Chapter 28
- Horse-Head Count's Family
Yuan, dazed, followed them, only stirring when their elongated shadows were about to touch her toes.
She saw the Emperor following Klaud up to the second floor.
And then, as if from nowhere, First Prince Bolonico appeared, passing Yuan and trailing after them like a tail.
Bolonico's parrot, along with dozens of foreign servants, followed behind like ducklings, entering Klaud Euphris's private space.
The excited atmosphere and hushed voices were filled with anticipation, like people entering a circus.
Yuan stood alone on the landing, clutching her face with both hands.
As if she still had tears left to shed, a flood of hopeless tears soaked through the gaps between her fingers.
Yuan cried without even realizing she was crying.
Soon, a man's wailing voice, as if from a distant place, or perhaps from within her own mind, grabbed and shook Yuan.
She covered both ears with her hands, unable to stop the torrent of sobs, and she, too, wept silently there.
Just as she had locked herself in her room and wailed in the Pellieresse Mansion for the past ten years.
Just as she had desperately hidden her writhing in pain from others, no matter how much it hurt.
Perhaps, all this time, Klaud Euphris had locked himself in that bedroom to protect his last remaining pride.
"Stop, stop... please stop..."
The mere thought of being someone's spectacle made Yuan feel ashamed to death.
Klaud, who hadn't even stepped out of his bedroom because he didn't want to show his half-ruined, hideous self to others, was there now.
A clown before the Emperor and countless others.
Regardless of the intention.
For the sole reason that he hadn't turned away from Yuan.
That night.
On the second floor, the Deposed Emperor Klaud Euphris's painful screams, unheard for the past few days, echoed.
Along with them came unfamiliar sounds.
The giggling of the audience.
Even the parrot's bizarre voice, repeating, 'Look at that. Look at that. Oh my god. Oh my god.'
The audience on the second floor returned to their rooms only at dawn.
A bedroom filled with the darkness just before sunrise.
Yuan saw a long figure sprawled on the floor like a discarded rag.
Entering with swollen eyes, Yuan saw Klaud flinch at the sound of her presence and reassured him.
"It's me, it's me-"
Klaud didn't relax his body and only lifted his head sharply while lying face down.
The man, with only half his face returned, staggered to his feet.
Klaud, approaching quickly, grabbed her by both shoulders.
And then, pushing her against the wall, he gnawed at his teeth as if savoring the aftereffects.
"I told you not to wander around alone."
"The treatment, the treatment-"
"Why are you still loitering around here? Huh?"
It was the first time Yuan had seen Klaud so genuinely angry.
The intense emotion, unseen even when unwanted guests were brought in, or when he underwent an unwanted first night, flickered in his eyes.
Yuan nodded, wiping away the tears that flowed uncontrollably, regardless of her will.
The tears hanging from the tip of her chin trembled. But Klaud, as if not satisfied with that, continued to threaten her.
"I told you not to wander around alone. On your own. Don't go poking around like that. Without permission. Alone. Don't wander around like that. I."
He was clearly talking about everything, including what had happened last night.
Yuan, remembering the painful groans that hadn't stopped all night even when she covered her ears, nodded as if to appease him.
"I'm sorry. It was my fault. I thought it would be okay since it's home."
"Home?"
Klaud smirked, blood staining the corners of his mouth, and shrugged his shoulders a few times. It was a hollow laugh.
Yuan held her breath, fearing that he would immediately tell her to leave since this wasn't her home.
Whether it was contempt, disgust, or... anxiety.
She could feel his eyes, overflowing with an emotion she couldn't define, staring at her face as if to dissect it.
What could she say to make him not look at her like that?
Instead of an answer that would anger him, Yuan reached out with a trembling arm.
Extending her slender hand, she fumbled with his torn and soiled Uniform, and finally carefully embraced him.
Approaching the body that stood firm as if it would never be drawn in, she buried herself in him.
Her tear-soaked cheek touched Klaud's hardened chest skin, which others called rotten.
Yuan hugged it tightly and whispered.
"I was wrong. I wasn't careful enough. I didn't know the Emperor would go that far... I didn't know he was that kind of person. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Yuan begged, repeating the same words like a child throwing a tantrum. And at the same time, she absorbed his pain.
His pain, from rolling around before the tyrant all night, poured down like rain inside Yuan.
Yuan absorbed a very large amount of pain this time, not just a little, thinking that she deserved to be punished.
