A Mad Lady’s Confession - Chapter 60

Matthias’s cold gaze fixed on the innocent flower. He held his breath once before letting it out and spoke as if nothing were wrong.

“Are there no flowers like that in this estate? You accepted something that isn’t even particularly special.”

“All flowers are pretty. Isn’t that so? There’s no such thing as more or less.”

Eleanor looked at the single flower calmly, as if admiring its beauty.

“…There is no flower in this world that isn’t beautiful.”

For some reason, her expression as she spoke looked faintly sorrowful. Just as Matthias was about to ask what she meant, she suddenly brightened, her tone and expression changing.

“The people of Gammelstad seem very kind. To think they would give a flower to someone they’ve never even met before.”

As she smiled, was she looking at the single hydrangea, or beyond it, at the cadet whose face Matthias didn’t even know? Either way, something he had been trying to suppress began to boil over inside him.

“Eleanor. It’s true that the people of Gammelstad are kind and friendly, but you should be wary of a man who gives you a flower the first time he sees you. He’s bound to be a very bad sort.”

“…Pardon? But he was a cadet….”

“Wearing a uniform doesn’t mean he’s sane. It seems I’ll have to tighten discipline among the cadets. What exactly does he think his status is? To hand a flower to a married woman while in uniform, is he out of his mind?”

“Well… he didn’t know I had a husband.”

“Whether you have a husband or not, the fact that he didn’t consider it might make a woman uncomfortable already disqualifies him.”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable, though.”

“What?”

As his brows drew together, Eleanor shrugged and continued, “I wasn’t uncomfortable at all. If anything… it felt rather nice.”

“What?”

“He didn’t seem to have any bad intentions. He just politely introduced himself and gave me a single hydrangea I’d been looking at for a while. He didn’t ask for anything or try to keep me there… anyway, he seemed like quite a good person.”

Rather than attaching any special meaning to it, Eleanor thought of it as a pleasant little incident that could happen. Like buying candy for a child passing by, or sharing a hair tie with a girl your age because she looked cute.

But to Matthias, Eleanor’s words ‘a good person’ sounded different. For some reason, a sense of unease rose in him.

“Eleanor, are you in your right mind?”

“…Are you pointing out that I’m not in my right mind right now?”

“No, that’s not what I meant….”

Matthias let out a low sigh and ran a hand through his hair. Attacking her sanity. Before he ran out of things to say, he forced a casual smile.

“I mean, calling someone ‘a good person’ over a single flower… that’s far too naive. Don’t go around saying things like that. It makes you look immature.”

Don’t smile like that over such a cheap flower. And don’t praise another man. He could have simply said that, but even he didn’t understand what he truly wanted to say.

And being a noble himself, he was used to speaking in roundabout ways.

“Then again, you are still at an age where something like a single flower can make your heart flutter.”

“….”

“But always be careful. Your judgment of people is still immature. From now on, it would be better if you went out with me whenever possible. It would be troublesome if you got caught up in something strange.”

He even thought it might be a good idea to have her practice keeping a more guarded expression so people wouldn’t approach her so easily.

Eleanor had the feel of a rare wildflower growing by the roadside, something that made anyone passing by want to glance at it and reach out to touch it. That thought made him angry again.

“Eleanor, what was that cadet’s name?”

Yes, all it would take was making an example of one person.

“…I won’t tell you.”

“What?”

“I don’t want a single flower given in kindness to turn into a punishment. I won’t tell you.”

“Eleanor.”

“I’m not sorry for not telling you, but… I’m still sorry anyway. It’s just that I’m still at an age where things like that make my heart flutter.”

“…It made your heart flutter?”

“Yes, of course. It’s the first time a man has given me a flower!”

The first time? Have I never given you even a single flower?

He was about to speak, but the words caught in his throat. Thinking back, that was true. Not once had he given Eleanor anything resembling a flower.

On the day they first met, the bouquet Mrs. Nella had told him to take was also a hydrangea like that. What had he done with it then?

“Everyone seems to have great fantasies about this marriage. A shame I don’t share them.”

