Chapter 7
“I’m tired, so I’d appreciate it if you’d see yourself out. That is, if you truly came here as my ‘friend.’”
Calyx’s lips were curved in a smile, but his reddish-brown eyes remained cold—as if he had seen right through the secret his guest was hiding.
“W-what are you talking about? I was just worried because you disappeared, leaving nothing but a single letter behind….”
“What is there to worry about when a perfectly healthy man goes off to find a bride? Unless… you’re upset at the thought of losing me to another woman….”
“If you’re going to keep spouting nonsense, I’m leaving! Which room should I stay in?”
“Regrettably, there are no vacant rooms for you here.”
Luca, who had been heading toward the study door with a face flushed a muddy red, came to a dead halt at Calyx’s blunt declaration.
A mansion with a glass greenhouse in Ronvernon’s elite district—where rents were among the top three in the city—and there wasn’t a single spare room for a friend?
“Isn’t it proper etiquette that the decision to let a guest stay rests not with me, but with the person who will soon be the mistress of this house?”
Luca’s eyes bulged like a frog’s. He didn’t say it aloud, but his expression spoke volumes.
What is he talking about? He just got to the capital yesterday; what does he mean, ‘soon-to-be mistress’?
“Don’t tell me… you’ve already promised marriage? To whom? How?”
“Asking so many prying questions only confirms you harbor dark designs on me,”
“Fine! I’m going, I’m going! Live well, eat well, and do whatever you want by yourself in this huge mansion!”
“A strong denial is a strong affirmation….”
“@#&%$!”
Finally pushed to his limit, Luca’s mouth showcased a brilliant command of language until the study door slammed shut.
Only after confirming through the window that Luca was stomping across the garden did the artificial smile vanish from Calyx’s face.
“Go and tell Padrick,” Calyx whispered low toward Luca’s retreating back. “That it seems Calyx Valdea has come to the capital with every intention of getting married.”
And that, far from harboring any treacherous thoughts, he intended to end his life as an idle playboy with neither dreams nor ambitions.
Calyx Valdea—returned as the reckless, mad deposed prince who had willingly leapt into the lion’s maw for his goal—did not lie back down on the sofa. Instead, he sat at his desk.
<Thanks to the commotion, the Crown Prince’s side will likely observe the situation for the time being. It deviated from the original plan, but in the end, the stage I wanted has been set. All that remains is…>
Calyx’s hand, which had been fluidly writing a letter in code, slowed and eventually stopped like a ship losing its engine.
Thanks to the commotion. It deviated from the plan. And the glove.
“…….”
Calyx opened a drawer and stared down at the single white satin glove resting inside.
— A mere glove cannot prove my honor or pride.
What was she? That woman.
It was a secret room that only members of the Royal Family—and specifically those who had spent decades in the palace—could possibly know.
Not only had she walked in as if she owned the place, she had even dared to ask him who he was.
To his name—a name that even a noble tucked away in the most remote countryside couldn’t possibly be ignorant of—she had asked who he was, with such audacity.
That audacity was the problem.
More than the question of how she knew of the secret room’s existence, and more than the sense of crisis that his ally’s identity had nearly been exposed to an outsider, she piqued his curiosity.
‘Why?’
How could she treat Calyx Valdea—the parricidal monster who killed his own father—as just some random man, rather than fearing him?
— I am a person of discernment.
No.
If she truly were a person of discernment, she should have fled before asking who he was in front of the monster who devoured his father.
She shouldn’t have pleaded for help from someone who was the very definition of hatred, shame, and terror.
<…To seduce the woman Padrick intended to take first, thereby disrupting their plans.>
His pen moved again, completing a sentence on the paper that differed from his original intent.
He thought of his younger cousin.
Back then, Padrick had acted as if he were the woman’s secret lover, despite Calyx being the one who had been with her the whole time.
When asked if he had to forcibly create a connection with this woman, Padrick had even summoned the guards to evade the question.
This was proof that something was being hidden.
<She was a woman who decidedly did not fit Padrick’s taste. To say he fell in love at first sight is a contradiction. Therefore, what remains is a political objective to ensure his smooth succession to the throne.>
While it wasn’t yet clear what benefit she could provide Padrick, Calyx knew he could deal a significant blow if he stole the young lady’s heart before his cousin could.
Having written that much, Calyx gazed at the period at the end of the last sentence.
The fact that Padrick was up to something wasn’t a sufficient reason for Calyx to have to take the woman for himself.
Calyx knew this was a forced excuse. He knew it would draw a backlash from his ally.
And yet, why couldn’t he stop his pen?
Was it to take her away?
