YMPDKMA Chapter 14

"Your Highness, this is Lariette. I heard you called for me."

Silence.

No answer came, same as before. When I glanced at Tori, she indicated I could enter. I took a deep breath—hm—and opened the door.

He sat sprawled before a window nearly the size of the door, which stood open. His long hair tangled and fluttered in the wind.

Not a trace of imperial dignity visible, but I kept my expression neutral and bowed my head. He'd been staring out at the vast garden's foliage swaying with hollow sounds, paying me no attention. He rose slowly.

"Tori."

At his call, Tori hurried toward him with quick steps. Only after confirming Tori positioned at his left did he turn to look at me.

'He wants me to approach?'

'It would be easier if he'd speak.' It wasn't as if I were a mind-reading witch who could interpret his gaze. I grumbled internally while maintaining an exceedingly meek expression as I approached Rupert.

"From now on, you'll verify my meals."

'Verify,' he called it, but he meant using me to test whether his food contained poison. I raised my bowed head to look at Rupert. He wasn't looking at me. His words about tolerating my temporary service hadn't meant leaving me alone after all.

"Your Highness, that's work for a servant—how can you assign such tasks to the noble daughter of a count?"

The objection came not from me but from Tori. But Rupert frowned for an entirely different reason.

"Don't raise your voice. She's a maid, and you're a maid."

'Oh, wonderful.'

I wanted to clutch my stomach laughing at him protecting Tori, but I forcibly swallowed my amusement.

"Understood, Your Highness."

Perhaps surprised by my obedient answer, Rupert finally turned to look at me. Green eyes without even the smallest ripple. They resembled summer grass yet felt cold.

"What?"

Still dissatisfied despite my agreement. I answered his question again with proper deference.

"I will do so."

"Does Bellua's daughter have no pride?"

"Where is there high or low in assisting Your Esteemed Highness?"

Rupert's red lips curved in a long arc. He sighed at me as if finding me absurd, then reached out to lift my chin. He didn't seem angry, but his expression suggested he was looking at an idiot.

"Esteemed? You truly know nothing your father told you."

"Father praised Your Highness as remarkably beautiful and clever."

"Count Bellua would never have spouted such words about me. If you came here to crawl to Naichelle, stay quietly tucked away without drawing attention. Don't babble needlessly."

I frowned faintly at Rupert's certainty. Rupert had said he'd never met Father. Then how could he be so confident? But this wasn't the time to question Father's relationship with him. First I needed to break through Rupert's thorough wariness.

"Neither Father nor Her Imperial Highness Princess Naichelle has anything to do with my service to Your Highness. I intend to do my utmost to attend Your Highness to the best of my ability."

Even to my own ears, my pledge overflowed with sincerity. The moment I spoke those nauseating words and bowed to Rupert as he moved to pass me—snap—a dangerous sound echoed through the quiet room. I straightened hastily in alarm, but the situation only worsened. The part that had torn, unable to bear my plump body, was the front panel.

Starting with the center button that flew off—pop, pop, pop—buttons began flying toward Rupert, who happened to be in front of me, accompanied by an unbearably cheerful sound. I flailed my hands trying somehow to stop them, but eventually one struck him.

Rupert caught the button that had smacked squarely onto his forehead, then closed his eyes as if exercising patience. I stood frozen, too pale to bow, mouth simply hanging open.

"Quite a peculiar way of doing your utmost."

"Your Highness, Your Highness... this wasn't what I intended..."

I spoke hastily, but Rupert left without listening. After Rupert departed, I surveyed his bedchamber and clicked my tongue when I discovered the guns filling an entire corner.

'Guns in a thirteen-year-old child's room.'

From hunting rifles to the pistols the military had only recently begun developing—all polished to a shine and hanging ready—the sight gave me chills. 'What does he collect these for? Where did he even get them?'

As I bent down to gather the scattered buttons, Tori hurried over to help. One was missing. I gave up searching when it didn't immediately appear.

"Thank you."

"Oh, no. And I told Her Highness you really are Count Bellua's daughter. You don't need to worry about proving it."

Come to think of it, Tori was among those who knew me. She'd attended my birthday party. I hadn't been worried, but I thanked her again for her consideration. The freckles scattered across Tori's cheeks flushed red.

I found it curious that she'd remained in the room instead of following Rupert. From what I could see, Rupert seemed to keep only Tori with him instead of proper attendants.

"Is it all right for Her Highness to go out alone?"

"Sir Baden will attend her, so it's fine."

Ruize Baden.

The bastard who'd arrested Rehan and Father without even telling them their charges. My brow furrowed at the name of that son of a bitch rising in my mind again. Tori must have assumed my sour expression was about Rupert, because she opened her mouth with a slightly embarrassed face.

"Her Highness can be a bit prickly with strangers sometimes. Please understand."

'Prickly?' I laughed softly at describing that temperament as mere prickliness.

