The Crown Prince’s Fiancée, Chapter 29
After laughing for a long while, Madam Lucy caught hold of Adrian and wore a peculiar smile.
Sensing something ominous, Adrian tried to ignore her and walk away, but Madam Lucy hurriedly seized him.
“Don’t you want to know the secret behind Miss Artienne’s beauty?”
In the end, Adrian stopped and turned around. She opened her mouth in a hushed voice.
“Hohoho. I really didn’t do much. That is her natural beauty. I merely added a little magic to it!”
Adrian’s expression instantly crumpled.
“Magic?”
As though it made no difference what reaction Adrian showed, Madam Lucy recalled that day with a wistful expression.
“Just a tiny bit of magic! That day, Miss Artienne was truly beautiful. Ah. She was simply the best. I could call her the masterpiece of my life. Ohohohohoho.”
Watching Madam Lucy laugh with such emotion, Adrian felt a reluctance to admit it stirring within him, even though he had already admitted it.
“Essen was prettier.”
“Oh my~ Need you even say it? Of course, there’s no comparing their beauty! Young Master Essen was the most beautiful person in all of our Appennino, after all?!”
“Uh… Well, that’s true.”
It was clearly correct, so why did he feel so foul even when she agreed with him?
Noticing the change in his own mood, Adrian frowned.
It was a change in himself, yet he couldn’t figure out the cause.
“I miss him already, though. Dressing up Young Master Essen was such a joy, too. Her peak beauty as Artienne deserved to live on in history. The trouble was that he hated showing his face. He shone even when he sat perfectly still, didn’t he?”
“Yes. I know.”
Though he was the one who had brought up her prettiness first, Adrian clenched his teeth at his mood sinking ever lower.
Pretending not to notice the change in Adrian’s expression, Madam Lucy smiled brightly.
“Ohohoho. But Miss Artienne is different. That’s why I’m even more satisfied.”
Madam Lucy poured out another storm of chatter.
“Still, I do sometimes worry whether someone so soft can manage life in the imperial palace. Even so, if she were to become the Crown Princess, I would be wholeheartedly in favor.”
“I said that’s not it.”
“Look at him being shy. Hehe. How long has it been since I last saw our Crown Prince so bashful~.”
Adrian simply gave up.
When he left her to chatter as she pleased, Madam Lucy burst into giggles.
“Miss Artienne may look ordinary at a glance right now, but she has tremendous potential, like a white canvas waiting for a masterpiece to be born. Whatever color you paint her in suits her and makes her shine all the more. The two of you really do suit each other. Ohohohoho.”
He had felt truly foul a moment ago, but Adrian suddenly felt good.
At the same time, he was slightly irritated.
It pleased him that Madam Lucy was praising that fool, and yet he didn’t like it.
What was making his mood sour again this time? Even as he sensed the change in himself, Adrian was irritated at not knowing the reason.
On top of that, even in the middle of this conversation, the afterimage of the moonlight still would not fade, and it tormented him.
“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll be counting on you from now on, too.”
“Ohohohoho, leave it all to me, our dear Crown Prince!”
“Then I’ll be going in. Is she inside?”
“Yes, yes. She’s studying hard to become a cultured and dignified Crown Princess worthy of His Highness the Crown Prince!”
Madam Lucy stepped out of his way. At the word “studying,” Adrian scoffed at once, but his mood improved.
Well, that was as it should be.
“Lord Terni was here earlier, too. Truly, everyone dotes on Miss Arti.”
At the mention of Terni, Adrian’s body stiffened.
“That bastard seems to be in and out every day.”
“Perhaps because he’s an only child, he seems delighted to have gained a younger sister. Even when Young Master Essen was Artienne, he often called her his little sister and looked after her attentively, and this time, with Miss Arti, he seems to have truly grown attached. He’s devoted himself completely.”
Clasping her hands, Madam Lucy praised him, saying there could be no devotion like it.
Adrian’s mood soured once more.
Frowning at his plummeting mood, Adrian left Madam Lucy behind and headed toward the room where Artienne was.
When he opened the door and went in, Arti was indeed reading a very thick book. Hearing someone enter, she lifted her head, saw Adrian, and froze on the spot.
At her stiffened expression, Adrian’s mood lurched again.
“G-Good day, Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
Rising fumblingly and hesitantly, Arti greeted him with care.
Adrian knew he ought to return the greeting, but the moment he saw Arti’s face, his feelings grew so tangled that he ignored it.
Looking at that foolish face, he felt considerably better.
What on earth was this? What was causing it?!
“Haha. Hahaha……”
Letting out a laugh that sounded awkward even to hear, Arti bowed her head.
