When he left the room, he was approached by Silbang who had been waiting for him.
Dennis received the greetings of the courtiers passing by with slight nods of his head.
“How is your highness?”
“Fine.
Were you worried?”
“No.
But Your Highness seems concerned...”
Silbang lowered his voice at the end of the sentence.
“This way we can quell rumors of conflict.”
Dennis shook the yellow paper he was holding.
"What?"
Silbang said as if he was hearing something for the first time.
“Didn't you see?
It looks like I might get divorced soon.”
Dennis tapped his finger on the yellow paper, laughing.
“I will file a protest with the journalist who wrote the article.”
Silbang said, bowing his head.
“There is no need for that.
If the journalist publishes in a cheap, third-class yellow newspaper, he is exposed.
Leave it as it is.”
“…Okay, I will.”
“What's the next appointment?”
“Mr.
Richard is waiting for you at the business office.”
Dennis raised his eyebrows once.
"Good."
Late at night, Dennis took off his glasses and tilted his head back.
His eyelids were heavy, but not enough to fall asleep.
He was writing a letter to someone.
He was confident that even in a complicated situation, with this person's help, the matter could be overcome.
He was sure that this person would definitely help him.
He stopped completing the sentence, and held the pen still until drops of ink fell onto the paper.
Black ink spread across the white paper.
His encounter with Richard earlier in the day had unnerved him.
Richard, who is his wife's brother.
His words were enough to shake him.
In fact, it was already a weak tree that would shake with the slightest breeze before that.
And the wind that shook him was that woman.
The daughter of the person who caused his mother's death, who occupied the place next to him, and his wife who did not hesitate to do dirty things to put him on the throne.
At the same time, she was his refuge, silently embracing his unspoken wounds, which were sometimes the cause of his insomnia.
He felt that the obvious things always faded away in front of this woman.
If he remembered his mother who had tragically passed away, he should not have approached that woman.
Wouldn't it be better for him to cut off that thin white neck and feel good?
He once placed his hand on the neck of a softly sleeping Therese.
It was midnight, and there was no one in the corridor.
If he had killed her, he would have deserved to be punished, but he would have been satisfied with that.
He would have been happy that he had avenged his mother.
But he couldn't catch it hard and stopped.
The slender white neck that almost filled his palm, and the pulsing warmth under his fingers, made his hand stop suddenly.
This woman...she was alive.
It was a reality he was realizing again.
Fear that weakness that seems capable of being broken.
As if a flower would wither if it was cut.
He truly felt that if he grabbed too hard, he would have snatched her life away in one fell swoop.
That's why the fear was greater.
Even as he held Therese's neck, he couldn't break it, so he silently shed tears.
Ah…
He did not know the names of those feelings tangled within him.
His mother, Queen Charles, would hug him and sing a soothing song to him when she regained consciousness.
Even though he was at an age where he could sleep on his own.
But Charles was still stuck at the time when he was taking his first steps.
She was patting his back with her hand, as thin as the branch of a withered tree, and singing to him.
He was hugging his mother like a baby.
Dennis felt both sadness and happiness while in his mother's arms.
Even if she's like this, that's enough, Mom.
Dennis slept in his mother's arms in a deep sleep, uninterrupted by anyone.
And…
As in the arms of his mother, who used to embrace him and sing to him, he could not sleep comfortably except in Therese’s arms.
In those days, it was difficult for him to meet his mother's eyes, as if he were looking into the eyes of a dead fish.
The eyes of his mother, who was dying a little every day in the desolate, isolated palace.
The black, dead eyes reflected nothing.
When those eyes suddenly materialized in his mind, Dennis found it difficult to bear the rising anger and sadness.
He tragically lost his mother, while spending every night with the daughter of the one who caused it.
It was a contradiction.
His situation was very funny.
Dennis stared at the stained paper above the unfinished sentence.
He got up and went to the window.
There was a window at the end of the work desk overlooking the garden where Therese spent a lot of time.
He opened the window slightly, took a cigar out of the cigarette case, and lit it.
The smell of wet grass, wet with night dew, entered his nostrils.
At the same time, the strong and pungent smell of cigars spread through the room.
He was going to punish those who killed his mother in order to sit on the throne, and he was going to get rid of her brutally.
This is how he was going to avenge his mother.
But in this case...
Dennis suddenly felt disgusted and crushed the cigar.
Then he returned to his cold bedroom knowing that he would never sleep.
It looks like he'll be spending the night alone this time.
As if it was a punishment he was inflicting on himself.
At the tea table set up in the garden of Fabrice's palace, Fabrice and a woman were sitting.
