Chapter 9. Date

Calyx nodded slowly toward the surroundings as he spoke.

Something interesting was about to happen. Passersby who had an incredible nose for such things were already sneaking closer, casting sidelong glances.

Lottie knew she could simply pretend not to notice and walk away.

It wasn’t as if the rules of a game were law. Unless Her Majesty the Queen became senile from excessive official duties and participated in the drawing, there would be no criticism for not following the rules.

Even if today’s incident grew legs and reached her grand-aunt’s ears, a few scoldings would be the end of it.

“Don’t you agree? Unnamed gentleman beside her.”

The question from Number 25 was directed at Andrew, as if he had guessed his brazen intentions.

Andrew was a good man. He worried about her honor as if it were his own, though Lottie herself didn’t care.

“Please contact me later through the Duchess of Dunchester. I’ll be waiting.”

“W-wait……!”

Before Lottie could stop him, Andrew released her arm and stepped back. Even as he turned away, his eyes held no resentment, only concern for her.

Soon Andrew became a small dot and disappeared.

That lonely retreating figure fueled Lottie’s guilt that all this was due to her foolishness. Her guilt burned so fiercely that she couldn’t bring herself to run after him.

‘I’m…… truly a hopeless piece of trash.’

“Somehow I always seem to end up playing the villain in romances.”

Calyx spoke as if he couldn’t tell—or perhaps didn’t care—that she felt like sinking into the ground.

As if it were someone else’s business—well, it truly was someone else’s business—but the way he even clicked his tongue while speaking grated on Lottie’s nerves.

When you think about it, whose fault was this situation in the first place!

She took a deep breath and turned to the side, ready to spout words like a waterfall, only to find herself face-to-face with reddish-brown eyes as he slightly bent his waist to meet her eye level.

“You never even tried to find your lost glove. Weren’t you curious what happened to it?”

He was too close.

It had been a long time since she had looked at a man’s face this closely, and the face under the hat brim was so marvelous that she couldn’t help but avert her eyes, making it hard to breathe……

Oh. Come to think of it, she had taken a deep breath and then frozen in place.

“Besides the glove, you and I have things to exchange……”

“Phoooooooo……”

Unable to hold her breath any longer, Lottie finally exhaled right into Calyx’s face.

It wasn’t as unseemly as she had feared, but the sight of his eyelashes fluttering in her gentle breath was embarrassing enough.

“……I believe we have some things to exchange.”

His sentence, interrupted by the unexpected breath shower, somehow continued.

Perhaps fearing another shower, Calyx had already stepped back from Lottie.

Lottie too wanted no further humiliation, so she covered her mouth and moved away from him. Her cheeks twitched as she tried to regulate her panting breath inside her mouth.

“What, hoo, what things, hoo, to exchange?! What on earth?!”

“First, let’s wait until you catch your breath. Right now, you look……”

“……?”

“Just like a bull about to charge at a matador. Especially with that hair color.”

Sunset hue, well-ripened orange, with all kinds of scarlet flowers around, yet he called her a bull.

If she hadn’t recalled what kind of person stood before her, Lottie would have surely rammed into this matador named Calyx Valdea, fulfilling his expectations.

“……I don’t believe I have anything to exchange with you.”

“A glove forgotten by its owner cries in my drawer every night?”

“The new owner should take good care of it then. I believe that’s a sufficient answer. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Oh no.”

As Lottie shot back her reply and turned to leave, a long arm blocked her path.

Under his hat, reddish-brown eyes shone meaningfully at Lottie.

“If you keep trying to run away like this, I can only assume you know what I’m going to ask.”

“……!”

“Isn’t that right? Miss Charlotte Ebenscher, who unfairly suffers the misunderstanding that a debauched man forcibly dragged you into a secret room that you entered of your own accord.”

The very topic she most wanted to avoid was brazenly thrown in her face. Along with a name she had never told him.

The romance featuring Count Ixe’s only daughter and the crown prince as protagonists, with the deposed prince as the villain, was already common gossip in the capital’s social circles. So it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to discover Lottie’s name.

However, his direct mention of that name carried more serious implications for Lottie.

Just as he knew her name was Charlotte Ebenscher, did she also know who he really was?

“I apologize for the late introduction. I am Calyx Valdea.”

So stop acting like a bull that can’t tell up from down, and answer my questions before you get a knife in your back.

The animosity that had been momentarily forgotten due to the ridiculous incident resurfaced.

Lottie quietly glared at the man who was smiling smoothly as if he had never said such things. Calyx chuckled at her unyielding gaze.

