BPOTWC Chapter 40

“Of course. My mother is the most noble person in this land.”

"Well—but the Duke and Duchess trust me too!"

It was thanks to their trust that she, a prisoner, was allowed to wander the garden alone like this at all.

“The Duke?”

“Yes—did you know? The Duke is truly—"

Clarisse was about to launch into a long recitation of Maximilian's excellence, but stopped herself.

“Now that I think of it, Your Highness is His Grace's brother.”

It felt a little embarrassing, explaining an obvious fact to someone's own family.

“Well—I suppose I'll listen. Hearing out the common people is a prince's virtue, after all. Not that a banished prince's story would amount to much anyway.”

"That's not true at all!"

Clarisse rushed to sing Maximilian's praises.

How brilliantly he had built Sheridan up, how sincerely he listened to his people.

All of it was worth being proud of.

If she'd been Valentin, Clarisse thought, she would have kept the existence of such a magnificent elder brother as a light burning in her heart.

But somehow, the situation began to drift in a direction quite different from what she'd imagined.

Valentin's expression grew steadily more rigid, until at last it sharpened into something like open anger.

"Th-the Duke is truly a wonderful grown-up. Someday I hope I can be just like—"

Her voice faded by degrees as she watched his face.

“Why—are you angry, Your Highness?”

“You.”

The voice that came back was colder than anything.

“Y-yes?!”

“Tell me the truth. That bastard Duke put you up to this, didn't he?”

“……What?”

"Don't try to deny it!"

He shouted and shoved her shoulder hard.

“You're a liar! Did the Duke feed you all that about me too?!”

“P-Prince—”

"A prince shut away for betraying his own mother—loved by everyone? Don't lie to me!"

“I, I really—”

“A traitor has only one fate! The Duke should spend his whole life rotting in frozen Sheridan, suffering—repenting for the sin he committed against my mother!”

Just then, the voices of knights searching for Clarisse somewhere in the garden drifted over.

Valentin shot her a suspicious glare, then spun on his heel and bolted across the canal.

"Wait—!"

Clarisse called after him in a rush. He didn't answer.

“Your Highness!”

Only at that call did he flinch and stop where he stood for a moment.

“Will you… come again tomorrow?”

The words slipped out before she knew what she was saying. He wavered, mumbling something, before answering.

“I'll—be waiting.”

She added it in a small voice, and just then the voices searching for her in the garden came again.

"I don't know! Do what you want!"

Valentin shouted it and was gone in an instant—already far away.

“…….”

Clarisse watched him go with bewildered eyes, then turned back toward the sound of the knights searching for her.

“Liar!”

Back at his own residence, Valentin roared and slammed the door with a bang.

The Duke is admired by everyone.

The Duke and Duchess like each other. They're happy when they're together.

There was no way that could be true.

His mother had told him so herself, hadn't she?

Maximilian was a criminal—abandoned by his family, condemned to spend his life in that freezing winter castle.

When he'd heard the Duke was to stay at the annex a few days, Valentin had gone specifically to see his wretched state with his own two eyes.

Even though his mother would say associating with such a wretched man was wrong…

Valentin had thought that seeing his actual misfortune would somehow make him feel better.

No—he'd been certain of it.

But instead…

It seemed the wicked Duke had seen right through his scheme after all.

'Sending some cute little girl to spy on me. No—not cute! Not cute at all!'

That kind of girl—blinking those round eyes, saying nice things about the Duke—thought that'd be enough to win him over.

'Destabilize me, and the crown itself destabilizes—that's their logic?'

As though he'd fall for something like that.

'There's no way an exiled prince would be loved by everyone.'

More than anything else—if Clarisse's words were true, everything his mother had ever told him was a lie.

That was simply impossible.

His mother was a noble woman, called the rose of the royal house.

'Will you… come again tomorrow?'

Valentin snorted, recalling what Clarisse had said a moment ago.

She was asking him back because she'd decided the mission had failed—was that it?

“As if I'd ever go see her again.”

He flung the hat he was wearing onto the bed and shouted.

His head had been strangely warm all day—he'd thought it odd—

Only now did he realize he'd been wearing Clarisse's hat the entire time.

“……Oh.”

