Chapter 10

Astelle thought it was because he was tired of hunting.

She laughed happily and wore a garland on her head to mend the embarrassing atmosphere.

As a happy queen of autumn, she endured the pain and tiredness, and kept her place until the end, and at night she hosted the ball alone.

The next day, Kaizen said yesterday that he was too tired, and he asked Astelle for her forgiveness.

Astelle gladly forgave him.

She was rather deeply regretted that he felt her sadness, although she was for a while.

Now it was the memories that couldn’t be even dusty.

Astelle muttered carelessly.

“I was bored and struggling to sit all day and wait for the contest to end. It was so long ago that I can’t remember anything else.”

In response to Astelle’s grim response, Kaizen bit his mouth firmly again.

There was a heavy silence over the table.

In a short silence, Marianne spit out in a blunt voice as if tortured.

“I can’t remember anything at that time.”

Astell said casually.

“Of course you can’t remember, because Lady Marianne was still an 11-year-old girl back then.”

It wasn’t really dismissive, but Marianne bit her lips with her face full of contempt.

The atmosphere quickly ruined.

Kaizen, sitting in the upper seat, was also unpleasant, and Marianne stared at Astelle with her resentful glances.

Vellian turned the topic to rectify the disastrous atmosphere.

“Come to think of it, there were a lot of bears around here. Hunting is forbidden because it is dangerous, but if you go into the forest further, there is a hunting lodge. Sometimes Your Majesty…”

“Do you have a bear?”

Theor, who only listened to the adults talking, shouted unknowingly at the sound of the bear.

Before Astelle, Vellian gave him an interesting glance, he replied.

“Yes, it’s pretty much around here.”

“I want to see them.”

“Theor.”

Astelle quietly grabbed the child’s shoulder.

As the child was cute, a smile spread over her.

“It would be nice if you could show it, but it’s too dangerous for you to see it in person.”

At that time, one of the servants came to the dinner table and whispered something to Kaizen.

Kaizen listened to the words of the servant and he stood up from the seat.

“Excuse me first.”

He asked for patience and went out.

What urgent thing has happened.

She wishes to go back in the bedroom after eating, but as soon as the emperor disappears, Marianne aims an arrow at Astelle.

“The children is so cute but they can’t learn proper manners. It’s unavoidable to do that. Originally, if parents don’t strictly discipline them, all children grow up spoiled. There are limits to what relatives can do.”

At Marianne’s thorny words, Vellian hurriedly sipd a sip of water and interrupted.

“Did you learn very well at that age at that level? According to my nanny’s testimony, I just grabbed the food with my hand at that age…”

“This children don’t have both parents, so I can’t help it. If they don’t have parents, the children will act as they please.”

Marianne continued her ridicule by cutting off Vellian words.

She was attacking Astelle, not Theor.

Astelle lost her mother as soon as she was born and grew up under her single father.

Astelle wasn’t angry.

She rather gave a soft smile satisfactorily.

“Lady Marianne’s parents must have been very rare and generous people. I am envious of having such kind parents.”

-Cough! Cough!-

Vellian, who was drinking water across from Astelle’s words, hurriedly covered his mouth and pretend to be coughed.

Astelle said that the parents didn’t punish their children too much and if their children were so spoiled, it was a very blatant.

Vellian covered his mouth and held back his laughter as it burst out.

Marianne’s white cheeks burned red when she realized she had been ridiculed.

“Are you saying I’m spoiled now?”

“No way, I praised the Marquis’ inside and outside.”

It was still very polite speech, but it contained a certain thorn no matter who heard it.

Astelle said with a gentle smile, picking up a glass of wine.

“And did you forget? His Majesty also lost his mother in childhood.”

Kaizen also lost her mother as a child.

The empress, Kaizen’s mother has been lying in the sick for several years before she dies.

This little girl seems to have forgotten about it for a while.

Like Kaizen, young Astelle, who grew up without a mother, felt sorry for him.

She sympathized with his sadness.

Marianne stuttered her words with a stunned face she couldn’t even think of.

“Ah… I, I’m not like that…”

Vellian intervened and corrected the situation.

“His Majesty seems to be late, but should I just ask you to eat dessert? How about the little master? Do you want to eat dessert?”

