The Crown Prince’s Fiancée, Chapter 28
The ball was over, but whether I would survive was still uncertain. I had done my best, but the outcome rested on the Crown Prince’s will.
Still, shouldn’t I find some meaning in the fact that my head was still attached to my neck?
“So what am I supposed to do now…?”
I had only one goal. To get through the ball safely, finish my duty without arousing any suspicion! Now that it was done, would they finally let me go?
“Come now, you must get up! Ohohohoho!”
Madam Lucy boomed as she walked into my room. I asked her,
“When will the act of being the fiancée come to an end?”
“Why, once Sir Essen returns, of course! Ohohohoho.”
It was so sad that I still couldn’t get my original life back even though my duty was done.
Sir Essen, where did you go?
I missed Sir Essen terribly, though I didn’t even know his face. What if Sir Essen never came back, all my life?
“But, Miss, you mustn’t sit around waiting for Sir Essen! Take this chance to seduce His Highness the Crown Prince and become the real fiancée! What do you say?”
“Are you telling me to die?”
Madam Lucy spoke of such terrifying things so casually that I turned grave without meaning to.
“Oh my, what a joke! Where else could you find anyone as kind as His Highness? Ohohohoho!”
“……”
I had truly heard something absurd. What was even more shocking was that Madam Lucy had meant it in earnest.
After finishing my bath, I returned to my room in a light chemise.
My hair hadn’t dried and was still damp. I watched the water drip, drop by drop, onto the floor, then lifted my head.
And in that instant, gah. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Y-Your Highness……!”
The Crown Prince was in my room. Sitting there in all his imposing glory, as if he were the master of the place!
Adrian’s gaze flew at me and pinned me in place. Only when I saw his brow tighten slightly did I realize how I was dressed.
I was wearing nothing but a thin chemise. My face flushed hot in an instant.
“Please excuse me for a moment!”
I hurried off to the dressing room.
No, come to think of it, the one who ought to be apologizing for intruding wasn’t me, but the Crown Prince.
At the news that the Crown Prince had come, the maids’ hands grew busy.
“There, all done, Miss.”
The maids helped me change into a dress. My damp hair had dried somewhat, too, and was pinned up halfway. With a nervous heart, I checked the time.
Eek, twenty minutes had already passed! But why had he come?
Calming my pounding heart, I stepped out of the dressing room and saw Adrian’s profile.
Instinctively, I checked the man’s expression first. It was a habit I had developed in order to survive.
His brow was furrowed, a heavy mood hung over him, and he was undoubtedly angry.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting……”
Offering a quiet apology, I stood before the Crown Prince. I felt like a student being punished.
I could feel Adrian’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head. I had no confidence that I could bear that dreadful stare.
Hadn’t all his kindness at the ball been nothing but a dream?
I waited for the Crown Prince’s reply, but no words came.
I gathered my courage and raised my head. But the man only gazed steadily at me without opening his mouth.
“Y-Your Highness?”
Even when I spoke to him, there was no answer. If anything, he frowned, looking positively murderous.
I simply stood silently before him, feeling like a criminal. The passing time crawled by.
Just as the feeling in my legs was fading and standing had become a struggle, the Crown Prince rose from his seat.
Then he left the room without a word of farewell.
“W-What was that……”
To come all this way, glare at me with such terrifying force without saying a single word, and then just leave.
Surely I hadn’t been marked by the Crown Prince?
****
Magic? No, was it some kind of curse?
There were times when his condition improved. Looking at Artienne helped a little.
At those times, the illusory memory didn’t torment him. Even if his head grew muddled with other things instead.
Was he really going mad?
Wondering whether he might be ill somewhere, Adrian had even seriously raised his doubts with the royal physician.
‘I’ve been seeing things lately. Is that all right?’
Naturally, the physician had spouted nonsense, saying he might be under too much stress, and that he should lighten his workload and rest.
If resting had cured it, he wouldn’t have asked! What was he supposed to do when it persisted even after he rested?
Still, he couldn’t just keep sitting around dazed and doing nothing.
“There’s no helping it.”
If he kept looking, surely some answer would come.
The documents were piled up in a heap, but he brushed that aside with ease and left his office.
Where he was headed today was already decided, just as it had been every day.
It was the place where a certain maid, who had now firmly taken her seat as his fiancée, was staying.
A maid. Yes, she was a maid.
The Artienne he had seen at the party had been so natural that, for a moment, he had almost mistaken her for a real fiancée.
She was glowing and beautiful, so much so that he wondered where the human blank canvas he had glimpsed briefly during the party preparations had gone.
