Chapter 28
It was too late to pretend not to see each other.
Both sides had already caught the other in their gaze.
Lottie’s reflection was vividly etched in the reddish-brown eyes meeting her own.
“Ah….”
A beat late, Calyx turned his head away.
That single gesture was enough for her to realize his intent.
“Don’t avoid me!”
Lottie firmly grabbed hold of Calyx just as he was turning back into the crowd.
“…….”
It was only a moment that she held his arm. Yet that moment felt as long as an eternity.
Calyx slowly looked down at the two slender hands gripping his arm.
It was only a moment later that he realized he had forgotten to breathe for a second.
“Why…. Why do you keep avoiding me? You clearly recognized me….”
“I haven’t been avoiding you.”
Calyx replied stiffly. Lottie’s hands, clutching his arm, tightened with a surge of emotion.
“Liar. You did avoid me! Our eyes definitely met at the entrance, too!”
“You saw wrong.”
“No. You avoided me. My eyes are accurate.”
“Can you be so sure? You don’t seem to have better eyesight than I do, Miss.”
“This… this isn’t a matter of eyesight! And my vision is good enough to read an encyclopedia without a magnifying glass!”
She felt a sense of déjà vu; she had been swept into the pace of this sly man once again.
Normally, she would have been frustrated enough to want to kick him in the shins, but now, a corner of her heart felt strangely calm.
Perhaps it was because the man who had felt exceptionally distant seemed to have returned to his usual, mischievous self.
“…….”
Calyx, looking down at Lottie in silence, glanced at his arm.
He saw the two hands holding onto him tightly, as if afraid he might run away.
Whether he was recalling a memory from not so long ago, Calyx let out a hollow laugh.
Even that was exactly like before, so Lottie followed with a faint, absentminded smile.
“You are quite greedy, Miss.”
Calyx’s large hand touched Lottie’s small hands that were gripping his arm.
One hand was enough to pry her small hands away.
“Are you suggesting that a man whose proposal was rejected should continue to cling to you instead of avoiding you?”
There was no trace of accusation in Calyx’s tone. He didn’t resent her for rejecting his proposal. It was merely a light voice laced with a hint of a smile.
Because he spoke so calmly, as if discussing someone else’s business, it struck Lottie with even greater impact.
He was right.
This man had proposed to her, and she had rejected that proposal.
It wasn’t that she wanted him to keep clinging to her. It definitely wasn’t that, but….
‘Then why am I….’
Why am I holding onto this man who is trying to leave and getting angry?
“While walking down the street… I was suddenly drenched in filth.”
Cracks instantly appeared on his face, which had been set in a cold, artificial smile like a statue.
“It wasn’t just me. My innocent great-aunt, my father who wasn’t even there, and even the servants who have nothing to do with my affairs were insulted in all sorts of ways for serving a lewd temptress.”
“…….”
“Even so… couldn’t you at least ask if I was alright?”
No. Actually, these weren’t the words she wanted to say.
The day she entered the palace covered in filth because of a kingdom she had never even ruined. For the first time, she felt as if she were cast alone into the world.
A world where no one believed in her innocence.
She could wash away the filth by changing into new clothes and scrubbing her body repeatedly, but the extreme sense of loneliness that had seeped into her lungs would not leave, like a stench lingering on the skin.
— I loved this kingdom where I was born and raised, the father who sired me, and the fate given to me more than anyone.
Even so, I could endure because I had people who believed in me.
If your words are the truth, then.
How wretched and lonely must your life have been, without a single person to believe in you, treated only with contempt by everyone?
“…….”
Swallowing the contradictory emotions that she couldn’t dare put into words, Lottie waited for Calyx to speak.
The orchestra’s performance was now reaching its finale.
The spectators watching the dance floor were letting out sighs of envious admiration, but Lottie and Calyx were in a world entirely separate from them.
Calyx’s eyes, which had been wandering somewhere in the air, slowly turned toward Lottie.
Once again, her face was vividly etched upon his retinas.
The man’s lips moved as if to speak, then stopped; as if to pour his heart out, but ultimately swallowing it back down.
— Next time, I shall teach you how to ride a horse.
— This is a belated answer to your question of why I am doing this to you.
Ah….
— I could not accept the fact that you would become another man’s wife.
— This heart that does not want to lose you to another—if not a proposal, how else should I express it?
Words she had forgotten, or perhaps had pretended not to know, and gazes she had ignored, all began to rush back at once.
She thought she knew well what a man looked like when he fell in love.