Her cowed face, glancing at his reactions, was no different from when he had first seen her, yet today it somehow seemed especially adorable.
Ha. Adorable? Self-loathing washed over him. That he should find something like that adorable!
It was agonizing. Even so, as if possessed by something, she kept looking adorable, and it was driving him mad.
Even the afterimage of the moonlight wasn’t surfacing!
“Don’t laugh.”
“Yes, sir.”
Without a hint of protest, Arti stopped laughing at once.
That foolish expression again. It was broad daylight, yet she looked as if she had only just woken up.
Had she taken a nap or something? She looked perfectly carefree and comfortable.
She was wearing a pale blue dress. Compared with the other ladies of the imperial palace, it was plain in the extreme, but it suited Arti very well.
The party dress, the height of splendor, had suited her too, but Adrian’s taste preferred this one.
And she looks pure.
The moment he passed that verdict of “pure,” his mood soured again.
Where on earth was she pure!
Just how far was his sense of beauty going to fall? Every second, he floundered in self-loathing.
It was strange. Why didn’t that image come to mind while he was looking at her? When he was doing anything else, it surfaced and drove him mad.
What exactly was the problem?
Even with her face stiff and a forced smile on it, she looked pretty.
Damn it, if that looked pretty to him, had his eyesight given out? Should he gouge his eyes out?
“A-Are you all right?”
When Adrian raised a hand and pressed hard at his temple, Arti asked anxiously.
Had he truly gone insane? Even that cautious voice sounded like an angel’s gospel.
Angel’s gospel, my foot. Would he have to die and hear a real angel’s gospel before he came to his senses?
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Go outside for a moment.”
Arti tilted her head, not understanding.
Ha. Adorable.
The instant he felt that, stress rushed over him again, wondering what was adorable about such foolish, sluggish behavior, but because Arti muddled her way out and vanished from before his eyes, he had no time to feel self-loathing.
The moment the real thing disappeared, the afterimage of the moonlight billowed up once more, and Adrian was tormented again.
It was certain.
He had to be under a curse.
“No, come in.”
He called out in torment, but there was no sign of the door opening again. Did he have to go out and call her again?
Sighing, he went out, and there Arti stood right outside the door, foolishly. Perhaps because she was wearing a dress of thin material, she was trembling with cold.
Wow, everything about her was adorable, what a fuss.
“Come in.”
“Huh? Y-Yes.”
Stepping aside for Arti, who was about to enter, Adrian held out his hand, and Arti carefully placed her hand on top of his.
A tingling sensation rushed in from where their hands touched, and Adrian frowned.
What the hell was this!
“Ah!”
Arti winced as Adrian reflexively knocked her hand away. Guilt welled up, and Adrian frowned.
Why was he feeling guilty?
“A-Are you all right?”
When he clutched his head in torment again, Arti asked. Adrian didn’t reply and simply stared at Artienne.
What was this maid’s original name again? He had definitely known it.
Now that he himself felt this girl was truly Arti, it was all the more tormenting.
Perhaps finding his steady stare burdensome, Arti stood still, fiddling with her hands.
Watching her fidget, unable to do anything, was amusing.
……Suddenly, he felt something like despair.
Surely she had been pathetic before? Utterly pathetic? The changed version of himself was so unfamiliar.
Damn it.
“Hey.”
“Y-Yes?!”
“Sit over there.”
There was no fountain in the room. Instead, Adrian pointed to the window and ordered Arti.
Not understanding, Arti went over to the window and leaned against it.
“A little to the side. Yes. Sit like that.”
“L-Like this?”
Why was he being a pain again? Arti looked at Adrian with a frightened expression.
Adrian, carefully observing Arti’s movements, found that even the way she hunched her shoulders slightly as if frightened was like a little baby bird, and…
Damn it, had the little baby bird died or something!
He had clung to the vain hope that seeing a similar scene reproduced might ease this symptom, but the result was devastating.
Even after seeing Arti perched there, the afterimage of the moonlight did not vanish.
Instead, it overlapped with it, and the sight seemed to conjure a fiancée who had just woken, sitting there and welcoming his return, and it drove him even madder.
“Aaaaaargh!”
What the hell was this, seriously!
Clutching his head in confusion, Adrian walked straight out of the room.
Seeing Arti was agonizing, but the moment he left the room, Adrian had to suffer a different agony.
That scene had surfaced again.
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
Clutching his head, Adrian ran off at speed.
He wanted to escape this afterimage already, but whether he did this or that, it was chaos. He felt he was truly about to go out of his mind.
As Adrian ran off shrieking, the attendants who had no idea what was happening whispered behind him.
“Why is he like that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s be careful.”
“Right.”
