Chapter 10
‘He shot the man who was clinging to him without even listening, yet here he is.’
Well, naturally. He probably felt that even showing mercy to an in-law he had spent seven years of marriage with—someone he treated worse than a stranger—was a waste of effort.
Lottie felt a sudden twinge of guilt for having fled in terror, leaving him behind while he was having a seizure, but she quickly shook herself awake.
Regardless, that man is a murderer. He committed an unforgivable act.
If he hadn’t fired that gun back then, far from being courted by multiple men like she was now, she would still be distributing those humiliating flyers to find a remarriage partner, but…
‘Why do I keep taking his side?! Get it together, Charlotte Evanshire!’
“Thanks to your escort, I enjoyed a pleasant stroll, My Lady.”
Calyx spoke, matching his pace to Lottie’s, which had slowed to a near-crawl.
What had been a full-on sprint for someone was nothing more than a stroll for the man. The thought made Lottie’s blood boil.
While inwardly crushing that detestable face that didn’t have a single drop of sweat on it, Lottie increased her speed as if she hadn’t heard him.
Calyx caught up to the distancing Lottie with his long strides.
When she hurried away again with short steps, he caught up once more.
It was as dull and easy as catching up to a baby who had just taken its first steps.
When she finally couldn’t take it anymore and glared at the man standing beside her, he feigned innocence as if nothing were wrong. That look grated on her nerves once again.
She didn’t know. Even after walking for an hour as if being chased and turning the thoughts over in her mind, she couldn’t understand this man’s intentions at all.
If he was curious about the circumstances of her being in that secret room that day, he could have just used his notoriety to force her mouth open; why a date?
And then, he just followed her as she walked ahead without saying a word.
What on earth was he trying to do?
Unable to overcome the frustration, Lottie came to a dead stop and spun around to face Calyx.
“Fine. I will give you a late answer to your question from an hour ago.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“That day, ahem, I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t in any condition to dance all night. Then I suddenly remembered the time I toured the royal palace with my father when I was young. At that time,”
“The servant who was giving the tour to your father, a noble member of parliament, and his daughter specially showed you the secret room hidden in the Grand Banquet Hall, and you tried to hide there by reviving that memory.”
Damn it. Calyx burst into laughter as if it were an expected response.
“I’ll pretend to be fooled. You’d better think of a more plausible answer. I’ll ask again just when you’re about to forget.”
“Just… why are you doing this to me?”
She felt that if she walked any further, she would collapse onto the ground like the Little Mermaid who had first gained human legs. Lottie asked as if pleading for him to stop.
“The one who was in a place they shouldn’t have been that day wasn’t just me, but, that…”
Lottie hesitated for a moment before addressing the man in front of her.
It was because she couldn’t find the right words to refer to him, the deposed Crown Prince.
No matter how his royal surname had been stripped away and he now used the surname Valdea, used by illegitimate children, she couldn’t bring herself to call him Mr. Valdea.
“Prince… Your Highness was the same, were you not?”
After a brief hesitation, Lottie decided what to call Calyx. Even if he had been kicked out of the position of heir to the throne, a prince was still a prince.
Honestly, she didn’t even want to care about what sentiments Calyx might have regarding that title.
“I don’t dare to threaten you, but weren’t you also hiding there for your own reasons, Your Highness? I’m sorry, but I clearly remember you exchanging a secret conversation with a visitor to the secret room at that time.”
“So you are threatening me.”
“……My apologies.”
“Since we both have something to hide, let’s just keep our mouths shut and go our separate ways. That’s what you mean.”
Calyx’s gaze turned a bit colder than before as he spoke the last words.
Oops. She had momentarily forgotten who she was dealing with because of her desire to flip her disadvantageous position.
Lottie reflexively lowered her eyes. She clasped her hands in front of her, but they trembled slightly from the fear that had slipped past her defenses.
“Come to think of it, you were strangely calm even when you were being framed as the protagonist of a scandal in the outdoor garden. Even when Padrick… my cousin was protecting you. As if you were someone who knew beforehand that it would happen.”
“……!”
“Just what kind of person are you? My Lady.”
His tone was light, but his gaze was not. He pierced through the woman trembling slightly before him with a heavy and sharp intensity.
“What kind of person are you to be so bold even when you know who I am?”
“…….”
“Are you not… afraid of me?”
Lottie felt a ringing in her ears.
There were notorious reputations that followed the name Calyx Valdea like hooks.
A traitor who assassinated the Late King, a deposed Crown Prince stripped of his royal surname, a parasite barely clinging to life through the grace of Her Majesty the Queen and the Crown Prince.
On top of that, an ungrateful wretch who smeared the name of the royal family by wandering around the center of the royal castle, not knowing the value of his own life.
In addition to that, there were names that only she, living her second life, knew.
A rebel who eventually betrayed the royal family that had saved him and staged a coup.
A tyrant who started a civil war and drove the poor people to their deaths.
The one who killed me.
‘Murderer.’
The public remembered him with fear, but she remembered him with anger.
