A noble young lady confessed as if upset to the Regent Duke’s mistress.
“What kind of person is His Highness the Prince! Even if his innocence was proven through this trial, House Meyer should be exercising restraint at this point.”
Only then did I recall that she, called Lady Bridget with her youthful face, was the youngest daughter of a margrave who had a grudge against House Count Meyer.
She was also an Omega and a beautiful young lady with distinct features. I’d heard that if Lady Bridget aged just a bit more, whether in appearance or family prestige, she would become the flower of high society following in Rilke’s footsteps.
“Moreover, that person,”
Though I’d also heard rumors that she was a bit willful.
“Honestly, he doesn’t have a single good reputation. Someone who had terrible rumors circulating until recently… how dare he!”
“Lady Bridget, please refrain from rude words……”
Madame Marian, the Regent Duke’s mistress, lightly grasped the young lady’s arm to stop her.
“But, Madame!”
“Don’t worry. The Count Meyer I know isn’t that kind of person.”
Right? Madame Marian looked back at me with a trembling smile.
“Surely you’re not really in love with His Highness Benedict, are you? It’s a simple matter. The Count just needs to say directly that it’s not true.”
The Madame emphasized again.
A few steps away, the Empress was still waving her fan. Quickly. Say it’s not true. The Regent Duke’s mistress whispered softly.
But how could I.
“Yes.”
Say it’s not true.
“I like His Highness Benedict.”
The piano sound grew distant.
The Empress’s fan that had been waving gently had also stopped.
“……What did you say?”
The margrave’s daughter asked.
“What did you just say? You li-, what did you say about His Highness the Prince?”
I barely swallowed a sigh. I spoke to her pressing interrogation.
“It’s my emotion, but I can’t help it.”
“……What on earth,”
She seemed not to have expected this side to talk back.
When I spoke confidently, she became flustered. The young lady tried to quickly find words to say with wide-open eyes. Before the girl not even twenty years old could answer, I asked back.
“Can you control your emotions about me, my lady?”
“Wha, what,”
“Can you suppress the anger rising toward me and publicly declare in this place that I’m a good person?”
I could see her trembling lips open wide.
“You seem to be an honest person, my lady.”
“……”
“Though the direction is different, I was only being honest as well.”
The margrave’s daughter’s cheeks flushed bright red, but she seemed unable to find words to say. Embracing the young lady who was inexperienced in debate, the Regent Duke’s mistress opened her mouth instead.
“So…… I, I didn’t know the Count was this kind of person.”
The margrave’s daughter’s eyes were already brimming with tears. Madame Marian handed her a handkerchief and asked me as if surprised.
“Can you handle this?”
There was no need to even answer.
Of course I could handle it.
It was much easier than denying my feelings for Benedict. I looked calmly at the Regent Duke’s mistress. Madame Marian, and the people who had been watching, seemed to read the answer in my silence.
Snap, the Empress’s fan closed.
That small gesture informed the Empress’s inner circle what they should do.
They turned away from me.
They gazed at me once with cold eyes, then left coolly with hardened faces as if there was nothing to say. The Empress, once again surrounded by her inner circle, seemed to be comforting the crying margrave’s daughter. The Empress occasionally looked at me, but I tried not to make eye contact.
“Are you alright?”
Despite the commotion just before, several people carefully approached me. I tried to remember the grateful faces and declined their goodwill as politely as possible. I expressed my gratitude but conveyed that I wanted to be alone.
I was really alright.
The Empress’s inner circle was still throwing stones at me with their gazes, but my mind had calmed.
I recalled what I’d vowed. I’d decided to be satisfied with each moment.
If that day ever comes. My heart will ache, but I can leave Benedict’s side at any time. I’d thought that way from the beginning when I confessed. And I’d received from him gifts far more precious than I’d imagined, than I could have even imagined.
My overwhelming moments of loving him are so solid and beautiful that their gazes, their murmuring, cannot even scratch my one perfect moment.
Even if I lost Benedict’s love, it would be so.
Just then, he was entering.
