Arthur.
It was a story she knew too.
The story about Arthur’s ‘gray eyes.’
“For me, it’s hard to believe they’d judge based on something like eye color…”
“…….”
From the person involved’s perspective, it was a story no one had ever heard.
Arthur’s voice continued.
“If he thought my mother had lied about my bloodline, then just letting me live and ignoring me was something to be grateful for.”
“…….”
Her chest ached sharply.
Reina held her breath.
* * *
Clatter…
The imperial messenger carriage carrying letters from the capital crossed the drawbridge and knocked on the gates of Julius.
There was no prior appointment, and it was late, but the coachman’s formal noble attire and the imperial seal on the carriage
easily opened the outer gate, the inner gate, and the doors of Julius Mansion in sequence.
* * *
【 To my dear nephew, Rembrandt. 】
【 Do as you wish. 】
【 With affection. Maria Abigail von Lusac. 】
* * *
【 To my dear shield. 】
【 Arrived safely. 】
【 Come quickly. 】
【 Golden Trophy. 】
【 P.S. Give my regards to Arthur and the lady. 】
【 Did you deliver the letter I gave you? 】
* * *
Rembrandt scratched his forehead as he read the letters from Empress Maria and Crown Prince Kyle one by one.
“Ah.”
That ‘letter’?
He wasn’t sure if it even qualified as a letter…
“…….”
He’d thought it was just a joke.
…Sorry about that.
He still hadn’t found a chance to meet her…
Rembrandt glanced at the crown prince’s ’old letter’ lying on top in the personal letterbox before him.
The crown prince’s letter, scribbled carelessly on a card without even an envelope or seal, had its contents blatantly visible.
* * *
【 To my dear lady. 】
【 Take good care of Arthur. 】
【 It seems Arthur thought of you for a long time. 】
【 Awaiting our reunion. 】
【 Ryan Dalton and Arthur have my envy, 】
【 Your wine delivery man, accustomed to sleeping rough. 】
【 P.S. Next time, I won’t bring alcohol. Sorry. 】
* * *
Arthur continued calmly.
“They say my eye color changed to gray around the time I turned one full year old. But it didn’t mean much. Even though my grandfather, the late emperor, had gray eyes. Who would bother remembering a bastard child ignored by the emperor with no foundation? Even the late emperor, who died young at thirty-five, had blue eyes in childhood that turned gray.”
“…….”
The child’s eyes changed color; it must take after grandfather. It’s your bloodline, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you take another look?
Even if someone had argued that, it would have seemed like a forced, barely-there common point.
Honestly, even I would have laughed it off.
Arthur’s voice was indifferent.
“…….”
“But after more time passed… I learned belatedly that I had inherited something far more certain than eye color—a mark of the bloodline unique to the imperial family.”
“…….”
Arthur’s voice paused there for a long while.
Reina looked up at him and asked cautiously.
“…So… did the imperial family acknowledge it?”
Arthur gave a small laugh in reply.
“Well… they didn’t acknowledge it right away, but something like that. From then on, it seems they started debating whether to use me as insurance or not.”
“…….”
They needed someone to send to war.
I had nothing, but conveniently, there was Julius.
If I went to war under the Julius family name, it wouldn’t give the impression that the imperial family had ignored me all this time only to suddenly try to use me.
“…….”
If I succeeded and came back,
it might have looked like they hadn’t acknowledged me before, but the imperial family had secretly been arranging a good match for the bastard child and giving me a chance to restore my honor.
—Something like that to save face.
“Not exactly a beautiful story.”
Arthur smiled.
“But thanks to it, I got a solid contract with guarantees and a good opportunity.”
“…….”
Reina held her breath, listening intently to every word of his story.
It was the tale of her hero himself—things even her diligently collected gazettes couldn’t reveal.
“So that’s how I ended up with Julius.”
“…….”
“I had no choice in the matter.”
