TTMLPTWW ~ Chapter 122

* * *

The banquet abruptly ended due to the sudden poisoning attempt.

Fortunately, Count Queensguard’s life was spared as he had only ingested a small amount of poison, but he remained unconscious.

According to the doctor’s diagnosis, the chances of him waking up were extremely low.

“Princess Cynthia happened to be right next to him, and it looked like they were arguing. I saw her approach the Count, suddenly shout, and swat his hand. That’s why he dropped the champagne glass and didn’t drink a lethal dose.”

“I heard the Count was trying to push his second son, Prince Edford, into the oil business recently. Maybe there was a conflict over that.”

“Come on, would he even care about the incompetent second prince? The Count is supporting Princess Cynthia as the most likely successor.”

People were busy making their own speculations, and Helene, already a loser, was naturally excluded from the list of suspects.

“It couldn’t be Princess Helene. If she gets embroiled in a lawsuit without her father’s backing, she’ll end up with a prison sentence.”

* * *

Count Queensguard’s mansion in the capital.

Edford, his eyes bloodshot from crying like a child, was recalling Helene’s words.

“Cynthia has gained tremendous power now. Of course, she’ll target us, who know her true identity, for elimination, right?”

Edford feared and respected his father.

Compared to the strict standards applied to Carlos and Helene, he was treated leniently.

In reality, it was simply that his father had no expectations for his incompetent son, but Edford believed it was his father’s affection.

“Cynthia… I never knew she was such a vicious bitch. I should have known from the way she seduced men with that innocent face.”

Huffing and puffing, Edford spotted Cynthia coming out of the Count’s room and descending the stairs.

“You damned bitch! You did this, didn’t you?”

He roughly grabbed Cynthia’s wrist, his expression fierce.

“How dare you try to kill my father? It’s like the dog you raised is biting its owner!”

“I stopped him, so he at least survived.”

Cynthia frowned, meeting Edford’s gaze.

Sensing something suspicious, she had quickly approached Count Queensguard and knocked away the champagne glass, but the Count had already taken a sip.

But Edford didn’t believe Cynthia.

“You were planning to embezzle the Prime Minister’s family and the Brigadier General’s assets and run away with Carlos, weren’t you? I heard he recently got a passport from a foreign country. It’s also suspicious that you excluded me from the oil business.”

“Of course, you need to get a passport for a honeymoon. It’s because your intelligence is so low that you weren’t included in the oil business.”

“A lowly bitch like you, just because you’ve gotten a little smarter, you’ll say anything!”

Edford, who hated being called stupid the most, flared up and raised his hand.

At that moment, Carlos appeared and grabbed Edford’s wrist.

“Stop making baseless accusations, Edford.”

“You’re an accomplice too, aren’t you? Am I next after Father? Just look at how Helene got caught up in the lawsuit.”

“That’s something Helene brought on herself. She caused all sorts of trouble and turned her back on Father.”

Despite Carlos’s calm explanation, Edford continued to spout nonsense.

Eventually, Carlos raised his fist, and Edford, uttering a villainous line like, “Just you wait!” stormed off.

“Cynthia, just a moment.”

As the surroundings quieted down, Carlos said he had something to give her and led Cynthia into a room.

“You want freedom, don’t you?”

Why was he suddenly talking so philosophically?

Seeing Cynthia’s subtle expression, he continued calmly.

“You want to escape from this false play and find your real life, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

As soon as she agreed, he grabbed her hand and said,

“I had to gain power. Sending you to Brigadier General Vicente, me marrying the Prime Minister’s daughter, it was all for that reason. But without you… it’s all meaningless.”

Cynthia pulled her hand away from his grasp. In her palm were a new ID and passport.

“Is it because Count Queensguard tried to kill me? You’re telling me to run away now that I have the chance?”

She asked with a nonchalant expression, and Carlos’s face turned bewildered.

“Cindy, you knew all that and didn’t run away?”

“If running away could solve things, I would have packed my bags and left a long time ago.”

Maybe it was a good thing that Carlos wasn’t saying something like Edford, ‘Let’s run away together! I’ll throw everything away for you!’