Fear and anger were emotions that were similar yet different, and Charlotte Evanshire, who was angry at him, had no desire to do such a thing as bow her head in fear of Calyx Valdea.
“…….”
So she remained silent. So that she wouldn’t have to suppress her feelings of resentment by acting in awe like the others.
That silence made Calyx feel a strange sense of dissonance.
He was Calyx Valdea, a deposed prince who could only be an object of contempt and fear to the people.
Once again, he read honest emotions in the woman’s eyes, which were as transparent as glass.
Anger and resentment.
And sadness.
“Have I done something terribly wrong to you, My Lady?”
“……!”
This time, it was clear flusteredness.
As if realizing that her emotions were being exposed helplessly, the woman hurriedly turned away. It seemed she was the type who had to move her body whenever her mind was unsettled.
Having walked for so long, she started walking again, and as expected, she collapsed after only a few steps.
The hem of her green dress settled like flower petals, as if in place of a scream.
“If you like walking this much, it would be better to go horseback riding together next time.”
“……There won’t be a next time. Probably.”
“No one can guarantee human affairs. Probably.”
He was teasing her until the very end in front of someone who had just made a fool of herself. Lottie glared at Calyx, who was mimicking her words exactly, while she remained seated on the ground.
Now that he had seen everything there was to see, she might as well just give up on appearances.
“You’ve chosen a perfect spot to enjoy the scenery, My Lady.”
As if Lottie had occupied the spot on purpose, Calyx sat down beside her as if it were nothing. It was an action taken as if he had seen right through Lottie, who couldn’t find the courage to get up.
Sitting on the bare ground without a servant or a mat was something even Lottie, born a noble, found uncomfortable.
Lottie was momentarily stunned by the casual behavior of the man who was born and raised as royalty, then she moved her eyes to follow his gaze.
He hadn’t been making things up; the Contra River, which wound through the center of the capital, was dancing with its shimmering scales.
“It’s beautiful.”
Lottie only realized she had spoken after hearing her own voice.
It was a feeling of awe she had never experienced even in a fish tank decorated with all kinds of seaweed, or at any famous fountain in a square.
Living as a Queen for seven years, she hadn’t realized that this scenery, which she had grown numb to because it was part of her daily life, was this beautiful.
The river water, which just flowed without being bound to anything, and was therefore even more sparkling.
Another name for beauty is precision. Lottie felt she could add another sentence to the one she had created.
That another name for beauty is freedom.
“……I don’t know how to ride a horse. Since I wouldn’t be riding a horse alone once I got married anyway, my father didn’t have me learn. It’s easy to get hurt, and I didn’t want to cause my father worry. I didn’t feel the need to learn either.”
“…….”
“I suppose riding a horse would feel like flying through the wind, wouldn’t it? Not to mention the speed. Your legs wouldn’t hurt because of your shoes either.”
Rambling sentences followed. It was because from a certain point, she wasn’t speaking with a listener in mind.
Calyx, who had been harboring a somewhat different sentiment while looking at the Contra River, the lifeline of Matila, and the scenery of the capital nestled peacefully in its embrace, suddenly turned to look at his partner for the day sitting beside him.
He prided himself on knowing well how to win a woman’s heart.
To a woman who wanted praise, he would offer compliments so sweet they felt like his tongue would melt.
To a woman who was swayed by pity, he would craft plausible-sounding hollow inner thoughts.
To a woman who craved affection, he would offer vows of love. And if even that wasn’t enough, he would even satisfy her carnal desires.
The methods Calyx had prepared to win the heart of a woman named Charlotte Evanshire numbered in the dozens.
He intended to subtly sway her heart and ask if there was some kind of relationship between her and Padrick, how she had entered that secret room that only royal family members could know on her own two feet, what she had seen and heard then, and what she had found out.
If she tried to persuade or threaten him with what she had found out, he intended to withdraw all plans and silence her in the ‘most natural way.’
He hadn’t succeeded in a single thing. Every single plan had been derailed because of this woman’s eyes.
Those glass-like eyes that showed her inner thoughts clearly without even being ashamed.
Yet, it wasn’t so bad that all the plans he had painstakingly prepared had gone awry.
He even had a premonition that he, who had tried to take her heart by giving her what she wanted, might instead receive what he himself wanted from her.
What he wanted.
Even if he didn’t yet know exactly what it was, other than the throne that had been taken away.
He, who had been pierced by the memories of an irreversible past, looked at the woman sitting beside him with such a sentiment.
The woman’s eyes, which captured the sparkling river as it was, were a beautiful light green that even the darkness of the secret room couldn’t fully cover.
“Next time, I will teach you how to ride a horse.”
Calyx only realized after hearing it with his own ears that there was a subtle emphasis on the word ‘next time.’
“This is a late answer to your question about why on earth I am doing this to you.”
“……!”
“It’s beautiful.”
The last words were a response to Lottie’s mutterings as she looked at the river.
Lottie couldn’t be certain for a moment if those words were truly directed at the Contra River, but since it was an absurd thought even to her, she quickly brushed it off.
Because that river flowing before the two of them was something anyone would have called beautiful.
