Chapter 14
The news that House Béarn's carriage had arrived reached the Empress's detached palace.
The Empress had been lifting her teacup with a bored expression, but at the report, she raised her head sharply. Her face, powdered white to hide her age, soon began to brighten with animation.
“That girl. I heard she became a complete idiot after coming close to death?”
Contrary to the words spilling from her red lips, the Empress's voice sounded oddly excited.
The middle-aged lady-in-waiting standing respectfully beside the Empress replied.
“I heard she'd merely lost her memories. They said there was nothing wrong with her ability to speak, hear, or think.”
“Is that so? Hmm…. Well, what a shame. As a chess piece to be moved, she would have been more useful that way.”
The Empress ran the tip of her tongue over lips dampened by black tea. She made no effort to hide her disappointment.
Greed was etched into every wrinkle in the Empress's skin.
The maids of the Empress's palace, who were redecorating the reception room for the debutante presentation, turned away, wary of meeting that gaze.
The lady-in-waiting beside the Empress tilted the teapot over the empty teacup and poured the tea elegantly.
As she watched the little brown tea leaves bob on the surface, the Empress sorted through the thoughts circling in her mind.
In the matter of choosing the heir, House Béarn was an awkward piece on the board for the Empress's faction.
The old nobility led by the princess and the Empress's faction were roughly equal in strength.
Her husband, who ought to support their son's claim without question, was wrapped around his mistress's little finger and paid no attention whatsoever to the imperial family's affairs.
Thanks to that, neither the princess's faction nor her own could make the first move recklessly.
The political landscape in the capital was in a delicate balance.
And the Empress found the current situation nothing but frustrating.
She needed the power of the Margrave of Béarn to break this stalemate.
'Those western country bumpkins would turn their boats upside down at a single word from the head of House Béarn.'
It was an old saying in the capital's political circles, and even now, it held a fair bit of truth.
More than at any other time in the empire's history, the western nobles were united around House Béarn.
The Margrave of Béarn, at the center of it all, had declared himself neutral in the succession.
If she could bring them over to her side.
The scales, now perfectly balanced, would surely tip to one side in an instant.
The debt she would owe the west in exchange for borrowing their power was the only thing she regretted.
What the Empress needed to ask for was no simple political favor.
She needed their support in the succession struggle, their participation in a zero-sum game.
For the western bumpkins, who had maintained their neutrality all this time, that would be a huge step—and they would have much to lose.
So if her son ascended the throne, the bumpkins would surely present her with a bill far larger than what they had given.
Even so, she couldn't abandon the west.
Even if they couldn't become her allies, she couldn't let the Margrave go over to the princess's side.
The westerners had ties with the old nobility, after all.
If the west fell into the clutches of Princess Dominique, that fox of a woman, there would be nothing she could do.
The teacup in her hand swayed gently from side to side.
Ripples formed across the trembling vermilion surface.
From between the fine wrinkles around her eyes, the Empress's green gaze shifted to the man fooling around with the maids in a corner of the reception room.
“Louis, are you all ready?”
Like fish darting beneath the surface of a lake, the maids scattered at the Empress's voice.
Only the man left behind looked at the Empress with a sly smile.
“Yes, Aunt. When it comes to a lady, I'm always ready.”
"Good. Your aunt is counting on you, Louis."
The man called Louis swept back his red hair, identical to the Empress's, and flashed her a bright smile.
“Don't worry. I may be mediocre at everything else, but when it comes to seducing women, I'm the best in the capital.”
It was certainly a vulgar thing to say so brazenly in front of the Empress.
Even so, the Empress merely smiled at him.
Marriages in the imperial family were, after all, a matter of diplomacy.
So it had been sheer luck that she, a noblewoman of Galatea, had become Empress.
The previous Empress, who had given birth to a daughter, had died young and pointlessly.
The only child she left the Emperor was a daughter.
With no spare heir, the imperial family had been in a hurry to find a new Empress.
However, every woman of childbearing age had already married.
To bring in an Empress from abroad, they would have had to put a dress on a child who had only just been weaned.
Naturally, the imperial family began looking for a suitable Empress within the empire.
The eldest daughter of House Edmund, a marquessate struggling to survive on its former glory, became Empress of the Galatea Empire.
Under her protection, House Edmund was able to reclaim its former prestige.
The Empress was now aiming even higher.
So she intended to pair her useless nephew, whose only redeeming feature was his looks, with the youngest daughter of House Béarn.
Looking at her overconfident, useless nephew, the Empress spoke carefully.
“Still, you never know. The daughters of House Béarn have always been so damn… unusual.”
Covering her mouth with the fan she had set down, the Empress dredged up a memory from long ago.
“Besides, the eldest daughter of this generation… Yes, she was especially extraordinary. That girl.”
