I’m Not the One Who Seduced the Grand Duke Chapter 48

“His Majesty entrusted the engagement celebration to Isabelle Mercier? Good heavens!”

“What on earth could His Majesty the Emperor be thinking?”

Hmm. Isn’t that getting dangerously close to insulting the Imperial Family?

In any case.

The noblewomen, all wearing grave expressions, chimed in one after another, saying they simply couldn’t believe it.

The name Isabelle Mercier had caused quite a stir.

I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.

I swallowed a small sigh and took a sip of tea.

I was currently in the VIP lounge on the top floor of Hotel Eldvrel.

I had come to discuss business with Doresa, only to be caught by the noblewomen who were camped out here once again and had ended up joining their table.

I had planned to humor them for a while and slip away at an appropriate moment.

But that didn’t seem easy.

I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Of all things, the dates of the tea parties I’d been invited to happened to overlap.

As always, whenever they saw me, the ladies were desperate to invite me to their parties.

When I heard their rather burdensome pleas to please come next weekend, I was trying to politely refuse when the words slipped out of my mouth without thinking.

And now here I am.

“I don’t know if I should say this, but Lady Mercier is truly a sly fox.”

“That’s right. You know, she’s wronged more than a few people.”

“Wronged them?”

What on earth had she done to make these women shudder at the very thought of her?

Curious, I asked casually, and the noblewomen immediately cried out in unison as though they had rehearsed it.

“She seduces men!”

“Huh?”

Seduce men?

The Emperor’s fiancée?

She goes around seducing men?

Something seemed strange.

When I reacted with slight bewilderment, the ladies’ eyes widened and they pulled their chairs closer.

Then, filled with excitement, they began speaking all at once.

“The most famous case is undoubtedly Bianca Blanche. You know, the young lady of House Blanche who is now married to a prince of the Roman Kingdom.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but originally, the candidate for Empress wasn’t Isabelle Mercier. It was Bianca Blanche. Everyone naturally assumed Bianca Blanche would become Empress because they had been betrothed since birth.”

“But then! While the engagement was being discussed, Lady Mercier seduced His Majesty, who was Crown Prince at the time. Actually, Lady Mercier and His Majesty were childhood friends. She was also close to Bianca Blanche.”

“They were both her friends, so she was placed between them to act as a bridge…… Who could have imagined things would turn out like that?”

The noblewomen all cried out that Lady Blanche had been terribly pitiful.

So that really happened.

High society had never been an area of interest to me, and the Emperor’s fiancée had changed when I was still young.

The academy I entered at fifteen was a completely boarding-based institution with extremely limited outside information.

The only things I knew about the outside world were the rumors I occasionally heard.

“And that’s not all. Even after stealing her friend’s place as his fiancée, apparently she wasn’t satisfied, because afterward, she seduced other young ladies’ fiancés too!”

“That’s right. She isn’t here today, but you know Baroness Lilibeth, don’t you? Her marriage almost fell apart because of her, too.”

“I heard she was sent away because His Majesty caught her seducing a knight inside the Imperial Palace. They say she was sent to her territory as a form of self-reflection.”

Wow…….

Based solely on the rumors, she really sounds like quite a character.

They said she couldn’t live without men, that even after getting the Emperor himself, she couldn’t stand to see anyone else happy, and that she was a vicious villainess.

All kinds of vicious accusations poured from the noblewomen’s mouths.

“So please be careful, Marquess Zaherette. You must never get too close to Lady Mercier.”

“That’s right. You might end up having His Grace snatched away from you.”

The noblewomen all warned me with grave expressions.

Judging by the genuine concern in their eyes, they didn’t seem to be joking.

I smiled awkwardly and set down my teacup.

“Thank you for worrying about me, but…… I doubt anything will happen. I don’t know her well enough to say anything about her, but His Grace is His Majesty the Emperor’s younger brother.”

“That’s precisely why you need to be even more careful. Ah, surely…… Marquess, you don’t know?”

What? I don’t know? What?

I tilted my head and looked around at the noblewomen gathered around the table.

They murmured, “Oh, my. What are we going to do?” and then whispered in solemn voices.

“Lady Mercier is His Grace’s first love! This is a very famous story. You really didn’t know?”

“…….”

……What?

“Oh, my. You really didn’t know. His Grace probably entered the Temple because of that, too.”

“That’s right. His Majesty became engaged to Lady Mercier immediately after graduating from the academy. It must have been a huge shock for His Grace. Imagine graduating and discovering that the person you had a crush on was already engaged to your older brother!”

“They say he was so heartbroken that he half gave up on everything and chose the path of a priest. Really, you never heard anything about this?”

“No. I didn’t hear anything…… Ah.”

Wait.

Come to think of it.

“Once I reached a marriageable age, people around me started pressuring me to get engaged or married. But I didn’t want to marry anyone else. I couldn’t do it unless it was that person.”

Before we finished dealing with High Priest Servando, I had asked him whether he was really okay with having his priesthood taken away.

He smiled and answered me.

The reason he became a priest.

Because he couldn’t be with the person he had loved unrequitedly for so long.

Ah.

So that was…….

“Marquess? Are you all right?”

“My goodness. I suppose this must be quite a shock.”

“No. I’m fine. I was just a little surprised.”

I smiled slightly as I said I was fine and drank the tea, which had already gone completely cold.

The lukewarm tea, its fragrance long gone, tasted bitter and astringent.

“In any case, please be careful.”

“Never let your guard down, all right?”

The noblewomen clasped both my hands tightly, insisting that they were on my side.

I smiled awkwardly and reluctantly told them I understood.

 

***

 

A few days later.

It was the day I was scheduled to discuss my engagement party with the very person everyone had warned me so vehemently to be careful around—the young lady of House Mercier.

“Phew.”

I took a deep breath, stepped down from the carriage, and looked at the enormous mansion before me.

“Wow. I suppose it’s because it’s a ducal residence. It really is on a different scale from the Marquess’s estate.”

The Zaherette residence was also large and magnificent, as though proudly displaying the wealth the family had accumulated.

But the ducal residence was on another level.

The towering spires and symmetrical wings stretching out on either side dominated my field of vision.

The outer walls, built from dark gray stone, bore the marks of time, but that only made the history of the family even more apparent.

The emblems and statues carved throughout the estate also seemed to represent more than mere decoration.

They spoke of the history and authority of the ducal house.

If I judge only by appearance, the Marquess’s residence was more modern and newer.

But the ducal residence had an aristocratic dignity and elegance that came from its age.

I stood there dazed for a moment, overwhelmed by the imposing atmosphere that somehow felt as though it were pressing down on my shoulders.

Clunk!

A massive gate, easily ten times my size, slowly opened.

Then a woman suddenly bounced out from inside.

“Marquess Zaherette?”

A clear voice followed, as pure as a pearl rolling across a silver tray.

I immediately knew.

There she is.

All right. Come at me.

Steeling myself, I raised my head.

“Gasp! Oh, my goodness! H-Hello!”

“…….”

The woman who greeted me with a delighted smile had a doll-like appearance—small, soft, and delicate.

I silently stared at her.

Her pale blonde hair shimmered as though melted by sunlight, almost white in color.

Beneath her delicately trembling lashes were clear, sky-blue eyes.

Her transparent eyes, like a shallow lake, curved as gracefully as the wind whenever she smiled ever so slightly.

She was a woman who looked like a fairy drifting on a spring breeze.

And the way she trembled faintly, like a newborn fawn seeing the world for the first time, made her all the more lovable.

“Lady Mercier is His Grace’s first love! This is a very famous story. You really didn’t know?”

Ah.

So this is his type?