Chapter 47
“…….”
“I’m not in a position to be exchanging things like that with Your Highness.”
As if one blow wasn’t enough, she fired off another.
Calyx silently chewed on those words. Then, as if he understood perfectly, he gave a slow nod—as if telling her she didn’t need to repeat herself.
His smile remained as picture-perfect as ever, but there was a certain heaviness lingering behind it.
Lottie shook off the unidentifiable emotion and forced a smile to match his.
“I’m not sure if I’m fulfilling my role as a contract lover well enough,” Calyx remarked.
There was a subtle edge to his voice. Lottie answered quickly.
“You’re doing more than enough already. Look. Since I got a fiancé, I’ve been able to go out alone without a guardian. In the past, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of it.”
With a flushed, excited expression, Lottie looked around the study. The room was so hollow and empty that the name ‘study’ felt like a bit of a stretch, but soon it would be filled with magnificent furniture.
‘Now that I think about it, for someone who talked like he was just passing through, he bought quite a grand castle.’
Located on the outskirts of northern Dempis, quite a distance from the summer villa district of the nobility, the three-story stone building was more commonly called ‘Duke Sherman’s Castle’ than its actual name.
It was a castle with a pointed roof that exuded classical beauty, dark gray outer walls that bore the traces of time, and more windows than one could count.
Recalling the cavernous entrance hall and the doors lined up densely along the corridors, Lottie marveled inwardly once more.
‘The role of a contract lover, huh….’
At first, she thought she had joined hands with him simply as an excuse to avoid her family’s pressure to marry, but thinking about it now, that didn’t seem to be everything.
—Is it true your fiancé is that hot at night, too?
No, not that! Get out of my head, wicked thoughts! Shoo, shoo!
—I yearn for you. I support your dreams and ideals. I hope that I can be of even the slightest help to you.
Yes, this.
Where else could she find someone who would yearn for and support the ridiculous dream of a single woman wanting to inherit her family estate?
The fact that the man was the tyrant who had taken her life in the past and her former husband’s cousin was still a strange coincidence, but she had decided to look at the light rather than the shadows now.
Anyway, just the thought of having a companion on a difficult path made her feel reassured.
“Haha.”
After waving her hands frantically with a bright red face, she laughed to herself with a sense of pride.
Calyx watched Lottie, who was displaying a kaleidoscope of emotions all on her own, with a sense of wonder before quietly changing the subject.
“How have you been spending your days lately?”
“Every day is the same. I wake up at the same time, have my meals, take a short walk, and then indulge in the books I’ve been meaning to read….”
Lottie’s voice trailed off. Calyx tilted his head with a curious look.
“Why stop there?”
Come to think of it, there was another role as a contract lover. More accurately, an important role as contractors with a common goal.
The investigation into the madness related to Dempis.
During that time, Lottie had focused on the ‘poisonous herbs that cause madness’ and dug through related books. However, she hadn’t gained much.
She had tried to look into the case of Mr. Britt, who was said to have died from madness, but her father had blocked her, so she couldn’t achieve much there either.
But here, right in front of her, was a literal victim of an intentionally induced madness.
“No…. It’s just, as I was talking, I realized my daily life is quite trivial…. Haha.”
The words ‘I am investigating the madness related to Dempis. But there hasn’t been much progress. So, since we share the common goal of stopping Redbreeze’s conspiracy, how about we join forces and investigate together?’ simply wouldn’t come out. Why?
‘Is it a desire to succeed on my own without his help? Or is it a desire to show him a grand result and lighten his burden?’
She didn’t know.
But perhaps it was similar to the feeling that made her put off confessing to her father that she wanted to inherit the family. The desire to prove herself through actions rather than words after completing everything perfectly.
“Hahaha.”
When Calyx looked at her suspiciously, Lottie laughed as if it were nothing. Once more, hahaha.
‘By the way… I feel a burning gaze from somewhere….’
At that moment.
‘What’s so good that you’re going “hahaha,” woman!’
The burning gaze fixed on Lottie belonged to none other than Mikhail. He was standing outside the study door, spying on the two through a crack in the slightly open door.
Holding a tray with teacups he had prepared himself since they didn’t have any servants, Mikhail glared at Lottie with a wary look.
The woman sitting across from his lord, laughing leisurely, looked like an innocent and lively young lady to anyone else.
However, to Mikhail, who knew what she was like behind the scenes, Lottie looked like nothing more than a witch who had swallowed a hundred foxes.
‘And what’s with that “I don’t know anything” expression? Can’t you tell just by looking? What kind of heart His Highness has when he looks at you?’
“Young lady.”
“Come to think of it, you keep calling me ‘young lady.’ Didn’t you declare that you would call me by another name?”
“……Did you not dislike it? Me calling you that.”
“Me?”
Look at that, look. That innocent face pretending she doesn’t know a thing!
“Since your expression stiffened that night, I thought you found it unpleasant to be addressed that way.”
