49
The crowd that had noticed us coming out suddenly started shouting and tried to swarm toward us.
Startled, Bethel warned them in a loud voice.
“Keep your distance! I will not forgive anyone who so much as lifts a finger toward Lady Marion or His Grace the Grand Duke!”
At that, the people faltered.
Finally, as I stepped out the door, wondering what all the commotion was about, I asked Bethel.
“Why are all these people gathered like this?”
“It seems they recognized the Grand Duke’s carriage and flocked here.”
Kaiden asked with a bewildered face.
“I don’t understand. We came in the Grand Duke’s carriage, so why are people crowding around?”
I looked at Bethel with the exact same uncomprehending expression. Bethel, on the contrary, spoke with eyes that seemed to say, *You’re really asking me that?*
“Of course. The two of you are currently the hottest potatoes in the empire—no, the hottest gossip—no, anyway, the main characters of the hottest rumors. Lady Marion especially so.”
Ah, I suddenly remembered that Lady March once said something to me about having “the star quality of a devil” or whatever it was.
Still, I never imagined a crowd would gather to this extent. I was flustered.
“Lady Marion! Please give me an autograph! Kyaaa! You’re my role model, big sis!”
“Your Grace! Break up with that good-for-nothing already!”
Seeing people who liked me and people who hated me coexisting side by side made me feel strangely uncomfortable.
Is this the fate of a celebrity?
I remembered something a famous singer from my previous life once said—that for stars, both the haters and the stans are equally insane.
“There’s a chance the child in her belly isn’t even the Grand Duke’s!”
“What?! Who are you to slander Lady Marion! Stop spreading baseless rumors!”
“It’s a fact that that good-for-nothing sleeps around with all sorts of men, how is that a baseless rumor! Only the Grand Duke is pitiful!”
“You bastard! An attack on Lady Marion is considered an attack on me!”
“You bitch!”
“H-hey, hey, stop them!”
It was complete chaos.
My mind went blank, and before I knew it, I was staring vacantly at the scene with unfocused eyes.
Kaiden was pressing a hand to his forehead as if he had a headache.
At that moment, the door of the jewelry shop behind us opened, and the manager Alfred approached Kaiden and whispered in his ear.
“Your Grace. Let’s leave through the back door.”
Kaiden nodded and took my hand. We were just about to enter the shop when—
“You devilish woman! Get away from His Grace!”
“Lady Marion!”
*Thwack!*
I turned around with shocked eyes. A broken egg was dripping down Bethel’s face.
“Bethel!”
As I let go of Kaiden’s hand to check on him, murmurs rose from the surroundings.
“Good heavens, who threw an egg? At a noble…”
“Is a good-for-nothing even a noble? She’s commoner-born.”
“A knight is quasi-nobility. And she might soon become the Grand Duchess.”
“By the way, did you see her let go of His Grace’s hand just now?”
“I saw it. As expected of a good-for-nothing who drives men crazy…”
I was furious. Getting insulted was already infuriating enough, but throwing an egg? I’m going to grab that bastard and—!
“Which son of a…!”
Just as I was about to charge recklessly at the egg-thrower, Kaiden grabbed my wrist.
“Marion.”
“Your Grace, just let go for a second! That bastard…!”
“Marion.”
At his repeated calls, I finally turned around, and Kaiden shook his head.
“But—!”
“I’m fine, Lady Marion.”
Bethel said while wiping the egg dripping down his face.
“More importantly, please go inside the shop quickly. I will hold the fort here.”
The manager of Ashilly’s also spoke to me with a pale face.
“Please come inside quickly. This could turn into a big problem.”
By then, the jewelry shop employees had come out and were shouting at the crowd to go about their own business.
But the people instead yelled at them not to block the way and to get out of it. It was pandemonium.
Bethel spoke to Alfred.
“Are you the manager? Tell the staff to call the guards.”
Bethel calmly took control of the situation.
For such a young knight to remain this composed after being hit by an egg was impressive. Kaiden pulled me toward him.
“Marion. Now is not the time. Hold it in.”
“Ugh.”
As I bit my lip in frustration, Kaiden whispered in a voice so low only I could hear.
“You saw his face, right? Let’s lure him somewhere out of sight and beat him up secretly.”
I looked at him with wide eyes, and only then did I notice Kaiden’s subtly angry expression. I muttered with a wicked grin.
“Sounds good.”
* * *
Kaiden and Marion slipped out through the back door of the jewelry shop and headed to the carriage stop.