He had said that and turned away.

Eleanor couldn’t understand why Matthias was reacting like this. It was only a single flower given out of kindness.

“Do you really need to twist someone’s goodwill like that? …Anyone can receive something like that, can’t they?”

Eleanor spoke words he couldn’t quite understand, and somehow she looked faintly sorrowful.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. How had it ended up like this? Matthias let out a low sigh. In any case, Eleanor was in a weakened state, both physically and mentally, and he shouldn’t be acting like this.

This was all because of that single flower. He cast a cold glance at the fresh, oblivious hydrangea and continued, “…Fine. Then I’ll have a maid come and take that away. The scent isn’t suitable for a bedroom.”

If it was removed from his sight, that would be enough. It was just a flower, after all.

“Then you can sleep in another bedroom.”

“…What?”

In the capital residence and here in Solvikviche, the two of them had naturally slept in the same bed all along.

It had begun under the pretext of taking care of Eleanor, but by now Matthias had already grown accustomed to it. He never imagined he would be driven out over a single flower.

Eleanor delivered the final blow to the unusually stunned Matthias.

“I wish I were eight years older than you. …Then I wouldn’t act childish and throw my age around like this.”

“…Ha.”

Letting out a breath of disbelief changed nothing. That night, Matthias was driven out to the study.

***

Clatter—glass shattered and fragments scattered in all directions. Lady Ullaby, Daphne’s maid, quickly dismissed the attendants. A shrill, agitated voice rang sharply through the room.

“How could he do that? How could he treat me like this!”

Daphne threw whatever she could grab against the wall. Another fine saucer lost its shape and rolled across the floor in broken pieces.

“Your Highness, please calm yourself for a moment.”

“Ha… haa… ha….”

Her heart pounded wildly. Ever since she heard that Matthias had taken that woman with him and left for Gammelstad, his territory, it had not stopped.

Daphne clutched at the fabric over her chest. It felt as if her blood were surging upward.

“Won’t you take me to the sea of Gammelstad?”

She clearly remembered the look on Matthias’s face when she had asked him that.

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to say, Your Highness.”

She had thought he still had feelings for her. The Matthias Nielsen she knew was different from the other men of Römern. At the very least, she believed he would fulfill his role for a year, even if it was only a marriage in name.

But this was different. It went beyond what could be explained as merely keeping a promise.

Memories she had once dismissed began to connect in her mind all at once, forming a single line. The conclusion at the end of it darkened her vision completely.

“No… it can’t be. That’s impossible… there’s no way… why would he, for someone like that… just….”

She loved Matthias.

It was a realization that came too late, but Daphne could no longer deny it.

If she could return to the past, to the time when her mother became the Emperor’s mistress and eventually took the Empress’s place….

Even then, she would still break off the engagement. That had never been something within her control to begin with.

But even after drifting apart once, she believed fate had continued to work in her favor. She had placed that woman by his side for the time being to assist the Crown Prince, but she had thought it would instead become an opportunity to bring Matthias back to her. After all, people shine brighter and seem more valuable when there is someone to compare them to.

She had thought that once he grew weary of a woman who wasn’t in her right mind, if she comforted him and approached him, he would accept her. That he would be able to open his heart to her, ignoring something as trivial as a familial relationship that existed only on paper.

If that happened, she believed she would be able to seize both the position of princess and the role of Matthias’s lover at once.

“Ha… something like tha…. A woman like that….”

Like her mother, Daphne knew well that she was greedy. But what of it?

If something could be taken, then it should be taken. Even if it couldn’t be taken easily, one should try everything to grasp it.

She could not simply sit here and lose something that had once completely belonged to her.

“…Bring that person here.”

“…Yes, Your Highness.”

Lady Ullaby, who had been about to say something, saw the sharp, dangerous glint in Daphne’s eyes and obediently left the room.

“…I’ll take it back. I’ll bring it all back myself….”

To catch a rabbit, you have to smoke out its burrow. So you can grab it when it tries to flee.

Only then did Daphne begin to smile.