She probably would have absolutely lost her mind if she had been here, hearing every word Shuian just said.
She would have insisted, with great outrage, on knowing how anyone could twist her feelings in such a way. He could picture it perfectly — Judith pouting at him with those lips of hers, wide and rounded as a duck’s beak, staring back at him.
The image was so vivid that a low, helpless laugh escaped him.
Yes — as Shuian said, tomorrow will answer everything.
Tomorrow would prove that his suspicions had been spectacularly wrong — and that the feelings she had shown toward him were not false. All of it would come to light.
With that thought settled in his mind, Axel reached out and straightened her photo card once more, restoring it exactly as it had been.
A light knock at the office door, and a servant’s voice drifted in.
“Your Highness. A letter has arrived, sent by Lady Melberine of House Melberine.”
She sent a letter? Axel’s head snapped up.
He cleared his throat quietly before responding.
“Bring it in.”
The servant set the letter on the table, bowed, and withdrew. Axel, who had been pretending to look elsewhere, reached for it the moment the door closed.
She sends a letter the moment she returns to the estate.
Of course. When someone goes to this much effort, it cannot possibly be an act.
His lips curved upward without his permission as he unfolded the letter — and then, as his eyes moved down the page, the smile began to fade. Line by line, his expression stiffened, until even the corners of his mouth had gone rigid.
The letter contained nothing other than this:
“…She says she won’t be able to come for a few days?”
It was a message saying that Lady Melberine would not be able to return starting tomorrow.
The dread Shuian had planted in him stirred at once.
Of all times — a letter arrives saying she cannot come, and it coincides exactly with the Crown Prince’s return to the capital?
Could Lady Melberine truly be…
Axel shook his head sharply, his face gone pale.
No. This, too, was a judgment passed without proper evidence, on nothing but his own anxiety.
Had he not decided to trust Judith?
He pressed a hand to his brow and rubbed it. He closed his eyes, opened them again. The contents of the letter remained unchanged.
But the doubt, once kindled, was not so easily extinguished. The possibility nagged at him, worrying away at a corner of his heart that would not quiet. He was not accustomed to such emotional turbulence — which made it all the harder to endure. He had never before been swayed by his feelings in the way he found himself swayed by anything involving Judith. It was, somehow, no longer within his power to stop.
Axel smothered the restless, lurching feeling in his chest and forced his gaze away from the letter.
Nothing will happen.
It would certainly be fine. He was sure of it.
It was a phrase that sounded almost like an incantation — the kind one repeats to oneself to make it true.
But when the Crown Prince’s return day came, something happened anyway.
The door to Axel’s office flew open without a knock. Someone burst through it.
He narrowed his eyes and looked up from his documents — and there stood Shuian, out of breath, chest heaving as though he had sprinted the entire way.
“…Ha — Your, Your Highness!”
“What is it, Shuian.”
“It — it’s Lady Melberine…!”
“What about her. Speak clearly.”
“Lady Melberine is — she is with the Crown Prince right now, apparently.”
The composed, steady lines of Axel’s face fractured all at once.
She’s with — who is with whom right now…?
“Lady Melberine and the Crown Prince are apparently alone together in the dressmaker’s studio she borrowed…!”
Shuian’s voice reached him again, louder, as though he knew Axel was trying not to hear. The truth Axel had most desperately not wanted to know found him anyway.
The worry in Shuian’s expression as he looked at Axel was unmistakable. Because beyond shock, Axel looked completely hollowed out — as though he had been transported to another world entirely.
Like a man whose mind was refusing to take in what his ears had just heard.
Shuian swallowed something that felt, deep down, very much like grief.
I knew this would happen. I knew Lady Melberine was going to play with His Highness and throw him away…
But there was no time for sorrow. He had to relay what he had learned, and quickly.
Shuian opened his mouth again.
“There are many witnesses — reports are coming in from all directions. The word is that the Crown Prince and Lady Melberine are enjoying a date together.”
“…A date?”
“And furthermore — word has it that Lady Melberine, who has only ever looked at women’s clothing during her visits to that studio, looked at men’s clothing for the very first time today. On this day of all days — the day the Crown Prince returns to the capital — in the studio where the two of them happened to meet… In my estimation, Lady Melberine intends to give the Crown Prince a gift, without a doubt—”
“Enough. Get out.”
Shuian could not finish. Axel was looking at him with eyes that could cut through a person — incandescent, terrible, fixed.
To push further now was to invite consequences no sane man would court. Shuian swallowed hard and dipped his head.
Right. His Highness cannot accept all of this at once. He will understand what I meant. I have said enough.
His Highness simply needs time.
Shuian bowed and withdrew.
“Understood…”
The cold that settled around Axel once he was alone was absolute.
The moment he heard Shuian’s words, every instinct in him screamed to go — to find Judith, to face her. He held himself back with the last of his will.
Because he could not bring himself to face her. Not yet.
…What would I even say, if I went? Why are you with the Crown Prince today of all days? Did you truly intend to give him a gift?
If she looks at me like I am the intruder — the unwanted third party between her and the Crown Prince — would I even be able to walk back from that?
The quill Axel had been holding snapped apart in his grip, splintering beyond all recognition.
In his imagination, Judith was already gone from him — she was with the Crown Prince.
Why? Why this? Was her feeling for me not real? Was Shuian right after all — was it all a performance?
The same questions tore through him in circles, over and over, giving no relief.
As they continued without resolution, his mind grew dimmer and a sharp, insistent ache began to radiate through his chest — a feeling he had never experienced before in his life.
He did not understand why he felt it.
It was not anger at Judith that surged up in him — it was something rawer. Something closer to the sting of tears.
Axel breathed out slowly, trying to steady the rapid pounding of his heart.
…Right. It is not settled yet.
He still did not know for certain.
The possibility that Judith had encountered the Crown Prince by chance — a genuine coincidence — could not be ruled out. Everything that needed to be known could be asked of Judith herself, when she came back.
She said she would return.
But despite his reasoning, his heart continued to beat with anxious, unrelenting unease.
When morning came the next day, the last thing Axel wanted to hear found him anyway.
It drifted toward him from the palace corridor — the hushed, excited whispering of ladies-in-waiting.
“Did you hear? Yesterday — Lady Melberine met alone with the Crown Prince!”
“I know, I heard. And apparently Lady Melberine gave him hundreds of outfits as a gift? Is that actually true?”
“But didn’t Lady Melberine say she had feelings for the Grand Duke? She’s been following him around constantly lately. I thought the two of them were going to end up together.”
Another voice broke in, tone thick with knowing condescension.
“Oh, you sweet thing. You actually believed that? It was obviously a smokescreen.”
Axel, who had been walking past with a deep scowl, froze on the spot at the word smokescreen.