They didn’t exchange a single word the whole way, but both were quietly grinding their teeth.
Both of them thought:
‘Whatever else, that egg-throwing bastard—we’re definitely going to wreck that one guy.’
If the previous Grand Duke had heard their resolve, he would have had a fit, saying swordmasters were ganging up to beat a single commoner. But their eyes were already burning with the desire for revenge.
They approached the parked carriage of the Waldstein Grand Ducal House at the stop. The coachman greeted them in surprise.
“Y-you’re here early! But how did the two of you come all the way here… If you had called, I would have come to you.”
“There was an incident at the jewelry shop.”
Kaiden answered through gritted teeth. Marion also turned her head, cracking her neck, and asked.
“Ralph. There are robes inside the carriage, right?”
The coachman quickly nodded.
“Yes, yes! But why the robes…”
“Take out two—mine and His Grace’s. And Ralph, return to the ducal residence first.”
“Huh?”
Kaiden said:
“Tell Grandfather that Marion and I will be staying at a hotel tonight. Say it’s to celebrate the lifting of Marion’s house arrest.”
“Ah, then I can escort you to the hotel…”
The coachman’s strong sense of professional duty was evident, but Marion shook her head.
“We have something to do.”
Kaiden and Marion smiled wickedly.
Seeing that smile, Ralph shuddered and shut his mouth.
That evening.
After searching all afternoon for the egg-thrower, Kaiden and Marion spotted the guy loitering on the street and tailed him. They waited until he entered a secluded area.
In truth, it would have been simple to just arrest the commoner using the Grand Duke’s authority.
But judging from the crowd’s reaction earlier, punishing that man under the Waldstein name would definitely turn them into gossip fodder in the empire’s famous tabloids.
“The Northern Grand Duke and the Good-for-Nothing’s Duplicity! Poor Commoner’s Buttocks Torn to Shreds!”
—something with a headline like that.
Kaiden and Marion, who were about to have the wedding of the century, could not ignore public opinion.
In any case, the Waldstein family had an old family motto:
“Repay kindness twofold, repay grudges fivefold.”
While tailing him, Kaiden and Marion discussed how to punish the man.
Marion whispered.
“I’ll just hit him lightly three times.”
“Why three?”
“One for insulting me, one for hitting Bethel with the egg, one for dishonoring Your Grace.”
Kaiden nodded.
“Hm. Reasonable.”
“What about you, Your Grace?”
“Name.”
“…Do you really have to hear the name even now?”
“Yes.”
Marion sighed once and asked again.
“What are you planning to do, Kaiden-nim?”
“Drop the ‘-nim’ from now on. I’ll hit him three times too. Same reasons as you.”
“Perfect.”
The two grinned wickedly and continued tailing the egg guy. For two swordmasters, not being noticed by ordinary people was child’s play.
The sun was setting.
As the surroundings grew dark, the guy headed toward the riverbank.
Marion couldn’t understand why this commoner wasn’t going home and was instead moving to an even more secluded area.
“Why is he going that way? Does he not have a home? He doesn’t look like a pauper.”
When she asked, Kaiden narrowed his eyes and whispered quietly.
“Suspicious. Let’s follow a little longer.”
“Yes.”
The egg guy passed the row of shabby ferry boats and went under the bridge.
Two thuggish-looking men were waiting there. Two filthy-looking young children were with them as well.
Marion and Kaiden looked at each other. Marion whispered.
“He doesn’t seem like an ordinary commoner?”
“Must be a back-alley thug.”
“But why would a guy like that come all the way to where we were just to throw an egg?”
“Indeed. It’s getting more and more suspicious.”
The two strained their ears to catch what the egg guy and his companions were saying.
A cucumber-looking guy spoke to the egg thrower.
“How did it go?”
“I threw the egg, but some guard-looking guy took the hit instead.”
“Hmm. Does that count as humiliating the good-for-nothing?”
“It feels a bit lacking.”
Marion and Kaiden wondered what this was about. From their words, it felt like they had deliberately intended to humiliate Marion.
This time, the potato-looking guy yelled at the children.
“You brats! You’re spreading the rumors exactly as we told you, right?”
The terrified children nodded. The slightly older-looking one of the two opened his mouth with a trembling voice.
“T-the rumor that the good-for-nothing knight is pregnant with another man’s child and is trying to deceive His Grace the Grand Duke has already spread everywhere.”
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
