Chapter 5
“Oh my heavens…. So that woman really was the one behind that scandalous affair in the outdoor garden?”
As she stumbled out of the cramped secret room, the surrounding whispers receded like an ebbing tide.
In the space left behind, words ten years old came rushing in helplessly. Like sand slipping through her fingers, they were impossible to stop.
It was you. The only woman in the world who could turn the Crown Prince of Matila into a man blinded by a mere fever.
Please marry me, My Lady.
Liar.
- Lottie. People call someone like you a thief. A petty crook who, blinded by money, repaid love with betrayal.
I have nothing but memories of giving myself to you unreservedly; how could I be a thief? How, why have I become a pauper who received nothing in return?
Caught in the grip of wretched emotions, Lottie stood facing Padrick.
He was a prince who would have no memory of her, despite having consumed ten years’ worth of her soul for free. Yet, the figure standing before her was exactly as he appeared in her vivid memories.
The fact was staggering. It was so absurd, so infuriating, that tears welled up.
‘Why am I the only one who remembers? He’s the one who hurt me and threw me into hell, so why only me…!’
To the onlookers who knew nothing of the backstory, her tears were as good as a confession.
“Lo… Lottie. You, there’s no way you could. After how Robert raised you. Knowing that, how could you bring such shame upon your father’s…!”
Isabel, who had been clutching and prodding her grandniece like someone hanging off a cliff, belatedly noticed Lottie’s limply trembling bare hands.
The moment she confirmed Calyx emerging from the secret room behind her, her wrinkled face turned as white as a sheet, a sight so pitiful it pained the observers.
“You… you finally… went and did it…!”
With a roar mixed with sobs, Isabel’s clenched fist struck Lottie’s shoulder. The old lady’s blow couldn’t possibly have hurt, yet Lottie was pushed back with every shove from her great-aunt.
“Being dragged away by every man who seduces her. Oh, how scandalous….”
“I told you. Those country girls might look innocent, but they’re incredibly foolish. Just look at that tacky feather decoration….”
“By the way, that young man who came out with her… isn’t he that person?”
The whispering of the crowd, who had merely found a fun spectacle, soon devolved into personal attacks that had nothing to do with the incident. There was also a sense of bewilderment directed at the unwelcome guest who shouldn’t be here.
Lottie knew that if she stayed like this without any protest, she would be branded as the most notorious femme fatale of the royal ball.
Lottie mentally weighed what that brand would bring her.
As it stands, the only daughter of Count Icks would not only be buried by society as the protagonist of a scandal but would also be banned from entering the capital and the royal palace for life.
A woman whose honor has hit rock bottom would be unable to find a suitable marriage match, much to her parents’ sorrow, and would only manage to become the second wife of an old tycoon by the time she turned thirty.
Without being framed as an adulteress and unfairly divorced, and without having all her property seized by her husband, she would live a boring, comfortable life until she died of old age.
In that process, her soul would never be denounced as a petty crook.
‘Did I insist on wearing this feather, the root of all this trouble, knowing it would end up like this?’
Her tearful gaze clung to Padrick once more. Despite the years she had spent dwelling on him with hatred, she couldn’t even control a single look. She found herself so pathetic that a laugh escaped her.
‘Anyone would think some immortal lovers had reunited.’
Watching Lottie’s eyes filled with remorse directed at Padrick, Calyx sneered inwardly. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him, so he soon dismissed the thought.
A young lady who, not content with causing a scandal in the royal gardens, was now misunderstood to be enjoying a secret tryst with the troublesome deposed crown prince. A scapegoat being subjected to a barrage of insults bordering on character assassination.
She must feel humiliated and wronged. That was the extent of Calyx’s sentiment, knowing the truth of the situation.
He was sorry, but he had no intention of stepping forward for the sake of a pitiful woman.
Thanks to this unexpected scandal, he, who had snuck into the palace, and his ‘real partner for the tryst’ had long since been pushed out of the spotlight.
His conclusion was firm. There was no value in reconsidering, nor could he find a reason to do so.
“….”
If so.
Then how should he understand this irritation that was starting to crawl up from the depths of his being?
“Say something at least…!”
“I think it’s best you calm yourself, Viscountess Dunchest.”
Just as Lottie, having reached a decision, looked away from Isabel’s reddened eyes.
And just as Isabel, her heart breaking once more, tried to strike her grandniece with intense resentment, the prince stepped between the two.
The prince here referred to Padrick, who had inherited the position of Crown Prince by a stroke of luck due to his cousin’s great blunder in the past.
“I was worried when you disappeared so suddenly and weren’t seen for a while, My Lady. I didn’t realize you were suffering in a place like this. It is my fault for being virtuous and lacking. Please do not forgive me.”
