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Lucius, whom she had just been thinking about, entered the garden with a restlessly tensed attitude while unbuttoning his collar. He walked hastily, as if he was being chased, but then suddenly leaned against a concrete wall and sat down on a nearby fountain.
He looked troubled.
Before Deatrice could hurry over to where he was, she saw someone else standing in front of him.
“Are you alright?”
With her brown hair loose against the wind and donning a green dress, Deatrice instantly knew who it was just by seeing her backside.
Berry Spirt, eldest daughter of Viscount Spirt and Dixie’s ‘friend’.
“Ha.” Deatrice stopped in her tracks and smirked in irony. There were numerous people inside the people, and out of all of them, Spirt just had to be the one who discovered Lucius in his current state? This must be fate!
Spirt kindly pulled out a handkerchief, handed it to Lucius, and said.
“You don’t look well, Sir Elliott.”
Lucius shook his head as he shifted his weight from the arm that supported his body into a more upright sitting position. “I’m alright, just resting here for a while.”
Spirt asked.
“Shall I accompany you?”
Deatrice moved forward, expecting him to refuse. However, Lucius casually accepted the handkerchief presented by Miss Spirt and expressed his affirmation.
“Yes, I would be grateful. Apologies for the trouble.”
Even Spirt was surprised by his answer. Deatrice rolled her eyes and stopped walking, stood there for a moment, then proceeded to take large strides towards her destination.
Before her family’s situation deteriorated, the empress and Deatrice were quite friendly. She helped with the empress’s charity work and was her chaperone during her brief stay at Denver palace.
However, she hadn’t seen the empress since Fredhi’s death. Therefore, it’s only natural if their friendship had also disappeared. But when her presence was announced inside, the empress’s gaze resembled the gaze of that time.
Unchanged, with a sense of closeness and warmth.
“Have you been well?” The empress told her to sit down and made her forego all formalities. She noticed the ring on Deatrice’s finger that made a small clinking sound as it rubbed with another ring.
“Your face is pale.” The empress looked at Deatrice’s face with a sad smile. “You must have suffered.”
The empress beckoned to her servants and instructed them to procure medicinal herbs for her guest.
“I was so busy, I’m sorry I couldn’t call for you. You must have heard that Chante was engaged? Although she is just a niece, I regard her highly and cherish her company. When I think about her going to another country, suffering and all alone, it reminds me too much of my childhood and I cannot bear to leave her by herself.”
A wistful expression crossed her features, but she lightly shook her head and addressed Deatrice.
“Ah, enough about that. I heard you’re now married to Sir Elliott?”
Her tone was ambiguous. Deatrice couldn’t make heads or tails if she was inwardly displeased, concerned, or simply interested. She also didn’t know if the empress was aware of the emperor’s orders for her to marry Lucius in exchange for a royal pardon.
Deatrice cast her gaze downward with a somewhat stiff smile on her lips.
The empress continued, “I also heard your honeymoon was interrupted because of monsters and the like
 Oh! The medicine is here.”
A servant presented several packets of dried leaves in front of her, and other things Deatrice did not know the name of.
“It’s good for your body, make sure to consume them properly.”
She bowed.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“But weren’t you going to come with Sir Elliott?” The empress recalled that she had told them to come together. A doubt-filled gaze pinned itself on her person.
“Apologies—”
The Empress suddenly laughed when she saw Deatrice was flustered. “Is he with my husband, then?”
“
yes. He told me he had something to report to the emperor and assured me that he would come back in time, but it seems they are still not finished discussing things.”
“Hm.”
The empress reached for her tea and swirled it around her cup, however, she didn’t drink and only placed it closer to her nose before putting it back down.
Deatrice quickly noticed that the empress was a bit antsy.
There was no need to guess in circles. The empress hated Lucius because he represented people with vulgar origins climbing to high positions, especially in the government. That was something the emperor couldn’t erase even if he showered Lucius with battle achievements.
“I have no idea why my husband nurtures such seeds. Yes, he may have saved my husband’s life, but really—who wouldn’t want to save an emperor?”
The empress said such words during a large-scale gathering. Granted that it was uttered in a more private space, the news still reached Deatrice’s ears. So, the fact that the empress hates Lucius is a secret that almost everybody knows.
Perhaps the empress also had something to say about Deatrice’s relationship with Lucius. But then, she shifted the topic and droned on about her past and her soon-to-be-wedded niece.
While Deatrice was thinking of comforting words to say, Lucius arrived.
The empress had a good sense of smell, so when he entered the room, she fluttered her fan and covered her nose. Her eyebrows narrowed together to express her displeasure at the scent of blood and gunpowder emanating from Lucius’ body.
“Discussing important matters, and yet you reek the stench of hunting? You dare use my husband as an excuse to show up late?”
Hearing the empress’s rebuke, Lucius bowed his head deeply.
“Apologies for my tardiness.”
At the empress’s disapproving stare, Lucius made no further comment and stood motionless, dutifully keeping his mouth shut as if heeding her reprimands. In the end, the empress was the first to give in and beckoned the man to sit down.
“I have called you today so I can provide my counsel to the future lord of Northom.” Saying those last words, the empress cast a deliberate glance over Lucius.
Since he would be given territory to lord over, then he had to be guided in earnest. The main point was to tell him how to behave now that he was truly about to be assimilated further into the high aristocratic society.