Chapter 23
I watched Agatha’s quickly retreating back and thought indifferently.
‘Yes, run, Agatha.’
Go ahead and run. Run to the place I told you about.
At that moment, Evwa, who was standing next to me, shouted angrily.
“That insolent girl!”
She looked like she was about to order the nearby knights to chase after Agatha immediately.
To make it easier for Agatha to escape, I stopped her.
“W-Wait a moment, Lady Evwa. I… I can’t believe it…”
“Ah! Your Highness, are you all right?”
“Agatha… Agatha, what did you just say?”
My eyes quickly filled with tears.
“Agatha… is she really His Highness the Crown Prince’s secret lover? The one from the rumors?”
As I let my voice tremble naturally, everyone around me suddenly looked at me with sympathy.
I curled up into myself, looking even more pitiful.
“I… I didn’t even know…”
“Princess Neroli!”
Evwa quickly stood and embraced me.
“It’s not your fault, Your Highness. That shameless girl deliberately tricked us. How could you have known?”
“Sniffle… Lady Evwa…”
“Ahh, please don’t cry, Your Highness.”
Moved by my sorrowful tears, Evwa was completely fooled.
She quickly forgot about chasing after Agatha and focused on comforting me instead.
The waiting servants and knights followed suit.
“Oh, poor Princess Neroli.”
“Agatha, was it? There are always women like her—foxes who covet what’s above their station.”
“I really didn’t know she was like that. How could she deceive Her Highness with such an innocent face!”
Innocent face or not, I was the real fox deceiving them all.
I trembled slightly and buried myself deeper in Evwa’s embrace.
“To think the noble Crown Prince… could be like this…”
Evwa’s arms tensed slightly at my whisper.
“I’m disappointed in him too. Acting like this even before his coronation.”
“…Lady Evwa.”
I looked up at her slightly while gripping her dress.
“I hope you make choices that are right for your future.”
“…Pardon?”
“I just don’t want you to make a decision you’ll regret because of fleeting emotions.”
That’s all I was thinking.
In a barely audible voice, only loud enough for her to hear, I said softly.
In the end, her wedding wouldn’t go smoothly because of me.
So, for her own sake, it would be better to sort out her feelings for Gobard in advance and not place too much meaning in the marriage.
‘Thank goodness Evwa is smart enough to know what the wisest choice is.’
Besides, she’s the daughter of Duke Beauboncher. As long as she sorts out her emotions, her future won’t be rocky.
Evwa seemed to instinctively understand what I was saying. She was silent for a moment before nodding.
“I will, Your Highness.”
‘More importantly…’
Not knowing my true intentions, Evwa murmured in a slightly emotional voice.
“In this palace, the only one who truly cares about me is you, Princess Neroli.”
‘As long as she and Gobard are apart, it’ll be easier to use Beauboncher to my advantage.’
If I’m going to steal something from Gobard, I’ll steal it—but I’ll never give him anything of mine.
With tearful, sorrowful eyes, I forced a smile.
“Because you’re a dear friend to me, Lady Evwa.”
“Your Highness…”
Evwa and the others, completely unaware of the meaning behind my smile, looked at me with warm eyes.
As I received those familiar gazes, Marin appeared out of thin air.
[Master~ The two of them have met~.]
Perfect timing.
The smile on my lips deepened—without anyone noticing.
***
“Sob sob…”
Had she ever experienced such humiliation in her life?
Agatha couldn’t even think to wipe away her tears.
She felt utterly ashamed.
And miserable.
Why was she being treated like this? She felt wronged—and guilty for betraying someone who trusted her.
‘I didn’t know either!’
How could she have known her lover had a fiancée?
‘I’m a victim too!’
Even if she wanted to run away, she had already fallen in love—what could she do?
She tried to rationalize it, but the sorrow rising from deep inside her heart was too overwhelming to suppress.
“How… how could this…”
She had been found out.
By the one person she never wanted to know.
She couldn’t forget those golden eyes that stared at her in shock.
‘How can I ever face Her Highness again…!’
As that thought tormented her, a gust of wind blew past her body.
Normally, it would have been a pleasant spring breeze—but now, it felt unbearably cold.
Agatha hugged herself tighter.
‘Do I even have the right to be here anymore?’
She had run away blindly, fleeing from Evwa and Neroli.
Running as if her heart would burst, she tried to think of a place to hide.
But nowhere came to mind.
‘How can there be no place for me in this enormous palace?!’
In the end, there was only one place left to go.