“Ah, that was…… a misunderstanding. It wasn’t that I found it unpleasant for Your Highness to call me by a nickname….”
“It wasn’t?”
“Ah…… anyway, I like it. No matter what Your Highness calls me.”
Did this woman know what kind of effect saying ‘I like it’ with that kind of expression would have on a man who had feelings for her? Mikhail ground his teeth.
“Calyx.”
“…….”
“When it’s just the two of us, I’ll call you that, too. Is that okay?”
Her voice was so beautiful as she said it that Mikhail almost nodded his head for a moment as if he were Calyx himself.
‘Get a grip, Mikhail Volitair.’
Mikhail, who had gulped down the tea he was supposed to serve like it was cold water, muttered with a grim expression.
I am the shadow who swore loyalty to His Highness. If it is something that harms His Highness, I will eliminate it. Especially if it’s a witch who shakes a man’s heart with a lovely face!
On a sunny field today, girls with rosy cheeks were sitting on a spread-out blanket.
“So this is the token of affection Lottie’s fiancé gave her?”
“Oh my, look at the bell shape carved here. It probably means something like, ‘I want to marry you right away,’ right?”
The love spoon carved out of wood was about the size of a palm. While the girls were admiring the love spoon from this way and that, one girl sat apart from them, sipping her tea alone.
“Mary! Come and look at this. Lottie’s fiancé is even skilled with his hands.”
“How do you know if the fiancé carved it himself or not? He obviously made a servant do it.”
At Mary’s grumbling, the girls looked at Lottie’s face with awkward expressions.
Lottie couldn’t get angry, nor could she make an excuse. It was because Mary’s words had hit the nail right on the head.
However, her friends, who couldn’t have known that, whispered to Lottie to comfort her.
“Lottie. Don’t take it to heart. Mary, a few days ago…… yeah.”
Because Lottie knew what word was hidden in that ellipsis, she thought she should quickly change the subject.
‘Right, Mary received a notice of annulment from her fiancé a few days ago.’
“Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about something else. Any interesting news lately?”
At Lottie’s question, the girls all looked up at the sky, thinking.
The interesting news they knew would only be about who promised to marry whom, or who broke up with whom, so that wouldn’t really serve the purpose of changing the subject.
“Ah! I heard a strange rumor from my father a few days ago.”
Then, one girl’s eyes sparkled as she brought up a topic. Lottie and the other girls immediately grew interested and listened intently.
“What rumor?”
“You know Doyle Forest, the one that leads from the border to northwestern Dempis? They say a madman is wandering around there.”
“A madman?”
When one of the listening girls let out a shrill cry, Mary, who had been drinking her tea in silence, also started to listen surreptitiously. A madman—wasn’t that a word far too provocative to just ignore?
“Mhm. He was screaming like a crazy person, saying he was going to kill someone, or that we were all going to die. When my father shouted, the man got startled and ran away, but his appearance was quite unusual. He was clearly wearing high-quality clothes, and his way of speaking strangely felt like the court dialect.”
“High-quality clothes…… and court dialect?”
The girls each fell into thought. Then, one of them snapped her fingers and shouted.
“Could it be that person?”
“Who?”
“You know! Him!”
“Him?”
“The mad Deposed Crown Prince!”
It was lucky that Lottie didn’t have anything in her mouth at that moment; otherwise, she would have spat whatever it was right into the face of the friend who said that.
Lottie felt her fingertips go cold and blinked her eyes. Who, just now?
“What are you talking about? That man is dead! He fell into the sea!”
“That’s why your father must have seen the ghost of the dead Deposed Crown Prince! Or is there another candidate? A madman, in high-quality clothes, with a subtle court dialect.”
When the girl pressed her, everyone fell silent. Lottie also kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t because she agreed with her friend’s words, but because she couldn’t say that the Deposed Crown Prince they were talking about was probably spending a comfortable lunch hour in his newly purchased castle.
“Maybe…… the dead spirit latched onto your father’s back and followed him all the way to your house!”
It’s not that.
“Th-then what do we do now?”
“First, if the spirit appears again, we have to check. Whether it’s really the spirit of the Deposed Crown Prince or not.”
“But I don’t even know what that fellow looks like.”
“Look at this.”
The girl rummaged through a small pouch, pulled something out, and placed it on her palm. It was a coin sparkling in the sunlight. Not just any coin, but a special commemorative coin with a familiar face intricately engraved on it.
“It’s a special commemorative coin from over ten years ago, and the Deposed Crown Prince’s face is engraved here. He was the Crown Prince back then, though.”
Though it had worn down over the years, Lottie recognized him at a glance. Even if he looked a bit younger, that was definitely the man she knew.
“Take a good look, and if that spirit looks exactly like this? Then call his name three times. They say the spirit will return to where it came from then.”
“But you know…….”
“…….”
“Don’t royals all have such long names? Like William Sebastian Wellington so-and-so the Third…….”
“…….”
“What should I do! My memory is so bad, I don’t think I could even memorize half the name!”