"No, it's not that. I knew what kind of person she was before I came to serve her."

Tori tilted her head, eyes—tinged with green—rounding with curiosity about what I meant. Looking again, she and Rupert resembled each other strangely. Not in features, certainly, but his brilliant gold hair and vivid green eyes were the same shade as Tori's dull gold hair and green eyes. Gold hair and green eyes weren't rare, but neither were they common combinations.

"Now that I look, Tori, your eyes and hair color are exactly the same as Her Highness's."

"Ah, this happened by chance..."

She didn't continue. Her expression suggested she'd misspoken, so I couldn't press further—I merely wondered privately. 'Happened by chance, what?' Had her eye color somehow changed by chance?

"How could I compare myself to Her Highness? Her Highness is so beautiful."

"Tori is pretty too."

In my eyes, Tori was far cuter and prettier than that rotten Rupert. The vitality emanating from her was a kind of beauty I could never feel from Rupert's sculpted face. Though objective assessments might differ.

I hadn't been born with exceptional looks either, so I shook my head at Tori's self-deprecation. Tori started violently, then ducked her head, face burning bright red. She hunched her body trying to hide her face as much as possible, but her ears had reddened too—she couldn't conceal it completely. I smiled broadly, feeling as if I were teasing a younger sister I'd never had.

"Since we'll be serving Her Highness together, I look forward to working with you."

"Oh, no. You don't need to say such things to someone like me."

"'Someone like you'? Her Highness said it herself—Tori and I are both maids."

"Still, you're Count Bellua's daughter..."

Right now Rupert clearly trusted and cherished Tori far more than me, so her rank in the palace would be higher than mine. I looked down at Tori's bright red face, which seemed ready to burst rather than merely flush, then spoke belatedly. She might answer now.

"You said you came to my birthday party in Her Highness's place?"

"Yes, yes."

"But I don't particularly remember inviting Her Highness. How did you come?"

"Actually it was for Her Imperial Highness Princess Naichelle, but I se-, secretly... gave it to Her Highness."

She'd stolen the invitation. I felt somewhat incredulous but didn't interrogate her as she was just beginning to stammer out words.

"I'm sorry."

"No, it was an occasion anyone could attend. It's fine. But may I ask why you did that?"

"Her Highness seemed to have something to say to Count Bellua..."

"To my father?"

"She went to see him at the last nobles' council. She couldn't meet him because the count wasn't there."

'Why would she seek Father?' Not yet the time when he'd revealed himself as male to the world—why would he, known as Princess Lapherte, seek out a count privately?

I felt dizzy, as if entering deeper into a labyrinth. I wanted to interrogate Tori further, but she wore such an innocent, unknowing face that I changed the subject.

"I see. Do you know why Her Highness sent you to the count's estate in her place?"

"Her Highness was ill then."

"Is Her Highness's health fragile?"

"No, not that... but she falls ill often."

A contradiction—not fragile health, yet frequent illness. Tori answered my questions readily, but I couldn't restrain my impatience and spoke again.

"Why did Tori specifically come to the count's estate? I mean, did you really come to celebrate my birthday?"

"She said there was someone she was curious about—how they looked."

"Who?"

"I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."

She made a truly apologetic, tearful face. I thought if I pressed a bit more she might tell me, but I decided to be patient for now. She clearly felt favorably toward me, but she wouldn't trust me yet.

"It's all right. Let's go out for now."

I came into the corridor with Tori, but Rupert was nowhere to be found. He'd gone out with Sir Baden, so he'd return late tonight—Tori guided me to my quarters saying this. I stopped Tori when she followed me into the room and tried naturally to attend me, telling her it wasn't necessary and sending her away.

After she'd completely disappeared from view, I pulled out the diary protruding from the bed's edge and roughly organized the situation. First, Rupert and Tori seemed closer than I'd imagined. She'd been thoroughly intimidated, but it seemed difficult to attribute that to Rupert's harsh treatment. She'd shown no sign of fearing Rupert.

They weren't old enough for the sweet, strange current of lovers to flow between them, but they might share affection of a sort. Whether camaraderie based on bonds, or whether he loved Tori like family. So by the time she became empress, some tremendous distortion must have occurred.

Also, it had become certain that the Emperor had long been interested in Bellua. I knew nothing about who he'd sought at the count's estate or what he'd wanted to confirm, but my guess that Rupert had been watching Bellua for no short time was correct. Yet Father had never once told me anything about Princess Lapherte.

What had he meant to tell Father? Had his past self even managed to meet Father? That failed previous attempt might have been the last. I grew somewhat anxious and bit my nails. I'd thought meeting him would give me some thread to grasp about how to act going forward, but things had grown more vague.

On my first night entering the Red Palace, I couldn't sleep, wrapped in worries and anxieties like blankets. And that anxious state lasted quite a while.