There were some who couldn’t hide their discomfort, but generally people welcomed the imperial prince with a gentle atmosphere as if nothing had happened.
The Empress, the mistress of the salon, smiled like a flower and embraced her son. Benedict, lightly embracing his mother back, calmly delivered a congratulatory address as a prince. His voice with clear resonance, wishing blessings, spread throughout the venue. People’s applause followed after.
I could see the Empress grabbing Benedict again and saying something to him. I could feel people’s sidelong glances reaching toward this direction.
I quietly stood as far away as possible.
I hoped this time would pass uneventfully like the wind.
‘Your Highness……!’
But already one person was running toward Benedict. It was the margrave’s daughter, her eyes still not cleared of tears.
With a voice that seemed about to break but didn’t, I could hear the young lady’s pitiful plea. The Empress stood by her side. Benedict’s eyes seemed to lift and look this way.
I hurriedly lowered my gaze.
I only looked at the floor.
I had no face to show, and I was also worried about him.
I hoped that the negative emotions of the people who had questioned me wouldn’t touch him at all. Please pretend you don’t know me. If I could convey it, I wanted to say that.
And,
I clearly felt today what I’d been avoiding.
The young lady’s words were somewhat correct. I was someone who didn’t suit Benedict. Separate from my sincere feelings of liking him, I’d known it from before.
But it was still alright.
When I close my eyes, his smile comes to mind. His deep eyes, the shape of his curved lips. I can also recall the low voice wrapping around my ears and the scent resembling him. If I clench my hand, I can vividly and wholly feel the soft hair that filled my empty hand and the hot skin. It was so complete even without trying to remember.
That’s why I was also at peace.
Even a nameless local bird can sing toward the forest. No matter how insignificant, it can chirp and can give up its place when another animal comes. If the forest doesn’t need it, it can find another place. I was happy if I could just stay for one season when he allowed me by his side.
Loving him, I liked myself for the first time. I was happy to the point of parched throat.
So everything was alright.
“……”
I quietly moved my steps. Now that all the imperial family had entered, I could leave the venue. There would only be exhaustion from being here. I walked quickly toward the entrance, stepping on shadows.
It wasn’t mine from the beginning anyway. I would always love him, but I loved him enough that I could gladly continue loving him even if we grew distant at any time. Even if Benedict, even if he came to know that I wasn’t suitable for him, it couldn’t be helped.
The entrance was before my eyes.
Murmuring was heard from behind.
I wanted to escape the venue quickly, but the palace attendant guarding the door didn’t move aside in confusion. Then short gasps of shock were heard from around.
My wrist was grabbed. I was turned around, gently embraced in a familiar large bosom.
Like a large, warm curtain, Benedict enveloped me in his embrace. He buried his lips in my hair. In the warmth so warm it tingled through my whole body, I finally realized I’d been a bit cold until now.
Red lips that kissed like feathers fell quietly as if nothing had happened.
“Your Majesty.”
I looked up at Benedict with startled eyes.
Still holding me, he asked the Empress.
“May I withdraw now?”
The Empress looked dazed in her elegant complexion.
Benedict asked her once more, but the Empress said nothing. And because of all the concentrated gazes, I was also on the verge of losing my soul.
After a moment, Benedict as is took hold of my wrist and walked out of the venue.
Until the end, there was no answer from the Empress. People’s confusion grew distant behind us.
“Is this- alright?”
We were walking through the corridor connected to the garden.
I asked while continuing to walk, held by him. Over the garden visible between the open columns, a dark blue night had already descended.
“I’m… really alright,”
Benedict suddenly stopped.
He turned his body to face me. The eyes that meet are warm.
My shoulders, which had been tensely raised, lowered at his clear and warm gaze like a sunlit afternoon.
We stood like that for a moment. In the corridor that had emptied because everyone was inside the venue, we stood like that.
“It’s a bit uncool, but.”
Benedict said.
He lowered his head to meet my gaze seriously. He looked into my eyes for a long while with deepened eyes.
“Will you marry me?”