"Don't abandon me."
Don't kick me out of this Mansion. Because it was my fault. Because I'll take the punishment...
As she continued to throw a tantrum like that, she couldn't bear to hate herself for saying such things in the end to avoid the hell that was Pellieresse.
The only way to overcome her guilt was to do this. To help him get a comfortable sleep, even if it was late.
The strength gradually left the body of the beast, who had been breathing heavily without answering.
Only after laying him down did Yuan scream and wail for a long time.
Just like he had done all night.
The night Yuan wailed in despair.
Regina secretly came out to the Black Manor's backyard and carefully opened the letter that had arrived in the evening.
[The Treloni Count's family will arrive late to the party and will participate from the second day. My heart aches to think of you worrying about finding me. If you also can't sleep, would you wait for me in the backyard of the Mansion?]
Regina touched her elaborately dressed attire and sneered at the Mansion, where there wasn't even a patrolling servant.
'Yuan Pellieresse. While you're spending a hellish time in that Monster Deposed Emperor's bedroom, I'm sorry, but I'm about to start my own love affair.'
Rustle.
She heard the sound of someone approaching, roughly cutting through the snow-covered garden trees.
Regina tightly grasped her pounding heart and put on the most enchanting smile she could muster under the moonlight.
"...Pellieresse Count's daughter?"
A man's voice filled with embarrassment.
What it contained was not the unwavering devotion to Yuan Pellieresse that she had been confident in, but the voice of any man who had stopped breathing at the sight of a beautiful woman.
"I've been waiting, Draycoop Treloni Count's heir...?"
The corners of Regina's mouth, which had drawn an enchanting curve, stiffened as the man's figure was finally fully revealed.
"The proposal I sent was, well... you're... no, no, that's not it-"
The clumsy man, his eyes wide at the beauty before him, was at a loss, erasing the existing woman from his mind and falling for her as Regina had planned.
But the problem was.
"If this is fate, I will accept it. I am in love now."
The fact that Draycoop Treloni, who approached Regina with an excited face, was an uglier man than she had imagined.
The next morning.
Regina gritted her teeth as she watched Yuan, with a gaunt face, sitting at the breakfast table.
'This is not the situation I imagined!'
Looking at the faces of the Treloni Count's family, lined up to greet the Emperor, the men of that family looked very similar, as if they had been stamped from the same mold.
"They're the Horse-Head Treloni Count's family."
Sophia, who had slipped into Regina's side, whispered.
Sophia's faint voice was as weak and soft as a butterfly's wings, but it was enough to grate on Regina's nerves.
"Horse-head?"
"I once overheard Princess Seletina's group giggling as they looked at the men of the Treloni Count's family."
The Horse-Head Count's family.
The man who lied that Regina Pellieresse had taken a liking to you was a member of a famous ugly family!
Regina was shocked and froze for a moment with her mouth slightly open. Sophia, unaware of Regina's feelings, whispered even more softly. Her voice had a slight hint of laughter.
"But why does that heir keep looking at Regina? Has he fallen for her?"
"How would I know!"
Regina spat out sharply. She felt like a fire was burning inside her at that moment. She was overwhelmed with the urge to spew out every curse word she could think of.
"Sophia. The Treloni Count's family is a respected family that rules a large territory, is it okay to talk behind their backs like this?"
"Yes? I, I just thought Regina was staring at those family members, so, I thought you might not know-"
"Why? Why wouldn't I know? Is it because I didn't grow up as a Count's daughter since I was a newborn?"
Sophia, suddenly attacked, looked at Regina, not knowing what was going on, and made a tearful face. Sophia Melrn lowered her posture, whimpering.
"Ah, no! How dare I think such a thing!"
"Watch your mouth, Sophia."
Regina glared at Sophia, grinding her teeth, then turned her head away.
Then, Regina's irritation reached its peak when she found the Deposed Emperor sitting near the Emperor.
The gloomy man she had seen from afar yesterday looked decadent when seen a little closer.
Above all, his amethyst-like eyes, catching the light, sparkled on their own, as if they could capture anyone's heart. And what about his upright posture and seemingly indifferent, arrogant gaze? Klaud Euphris looked like a member of the imperial family that no one would dare to look down on.
Under the pure white tablecloth, Regina's legs trembled.
Turning her head at the sudden feeling of being watched, she saw Draycoop smiling foolishly and waving.
Suddenly, she lost her appetite.
