Chapter 74
- Shocking News
2023.12.13.
"Welcome, Marquess."
Employees in black suits greeted Edgar politely.
As if they had seen a ghost in broad daylight, the eyes of the customers inside the store widened.
Edgar made eye contact with familiar faces and greeted them with an elegant nod.
"This way—"
"No. I want to see it myself."
Edgar, refusing the VIP reception room, strode towards the display case with his long legs.
Gerald, who had never seen him personally choose gifts for his lovers, wore an expression close to shock.
Please. Gerald prayed that this sight would not catch the eyes of the hyena-like reporters, nor reach the ears of Duke Lancelot.
'Gift the moment of joy!' The golden letters on the wall shimmered in the light of the chandelier, even in broad daylight.
In front of it, delicately crafted jewels scattered brilliant light within the transparent glass.
Edgar, standing straight, slowly examined them one by one, his gaze fixed on a blue gemstone ring.
Gerald's heart sank.
Not the necklace sets, brooches, or hair ornaments that he usually gifted, but a ring...
Surely not.
"Would you like to see it?"
Edgar nodded with his chin instead of answering.
Halo Street, crowded with upper-class figures. The most famous jeweler in Britt. And a ring.
As intended, there were quite a few eyes watching. Both inside and, before long, outside the store.
At this rate, the rumor would be over the walls of Britt Palace by the end of the day.
The Ghost of the Leopold Hotel.
Edgar sneered.
An employee wearing white cotton gloves carefully placed a box taken out of the display case on top.
The light falling from the ceiling split on the surface of the blue diamond, scattering light brilliantly.
The vivid blue resembled the color of Olivia's eyes.
"Are you perhaps choosing a gift for a proposal?"
At the employee's question, Edgar slightly raised the corner of his lips.
If you shake it, I will destroy it. In the most cruel way.
The blue-gray eyes staring at the blue diamond set in the ring sank coldly.
He knew it was an extremely impulsive act in his pursuit of a clear and calculated life.
It was unlike him. But Anne Boleyn, the price for defiling the sacred light of divinity must be paid.
"I'll take this one."
"An excellent choice."
At that moment, Gerald was horrified.
His life would be in danger the day Duke Lancelot found out.
The customers who had been glancing sideways now stared at Edgar with openly dumbfounded faces.
Good heavens!
Edgar Lancaster Lancelot is proposing.
Regardless of the quiet commotion around him, Edgar remained calm.
"The ribbon in blue."
Edgar requested with a refreshing smile.
The blue ring that had captured Edgar's heart at first sight.
Edgar's eyes narrowed as he quietly gazed at the perfect ring to propose to Olivia Blanchett.
He had shaken Olivia's composure, so Anne Boleyn's composure deserved to be shattered.
As Edgar planned, it didn't take long for the shocking news to reach Anne Boleyn's ears.
\\
In the West Palace, where the sun had set beyond the clock tower, an eerie silence lingered with the darkness.
Alex, who had dismissed the maids and servants who were pacing anxiously, scanned the devastated bedroom and sighed deeply.
The sharp cracking sounds that had been heard from outside Anne Boleyn's bedroom seemed to subside for a moment, but soon continued even after he entered.
A white porcelain vase flew towards the wall.
Soon, fragmented pieces and flower petals scattered in all directions with a loud crash. Following that, a scream-like sob pierced his eardrums.
"Calm down."
"How can I calm down? How!"
Anne Boleyn, staggering towards Alex, shouted with wide eyes. She was barefoot.
Worried that her feet might be hurt by the shards, Alex looked around for slippers and walked to his sister, placing lambskin slippers at her feet.
"Put them on."
"It's all because of you, brother. It's all because of you!"
Anne Boleyn struck Alex's chest with her fist. Then, she collapsed and burst into tears.
Alex pursed his lips tightly. His sister was greatly mistaken.
Even if she hadn't married Prince Argent, Edgar would never have proposed.
That was why he had opposed the relationship, and even if he tried to see it in a good light, he was not a good husband material.
"I told you not to touch that woman."
Alex had also seen the article about the Ghost of the Leopold Hotel.
Knowing the details of Olivia Blanchett's kidnapping, he couldn't help but suspect Anne Boleyn.
"You provoked Edgar."
Moreover, the gossip article that had surfaced two days before the finals was too blatant a psychological disturbance to Olivia. The shallow trick was easily readable.
"No, no. Not me!!! I'm not that stupid, I'm not."
Anne Boleyn sobbed, filled with resentment.
Anne Boleyn couldn't easily accept the breakup with Edgar.
