The Prince and the Prince (1)
My accidentally blurted profanity sent a hush rolling across the banquet hall in an instant.
Even judged purely on the surface, this was a noble lady cursing out an imperial prince to his face. And to the onlookers who knew I was nothing more than the daughter of a mere baron, it amounted to a public declaration of suicide.
Well, fuck me, then.
I had a perfectly reasonable response all lined up in my head, but the moment my mouth opened, the words shot out on pure reflex. No—really, what was I supposed to do when something was just that biologically repulsive?
That shameless blond face, so confident in its own beauty that it didn't even bother hiding its gaze as it openly slid down to my chest—that two-faced bastard, running his playboy routine on noble ladies while playing the sweet gentleman on top of it. Of course nothing polite was going to come out.
If only McHart alone had heard it, I might have somehow brazened my way through with a smooth non-answer. Unfortunately, the words that had escaped me in that instant were not exactly quiet, so at the very least, the ears of the extra noble ladies trailing behind this slimy prince had definitely caught every syllable.
"H-how dare you…! Did you just curse His Highness Prince McHart?!"
"How could you! Did you really think a pretty face would buy you forgiveness for anything?!"
"Just because your chest is a little large, you think that gives you the right to spew such insolence?!"
God, seriously.
Being stuck face-to-face with that greasy blond was bad enough, but having his pack of female lackeys pile on with a jab apiece made my blood boil all over again. And why did everyone—man and woman alike—feel the need to comment on other people's physical features? Who the hell did they think wanted to transmigrate into a character with a chest this big?
I barely suppressed the urge to reach for the dagger strapped beneath my skirt and quietly waited for McHart's response. Granted, the ugliness of the atmosphere was technically my fault for fumbling my opening line, but the man in front of me was, after all, the undisputed villain of Luminor Academy.
This was the sort of guy who wouldn't have found it strange to draw his sword on the spot shouting blasphemy and treason against the imperial family, so I kept my guard up, ready to respond to any threat at any moment.
"Quite the audacious young lady, aren't you?"
"……Pardon?"
"My apologies. If my lack of talent for capturing a lady's heart has offended you, then I humbly beg your forgiveness. Excuse me."
"Ah—yes…."
Contrary to all my caution, McHart withdrew from the conversation with an expression so breezy it was almost refreshing. He extricated himself so smoothly that I never even got a chance to apologize for my slip of the tongue.
"Y-you there! Just because your face is halfway decent, how dare you be so—w-wait, Lord McHart!"
"Your Highness, why would you bow your head to a woman like that…?"
And then, as if that weren't enough, the pack of noble ladies who'd been glaring daggers at me only moments ago filed away after him and vanished. I stood there on the right, utterly baffled as to what had just happened, when Ethan spoke up beside me.
"You okay, Lily?"
"Ah, Ed. Yes, I'm… I'm fine, for the most part."
"It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. That lecher—I mean, His Highness McHart over there was the one who started it."
Ethan was actually defending my side of things, using some fairly strong words for a man addressing an imperial prince. Well, strictly speaking, it was true that the other party had started it.
Approaching a woman rather than her male partner when everyone could plainly see she was spoken for. That lecherous stare, not even pretending to look away, boring brazenly into my chest. Any ordinary noble scion who pulled that kind of stunt in high society would get devoured by the gossip mills behind his back.
The only reason the noble ladies had never voiced their complaints about 'McHart' was that his face and his bloodline kept propping him up. If anything, half the women he leered at would probably strip off their dresses and offer him a peek at what lay beneath.
But even setting all that aside, the fact remained that I was the one in the greater wrong for unleashing a string of curses in front of an imperial prince.
"I agree with what Ed is saying, but this was definitely my mistake."
"Huh?"
"I had a perfectly proper answer ready. I just got so flustered that something else came tumbling out instead. I'll have to offer Prince McHart a formal apology later."
"Something else came out… wait, you didn't actually mean what you said?"
"No, it's true that I found him repulsive. But no matter how true something is, actually spitting it out of your mouth is a sin in its own right."
"…Then I'm satisfied, Lily."
For some reason, the moment I said I'd felt disgusted, Ethan's expression eased into something like relief. Seeing him like that, I could finally guess where all that earlier anxiety had come from, so I smiled faintly and asked:
"What's the matter, Ed? Did you think I might have developed some strange feelings for that man?"
"……."
"You don't have to worry. As I've told you before, I've never once considered dating or marrying any man who isn't you."
