CH 12
Back in the carriage, Harold remained silent. He looked somewhat tired.
When I stared at him, he looked embarrassed and averted his eyes – after a while, he finally looked at me. The expression in his eyes was filled with confusion and looked somewhat apologetic.
“I’m sorry ....”
“For What?”
But just as the conversation was about to begin, the carriage entered the royal palace.
Suppressing my impatience, I moved with Harold to my room and sat down on the sofa. I also asked Harold to sit down, but Harold stood by me, took a deep breath, and then began to talk.
“There are two things I would like to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“The man who was after Miss Ulysses was the eldest son of the Marquise de Enhant.”
“Luke....?”
Then was Miss Ulysses referring to Luke when she said “suspicious man”?
Luke Enhant is two years above them. He was a third-year student.
His father is the current prime minister and one of the people he trusts. His son naturally has high hopes for the future, too. ....
“He was very interested in Miss Ulysses. He happened to see her by chance and spoke to her , but she told him she was busy at the moment and ran away.”
“Was it because he saw me? ....”
“Perhaps. I think Master Luke was not interested in pursuing you any further because I had called out to him.”
“Haaaaahhhh”, I let out a big sigh.
I can only admire Mistress Ulysses gall to improvise and turn a student who tries to talk to her into a “suspicious man”. As Elizabeth said, there are certainly some daughters who have been raised like butterflies and flowers, who are away from their families and servants for the first time in their school life, and who feel fear when they are spoken to by a stranger in a secluded place.
However, from the glimpses of her facial expressions and actions, I don’t think that Miss Ulysses is as whiny as she appears.
Still, is it possible that, following Edward, even Luke is trying to get in touch with Miss Ulysses?
I can’t believe it. ....
“.... So what’s the second thing you want to report?”
Harold looked down as I asked him the next question, wanting to hold off on this report for now.
I’m not sure if it was an angle that made it difficult to see, but the position of Harold standing in front of me as I sat down made it easier to see his expression. And his expression is as scary as if I was in a Shura field.
“The second report is.....”
“....”
An angry aura. Harold, who is in the middle of it is not moving even a little.
I’m scared.
“....It is believed that Miss Ulysses has some sort of blessing upon her. When I touched her to keep her away from His Highness Vincent, I felt something akin to love.”
“Yes..?”
I stood up, not expecting what he said to me.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“It’s an ongoing process.”
“What? It’s not Elizabeth, is it?”
“No, it is not. No, Lady Elizabeth is a very charming person, but she is not so foolish as to fall in love with the Lord’s assistant.”
Harold denied it, pushing a “bothersome” attitude toward my fretful mind.
But I had no idea that Harold was in love. Harold, who had always looked at me with an icy stare as I fell in love with Elizabeth, was in love with someone else.
I want to know who she is, but at first glance, his supposedly gentle demeanor is still like an Ashura, and I can clearly see his true intentions of “don’t talk about this any more. I will not open my mouth”. I will set up another secret spy to find out what is going on.
“I see. ....It is good. And the blessing?”
“Yes, because as soon as I touched her, feelings that were clearly not from my own emotion flowed into me.”
The crease between Harold’s eyebrows deepens even more.
I see, it’s a topic he doesn’t like to talk about, and he can’t forgive himself for having felt a crush on Miss Ulysses, even for a moment. I understand that feeling very well, Harold. I, too, would tear up my pillow in the middle of the night if I ever felt a crush on anyone other than Elizabeth, even if it was just a fleeting feeling of confusion.
“I didn’t feel anything, but it was because of....my? love for Elizabeth.”
“The royal family has a powerful “magic return” that makes them immune to any kind of magic, even if it is a blessing.”
I know that. I know that very well.
I’m afraid that if I say it out loud, the “Shura mode,” which he’s been in for a long time, will resume.
“However, I assumed from .... Edward’s appearance that this is going to be a big deal.”
The appearance of magic means that the story will never end within the scope of the plot.
Magicians are very rare, the powerful ones are ranked in the nobility by royalty, and most of the rest are in the service of high nobility. In other words, it’s an enclosure. That is also the reason why Raphael’s family is in a master-servant relationship with the royal family.
Most of the blessings, especially those that affect human emotions, are forbidden, and unless you have special permission, you are not even allowed to learn magic. The possibility that Baron Merryfield had given the blessing to Miss Ulysses out of love for her was almost impossible. A local Baroness would neither have the private funds nor the connections to do so.
If the person who gave Miss Ulysses her blessing was planning to run the real world according to the plot of the novel, his purpose would naturally be narrowed down.
The climax of the novel .... is the disqualification of either the engagement or the fall of the Duke de La Montlivre due to a broken engagement.
I am confident that this will not happen, knowing my own ardent love and Elizabeth’s innocent nature, but the son of the Knight Commander and the son of the Prime Minister have fallen for it, and the wizard’s son has jumped into the fray himself. The Crown Prince’s’s assistant also felt a love for her.
As in the plot of “Otoshi,” Miss Ulysses is already surrounded by aristocratic sons and daughters whom she would never have been able to meet in her position. In addition, the gossipy aristocrats are looking at her with curiosity in anticipation of future developments. One might say that this is a successful scheme.
And then there is the complaint from Miss Ulysses that her personal belongings are being damaged.
“Put an escort around Elizabeth.”
“Yes. As you command.”
Harold bowed his head with a stern expression on his face as if he had reached the same inference.
A story needs a villain.
But reality and stories are different.
If Miss Ulysses and whoever is behind it tries to make Elizabeth into a villain, we must smash her to the point of regretting for scheming such insolent thoughts.