The atmosphere was tense, as if they were coordinating opinions with a party to a deal.
“I would like to hold the royal wedding after an engagement period of about a year, Your Highness.”
said Noble Giselle of the Lomasing family, sitting in the perfect posture of an etiquette textbook.
“Good idea, ma'am.”
“I would like to draft a contract documenting these contents.”
“…Do you want that?”
Fabrice rarely minced words.
“Yes, Your Highness, I apologize for my rudeness, but our family does not engage in matters that cause loss.”
"naturally."
Fabrice ran his hand over his chin as if he was thinking hard.
“So this should be good for all of us.”
Giselle raised her chin after she finished speaking.
She looked like a businessman who does not back down easily in negotiations.
Giselle's arrogance and self-confidence bothered Fabrice.
How dare she, the one who became noble by purchasing the title, act arrogantly in front of him, the owner of pure noble lineage.
Fabrice brushed his naturally loose locks of hair, hiding his sullen expression with a gentle look.
“Logical talk.”
“That is why I wrote a draft of the engagement contract in advance, Your Highness.”
"…Good."
Fabrice agreed smoothly.
“But...”
Fabrice stared at Giselle.
As a monster he does not want to lose his superiority.
“I also need time to review it, wouldn’t it be better if we discussed it in detail next time?”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
Giselle raised her teacup as if she had nothing more to say.
Fabrice also sat silent.
There was a distance that did not befit two engaged people.
After tea time was over, Fabrice returned to his desk and roughly took off his coat.
The servant was waiting for him.
“How was the meeting with Nabila Lomasinghe?”
“Incredibly talkative and bold.”
Fabrice answered angrily and threw a folded piece of paper towards the servant.
“Look at this.”
“It's a contract.”
“Yes, an engagement contract.”
After saying that, Fabrice took off the luxurious, heavily embroidered silver tie tied tightly around his neck on the purple cloth and threw it on the ground.
Not only that, he unbuttoned some of the buttons on his shirt that were choking his neck.
As if the tight binding was bothering him, he cleared his throat and frowned.
He then reverted to Fabrice's usual flabby look.
“Bring me a drink, I'm in a bad mood.”
“The day is still bright, Your Highness, and you have an appointment with Baron Barbier soon.”
“Do you want to choke?”
Fabrice stared at the servant.
Ike.
The servant bowed hurriedly.
Fabrice's eyes were now like those of someone about to do something.
The servant knew that look well from his years of experience in his service.
Fabrice commanded in a categorical manner:
“Cancel the appointment.”
"yes i will."
The servant left the room silently after bringing the drink and left the room without making a sound.
Fabrice lay for a long time on the day sofa, then dissolved a white powder in the strong wine the servant had brought and drank it at once.
He knew very well that there was a time when every action had to be careful.
One word or one movement was enough to tip the scales of support.
Newspapers published daily reports predicting which prince would have the upper hand and who would be the king.
Of course, the people's support would be useless in the face of the king's intention to remove the crown.
He began to feel the euphoria of the drink and his mood gradually rose.
As if his heart was beating fast.
He firmly believed that he was the candidate for the throne of the country.
His father loves him more than the first prince.
That is an obvious fact.
Did he not connect me with an influential family as a fiancée even after my engagement was broken off?
In addition, he is the son of the high-ranking noble Queen Marianne, so naturally the king likes him even more.
Those of common origin couldn't even compare to him.
How dare he, someone of lowly blood, dream of the throne just because he was born first?
Fabrice hated his half-brother more than anyone in this world.
It was as if he had even forgotten the fact that they had been so close in the past.
What I don't like I just get rid of.
But the time has not come yet.
To do this, he must gather more forces supporting him.
When everything is certain, he will end the matter.
“Ha.”
I want to kill him quickly.
He filled the cup with golden liquid until it hit the brim.
It was easy to guess that the recent scandals in the palace had leaked from that side.
Otherwise, Xavier, who was sane, would not have gone to the police to confess his insanity.
How pathetic it was when Xavier, whose outward appearance was intact, was imprisoned.
Fabrice laughed madly.
The drugs were showing their effect.
Xavier's last moments were vividly replaying in his head.
The sight of him urinating on himself out of fear.
‘A, M, Prince S, S, His Highness, please pardon, pardon…’
Before he could finish speaking, Fabrice kicked Xavier in the stomach and he fell to the ground with an “ugh” sound.
'Take him and throw him away.'
If it weren't for the scandals, I wouldn't have been humiliated in front of that Lomasing woman.
Leaving an insult as an insult does not suit his nature.
He began to think happily about how to return the insult.