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Lucretia caught her breath in secret.
As she made these active excuses, the reality that she was deceiving the imperial family under her father’s orders struck her viscerally. The accompanying guilt tormented her anew.
However, contrary to Lucretia’s complicated feelings, the response was simple.
“I do not recommend it, Your Majesty the Empress.”
A flat rejection.
Slightly flustered, Lucretia tried to hide it as she spoke.
“You don’t recommend it?”
“The hunting festival is one of the Empire’s greatest celebrations. It’s practically the face of our Empire. I believe it is not an appropriate subject for ‘practice.'”
Count Johannes added with a smooth smile.
“If you wish to organize a festival, why not start with a tea party in the Empress’s Palace garden? I understand many noblewomen are curious about Your Majesty the Empress.”
‘So the hunting festival is too much for me, and I should stay in the garden drinking tea without interfering……’
She had expected them to be wary, but she hadn’t anticipated such a blatant dismissal. Their hostility toward the puppet Empress seemed greater than she’d thought.
Count Johannes let out a heavy sigh.
“The hunting festival is an important event with numerous envoys participating from foreign countries. The Empire’s reputation may change depending on how the event proceeds that day. This is truly presumptuous to say, but I’m concerned the scale is too large for Your Majesty to handle. You haven’t had such experience yet.”
It was an even more blatant rejection.
The other Imperial Household Department officials also looked at Lucretia with hardened expressions. They all seemed to agree with Johannes.
“As for experience, I have organized banquets several times myself.”
During the year of preparing for the imperial marriage after submitting her marriage proposal to the imperial family, she had hosted several banquets at the Larenne househol under Marquis Zepher’s orders. As she spoke, recalling that time, a cold sneer flashed across Count Johannes’s lips for an instant.
“With all due respect, Your Majesty the Empress. Imperial banquets have traditions and formalities that have been upheld since ancient times.”
“……”
“They’re of a different class than the marquis household’s distinctive banquets—gaudy affairs hastily slapped together with money.”
If words had form, Johannes’s words just now would have stabbed Lucretia until she bled.
At the blatant hostility, Lucretia bit the inside of her cheek.
She was the Empress. Though Lucretia was ignorant of high society, she knew that such behavior from a count, her subordinate, was clearly disrespectful.
But rank only exerted power when there were people who respected it.
No matter how much she was the Empress, she had no backing here. She felt as if she’d been thrown into a helpless, boundless sea.
There would be limits to borrowing Marquis Zepher’s power forever. Rather, doing so would only intensify the hostility against her.
‘At this rate, I might not be able to follow Father’s orders.’
As she thought that, her chest suddenly became strangely suffocating.
An artificial sense of compulsion expanded as if to dominate her heart with a thud, thud.
“I understand the Count’s concerns. However—”
Throb.
A stabbing pain suddenly covered her chest. Her vision blurred with the agony.
“Ngh……”
“……Your Majesty?”
Lucretia barely managed to grab onto something just before collapsing. Or rather, she thought she did.
Crash!
A tremendous noise covered her ears.
Opening her eyes with difficulty, Lucretia froze in shock.
A crystal ornament had fallen to the floor and shattered. It seemed she’d caused an accident while trying to steady herself.
“Don’t move!”
Count Johannes cried out in dismay.
Then, someone’s voice pierced her ears.
“What’s this commotion?”
A low tone with an indifferent inflection.
Lucretia felt her shoulders stiffen involuntarily.
It was the Emperor.
“We greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”
“We greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”
Count Johannes and everyone else hurriedly paid their respects.
The Emperor strode toward where the crystal fragments were scattered. The aides following behind him gasped.
“Your Majesty! You mustn’t step—”
“I asked what this commotion is about.”
“Th-that is.”
At the sharp question like a drawn blade, Count Johannes bit his lips.
Lucretia swallowed, feeling dismayed. To stagger and break an ornament. When she needed to leave nothing but a good impression.
“Your Majesty, this is all my fault!”
Count Johannes suddenly cried out with a pale face.
“I didn’t realize Her Majesty the Empress would be so displeased, I merely……”
What is he talking about?
Lucretia looked at the Count in confusion.
The Count who had been looking at her with a smirking smile just moments ago was nowhere to be seen, replaced only by a young man trembling like a deer startled by gunfire.
Perhaps annoyed by the stammering, the Emperor narrowed his brow.
“Speak clearly.”