A gentle breeze blew from the garden.
It touched his splendid hair and made my hair flutter. My forehead tickled.
My dazed voice belatedly echoed through the empty corridor.
“…Yes…… thank you. No- uh, that’s not it-,”
I was flustered, flustered. I hurriedly recovered, worried Benedict would misunderstand.
He was cool. I was the uncool one.
“I’m very happy…… thank you.”
If he wants it, I will be by his side forever. Until he wants it.
Benedict smiled. He came close, wrapped me in both arms, and kissed my lips. Once playfully, the second time warmly. Yes. I’m grateful too. Gently embracing me again, he whispered in my ear.
Soon signs of people filled the empty corridor, and we stayed like that until numerous footsteps passed by. Benedict embraced me with strength so I couldn’t see anything. He held me like that for a long time.
* * *
On the way back, Mikhail’s complexion was both good and not good.
“Are those really true friends?”
Among the nobles who attended today’s salon, those who were close to Mikhail seemed to have noticed in advance and taken only Mikhail out. The Empress’s target seemed to have been me anyway, and it was because they didn’t want Mikhail to suffer humiliation together unnecessarily.
“And do you know what those guys said! As if you were some kind of mistress……! -Anyway, I will never associate with those guys again!”
And Mikhail was now cursing those friends.
I’d really been alright until now, but I don’t know why my eyes suddenly grow hot at hyung’s words that he won’t hang out with those people.
“I didn’t think I’d see Her Majesty the Empress like that! I never dreamed she’d make even Stefan leave your side!”
“I…… was really alright.”
I answered, forcibly suppressing my churning insides.
“Being alone isn’t such a great thing either.”
“Ha, temporary emotions! Those people don’t even know how long it’s been!”
I reluctantly nodded. Mikhail drew his own conclusion.
“Luscious fruit attracts many insects!”
Mikhail, who had been grumbling that the lacking fools must have been jealous, suddenly asked subtly.
“But… is it real?”
Mikhail seemed to have only heard everything secondhand.
Though I didn’t know what he was trying to say, Mikhail started clearing his throat with a reddened face—it was terrible—and I urgently stopped the words that were trying to continue with ‘with His Highness Benedict for that long……’
“You said earlier you had something important to discuss!”
Fortunately, Mikhail moved on with an ah, that’s right!
Mikhail’s eyebrows furrowed over what the matter was.
And while hearing the story, my eyebrows also began to furrow. It was really strange news.
“The Regent Duke is the Empire’s representative for the Iota talks.”
“That’s what I’m saying. A guy who normally has no interest in politics. As you know, Regent Yorick has never stepped forward for such occasions. Originally the Empire’s representative too,”
“It would have been internally decided as Her Majesty the Empress.”
Since I clearly remembered that Benedict wasn’t the Empire’s representative, I’d guessed that in the past the Empress would have stepped forward. Mikhail nodded.
“Because of that, it became even easier for that guy to take charge of the talks. He probably whispered a few words at the bedside.”
The carriage had almost reached the Meyer mansion.
“At this point, we know one more troublesome fact.”
Mikhail spoke with a strange face.
“…The Regent Duke still holds the mine.”
Mikhail’s mine purchase had ultimately ended in failure. The Regent Duke, who until recently had been desperate to dispose of the mine, had changed his mind like flipping a gold coin.
The Regent Duke, who didn’t sell the ancient island’s mine, wants to talk directly with Iota.
“Isn’t it strange?”
I couldn’t help but think there was some benefit or transaction.
The past was changing. In the past, the Regent Duke was already dead at this time.
As causality twisted, the current Regent Duke didn’t contract the black spots. The living Regent Duke became the representative for the Iota talks instead of the Empress.
While the carriage was stopped after arriving at the mansion, I drew circles in my mind. A circle around the talks, a circle around the living Regent Duke.
“You said the meeting place is Count Quina’s great mansion.”
And a circle around the great mansion.
The Regent Duke was a variable, but I drew a circle around the great mansion again. I said to Mikhail.
“Please take me with you too.”