“You’re bold even knowing who I am. Still.”

The emphasis on the word “still” didn’t make his expression look so unpleasant.

“So…… how and why were you able to enter that secret room that day?”

“……What happens if I don’t answer?”

Emboldened by this, Lottie decided to be a little more daring. It was to buy time to come up with a suitable excuse for how she entered the secret room.

‘She’s trying to buy time.’

That intention too was as clear to Calyx as a calm water surface. Feeling somewhat inclined to indulge her, he offered his arm that had been blocking her way.

“I’ll ask you for a date. Until I get an answer.”

“A…… what?”

“Have you forgotten? The rules of the event.”

Lottie wished she could go back in time once more and cut off her ambitious hand that had tried to draw a number.

“What does getting an answer to your question have to do with this number ticket? I’ll just tell you now. The reason I could enter that secret room then was……”

“No. I’ve changed my mind. Come to think of it, don’t you have more to settle with me than just an answer?”

“There’s more?! What on earth is it?!”

“Didn’t I save you from being falsely accused? If it weren’t for me, you would have inevitably become the protagonist of a garden rendezvous.”

He was the man who had waved the glove in front of everyone, claiming to have cleared her of the accusation of being intimate with Patrick. And he looked oddly satisfied, making Lottie forget even her intended objection.

Fine, let’s hear what he has to say.

“Sigh…… Yes. Thank you very much. If you want repayment, what would you like?”

“A date.”

……I shouldn’t have listened.

Lottie swallowed the curse that had risen to the tip of her tongue. This time she glared with all her might, as if daring him to kill her if he could, but Calyx just kept smiling as if something amused him.

“Come on.”

“……”

“My arm is getting tired.”

If not for his broad shoulders, tall stature, and strangely decadent features, his smile would have looked exactly like a boy’s.

‘Is this man…… really that insane murderer……?’

The confusion didn’t last long. People can’t be trusted. Especially those with blue blood who stand at the center of power.

“……”

Though she would follow him, she had no desire to hold his arm.

So instead of approaching Calyx, Lottie turned abruptly and strode forward as if telling him to follow.

Her intentions were transparent as glass again.

Knowing this, Calyx swallowed his smile and followed behind her.

* * *

One hour later.

Lottie fell into confusion once more as she sensed Calyx silently following about three steps behind her.

‘The Calyx Valdea I know isn’t the type to obediently follow others’ words.’

He could have shown irritation at someone who just walked ahead showing only her back without saying a word.

But this man, who wasn’t Andrew Thompson, followed like an obedient dog without a single complaint, and without trying to grab the woman walking ahead of him.

‘An obedient dog, really.’

Even to her own thoughts, it was an absurd comparison.

Having already repeatedly gone over how he had unhesitatingly shot his cousin’s wife—who was also the queen—in the chest after usurping the throne, she decided to trace earlier memories.

Her memories of Calyx Valdea, who had been her in-law before becoming a tyrant, were……

‘The worst.’

They were a complete mess, beyond even that expression.

Lottie first met Calyx several months after her engagement to Patrick, who was then the crown prince.

For some reason she couldn’t now recall, Calyx hadn’t been free to move about at that time.

When she first met the man who was her husband’s cousin—her brother-in-law—Lottie felt a greater shock than when she first saw a massive steam engine at the World Exposition.

She was amazed that a person could be crafted so exquisitely.

A clean, bright forehead beneath neatly combed blonde hair, consistently relaxed lips, a smooth and firm chin, all coming together in perfect proportion.

She was so awestruck and filled with wonder that tears welled up in her eyes without her realizing it.

Meeting the new family member and future queen of Matila for the first time, Calyx kissed his cousin’s wife with the same coldly smiling face.

Lottie’s crazy brother-in-law was driven out of the palace again less than a day after regaining access.

About three years later, she saw Calyx for the second time. Probably when she visited him after hearing news that her brother-in-law’s health was not good.

She remembered how the mansion where Calyx was living in seclusion was cold without a trace of warmth.

And the screams so loud they drowned out even the creaking stairs as she climbed to the second-floor bedroom.

She entered the source of the howls that sounded like those of a beast. The man who had shown her that another name for exquisiteness was beauty had vanished without a trace.

Overwhelmed by blank shock, Lottie couldn’t even enter the bedroom where the sick man was raging, and fled.

After enough time had passed to forget that incident, terrifying news arrived that he had beaten some of his retainers to death.

After the third meeting, she never saw him again. Because he had made it so with his own hands.