At the Crown Prince’s suggestive words, both Isabel, who had been scolding Lottie, and the onlookers, who had been watching Lottie with suspicious eyes, gasped.
Surely.
As soon as that word crossed Lottie’s mind, Padrick spread his arms wide toward the crowd in an exaggerated gesture. He wore a triumphant expression that almost looked quite dashing.
‘Ah.’
Seeing his face, a smooth smile finally appeared on Calyx’s lips. It was a smile that wiped away his previous confusion.
There was only one reason to be irritated.
Because his cousin, who had taken everything from him, was smiling so brazenly as if he owned the world.
“If there were another man who went to that place, where none but members of the Royal Family may enter, who else could it be?”
“Me.”
Calyx answered the Crown Prince’s exaggerated question in a crisp voice.
“Even if I was stripped of the royal surname, you wouldn’t go so far as to say my very birth is different, would you, Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
Standing in a thoroughly arrogant posture, Calyx flashed a charming smile at his audience of one.
All while holding a white satin glove, which had been delicately wrapping the lady’s right hand, precariously in his own.
“It seems Your Highness is under a great misunderstanding. This lady is not, to use Your Highness’s words, the woman who engaged in a scandalous affair with you in the outdoor garden.”
Padrick’s face stiffened instantly. It looked as though he were forcibly holding back muscles that wanted to contort at will.
Lottie, surprised by the unexpected intervention, also looked at Calyx.
“To be clear, this lady has been with me the entire time. In a cramped secret room, just the two of us.”
Hoping to see his cousin’s face twist into a spectacle upon their reunion after twelve years, Calyx spoke slowly and clearly.
“Do you… know the meaning of what you are saying right now?”
“It is merely loyalty out of concern for the Kingdom. Lest some non-existent story about a tryst with the wrong woman in the garden should bring dishonor to Your Highness or the Royal Family’s reputation.”
“A non-existent story, what kind of preposterous nonsense is…!”
Even at this moment, his cousin’s grey eyes were trembling piteously.
Seeing him so restless, wondering what might come out of his mouth next.
From that appearance—far too fearful for someone who had simply lost a woman he was trying to play—Calyx realized instinctively.
You’re hiding something.
“Perhaps it was so dark that Your Highness could not properly distinguish the face of the one you shared warmth with. Or else….”
Calyx trailed off with a leisurely expression. Padrick’s face contorted once more. He was a man terribly unskilled at hiding his expressions.
“There must be some deep reason why you absolutely must create a connection with this lady.”
“…! G-Guards!”
Padrick shouted as if to gag Calyx.
He called out two or three more times, but the guards did not come running immediately. Thus, the Crown Prince’s dignity was made a mockery of once again.
Calyx, who had been laughing with his head lowered, suddenly strode forward. The two men stood facing each other with the woman between them.
‘Why is… this man here.’
The question from when he first encountered his cousin in the secret room occurred to Padrick again.
He was a man who had been stripped of the royal surname for the crime of assassinating the Late King and could never set foot in the palace again.
And yet, there he was in the secret room Padrick had opened just in case. With the woman who should have been the protagonist of the scandal, in a private place only royals would know, bold as brass.
“A degenerate who deserves to die… do you even know thanks to whom you’ve survived.”
Padrick’s words were spat out through gritted teeth, so only Calyx and Lottie, standing close by, could hear them.
“And that someone is maintaining a position they don’t deserve thanks to that degenerate, are they not?”
“…! You….”
“It has been a long time. Your Highness Crown Prince Padrick Redbreeze.”
Calyx bowed to Padrick with an utterly exaggerated gesture.
Meanwhile, the late-arriving guards pushed through the crowd, adjusting their disheveled hats.
Lottie thought intensely amidst the uproar.
She didn’t know why Calyx was taking her side and asserting her innocence, but regardless, it was clear the situation had been overturned.
With two princes simultaneously claiming the woman was with them, the crowd would no longer be able to gossip about her being a lewd woman.
Not only that.
Instead of a foolish young lady from the country, she would surely be seen as a woman skillful enough to capture two princes at once.
Lottie knew well that she just had to stay quiet.
Do nothing, just let things flow, and wait for everything to resolve itself.
At that moment, what flashed before Lottie’s eyes was her room in the old castle of Fulton, where not even a handful of light could properly enter.
It was a door that was always firmly locked in that place—which should rightly be called a cell—or rather.
It was a door she had stopped even thinking of trying to open at some point, assuming it was locked.
‘Why did I.’
Why did I weakly wait for someone else to open that door without even thinking of pushing against it myself?
Why did I only try to take the hand someone reached out, without even finding the courage to say no when something wasn’t right?
“Guards! Take this insolent man away at once and—”
“Wait a moment.”