At the Empress's words, Louis's green eyes gleamed as he spoke.
"From what I've heard, the youngest daughter is different. Unlike the eldest, they say she's a true lady of House Béarn, or something like that. And apparently she's quite pretty, so she sounds like she'd be fun to play with."
The Empress admonished Louis in a low voice.
"Louis. You mustn't let things end with simply playing with her. This is important. Until Felix takes the throne—or at least becomes Crown Prince—you have to keep that girl with you to the very end."
"Aunt, I've been intimate with many women at once over the years, but I've never once let any of them complain."
At her nephew's carefree words, the Empress's brow creased slightly.
With that disposition, he was bound to cause a major scandal one day.
But there was nothing the Empress could do about it now.
All she could do was hope her nephew didn't cause trouble before her son ascended the throne.
Before long, a commotion began outside the door.
A servant who had hurried over announced that the Margrave of Béarn's wife and daughter had reached the reception room.
The Empress, Annerose Edmund Galatea, straightened her posture and composed her voice.
But the loud announcement from beyond the door included a name she hadn't expected at all.
"Her Imperial Highness the Princess, Lady Etie Meria de Béarn, and her daughter, Lady Eleonore Arraena de Béarn, are entering."
The princess? What does that fox think she's doing, showing up here!
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“Hmm. I heard she was as beautiful in a dress as she was otherwise.”
With her honey-colored hair swaying, Princess Dominique Ira Galatea studied the platinum-blonde young lady before her.
Under that intense gaze, Eleonore shrank in on herself.
A girl her own age, and an incredibly beautiful one at that….
No, no. With someone as high-born as a princess looking at her like this, Eleonore didn't know what to do.
In place of her daughter, whose body had stiffened completely, Etie, standing beside her, answered the princess.
“We have quite a few places to visit, so we came in something a little more comfortable.”
“Really? Hmm…. Well, I'll get to see you in a dress this evening anyway. But tell me, Lady Béarn. Why is the young lady so frozen?”
Swaying her beige hair, Dominique moved even closer to Eleonore.
The princess's golden eyes filled with the reflection of Eleonore's sky-blue ones, and she carefully raised a hand and waved it back and forth before Eleonore's eyes.
“Perhaps she's still unfamiliar with the palace. And she hasn't been well for very long, either.”
“Ah… right, that's true. I'm sorry, my lady. I must have been a little too much for you.”
Her neatly groomed eyebrows soon formed a beautiful curve.
The princess beamed at Eleonore. At that bright smile, Eleonore, who had frozen up, gradually managed to lift the corners of her lips.
“N-no, Your Highness. I'm all right.”
“Oh my! Your voice is as lovely as your face. Hey, Eleonore! Why don't you stop by that pig—cough, cough. The Empress's palace, then come over to mine for a cup of tea? I just got some tea leaves with a wonderful aroma.”
At the disrespectful words that sprang from the princess's mouth, Eleonore became a child again and clutched her mother's right arm.
The princess before her was exactly the sort of person Seo Juha had always found intimidating.
Energetic, outgoing women.
Women who treated everyone without a hint of reserve, regardless of gender, and were always smiling.
They were an impossible species for Seo Juha, who'd gone through an all-boys middle school, an all-boys high school, and then engineering school—specifically electrical engineering, with its utterly hopeless gender ratio.
Lorschua had been like that, and now the princess was, too.
However, Princess Dominique was similar to Lorschua, but a little different.
At least Lorschua wasn't this recklessly forward.
She was like a cat that loved people—sneaking close without you noticing, then rubbing against you before you knew it.
But the princess before her was a full-fledged golden retriever.
The sort who charged at you shouting that she loved people! Her hair color only made her look even more like one.
At the touch of her daughter tugging on her left arm, Etie cleared her throat a couple of times, drawing the princess's attention to herself.
“Your Highness. But why are you planning to come with us to the Empress's palace?”
“Ah! Well, you see. Hmm…. I heard there was going to be something interesting at today's debutante presentation. A red-haired mongrel is apparently wandering around the Empress's palace, groveling.”
A red-haired mongrel? What on earth is that supposed to mean?
The princess smiled brightly.
Then she tugged on Eleonore's left arm as Eleonore stood there, confused by those incomprehensible words.
“Besides, I can't miss it. Not cute Lady Eleonore, nor your husband, Lady Béarn, nor the western nobles.”
Etie met the princess's golden eyes, which were glowing faintly.
In the princess's smiling eyes, a fragment of the Emperor from the days when he had energetically taken control of the state was beginning to show.
“Come on, let's go. I'm dying to see the face our capital's rake makes when he sees our Eleonore!”
In those days, the Emperor had never let go of anything he wanted.
And so Etie had to release her daughter's right arm, which she had been holding protectively.