Chapter 87
- Prelude to Ruin
2023.12.26.
The moment Olivia Blanchett leaped into the dazzling sunlight that pierced her eyes, that unfamiliar and intense image completely erased all previous impressions of her.
Yohan could hear his own heart pounding amidst the sound of the tightly strung racket hitting the small ball with force.
The sound of his heart beating a little faster than usual, yet irregularly, was confusing.
The embarrassment she had given him, like a bird taking flight as soon as it breaks out of its hard shell, disappeared with Edgar's appearance, leaving only a petty sense of betrayal.
His Adam's apple and shoulders rose and fell with his ragged breaths.
Emotions that could not be clearly defined in a single word were flooding his life, where emotions had never existed.
Everything was shaking.
The wind blew. He looked up.
The wind that had passed through the Lancelot Hotel, where Olivia was, brushed past Yohan's hot cheeks.
He couldn't tell if it was the heat from the affected area or from the alcohol, but the summer night breeze couldn't cool the heat.
Although the night was late, Olivia couldn't fall asleep.
She waited for Edgar, hoping he would come even late.
But he didn't come.
She hadn't expected much, but still, a corner of her heart felt uneasy, as if it were being squeezed.
Giving up on falling asleep, Olivia got up. She put on the silk gown that was hanging on the back of the sofa and tied the belt around her waist.
As her fingertips brushed past the table, they gently touched the cornflower petals in the vase.
Olivia sat on the iron chair on the balcony, raised her knees, and hugged them with both arms.
The sensation on the soles of her feet felt colder than a summer night.
Edgar.
Olivia raised her head from between her knees. Through the balcony railing, she could see carriages passing by on the main street.
The night streets, with dim lights, were silent.
Whenever she saw a carriage breaking the silence and rushing towards the hotel, Olivia couldn't help but expect it.
But each time, the carriage disappeared into the darkness, leaving only a fleeting afterimage.
It had been a long time since she had waited for someone at night.
Around the age of six, she waited all night for her mother, who had gone to the market, but she never came back.
In the winter of the same year, her father, who had left her at her aunt's house, promising to return after ten nights, never came back either.
One early winter day when she was seventeen, her grandmother, who had gone to work late into the night for a special guest at the owner's house, was the same.
Her waiting was never rewarded.
So don't wait.
She whispered to herself.
Don't wait. Jian.
She raised her head and looked at the sky. Looking at the night sky filled with dazzling starlight, she wished.
She hoped that the night she kissed him by the Bichen River, where starlight shattered, was special to him too.
She prayed that the summer night when the scent of blooming roses made her mind faint was etched in his heart as well.
So she decided to believe that he would return, that he would surely give her an answer to her waiting.
Olivia stopped looking at the new road.
Looking straight ahead, she saw the Leopold Hotel, a palace-style building reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, behind the hotel.
She stared blankly at it for a while without moving, then got up from her seat.
Jose Carlos was a thorough opportunist.
The secret to his success in the Kingdom of Brit's legal profession, where lineage and orthodoxy were valued, despite being a second-generation immigrant, was his ability to accurately assess the situation and act quickly.
Marquis Edgar Lancaster Lancelot had come to him a week ago.
The Marquis's request was simple and clear.
Find a way to bring Anneblin Grace Britt to court.
It was a brazen order.
"So, you enjoyed meeting my son."
The old fox, Duke Lancelot, asked Carlos, stretching his wrinkled lips.
Embarrassed, he put an awkward smile on his face.
"This seems to be nothing short of treason."
"Your words are excessive."
The blood drained from Carlos's face as the formal smile disappeared.
"Otherwise, how dare you try to bring the Princess to court? Don't you think so?"
"......"
He was outraged by the Duke's excessive remarks, but he did not respond hastily.
The world was changing. Across the sea, numerous monarchies were being overthrown, and royals were being hanged.
Of course, Carlos was neither a naive young man intoxicated with the romance of revolution, nor a rigid conservative who defended the monarchy.
He was just an opportunist.
The amount Edgar offered was so large that it would be enough to tear down the tower he had built with his own hands.
"You've crossed the line, Justice Carlos."
Duke Lancelot's lips twisted.
"I think you should say that to Marquis Lancelot, not to me. What power does a mere public official like me have to plot such treason?"
It was a way of telling him to take care of his son.
Carlos smiled bitterly.
After all, it was the Marquis who had made the request, and he had only taken the bribe.
No matter how much he made an issue of it, the Lancelot family would be the ones to shed more blood.
That being said. How did the matter, which was being conducted in strict secrecy, come to the surface?