The reason she had fallen in love with him was still shining brightly, or even more so than before.
"Why not me? Why that kind of woman?"
Tears fell on the back of her hand, clutching the delicate rose lace of her dress.
For a while, she denied reality. A proposal to such a woman.
It was unforgivable.
At some point, her love had transformed into a form of obsession, and it began to draw out the darkness within Anne Boleyn.
"Those two can never be happy. I won't let them. Never."
"Please, Anne."
Alex let out a sigh close to a lament.
If there was a child he wouldn't hurt to put in his eyes, there was also a sibling he wouldn't hurt to put in his eyes.
As he watched his precious sister gradually being consumed by darkness, Alex clenched his fist and slowly bent one knee.
"Don't dwell on what's over."
Alex said, meeting Anne Boleyn's gaze with a stern face.
It is not a crime for an unmarried man to propose to a woman.
Even if that man was the princess's ex-lover, and Anne Boleyn was hurt by it, he could not hold him responsible.
Alex raised his hand and gently cupped his sister's face. The tearful amber eyes were heartbreaking.
"...Brother."
Transparently swollen tears flowed incessantly. Hot tears soaked Alex's hand.
"Don't cry, Anne. It's not even worth it."
If he couldn't hold him responsible for a personal matter, he would hold him responsible for a very public matter, Alex decided at that moment as he wiped away his sister's tears.
After Alex left, the maids silently tidied up the disheveled bedroom.
The maids, who were glancing at the princess, unsure when the precarious silence would be broken, finally breathed a sigh of relief when Kyla entered with a cautious knock.
Anne Boleyn, who had changed into a new dress, was staring at the maids with swollen eyes.
"It's chamomile tea. Have some, Anne."
A maid placed a teacup on the table. As Kyla sat down and tilted the teapot, yellow chamomile flowers blooming with water bloomed in the white teacup.
Kyla placed the cup in front of Anne Boleyn, habitually checking her complexion.
Anne Boleyn, sitting motionless with her back straight, slowly turned her gaze to Kyla across from her.
"Kyla."
Stopping the hand movement that was filling the empty cup with tea, Kyla looked at her.
"Quietly, there's something I need you to find out."
There was a metallic sound in her deeply sunken voice. The sound of the teapot being placed down followed.
"What is it? Tell me, Anne."
"The Ghost of the Leopold Hotel... find the distributor."
In her dark eyes, like the darkness outside the window, the flickering light from the golden candlestick flickered.
The shadow created by the candlelight made Anne Boleyn, cast blackly beside her high nose, under her fierce eyes, and below her cheekbones, look like a pale yet beautiful ghost.
Perhaps that was why a chilling anxiety ran down Kyla's spine.
\\
The sound of a train whistle came from afar.
Yohan, who was sitting on a bench in the waiting room, stood up.
Maurice, who had been dozing off, woke up with a start at the movement, and the hat that had been tilted on his crown fell off and rolled on the floor.
Maurice quickly picked up the hat and put it on, then followed Yohan.
The train was slowly entering the station, emitting steam into the humid air of the summer night.
The platform vibrated with the movement of its heavy weight.
The train, slowing down, finally came to a stop.
As the conductor blew the whistle, passengers began to disembark all at once. In the midst of the commotion, a station employee replaced the train sign.
Bound for Lemonde.
The stationmaster, who looked sincere, bowed to Yohan as he boarded the train.
It was then that Yohan, entering the train car with Maurice, bumped into a passenger who was belatedly getting off.
"Oh! I'm sorry."
Yohan nonchalantly nodded briefly and made way for the woman to pass.
"Oh my, Duke Leopold?"
Only then did Yohan raise his eyes and stare straight ahead. It was a woman he didn't know.
The woman raised her neat eyebrows.
She looked at Yohan with a bold gaze, as if telling him to guess who she was.
As Yohan looked down impassively, the woman lowered her eyebrows slightly and opened her bright red lips as if resigned.
"I saw you at the King Trafalgar Battleship launching ceremony."
At the woman's explanation, Yohan's sharp eyes narrowed.
'Do you really have to go?'
Yohan, who had affirmed the Queen's question with silence, had already shown signs of annoyance at that time.
He had spent a week almost staying up all night in place of the Crown Prince, and after giving Mikhail, who had been dragged away from the Doherty Club in a drunken state, time to recover, Yohan, who had barely escaped the palace, was on the verge of collapsing both mentally and physically.
In that state, he was not interested in who this woman was, nor was there any reason for him to know.
Feeling the fatigue lingering on his taciturn face, the woman revealed her identity.
