A hallway where the heat of the boisterous ballroom had somewhat subsided.
Valoa quietly followed behind Beatrice, who was walking somewhere.
Then, the moment she confirmed that the crowd had thinned out and they were finally the only two left in the hallway, she let out a loud ‘Ah!’ and collapsed to the floor.
Beatrice, hearing the cry from behind, turned around. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before slowly approaching her.
“Um…. Is there something wrong?”
As expected. It was just as she had anticipated.
Valoa’s lips twisted slightly at the sight of Beatrice being just as naive and excessively kind as she had thought.
Beatrice belonged to the category of people Valoa held in contempt. The type who had no skills and no power, yet were so overflowing with goodwill that they were easy to exploit.
‘Well, it works out well for me.’
Letting out a scoff inwardly, Valoa uttered a weak groan.
“…My stomach….”
“Your stomach?”
“My stomach hurts so much….”
“…Ah, I see… um, I see.”
“I don’t think I can walk alone…… Could you take me to the lounge over there?”
“Ah….”
Valoa studied Beatrice’s face intently while waiting for her to look back and forth between her and the direction of the lounge.
She noted the wavy platinum-blonde hair that looked as though it would feel soft to the touch, the fragile-looking light-green eyes, and the flushed cheeks that gave off a sense of clumsiness.
‘She looks exactly like who she is.’
Setting aside aesthetic concerns, that was the vibe she gave off. Mindlessly docile.
Even as she evaluated Beatrice internally, Valoa didn’t entertain the slightest thought that she might refuse.
Unless Beatrice knew her true identity, people like her simply couldn’t leave someone in trouble behind.
‘So hurry up and say you will.’
Just as her dwindling patience was about to snap, an unexpected answer popped out of Beatrice’s mouth.
“I’m sorry. Um… I have to go somewhere urgently right now.”
“…Urgently? Is it so urgent that you’d leave a sick person behind?”
“Well…. Normally I would have helped, but I have an appointment to meet someone…”
“….”
“It’s hard for you to move, right? Please sit here for a moment! I’ll call a servant on my way and tell them to help you immediately!”
…An appointment to meet someone?
Valoa narrowed her eyes behind her mask and her mind raced.
Come to think of it, she felt like she had heard something related to that from the people chattering noisily earlier.
‘To think he’d bring a shawl to the powder room; as the rumors say, Sir Dalton truly is a gentleman and quite doting! Why, the rumors were rampant in the Knights, too.’
‘Ah, I’ve heard quite a bit about that as well… It seems he has a side that is even cuter and more romantic than expected?’
‘A romantic side?’
‘I didn’t hear it clearly because I was in the powder room, but it seems he prepared some kind of event for just the two of them. He emphasized several times that she must come to the meeting spot. You know, that old tree in the garden.’
‘The old tree in the garden? The place famous as a spot for confessions?’
‘Yes! That one!’
Recalling the conversation in her head, Valoa’s gaze sank low.
‘Was that the reason for the brief separation? And Beatrice, this woman is the same. She’s refusing to do something she would normally do just to meet her precious husband?’
—Grit.
‘My, what a grand love.’
Valoa watched the woman who turned around after seating her on a stool provided in the hallway.
Various thoughts flashed through Valoa’s mind.
Should she cover her mouth from behind and drag her into any random room right now?
Now that she knew where she was heading, should she have the kids she prepared ambush her on the way to the garden?
Either way, it was clear that it would be easier to strike while she was alone, which was a rare occurrence. However…….
‘…I have to see it with my own eyes.’
Having become displeased, Valoa formed the twisted thought of seeing exactly how far down this mood would sink.
‘Using even that brief moment of separation for the other person? Clyde Dalton?’
It was a side of him she had never seen, heard of, or even imagined during the time she had chased him.
What hurt Valoa’s pride was the fact that there was a side to Clyde Dalton she didn’t know.
Whether it was a feeling for her or not, whether it was something she found out through a secret investigation or not, there shouldn’t be anything about Clyde Dalton that she didn’t know.
‘Because he’s mine.’
It was a purely possessive and crazed thought, but to Valoa, it was a right as natural as the sun rising in the morning.