Under the current laws of the Kingdom of Brit, a majority vote of twelve senior judges was required to bring a royal to court.
To that end, Carlos had been secretly contacting and persuading anti-royalist judges.
Could there have been a traitor among them?
A chill ran down his spine. He was trying to figure out which human being had stabbed him in the back when the door to the drawing room opened. Speak of the devil.
Edgar Lancaster Lancelot, the protagonist of this mess, was striding in with wide steps.
Edgar bowed to the Duke and the Chief Justice in turn.
Carlos's mustache trembled slightly as he met his cold eyes. Like father, like son.
"Sit down."
"Well, I'll be on my way."
Carlos, who had been watching the situation, got up. There was no reason to get involved in a family fight.
As Carlos stepped back, the Duke stared at Edgar leisurely and said.
"It's good to see you often."
"If you say so, I have no reason not to feel the same."
As expected, Edgar reacted indifferently.
"Did that woman ask you to?"
The Duke casually asked, filling his son's glass himself.
"It has nothing to do with her. I just have some personal matters to settle with the Princess."
Edgar still had no expression on his face. He simply stared at the Duke with an unpleasant gaze.
"I think it was this morning that you said you were going to sort things out."
The Duke had seen through it from the beginning.
"It doesn't seem like a situation where I can wait leisurely."
Edgar's eyes held the same possessiveness he had when he first saw Yohan's mother, Charlotte Wellington.
A petite and slender body, dark brown hair, bright blue eyes, fresh apple-colored cheeks, and soft, smiling crimson lips.
On top of that, outstanding tennis skills.
The woman who was paralyzing Edgar's reason was a major obstacle to the Lancelot's present and future glory and power.
Daring to stand against the royal family. It was absurd.
He had no intention of letting the heir to Lancelot ruin the eternally brilliant history of the family with a single act of disruption.
"There's no one in the world who gets everything they want."
The Duke, holding a crystal glass in his hand, poured it into his mouth in one gulp.
"Lancelot and the woman."
He put the glass down on the table with a thud and glared at Edgar.
"Decide."
It was a direct order.
Edgar stared silently at the glass in front of him. His cool, gray-blue eyes were calm.
He swept back his hair, reached out, and downed the whiskey in one gulp.
Lancelot and Olivia.
Edgar slowly repeated those names, and the corners of his lips slightly lifted.
And his eyes, shrouded in darkness, glared at the invisible pistol aimed at him.
Anneblin's bloodless face was horribly distorted.
The royal family had issued a press release saying that she was resting due to mild heatstroke, but not many people readily believed it.
Everyone was tight-lipped and careful with their words, but compared to that, the rumors spread rapidly throughout Litten in a day.
"Was Blanchett's injury caused by a reporter instigated by the Princess? The truth must be revealed."
Several witnesses testified that there were problems in the reporting process, and there were also claims that unfamiliar reporters were mixed in with the reporters.
"Oh my gosh. I can't believe it. But isn't this too much? "
"I know, right? Is it worth going that far to beat a bastard? I'm disappointed in the Princess for the first time."
As something more sensational was added, the simple story of the divorced woman's illegitimate child's life reversal became a shocking conspiracy theory.
"How dare you......"
Her pale face gradually turned red, and a vein protruded next to her temple.
She crumpled the newspaper, which she could no longer read, and threw it on the floor of the hospital room.
Reporters and gossips who had deep antipathy toward the royal family began to tear Anneblin apart.
The high-status honor she had built up quickly crumbled like a sandcastle, and she was in a humiliating situation, being compared to a lowly illegitimate child who could not even be on the same line as her.
But what made her the most miserable was something else.
Edgar Lancaster Lancelot.
The image of Edgar kneeling on one knee in front of Olivia Blanchett without hesitation suddenly came to mind.
She clearly saw his head lowering without hesitation as if to kiss her, and his hand reaching for the inside pocket of his jacket.
'He bought the Blue Diamond Ring.'
At that moment, Cecil's voice struck her ears.
Was he going to propose here?
In front of me, of all people.
Her eyes swelled up.
Anneblin, panting under the scorching sun, felt a severe pain as if her heart was being torn apart, and her vision went white.
And a moment later, she lost consciousness the moment Edgar's and the woman's lips met and rubbed together.
Thus, detached from reality, Anneblin engraved in her mind the woman who had taken away her championship trophy, Edgar, and everything else. She vowed never to forgive her.
It was when she was reaffirming that resolution.
Someone quietly knocked on the door of the hospital room, which she had ordered no one to enter.