It was her ex-husband who had taught her that.
Because he was obsessed with a mistress who would never fade, he was always thirsty no matter how much he had.
Just as she had been, never having gained even a sliver of his heart.
If she were to say she saw that same look in this man, she would truly be mad.
“Your Highness.”
But… what if it wasn’t a misunderstanding?
— Please marry me, Miss.
A proposal where everything had been nothing but confusing.
If that hadn’t been a whim close to an impulse, nor a cruel joke, nor some complex political calculation… but sincere.
“Perhaps… me.”
“You asked why I proposed to you.”
Calyx cut off Lottie’s carefully trailing words.
It was a blunt voice, devoid of even an artificial trace of a smile.
A gaze as indifferent as his voice pierced down at Lottie.
“I simply tried to take from the one who took everything from me the very thing he most desires and covets.”
It didn’t take long to fully understand those words.
Lottie’s face turned deathly pale.
The man, who was as cruel as he was arrogant, did not stop his butchery. No, he had no intention of stopping.
“If I couldn’t take it, I intended to break it so that no one else could have it.”
Even while uttering such chilling words, his expression remained calm.
As if to prove once again that those words weren’t some malice fabricated for a specific reason.
Calyx’s eyes, which had been fixed on the center of the ballroom, finally turned toward Lottie.
They were eyes that seemed as though they would yield nothing that could be called an emotion, even if one were to reach inside.
Without guilt or lingering attachment, the final statement fell.
“So, the words you wish to hear—hear them from the Crown Prince, not me.”
“…….”
“This is all I have to say to you.”
Having finished his piece, he disappeared into the crowd before she could even try to stop him.
It felt as though she had been dreaming.
As Lottie stood dazed in her spot, the sound of applause announcing the end of the dance music echoed loudly in her ears.
‘Stupid Charlotte Evanshire.’
Did you really think that man was sincere toward you? Who do you think you are?
“……vanshire.”
You already knew how deep the animosity he held for Padrick was.
You saw with your own eyes that it was a hatred so great that taking the throne wasn’t enough; he intended to take his life in the end.
You weren’t unaware that he was the kind of person who wouldn’t hesitate to make a proposal he didn’t mean if it could inflict even a single point of pain on his opponent.
“Miss Evanshire……?”
What if he had been sincere? What were you planning to do then?
‘Were you going to quickly take his hand as he confessed his sincerity and walk down the wedding aisle?’
What about your pathetic resolution to live freely without marrying anyone?
Was your resolve so weak that it would crumble before another man’s sincerity despite such a vow?
‘How pathetic.’
It’s because you are so weak and stupid that you were deceived by love and fell into the abyss, Charlotte Evanshire.
“Miss Evanshire!”
“……!”
At Padrick’s call, Lottie finally snapped out of her swamp-like thoughts.
Light slowly began to return to Lottie’s pale green eyes, which had looked like those of the dead.
She didn’t know how many times she had lost herself like this when the dance had only just begun.
Padrick felt a momentary surge of irritation toward Lottie.
However, the moment he saw the ruby necklace shining against her snowy-white chest, his anger vanished as if it had never existed.
In any case, she was a woman who belonged to him from head to toe.
While it was resentful that she had let her mind wander the entire time she danced with him, there was no one who could deny his perfect victory at this moment.
Padrick slowly savored the euphoria gathering in his gut and pulled Lottie’s waist in more deeply.
“……!”
He felt Lottie tense up at the intimate contact. Padrick feigned ignorance as he stroked the soft skin beneath the fabric of her dress.
Though his eyes were on Lottie, Padrick’s nerves were entirely focused on the one person who would be watching this beautiful sight from somewhere in the room.
“…….”
A short distance from the center of the ballroom, Calyx watched the two of them dancing, not failing his cousin’s expectations.
He saw the small, white-gloved hand being greedily swallowed by Padrick’s large hand, and the other hand gripping her slender waist while subtly caressing her spine.
He saw Padrick’s lowered head brush against her rounded shoulder as if by accident, and how his lips lightly pressed against the hollow of her neck as he passed. All of it. Without missing a single thing. He took it all in.
“There are still many ladies whose spots for a dance partner are vacant, Mister. It is well and good to stand as a beautiful portrait yourself near the empty walls, but it would be better to show the ladies the courtesy of a gentleman befitting a ball….”
Someone approached Calyx, who wore an expression too terribly blank to be called a portrait, with an elegant stride.
It was Delinda.