‘And if it’s true that what belongs to me has a side I don’t know about. Then….’
She stood up just as Beatrice’s back was becoming faint and donned the robe she had brought along.
Then, she slowly retraced the path Beatrice had taken, step by step.
As she walked, imagining the expression Beatrice must have as she ran with excitement and Clyde Dalton who would be waiting for her, her displeasure reached the point of turning into a strange sense of exhilaration.
Of course, if Beatrice had known, it was a thought that would have driven her to jump forward and demand to know who on earth she thought she was talking about.
Contrary to Valoa’s delusion that she was running with excitement, Beatrice was running in sheer terror.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, that crazy woman really followed me! What’s so great about love that she’s trying to commit a crime? Is she insane? Or is this what power is? Lady Valoa must find the world very easy to live in, AAGH!’
And she was doing so while letting out a rapid-fire internal scream.
* * *
“Hah… I’m, I’m here……. This is it, right…? Haa, haa……!”
There’s a reason why a madman is called a madman!
Beatrice had run to the promised spot without even stopping to breathe, terrified that Valoa might grab her by the neck from behind and shake her senseless.
Just as she was clutching her chest, which felt like it would burst, and gripping the old tree with her other hand, a water bottle suddenly appeared in her field of vision.
“…Wow, look at the preparation. I’ll admit you’re my savior just for this moment. No, honestly, I guessed it, right? But seeing it in person gave me goosebumps!”
“….”
“I, I thought I could actually hear my heart beating in my ears! Phew, I’m dying.”
Thinking it was obviously Clyde, she took the bottle and gulped down the water.
“For someone who claims they’re dying, aren’t you talking a bit too much?”
A familiar yet strange voice pierced her ears from right beside her. A voice that was, at the very least, not Clyde Dalton’s!
“Cough! Cough!”
“Ah, sorry, I didn’t think you’d be this surprised. Are you alright?”
“Cough! Yes, yes…. Phew.”
Beatrice, finally having composed herself, wiped away the tears that had formed in her eyes from the coughing fit and examined the person before her.
“Huh, Your Highness Crowell?”
“To think you’d show the exact same reaction as Clyde. Yes, it’s me.”
“What, why is Your Highness here?”
Crowell let out a small, dry laugh at her attitude, which made it seem like she was seeing a neighbor who didn’t come out often.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t entirely wrong to treat him that way.
Crowell’s mother, Empress Iyette, and Beatrice’s father, Jedaric, were from the same country and, to put it generously, shared a relationship akin to very, very distant cousins.
Looking at her roundly opened light green eyes, Crowell lightly shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m here because Clyde asked for my help. I carved out quite a bit of my busy schedule to come.”
“To help? with what?”
“Well. He said I’d know as soon as I waited at this old tree. For now, I don’t know anything other than handing you water, Beatrice.”
Beatrice narrowed her eyes upon hearing Crowell’s story.
Clyde, that bastard, looked like he’d get through life on his face alone, yet he was a sly one who used his head.
‘…I don’t think this b*stard told me everything.’
Clyde had certainly emphasized that she should stay glued to him because he didn’t know what the exploding Valoa might do.
This meeting spot was also meant to be a contact point where they’d meet if something happened in a situation where they had to be apart, like going to the restroom.
To put it another way, it meant the two of them had been plotting a way to face and resolve whatever Valoa pulled together.
‘To prepare for such a situation, I even pestered my dad to get me a recording Obscura!’
Whether the traditionalist nobles would accept the contents recorded there as evidence was a separate issue, but regardless, that was their plan.
‘If meeting me here wasn’t the plan, then what on earth is this b*stard doing and where?’
Beatrice was frowning while fiddling with her brooch, which sparkled with an artificial light if looked at closely.
—Smash, thud!
“…Huh?”
The smell of something burning reached her nose along with the sound of something being thrown and breaking.
Wondering what on earth was happening, Beatrice peeked around the side of the old tree and her mouth fell open involuntarily.
“Your Highness, th-th-that……!”
“Oh dear.”
Standing beside the small flames that had just begun to flare up were Clyde, whom she had been cursing inwardly, and the person of interest for today, Valoa Edvane Crawford.
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