Chapter 201
The carriage carrying the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess drew attention before it even reached the palace gates.
The royal family held gatherings almost every other day, but truly important banquets attended by the most significant people only happened occasionally. The higher their rank, the more they preferred to meet only among themselves.
Today was one of those days when even the most exclusive high nobility personally attended and breathed the same air as lowly lesser nobles. After all, this was a banquet hosted by His Highness the Crown Prince himself.
The attendance of the Maindulante Grand Duke and Grand Duchess — who usually never declined an invitation — meant this was the sort of event people longed for. Lesser nobles who had never had the chance to make an impression on the grand couple shone with anticipation.
The Grand Duke, clad in a black uniform and black cloak, alighted from the carriage first. There wasn’t a trace of spring color in his attire, but his handsome features made him shine on their own.
In contrast, the Grand Duchess stepping down from the carriage on her husband’s arm looked delicate and lively like a spring bud with her pale platinum-blond hair and fine features. She wore a breathtaking purple dress and jewelry that matched her eye color; the dress’s style differed slightly from the current royal court attire, which made it suit her all the more.
Both of them were strikingly beautiful. Young, at the peak of wealth and power, and a perfect match for each other — murmurs of admiration swept through those entering the palace.
Standing by the second-floor window, Abelus watched them with a bored expression.
Everything felt trivial these days. His parents nagged him about marriage, his elder sister joined in, and Nellusion Elandria — who used to flatter him — had gone down to the estate. Romance no longer held the old thrill.
This banquet had been forced by his father — to pair Natasha before the engagement and show that the relationship was intact. Though ordered, Abelus found the spectacle clownish.
Everyone knew that Natasha and he were courting. Must they make a show before the engagement to reassure people? He was the exalted Crown Prince, yet so many treated him like a symbolic figure who couldn’t express himself. They even had to invite Cledwyn Maindulante.
Abelus’s dark-blue jewel eyes glared at the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess who confidently entered the palace.
How could Cledwyn live so as he pleased? He wasn’t that handsome, and his skills weren’t exceptional either. Well, his swordsmanship wasn’t bad… but nobles’ children were praised for merely wielding a sword decently — surely the rumors weren’t all true.
Fine, suppose the rumors about his skill were true. Still, that loathsome fellow was a terrible person. Didn’t he execute retainers who opposed him just a few years ago?
Yet that madman lived with infuriating freedom — retreating to his land when he pleased and marrying whom he pleased.
‘I wish he were dead soon,’ Abelus prayed inwardly. How dare that monster touch the jewel-eyed oddity. If Nellusion had stupidly fallen and let that woman slip away, the Crown Prince would have surely claimed her earlier.
He concluded he had lost out because of loyalty to friendship.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, it is time to descend,” a page announced. Abelus inclined his head arrogantly.
“Understood.”
At least one good thing about this banquet: he didn’t need an excuse to be near Megara Lykeandros. Megara — pretty, gentle, and always saying exactly what pleased him.
Contrary to Natasha’s ridiculous suspicions, he had no intention of breaking up with Natasha to find someone new. If that had been his plan, he wouldn’t have dated Natasha so long. Having been together so long, he considered her his future wife.
To him, love simply meant not being bound to a single woman.
Bored, Abelus glanced out once more, rose, and strode out confidently to appear before the people he ruled.
❖ ❖ ❖
Megara Lykeandros enjoyed the atmosphere of the banquet.
There was indeed something different about parties hosted by the royal family. As the child of a great noble, she regularly attended important social gatherings, but she had never focused so much on the difference in stature between a “royal direct” party and one hosted by anyone else.
‘Someday I’ll be the hostess of this party,’ the thought alone thrilled her.
“Meg,” Colin Ganielo approached the smiling Megara. He was displeased that negotiations for marriage with her were not progressing and seized every chance to speak to her.
“Senior Colin,” Megara replied politely, though her eyes now held a new chill. Others wouldn’t notice, but Colin realized she did not welcome him.
He was angry and felt unjustly treated. How was it Megara’s fault that the match hadn’t advanced? According to his father, Duke Ganielo, everything was Megara’s doing — she had earned the Grand Duchess’s enmity by not expecting her rise.
But pointing out that it was all her fault wouldn’t change anything. After the lice incident, Megara had stopped speaking to Colin for some time. He slumped and tried to think of something to win her favor.
Suddenly the crowd hushed.
A clear path opened between where Megara and Colin stood and a certain person. It became obvious who that person was.
Nerys Truydd, arm linked with her husband, stopped and smiled directly at Megara.
