| 3. A Choice Without Regrets

Daphne finished her reminiscence and entered the banquet hall, untying the ribbon of her bonnet.

‘It was a choice without regrets.’

In Secradion, where the entire diplomatic season was summer, the Beaucater mansion was famous for its beautiful entirety.

Though called a mansion, it was no less luxurious than the summer palace. The king would visit at the right time and spend a few nights enjoying whiskey and gambling with his friend, Daphne’s father.

‘Daphne’s room’ is further back from the main building, a bit more inside, bordering the vast rose garden. The large bedroom, boldly created by combining two floors, would brighten with sunlight reflected from the Angel River in the morning.

The multiple layers of blue chiffon curtains hanging from the high ceiling would shimmer like an aurora when hit by light.

And now…

‘Like a masterpiece painting.’

His fine golden hair fluttered in the river breeze coming through the open window. Still seeming sleepy, he rested his chin on his hand, elbow on the table, languidly blinking while half-heartedly eating salad.

‘How did he manage to boast about killing my uncle when he’s so lazy?’

He even succeeded in the ‘original work’. Though in the very next scene, it was his turn to fall readily into the trap set by Psyche.

‘Now those things will never happen, so I’m relieved.’

Daphne had briefly returned to the mansion for their lunch appointment. They sat at opposite ends of the long dining table.

“Boss, I don’t think I can support your new love after all.”

Misha, Daphne’s secretary, sat to her left, openly complaining.

When Celestian was brought in, the servants of ‘Daphne’s room’ each hid a revolver or dagger behind their backs, wondering how to deal with the rebellious prince if he caused trouble.

“Why? What did he do? Did he hit someone? Kisha, is he hurt?”

The secretary struggled not to curse in front of his employer. Daphne seemed to be secretly hoping he had caused trouble.

“Unfortunately, he’s been well-behaved.”

For three days, the prince who devoured an entire calf as soon as he woke up was, like the secretary said, was relatively well-behaved. He just wandered around as if this place was his home while Daphne was away.

It was a bit disappointing not to have seen that cute sight due to being busy with the crown prince’s wedding preparations.

“I made some promises.”

“What kind of promises?”

Daphne smiled mischievously.

‘An indirect kiss with Psyche…?’

Misha grimaced at that expression. And deliberately didn’t ask more about that story.

“I wish you hadn’t broken off the engagement with His Highness the Crown Prince. Prince Romeo is a person who pursues peace. Looking at the past, present, and even the future, he was quite a good match.”

“What?”

Daphne doubted her ears at the words ‘pursues peace’.

Who on earth pursues peace? The guy who tried to set fire to Daphne’s red hair when they were young, saying it was like a fuse?

‘Or the bastard who threw a wild party with people he invited, claiming to celebrate my hotel’s opening day?’

Daphne couldn’t hide her sour expression. Remembering her ill-mannered cousin made her mood worse. The rabbit-like Psyche also came to mind. She felt increasingly complicated.

“As you know, boss, treason is punishable by death. Please reconsider.”

“Your words are right, but the charge is wrong. So his treatment should be different too.”

Daphne rested her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. And looked at Celestian with sparkling eyes.

“What do you mean?”

Misha was secretly expectant.

“The crime of being too handsome. I think public display would be more fitting as my verdict. So people in the royal palace can admire Cele’s beauty.”

Would we make some money if we charge admission?

At her employer’s additional comment, Misha’s face turned pale. He nervously took off his rimless glasses and stood up.

“I’m really quitting. I wasn’t grateful all this time.”

“See you later~”

Misha left the banquet hall with those words. Despite that, he would head straight to the office. Daphne waved him off half-heartedly.

Then she looked at the prince struggling with the kale salad. He was pouting his red lower lip, seemingly concentrating on trying to pick up corn with his fork.

Daphne was satisfied with this quite peaceful afternoon.

―Act pitiful in front of the defense team no matter what.
―Am I pitiful?
―Well, aren’t you?
―If I survive alone, wouldn’t it look a bit off?
―Hey. You’ve already survived alone.
―That’s certainly true.

A few days ago in the royal court, Celestian pondered for a very brief moment, then nodded and acted according to the script Daphne had prepared.

―I don’t know why this happened. This time, it really wasn’t something I did.

He lowered the ends of his eyebrows and made a sad face with his handsome features, claiming he had nothing to do with the rebellion and was just framed while hanging out with close soldier friends.

Daphne provided his alibi, crying and wailing.

<We were together!>

<Teriosa: It’s just a false accusation, I’m not related to the rebellion…>

<The Red Rose of Beaucater, Daphne, sobs at royal trial asserting Prince Celestian’s innocence.>

Daphne’s love, our arrogant half-prince, acted as if wondering when he had ever plotted rebellion, like a lizard caught by the scruff of its neck. With his pretty lips, he had cut off all his own limbs.

<The villainess who saved the traitor, actually a love goddess riding the chariot of salvation?>

To restore his reputation from ‘traitor’ to ‘a prince with half royal blood flowing through his veins’, Daphne bribed a huge newspaper company that distributed news beyond the kingdom to the continent. She even decorated the front page with headlines of her choosing.

‘How cute.’

A villain role not even worth calling a sub. The bastard in charge of ‘that bastard’ in ‘when will that bastard die already’.

After watching him for a few days, he didn’t seem particularly nasty or lecherous.

“Beaucater, it’s hot.”

Rather, he was extremely lazy. And he found it bothersome to wake up in the morning, and even to eat if there was no meat!