"Th-that's… right. I'm sorry for thinking something weird, Lily…."
My temporary lover was clearly keeping me in check, worried I might have developed feelings for McHart—and teasing him about it was strangely, deliciously fun.
Fun enough that for a moment or two, I actually managed to forget I needed to figure out how to handle the profanity I'd hurled at the prince.
"I mean, honestly. Do I look like the type to fall for some virtueless man who drags a whole line of women around behind him? Just because he's handsome, he goes around spouting that vomit-inducing nonsense and calling it seduction—one wrong move and I nearly gagged…."
But my window for teasing Ethan didn't last nearly as long as I'd hoped, because two shadows came rushing toward me from a little ways off across the hall.
"H-hey! Are you out of your mind?!"
"Ah, Lady Agnes."
"What on earth were you thinking, saying something like that?! Do you have any idea where he ranks in the succession?! N-no wait, forget the succession—how do you say that to a member of the imperial family, period?!"
"…Yeah, no argument there. It just slipped out."
"Like that's going to fix anything?!"
Agnes seized my shoulders with an expression of deadly seriousness and started shaking me. Maybe it was some imbalance in our center of gravity, but somehow it felt like she was the one doing most of the wobbling.
But what could I do? The water was already spilled, and so were the words.
A short while later, another figure approached me—one who, unlike Agnes, who had come sprinting over with her noble-bred manners tossed clean out the window, sauntered up unhurriedly behind her and spoke with careful deliberation.
"Lady Lilith, whatever possessed you to make such a dangerous remark…?"
"…I apologize, Princess Seraphin."
"Of course, my fourth brother is, admittedly, quite… partial to women. But still, saying it—cursing at him to his face—I can't help feeling that was a touch reckless, no?"
"…It was a mistake. I had intended to offer an ordinary greeting, but it just slipped out before I knew it…."
"…I'm not particularly fond of how McHart carries himself either, you see. It isn't as though I can't understand how you felt, Lady Lilith…."
Seraphin reacted to my disrespectful words toward the imperial family with visible concern. And yet, for all her worry, she was surprisingly matter-of-fact about joining in the criticism of her own brother.
It was a moment that reminded me, once again, that the imperial House of Valtoria was a household at war with itself—apparently even blood ties between siblings counted for very little there.
To be fair, there had been a time when even the imperial children maintained at least the outward appearance of cordial relations. But ever since the death of Crown Prince Philipson, the first prince, the imperial family had all but splintered apart entirely.
And the imperial family member who had a hand in that first prince's death was McHart right there.
The fact that the first prince had been a poor vessel for the next emperor hardly mattered. What mattered was that his death had ignited a fracture within the imperial house. And McHart's rumored ties to the demons left no room whatsoever for leniency.
Viewed through that lens, my behavior just now might actually have been the wiser course. If I'd carelessly entangled myself with him, the only possible ending was to be dragged down into ruin together.
Far better, perhaps, to cut him off cleanly than to leave the door half-open and keep twisting in the wind. Besides, McHart himself was so hopelessly absorbed in his womanizing that he'd never assembled any real faction beyond the blind noble girls who fawned over him—politically speaking, he simply wasn't much of a threat.
"Forgive me for saying so, but I judge Lilith's decision to be the correct one, Princess Seraphin. Prince or not, I can't say I look kindly on a man who brazenly approaches my fiancée… right in front of my eyes."
"…I'm not reproaching anyone, truly. I only hope you'll refrain from such dangerous behavior in the future. McHart himself is hardly a threatening man, but should Lady Lilith show this same attitude toward any of my other siblings, even I would find it difficult to protect her. That's all—it was simple worry."
"…I—I don't think Lilith was entirely wrong, either. I hate that guy too."
Perhaps because of my outburst, the group had somehow gathered under the banner of a distinctly 'Anti-McHart Coalition.' Which made sense—in the original story, Agnes and Seraphin hadn't cared much for the fourth prince either.
"Thank you for your concern, Princess Seraphin. I'll be more careful going forward."
"…Very well. Please do take care, Lady Lilith."
With McHart and his flock of noble ladies disappearing toward the far side of the banquet hall, and a rattled Agnes and Seraphin returning on foot to where Gehmajoshigi-gwat and Serista stood, the banquet somehow managed to settle back into peaceful proceedings—
Which meant that, in the end, the profanity I'd hurled at McHart was reduced to a mere passing anecdote not long after.
…Because once the banquet proper began, an incident erupted that was about to make far, far more noise than I ever had.