Or was it to not have her taken?
<While I approach the woman to draw the Royal Family’s eyes, you investigate everything about her. Find out exactly what benefit she can offer Padrick, down to the last detail.>
Everything was for the ruin of the cousin he both loved and cursed.
The woman was interesting, but nothing could surpass his focus on the things that had been stolen from him.
Having confirmed that undeniable truth within himself, Calyx finished the letter with much lighter movements.
<P.S. It won’t take long to win her over. Whispering sweet words of love behind a mask will be easier than taking candy from a pocket.>
After writing that confident closing statement, Calyx sealed it tightly.
The man who had once lost everything that was his world entrusted the letter to his subordinate and joyfully began drafting his next plan.
The deposed prince, transformed from the victim of theft to the one who would do the stealing, was more confident than anyone in the art of seduction.
Setting aside the fact that he had long lived hiding his true self behind a mask, he was handsome enough that anyone who saw him once couldn’t help but fall in love.
However, if there was one thing this overconfident and handsome man had overlooked….
“Marry me, My Lady.”
It was the fact that he was the mad tyrant who had once fired a bullet into her heart without hesitation.
“I am proposing to you right now.”
And the fact that in the plans of a woman who had returned from the hell of marriage, there was absolutely no room for anything involving another man.
Especially not if that man was someone who had been her in-law in her past life.
“If not a proposal, how else should I express this feeling of not wanting to lose you to anyone else?”
At an outdoor cafe not so long ago.
Even so, the man eventually proposed to the woman.
Without even being able to distinguish for himself whether it was part of a well-honed plan or a whim as fleeting as the wind.
“Do you hate me that much?”
When did it begin?
When did all those moments he believed were calculated start to warp of their own accord?
When did his uncontrolled instincts begin to steadily nurture something that should never have been allowed to bloom?
“Yes. I hate you.”
When did he become accustomed to the moment when he found even the eyes glaring coldly at him beautiful?
But what could be done?
Nothing is as sweet as an unexpected desire, and the man who had been stripped of everything now only knew how to possess. The woman before him was alluring enough to be terrifying in that very moment.
“What shall I do? I have no intention of giving up regardless.”
A week after the Royal Palace ball, at a tea house near Ronvernon’s high-society district.
Lottie, who had been dragged around by Great-Aunt Isabel from morning til night to all sorts of gatherings, decided to take a breather by meeting her maternal cousin Eugenie, who happened to be in Ronvernon.
“It feels like only yesterday you were crying until your eyes were as puffy as croissants because no one had proposed to you.”
Eugenie crinkled her nose as she placed a slice of cake adorned with ladyfingers and figs in front of Lottie.
“So, was it a feather or a glove?”
“Lady Fortguard!”
Isabel cried out as if screaming the moment the dreaded topic surfaced.
If calling a name could silence someone’s mouth, the word ‘slip of the tongue’ wouldn’t exist in this world.
Lady Fortguard’s mouth finally uttered the words Isabel wanted to block the most.
“Just what is the secret to capturing the attention of two princes at once and being chosen as the protagonist of the romance of the century?”
The protagonist of the romance of the century.
Lottie, who had nearly had her honor buried alive as the heroine of a scandal, had been transformed in just one week into the protagonist of a romantic novel, envied by all women.
There was no secret to it. She had simply gone about her daily life, and when she woke up, everything had been resolved on its own.
The identity of the true protagonists of the scandal—who had been buried forever in the scent of the garden grass in her past life—had been revealed.
Thus, Lottie was completely exonerated. Crown Prince Padrick, who had tried to protect her, was highly praised for his discernment in recognizing a pure maiden and his kindness in not turning away from a lady in distress.
On top of that, the incident in the secret room was framed as the uninvited deposed prince dissolutely trying to entice an innocent lady, which the Crown Prince had also stopped before anything unfortunate could happen, fueling the romantic fire.
Not only that, but thanks to those rumors, Lottie was dubbed ‘the woman who captured two princes at once,’ enjoying an unexpected boom in the marriage market.
The problem was that while she was receiving proposals she couldn’t have even imagined in her past life, Lottie herself remained lukewarm.
“Lady Fortguard. Stop with the gossip that isn’t even worth discussing and tell this child something that will help her future.”
Isabel hurried to remind Eugenie of the purpose of their meeting.
“Wasn’t the point of meeting Lady Fortguard today to hear vivid accounts of the joys of marriage?”
The calculation was that hearing from a married woman about how happy marriage was would motivate Lottie, who was being indifferent about searching for a spouse.
“Is that so….”
“It is.”
“If you can help it, don’t get married, Lottie.”