“This is the third time the four of us have met,” thought Megara: at the academy graduation ball, at the palace recently, and now.
Megara felt that she compared unfavorably to Nerys more than ever.
Originally, Nerys shouldn’t have stood so confidently. She should know her place as someone akin to a commoner and shrink. She didn’t have the temperament to win favor and so should have been abandoned by others.
But at this moment something was different.
Better clothes, more vividly purple eyes, a better man at her side, and higher standing. Crass as it was, most people judged by such measures.
And Megara feared that by those standards she would be judged inferior to Nerys.
That could never happen. Megara imagined the man beside her was not the foolish Colin Ganielo but Abelus. Drawing on the confidence that brief imagination gave her, she greeted softly.
“Your Grace the Grand Duchess.”
Nerys approached with grace. Even without looking her way, people stepped back and bowed.
That effortless, natural dignity — as if she belonged in the palace though she had rarely set foot there — always made Megara’s teeth grind.
“You haven’t returned to school yet,” Nerys said, stopping a step away from Megara. Megara answered politely.
“No, Your Grace.”
Despite the reply, Nerys’s gaze remained fixed on Megara. Megara held back a moment and then asked, “Why do you look at me so?”
“You’re very beautiful.”
Nerys’s words were sincere — not said out of kindness. Megara stiffened even after receiving the compliment.
‘Who do you think you are to look at me?’ she thought, but she didn’t show the surge of emotion outwardly. Consciously curling her eyes and mouth, she managed a smile.
“Thank you. Your Grace is also very beautiful. That outfit suits you well.”
“Thank you. I like it because it’s the same color as my eyes.”
Megara’s smile almost froze. Of all things, a remark about eyes — a feature she was sensitive about — struck at once.
As Nerys stared at Megara, she wondered: did Megara really not know about her birth?
Platinum-blond hair and purple eyes — certainly features favored in noble society — yet true great nobles had confidence even without such appearances. When did Natasha Grünehals ever lament that her hair was red?
Still, Megara perhaps clung to her noble looks more than was reasonable. Deep down she might have recognized the resemblance between herself and Rebecca Shirley. Living together daily, how could she not know?
Nerys’s steady gaze made Megara uneasy. Her mouth trembled as she forced a smile and finally asked, “How long will you remain in the capital?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Oh my, was that a forbidden question? I simply asked because I like having you here, Your Grace.”
“I was being sarcastic,” Nerys said.
Colin couldn’t tell whether Nerys was mocking or self-deprecating; her tone was so composed.
Megara didn’t care what purpose Nerys’s words served. Either way, it was unpleasant.
To break the tension, Colin signaled a passing page. “Fetch some drinks. I’m thirsty.”
“And for me and my wife as well,” the Grand Duke quietly added. The page hurried away and soon returned with four drinks, presenting them politely first to Nerys, then to Cledwyn, then to Megara, and finally to Colin.
Nerys glanced at the page and swirled her drink in the glass for a moment, then offered it to her husband as if uninterested.
“You’re not drinking? Fine.”
Cledwyn accepted it as if he were her page, taking it with exaggerated care.
There was nothing to fuss over. After all, she hadn’t asked for the drink, so refusal could be excused. Still, Megara felt an odd disquiet.
An ordinary person might have done the same — a failed attempt at courtesy happens. But Nerys had indeed taken the glass and, after glancing at the page, set it down. If she truly didn’t want it, she could have said so from the start.
Something was off. Megara intuited that at once. If it were difficult for a royal page to attend formally in such a crowded place, how could someone impersonate a royal page so brazenly?
“Enough for now,” Nerys said, turning away as if there was nothing more to see. Megara called to her maid without looking back, trying not to stare. She handed over the drink she had been given without asking and whispered a few words.
Her maid disappeared briefly from the banquet and soon returned.
“Miss, I found the person you mentioned. Someone says they saw that person at the Grünehals residence earlier.”
Pages and maids among great houses knew each other. If someone were planning mischief… you didn’t entrust just anyone.
It was fortunate her capable maid quickly leveraged her contacts. Megara had suspected Natasha might do such a thing, but facing it nearly happening jolted her awake. Her heart went cold.
If she had carelessly drunk the cup earlier, she might have harmed her body for life. What would it matter to be a duchess or the Crown Princess if being blamed for the heir’s failure to be born meant divorce?
They’d grown up together — how could Natasha do something like this?
‘I won’t stand for it,’ Megara ground her teeth, hatred toward Natasha Grünehals boiling inside her.
If Natasha played like this, Megara would return the favor in kind.