Of course, she fell far short of Essen, but she was beautiful enough that Essen wouldn’t come to mind.
Had she always been that pretty? he had wondered.
“Oh my, Your Highness~. What brings you here again? Hohohoho.”
Before he reached Artienne’s room, Madam Lucy spotted Adrian in the corridor and approached him first.
“Ah, Madam Lucy.”
“Oh my, have you come to see our Miss Artienne? Have you finally lost your heart to her?”
“What nonsense.”
“Oh my, just look at him being bashful. Hohohohohohoho.”
Second only to his mother the Empress, Madam Lucy’s pink-tinted mind was beyond his understanding, and it was forcibly coloring the surroundings.
When Adrian fell silent, Madam Lucy seized him with even more sparkling eyes.
“When are you thinking of holding the wedding? Summer would be best, wouldn’t it? It’s when the sunlight is at its warmest and loveliest.”
“Do you want me to die of the heat?”
“Oh my, you don’t understand. It’s such a beautiful season that we could announce the birth of the couple of the century to everyone. Of course, it will be hot… but the guests’ discomfort is no concern of mine!”
“……”
Adrian was about to retort that he found it hot, too, but sighed instead.
Wedding, what the hell was that about?
He would marry someday, but he couldn’t imagine it at all.
He had thrust Essen forward in the name of “love,” which the Empress, his mother, adored, in order to avoid a political marriage, but even once he became emperor, Adrian had no intention of marrying.
Women, what the hell was that about?
Once he became emperor, he had planned to wreck the place.
He would fix every last thing he disliked, one by one.
Burying that plan, which he had been nursing since he was very young, deep in his heart, Adrian spent another day of his patient years as Crown Prince.
Sometimes he had felt a strong temptation to attempt an assassination, out of the desire to become emperor sooner.
Of course, he had given it up at the planning stage.
It wasn’t for stuffy reasons like loving his father, or filial duty, or because it would betray humanity.
The risk he would have to bear had simply been too great. The throne was something he would inherit even if he did nothing.
Well, there had been other problems, too. Realistically, the Emperor’s defenses were also far too solid.
Ha. It would have been better if his father had been a tyrant. Then he wouldn’t have needed to put on this ridiculous act.
Meanwhile, Madam Lucy was already making her wedding plans one by one.
“Outdoors would be best, wouldn’t it? How about the Blester Villa? The garden there connects to the sea, so the view is truly beautiful, isn’t it? If we held the ceremony right there, it would make a perfect picture. About a thousand guests, roughly…… Oh my, I’m just so excited. Ohohohohohohoho.”
Adrian looked with slightly fearful eyes at Madam Lucy, who stood beside him clasping her hands, her mind flown away in a dreamy daze.
At this rate, even the date would be finalized.
Knowing how formidable Madam Lucy’s drive was, Adrian decided it was time to apply the brakes.
This woman was an expert who, at a single word that Essen would be made the fiancée, had produced within an hour a fitting dress, an image color, and a concept personality.
Wasn’t it Madam Lucy who had been the foremost contributor in overpowering even the great Essen with sheer personality and getting him into women’s clothes?
Adrian once again felt that separating the Empress and Madam Lucy had been the right call, and marveled at his own decision.
An excellent choice.
“Madam Lucy.”
“Yes, yes, what is it? My cute little Crown Prince?”
“Can’t you drop that nickname?”
Madam Lucy straightened up with a smile and gazed at Adrian with warm eyes.
“It’s a title filled with my love.”
Meaning she wasn’t going to change it, was she?
Adrian looked at Madam Lucy without a word. Madam Lucy looked back at Adrian, smiling.
Perhaps because of the skill she had cultivated by raising him with her own hands since childhood, Madam Lucy did not waver in the slightest.
In the end, Adrian gave up.
“There’s something I’m curious about.”
“Oh my, for me? What is it? Go on and ask. Hohohoho.”
“That girl. Did she have her face completely redone?”
At Adrian’s question, Madam Lucy wore a blank look for a moment.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“If not, how could she have turned out like that?”
Though Adrian’s way of speaking was utterly abrupt and extremely subjective, Madam Lucy, thanks to her nursemaid’s expertise, grasped at once what he meant.
Adrian was talking about the difference between Artienne’s usual looks and her beauty on the day of the party.
Madam Lucy’s expression changed oddly. Adrian felt her gaze and frowned.
“Ohohohohohoho. Oh my, so our Highness has fallen for Miss Artienne’s beauty.”
“That’s not it.”
“Oh, bashful again, are we? Ohohohohohoho.”
Even as Adrian glared openly at her, Madam Lucy showed no sign of stopping her laughter.