“If you’re hot, take it off.”

It was an answer she said added with a lot of personal interest.

“You’re still so short with your words.”

Celestian clicked his tongue once.

Daphne was quick-tempered but quite patient.

She had lived for years just waiting for the day he would climb the scaffold, waiting for the day he would safely be in her hands.

It wasn’t a lie that he was hot; when he brushed back his golden thread-like hair, his forehead was beaded with sweat.

With the sunlit window behind him, he looked breathtakingly beautiful like a scene from a painting.

Through the three unbuttoned front of his shirt, his smooth, well-defined collarbone and deeply carved chest muscles were visible. But the exposed scar on his neck inevitably made one’s heart ache.

“What are you doing.”

Until last week, he was a rebel rolling in the mud. After washing him and letting him sleep well, he quickly returned to being the prince who swept through the ballroom as the king’s marionette.

‘I’m dizzy with joy…’

What stopped Daphne from indulging in sentiment with the back of her hand on her forehead was Celestian.

“Come and fan me, Beaucater.”

Daphne chuckled, deflated. She got up from her seat and slowly approached him, looking down at him.

‘I saved this man from death.’

Every time that pretty face smiled brightly, she felt a sense of accomplishment.

This man was Daphne’s goal and trophy for the past two years, during which she had ruthlessly increased her wealth and assets.

The man who claimed love despite massacring Psyche’s family and relatives, with the boldness to even plot rebellion saying he would stop at nothing for love.

The only object of hatred for the female protagonist who was as warm as sunshine!

“Tell me your name.”

He still had his hand on his cheek, and with his other hand, he reached out and wrapped a handful of Daphne’s red hair. Daphne snorted at his intentional action of affectionately making eye contact and replied,

“None of your business?”

“Noneofyourbusiness. What a pretty name.”

“No, I meant it’s none of your business.”

Perhaps because he had acted out fainting after crying and wailing about love in the courtroom, he didn’t ask Daphne why she had saved him.

He seemed to firmly believe that she really loved him since she called him ‘my love’ and treated him like a wonderful prince.

Yet Celestian would write a letter full of romance and love to Psyche again today. Daphne was willing to deliver that letter directly.

‘After reading it once in between, of course.’

How passionate would it be? Daphne barely suppressed her fluttering heart.

“Beaucater.”

“Yes?”

“You have no intention of getting back together with my brother, right?”

Daphne stared at him. She tilted her head soon after.

‘What the hell is this nonsense.’

In that sentence, ‘brother’ must mean Romeo.

“He and I are cousins.”

“Did you think I didn’t know that?”

“You didn’t know until last week.”

Since Psyche was probably the only thing in this man’s small head when it came to women, Daphne could fully understand his inability to match her name and face.

‘But how can he not know my name? Am I that unpopular?’

Daphne could bet three million rions right now that her name was engraved even in the short one-line newspapers that children in the royal city were scattering around.

“You’d be an idiot not to know me in Secradion, Your Highness.”

“I admit it.”

Celestian gently closed his eyes and admitted.

‘Did he just admit that he’s an idiot?’

Daphne almost burst out laughing.

“But I’m a foreigner, so I don’t know well, Miss Beaucater.”

The red lips that slightly protruded when pronouncing Daphne’s surname. Beautiful features that would make a hibiscus wilt if you put a bright red one behind his ear.

‘Wow. Does he live without even reading newspapers?’

“Hmm… But you know that you tormented Denver, saying you wanted to be Romeo’s consort?”

It was a teasing tone. The pureblooded conservatives who wanted to kill the traitor were camped in the capital, so he was confined at home, but it seems he read some derivative gossip like <Secradion’s Villainess, Unrequited Love for Her Cousin.>

“You don’t need to brief me. That love is over now.”

Daphne politely declined his teasing with a raised hand.

There would be no crumbs left for the prince of an already discarded role if he tried to cheer for Daphne’s false love on a stage where the curtain had fallen!

“Beaucater.”

Her gaze kept going to his lips. Daphne scratched her neck and turned her eyes to the Angel River where the sunlight was sparkling outside the window, then answered.

“Yes, Cele.”

“I think you’d suit being the Crown Princess. You seem quite suitable with your ambition, kindness, and intelligence. Will you think about it once more?”

He evaluated Daphne with his hand on his chin.

‘He might like ambitious women, but would he want to marry someone who’s practically like an older sister?’

Daphne looked back at the man uttering incomprehensible words. Her beloved villain was wearing quite a serious expression.

“Why, do you think Psyche will come to you if I end up with Romeo?”

He hesitated for a moment, then smiled faintly, lowered his head, and needlessly picked up a dessert fork to poke and burst grape berries. It seems she hit the nail on the head.

“I have no interest in being a queen or something like that.”

The other day, when the female protagonist read in the newspaper that Celestian hadn’t died and his execution was indefinitely postponed, she glared at Daphne with a bright red face.

It was a bewildering expression that Daphne had never seen even when she was doing her worst acts as a villainess. She tried to soothe her, saying she would explain later, but the female protagonist, biting her lower lip hard, just repeated that she didn’t understand and returned to the palace.

“Idiot. You don’t deserve to eat. Starve.”

She overturned the plate he was eating from with her index finger. The lightly tossed plate hit the floor with a sharp sound.

“I was just getting tired of it anyway.”

Celestian looked at the broken fragments with a regretful expression and dusted off his large hand once.

“Then I’ll ask a different question.”

Just as Daphne was about to tell him to just shut up.

“Why don’t you sleep with me?”