“Yes! I want to eat!”

Soon came the melon sorbet prepared as a dessert.

Astelle watched Theor scoop up the sorbet and lifted a spoon lightly.

After tasting it several times to see if it wasn’t her favorite dessert, Astelle put the spoon down and drank a little jerry juice.

Vellian, sitting on the other side of her, looked at Astelle with admiration.

From Astelle’s posture to every gesture, there was a calm and elegant elegance.

Her clothes weren’t even fancy, but she was like an empress enough even in such a plain dress.

Is it thanks to the Duke’s education?

Vellian heard that she had been educated very strictly, but it seemed that it wasn’t just because of it.

Astelle had some natural dignity.

In Vellian’s eyes, the emperor cared about the former empress a lot.

He thought that things were going strangely.

Even at this very moment, it was even more curious given that her father was plotting the rebellion, and the emperor was trying to kill him.

“Now, it’s better to stop and go back to the bedroom. I don’t think His Majesty can return.”

When the emperor did not return after waiting a long time, Vellian finished the dinner and sent the two back.

Marianne went away without saying goodbye, and Astelle took Theor, who began to doze off, and she returned to the bedroom.

With his eyes half closed, Theor, who was held by Astelle, hurriedly grabbed the hem of her clothes.

“Oh… I left Levin.”

“Oh my god.”

She forgot to bring it.

Astelle puts Theor on the bed and she returns to the dinner table.

She took the doll from the servant who was arranging the seats and went out into the hallway.

The hallway of the castle, which had been turned off, exudes a strange atmosphere.

Gold ornaments and statues shining brilliantly during the day were quietly immersed in the dark.

A glass window that occupied one wall sprinkled a mysterious silver light in the corridor.

Astelle walked toward the bedroom, stepping on the stone statue’s shadow.

As she turned around the corner, a servant with a candlestick appeared from the other side.

Astelle found the man behind him and stopped.

Kaizen was walking with the head in front.

“Are you going back to the bedroom?”

“Yes, the child left the toy and I came back to bring it.”

The emperor who looks in the dark was different from what she saw in the daytime.

He had the same face and the same clothes, but the atmosphere of the whole body was completely different.

If the emperor met in the daytime was a dignified monarch, in the middle of the night he was like a beast who hid himself in the shade.

He felt confident, overbearing, and dangerous.

Kaizen was looking at Astelle’s uncharacteristic green dress.

Even in the dark, it was clearly seen that wrinkles were formed for a while in the good shape of the eye.

He asked bluntly.

“Do you not want to receive anything I give you?”

Astelle flickered quietly.

She doesn’t know why the thoughts are connected in that way.

“I can’t do that. I ate the food that Your Majesty gave me just before.”

“I’m not talking about playing with words.”

In the deep darkness, red eyes were constantly flashing.

He seemed to get angry, but unexpectedly, a self-supportive voice came out.

“Yes, you must be resentful.”

After divorce, for the first 1 or 2 years, there was such a feeling.

The heart that resents this man.

But what kind of feelings would she has for a man who had a wedding ceremony and spent until the first night?

But as time went by, that kind of mind also faded.

It just felt like her feelings for this man had dried up.

Now love or hate all withered and turned into dust.

Astelle said, watching him straight.

“No, I don’t blame Your Majesty anymore, and now I have no feelings about Your Majesty, so you don’t need to pay attention to me either.”

Now this man wasn’t even resentful.

It was just a mind that she didn’t want to get entangled any more closely.

She didn’t need anything.

After finishing this sudden thing, she wanted to get out of this man’s sight as soon as possible.

“Thank you for the gift, but I don’t need such fancy clothes anymore. All I asked for was to return my grandfather’s pension and to send us back.”

Astelle bowed her head in ellegant.

“It’s too late, so I’m going back.”

Kaizen stood looking at Astelle’s back walking without shaking.

After a while, Vellian came out of the hall to find the emperor and approached him.

“Your Majesty? Why do you do that?”

“It is nothing.”

Kaizen turned to the servant with a hand gesture and said to Vellian.

“The Duke of Reston has approached Count Siete. He let me know by the Count himself.”

“Oh, it’s real.”