The secret space no one else knew about.
‘This place… Princess Neroli told me about it.’
Behind Neroli’s greenhouse, a giant old tree.
On the left, a hidden space—her secret place.
Agatha crouched there, sobbing pitifully.
‘How far has the rumor spread?’
The thing she feared most had finally happened.
Well, she had been attending all those events with Princess Neroli, full of high-ranking nobles—maybe she should have expected it.
‘I was too naive.’
Did everyone in the palace now know who she was?
Even the fellow maids she used to chat and work with just yesterday?
The kitchen staff who often snuck her leftover desserts from the princess’s treats?
And then…
‘Him, too.’
Just then—
Rustle.
She heard footsteps and a voice from above.
“You—what are you doing here?”
Startled, Agatha lifted her head.
Her vision was blurred by tears, but one thing was unmistakable.
“Come on out.”
Those same pink eyes as hers.
“M-Maid Sandrine…”
The very person she had just been thinking of had actually appeared—and Agatha froze in place.
As Agatha trembled with tension, Brillint spoke a bit more gently.
“It’s all right. Come now.”
Hearing her kind voice, Agatha began crying again.
“Sob… Miss Maid… I, I…”
Meanwhile, Brillint felt a strange ache in her chest as she looked at the sobbing girl.
She had never told Neroli, but sometimes she saw glimpses of her lost little sister in Agatha.
‘Is it because they’re the same age…?’
Or maybe… because their eye color was exactly the same.
Brillint had always felt an unexplainable familiarity with the girl, despite not knowing her for long.
That was why she had deliberately kept her distance.
‘Because I don’t want to hope anymore.’
Her father had suffered so much searching for her younger sister.
Every time he heard of a girl who looked even slightly similar, he would drop everything and rush to find her.
Brillint had always waited, her heart full of hope—but none of the girls turned out to be her sister.
‘I don’t want to get my hopes up anymore.’
That’s what she’d thought.
“I… I’ve done something terrible…”
Brillint gently sighed at the girl’s crying voice.
If only that catalogue she’d been reading hadn’t been blown out the window by a sudden gust of wind.
If only Neroli hadn’t taken so many maids with her today.
Then Brillint wouldn’t have come here.
‘But when I heard someone crying nearby… I couldn’t ignore it. I thought of Her Highness right away.’
Because her beloved, delicate princess used to cry quietly in this very place as a child.
Recalling the past briefly, Brillint gathered herself and asked,
“This is a place only Her Highness and I know about. How did you end up here?”
“Ah…”
At those words, Agatha remembered something Neroli had once told her.
“Only two people know about this place—including me! If you’re having a hard time, you can come here to rest!”
‘So the other person was Miss Maid…’
For some reason, Agatha felt a strange sense of relief.
Perhaps it was the deep sympathy she saw in Brillint’s eyes.
Without realizing it, she crawled out from the hollow in the tree and approached Brillint.
“Sob… I’ve made such a terrible mistake…”
Even without finishing her sentence, Brillint couldn’t bring herself to scold her harshly.
She found herself gently patting Agatha’s back instead.
“You mean… the rumor about the Crown Prince?”
“!”
Seeing Agatha pale, Brillint shook her head slightly.
“I’m not trying to blame you. But… did Princess Neroli find out?”
“…Yes.”
Agatha clenched her eyes shut, biting her lip.
Brillint couldn’t hide her complicated emotions.
“I tried so hard to keep Her Highness from hearing about it… but in the end, it happened.”
The rumor that the Crown Prince’s lover was actually Neroli’s new maid.
Brillint had scoffed when she first heard it.
Using their similar pink eyes as a connection, the social world had exaggerated the story—surely it was false.
‘Besides, Agatha was someone Her Highness personally brought in. I didn’t want things to get awkward over a baseless rumor…’
“But I guess it wasn’t a baseless rumor. Seeing how much you’re crying…”
“Hic!”
“Agatha, raise your head.”
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
“Agatha.”
“I—I was foolish to dream such an impossible dream…! But I didn’t do it on purpose!”
Agatha looked up at Brillint desperately.
“He never told me anything! I… I thought he was just a royal knight!”
Seeing her so frantic, Brillint closed her eyes.
For now… what this girl needed was rest.
“I understand, Agatha. I’ll try to explain things to Her Highness, so—”
It was then that Agatha collapsed into Brillint’s arms.
“Agatha?”
Brillint tried to prop her up—but paused.
Her body was burning hot.