The words she'd spoken when she lent it to him rose in his mind at once.

'Yes, it's my most treasured hat—but that's fine.'

While Clarisse met with Valentin—twice, as it happened—

Maximilian met with Lysander and settled the punishment for the Darlington household, who had deceived the royal family by sending a false bride.

On the surface, the king's judgment was remarkably lenient.

The king was asking for just one thing in return: the "dignity-maintenance stipend" they had received up to that point.

But for a household that had already squandered every last coin of it, this amounted to the greatest calamity that could befall them.

In the end, the Count could only earn a pardon after surrendering his family's honor and his own paltry stretch of territory, both, to the crown.

Without so much as a house to lay their heads in, let alone the means for their next meal, the Darlington household turned on one another and scattered.

And so the Darlington family—already barely a presence to begin with—was erased entirely from the kingdom's memory.

The incident, however, had an enormous effect on Brielle.

She could now see her mother—who had always worried so much—and receive regular reports on the illness's progress directly from the physician.

She no longer had to spend her vague hours simply praying toward the sky for her mother's health.

On the fourth morning since their arrival in the capital.

Brielle rose before the sun had even risen, and without pausing for breakfast, hurried to pull on her outer coat.

Rushing out from the annex, she happened to run straight into Maximilian in the garden, just returning from his morning exercise.

“Oh—good morning, Your Grace.”

Brielle bent quickly at the waist in greeting. He returned the same courtesy at once.

“Good morning.”

Maximilian had his long hair tied up high, and was dressed more lightly than usual, in a shirt and trousers.

Perhaps because he'd only just finished exercising, his sweat-dampened shirt clung faintly to his frame.

“You must be cold.”

“A person of Sheridan doesn't call the capital's winter cold.”

There was a strange pride in the way he said it. Just like the Sheridan-born locals.

“But you should dress warmly.”

“I'm a person of Sheridan too, you know?”

Maximilian seemed to pause for the briefest moment.

'…Was that too forward of me?'

It might have looked, just now, as though she still held some lingering claim to his wife's position.

'Well—it isn't that I have no lingering feelings left.'

The love she'd realized last month was still burning quite fervently.

“I'll—I'll dress warmly. It would be a trouble if I fell ill too.”

“Yes, best to be careful.”

“By the way, how did Clarisse end up falling asleep beneath the canal?”

Yesterday had been Clarisse's third garden expedition.

The child had gone hopping along the canal with a long stick in hand, and at some point had simply vanished from sight.

Since Clarisse occasionally hid behind trees to dig little burrows, the knights hadn't thought much of it at first. But when her return grew noticeably later than usual, they went looking for her themselves, and found her curled up asleep in the canal beneath the tree-tunnel.

Her whole body had gone stiff with cold, and last night Clarisse had come down with a mild chill on top of it.

“Hm…”

Maximilian paused to think, then answered in a somewhat awkward tone.

“She probably fell asleep while playing. Probably.”

“As long as it's nothing serious. My heart dropped when I heard she'd been found beneath the canal.”

“The interior of the third wall isn't the best place for a child to spend her days. It was built to prioritize beauty over safety or practicality.”

Something in Brielle's chest felt heavy.

“I'm sorry. I've been going to my mother every day and haven't given Clarisse the attention I should—”

“Not at all.”

The Duke lifted a hand lightly, forestalling her apology.

“You've missed your mother the whole time you were in Sheridan. Ah—I've kept you far too long.”

He stepped aside.

“Travel safely.”

“Ah, um—it's a little shameless of me to ask this, but…”

Brielle clasped her hands neatly together and looked up at Maximilian.

“Would it be all right if I s-spent one night away?”

“…….”

“Not necessarily tonight. It's only that, while I'm staying in the capital, I'd like to spend at least one night together with my mother.”

She knew perfectly well how outrageous a request it was, even by her own reckoning. Still, she wanted, if only for a single night, to be with her.

Somehow it felt as though her mother wanted the same thing too.

As she waited anxiously, he finally opened his mouth, his expression somewhat reluctant.

“And—how is he.”

“Pardon?”

“That… man, I mean.”

That man?

Brielle blinked in confusion for a moment, then her face lit up—she clapped her hands together brightly.

“Oh, do you mean Harry?”