“Well, I…… Her Majesty the Empress said she would oversee the entire hunting festival, so when I said I would at least help assist her, she became enraged and……”
Count Johannes glanced sideways at the shattered crystal pieces.
It was a look accusing her that the furious Empress had thrown it to the floor.
‘What?’
Lucretia was dumbfounded.
Of course, breaking the ornament was her fault, but the Count’s words were lies in every element except that.
“The Empress said she would take full charge of the hunting festival preparations?”
The Emperor’s gaze turned to Lucretia. Lucretia hurriedly tried to explain.
“It’s true I said I wanted to be involved in the hunting festival preparations. But I never insisted on taking full control!”
“With utmost respect, Your Majesty the Emperor, Her Majesty the Empress said she would bring personnel from the marquis household and that would be sufficient, so she didn’t need our help……”
Count Johannes spoke in a frightened voice.
Lucretia literally felt the back of her head tighten.
She looked at the Count in astonishment, but couldn’t find even a trace of guilt on his smooth face. He simply looked like an innocent young man bewildered by an unexpected situation.
How can he tell such blatant lies? With so many witnesses……
But thinking that far, Lucretia soon realized.
Everyone here belonged to the Imperial Household Department. She could tell from the wary glances flickering toward her.
There was no one on her side here.
“Is the Count’s statement true? Empress.”
The Emperor asked with unreadable eyes.
She had to escape this awkward situation somehow. Lucretia hurriedly opened her mouth.
“Your Majesty. It’s true I was ambitious about being involved in the hunting festival, but I never had the slightest thought of bringing personnel from the marquis household. How could I, when it’s palace business—”
Lucretia, who had been speaking that far, suddenly stopped her lips.
Do I have the right to speak so shamelessly?
After all, her attempt to be involved in the hunting festival was because of Marquis Zepher’s orders.
Because of orders to satisfy the Marquis’s private interests.
A feeling of helplessness enveloped her body. She was used to feeling like an incompetent person, but not used to feeling like a liar.
“How could I borrow the power of a private family?”
Lucretia lowered her eyes and barely finished her words.
“Is that so. If that’s the case.”
The Emperor, who had been watching Lucretia, slowly opened his mouth.
“Then one of you is lying—either the Empress or the Count?”
Lucretia bit her rolled lips.
Would the Emperor believe her words?
The possibility was slim. The Emperor already viewed her unfavorably.
“What do you think, Empress?”
Lucretia was slightly surprised by the voice asking for her opinion first.
‘……Let’s just tell the truth.’
That was all she could do now. Even if the people of the Imperial Household Department united to deny it, she couldn’t be afraid of that and hide the truth and keep silent.
“I was scheduled to receive a handover of Imperial Household Department duties from Count Johannes. But what the Count handed over were only small tasks that attendants would normally handle.”
“Small tasks. For example?”
“Things about the bristles of garden brooms or the servants’ toilets.”
The Emperor raised one eyebrow.
The aides who followed the Emperor also showed confused expressions.
To anyone’s ears, these weren’t matters the Empress should oversee.
No matter how impure her backing was, an Empress was still an Empress.
If they really presented such trivial matters to the Empress, it was an insult to the imperial family.
The Emperor’s red gaze turned to Count Johannes. It was silent pressure asking if what he heard was true.
“Your Majesty the Empress, how could……”
Count Johannes looked at Lucretia with a face drained of color.
Looking back at the Emperor, the Count spoke in an urgent voice.
“It’s true I visited to conduct the handover with Her Majesty the Empress. However, when I tried to inform her of various palace household matters, Her Majesty……”
Count Johannes bit his lips with a troubled expression.
After a moment, he opened his mouth with a determined expression.
“Her Majesty the Empress said, ‘You handle such complicated things yourselves, and just pass on simple tasks that will save face,’ like deciding on wallpaper for the Empress’s Palace or quilt stuffing……!”
Lucretia stared blankly at Count Johannes.
‘How can he……’
Tell such thorough lies.
It was Count Johannes who had handed her documents with things like Empress’s Palace wallpaper and toilet seats written on them, saying he would conduct the handover.
The people of the Imperial Household Department who heard it together would all know that.
But now they were only bowing their heads with somber expressions behind Count Johannes. It was silent affirmation of Count Johannes’s testimony.
“Is this true, Empress?”
The Emperor’s dry voice resonated in her chest.
They say if three people agree, they can create a tiger that never existed.
With all the people of the Imperial Household Department united, she would inevitably become a liar. Unless there was evidence……
Lucretia, who had thought that far, swallowed.
‘Wait. That document.’
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