Lost in thought, Cynthia said,

“Count Queensguard is someone who can catch me and kill me at any time.”

Carlos stared at her with a hardened expression.

“Why are you saying that? Are you saying that no matter what I do, it’s useless? Now that Father is unconscious, it’s the perfect opportunity to escape.”

“Count Queensguard is a scarier man than you think. Even if he’s unconscious, don’t say anything in front of him.”

At her warning, as if she was certain he would wake up, Carlos clutched his throbbing head.

The fact that Count Queensguard had destroyed the royal family in the past was by no means a simple matter.

Despite accomplishing something impossible for ordinary people, he had pretended to be harmless in the North.

Even amidst the threats from the opposition, he had raised a descendant of the royal family and used her as a tool.

In short, he was a power behind the shadows and the most dangerous figure.

But paradoxically, his goal was merely ‘a train station named after his wife.’ Moreover, with a station name built by a war hero, one that would never change.

Cynthia continued in a calm tone.

“The person who has nothing more to want and only regrets left is the scariest.”

Princess Margarita had already passed away.

In her conversation with the Count, Cynthia had felt the madness of someone who had lost everything.

When the Count collapsed, the same thing was reflected in Helene’s eyes when she made eye contact.

Carlos, who had been listening to Cynthia’s story, sighed.

“…In the end, I was just a puppet in a puppet show like you.”

He lowered his head, realizing that he had stepped into an abyss.

“Cynthia, I’m sorry. I… I didn’t even realize I was pushing you into hell, and I mistakenly thought I could fix everything.”

It wasn’t a lie, considering she came to warn him because she thought he might die.

The part he revealed after taking off the mask of pretense was probably the part he wanted to hide the most.

The fact that he was sincere with Cynthia, who was a maid.

Carlos ran a hand over his face and asked in a low voice.

“What can I do for you?”

Cynthia gave him a bright smile.

“Help me out once in a while later. As an older brother who grew up with me.”

This was not forgiveness, but a meaning to act in order to be forgiven.

* * *

After Cynthia left, Carlos headed to his father’s room.

The room was filled with silence. Only the faint breathing of the Count, lying on the bed with a pale face, could be heard.

Perhaps because it was the first time he had seen his father, who had felt like an insurmountable ice wall, looking so weak, he felt strange.

Carlos’s gaze reached the portrait of his mother hanging above the bed.

The unconscious father seemed to be embraced by his mother’s gentle gaze.

He retraced his memories of his mother.

When he was a distant child, his mother fell seriously ill, and he hardly saw her until she passed away.

Helene and Edford, who were young, couldn’t even remember their mother at all.

After his mother died, Count Queensguard hung her portraits in every place he went, and she was also in the pocket watch he always carried.

To the point where the children recognized their mother as a painting.

“What do I want? There’s something I desperately want, but I can’t have it anymore.”

As Cynthia said, his father was like a vengeful ghost with only regrets left.

Carlos, who had been staring at the portrait, was suddenly overcome with an inexplicable sense of unease.

“Carlos has a mole in the same place as Mom?”

It was because one of the memories of his mother, which had been hidden in his subconscious, suddenly surfaced.

He touched the mole under his eye and stared at the portrait.

‘It’s not there.’

It was an expensive portrait that captured even the most detailed features, but he had never seen one with a beauty mark drawn on it.

His gaze turned to the painting on the table. His mother in her girlhood was smiling brightly.

Just like Cynthia’s bright smile.

‘….’

He stared at the painting with a dazed expression.

Suddenly, the face of the woman in the portrait and Cynthia’s face overlapped.

Until now, he had only thought it was a coincidence that Cynthia resembled his mother.

“Carlos, don’t forget who your mother is. That I’m your mother…”

A sorrowful voice, tears flowing past the beauty mark.

A short scene he had completely forgotten flashed through his mind.

“Heok.”

Carlos, his face pale, stepped back, letting out a suppressed breath.

‘She’s not my mother.’

The existence in the painting that he had believed to be his mother all along was just a stranger.

It was the moment when everything he had believed in and lived for shattered into pieces.