The Princess Heads for the Garden
The Grand Duchess was headed for the garden.
It was after the waltz commotion that everyone had just witnessed had finally died down.
"I had no idea our son had such a talent for dancing."
"···."
I made a beeline for my parents, who were deep into their wine, at once. The stares of the onlookers around us were prickling enough, and I, for one, had no immunity to embarrassing remarks.
Standing there a moment longer was simply not an option.
"Dear, would you bring me another glass?"
"One moment, my lady."
Watching my mother ask for more wine and my father dutifully fetch it, a question occurred to me: in a fantasy world with no mention of fruit cultivation anywhere, how exactly did grape wine come to exist?
It wasn't as if The Crown Prince Wields a Sword had only one or two plot holes. But thinking about it any harder would just give me a headache, so I decided to let it slide.
After all, what was giving me a headache right now had nothing to do with how wine came to exist.
"······So you saw all of it?"
"It happened in the middle of the banquet hall, dear. How could I possibly have missed it?"
"···."
My face burned of its own accord. Granted, I had done it knowing full well I'd get reactions like this — but having the situation I'd only rehearsed in my head actually arrive in front of me made me want to die of embarrassment.
Having declared that she'd witnessed the whole scene, my mother then moved on to asking where Rebecca had gone.
"Where did the Grand Duchess go?"
"······I don't know."
It wasn't a lie told to dodge the situation.
Rebecca, who had been subjected to that little stunt(?) at my hands, had already bolted, her face dyed scarlet.
When my mother heard that I had no idea where the Grand Duchess had gone, she began scolding me with renewed vigor.
"If a fiancé doesn't even know where his own fiancée is, who in the world would?"
"······Mother."
"Albert. Spare me the excuses and go escort the Grand Duchess. Now."
"···."
Exasperated by my mother's endless barrage, I shot my father a look of protest —
"Your mother is quite right."
"······Father?"
"If a fiancé won't look after his fiancée, who's supposed to do it, may I ask?"
— but my father, apparently in perfect agreement with my mother, only urged me along instead of coming to my defense.
"Unless you bring the Grand Duchess back, consider yourself barred from this house tonight."
"But weren't we staying overnight here anyw—"
"No back talk."
"···."
And so I was banished by my own parents.
My search for the vanished Rebecca led me first to the Duke and Duchess of Valencia.
The banquet hall was packed with nobles, so crowds blocked every corridor and junction along the way.
"Isn't that him from earlier?"
"I think so. Lady Valencia's fiancé."
Every time snippets of conversation drifted my way, my face flared up again.
'······This is bad.'
A creeping unease filled my head — the growing certainty that I had drawn far more attention than I'd ever imagined.
If this level of whispering followed me just from walking down a hallway, then surely every original-novel character in this hall would soon know exactly who "Albert Zernias" was.
Had my reckless stunt actually bent the course of the original story?
"Lord Albert? What brings you here—"
"Duchess, do you happen to know where the Grand Duchess might be?"
"Our daughter... I'm afraid we don't know either."
"······I see."
To make matters worse, Rebecca wasn't with her own parents, the Duke and Duchess of Valencia, either.
But if there was one small mercy—
"If it's Rebecca, I'd say she went to the garden."
"The Imperial Garden... you say?"
"Yes. Whenever she wants to clear her head, she always goes to the garden."
— it was that I'd gotten advice from the one person who understood the Grand Duchess better than anyone.
A memory flickered past: not long ago, a sulking Rebecca had been found in the garden of the Zernias Count Estate.
I'd wondered back then why she'd gone to the garden of all places. I never expected to learn the reason only now.
"Thank you for telling me, Duchess."
Having at least a rough idea of Rebecca's whereabouts, I expressed my thanks to the Duchess and asked,
"Which way to the garden?"
"If you're looking for the garden for a stroll... just head that way."
With directions from a nearby attendant, I set off for the Imperial Garden.
After hearing from the Duchess that Rebecca might be in the garden, my pace quickened far beyond what it had been.
Not because I feared being barred from my own home tonight.
It was because, in the original novel, an important event took place in the Imperial Garden on the first day of the Imperial Banquet.
The event where Mikhail met the Saintess Estelle — this novel's first heroine — for the very first time.
To summarize the backstory briefly:
Estelle, the Saintess, was originally meant to arrive at the Imperial Palace on the second day of the banquet. But wanting to enjoy the festivities for herself as well, she arrived a day early with her identity concealed.
However, given the nature of the banquet, the venue was far too overwhelming for Estelle, who had lived her entire life in quiet seclusion. To settle her rattled nerves, she slipped away to rest in the garden.
As Estelle brooded over how poorly she fit in among other people, her spirits sinking lower and lower—
assassins targeting the Saintess of the Church crept closer, intending to kill her.
And then Mikhail appeared like a prince on a white horse, saved Estelle, and from that moment on, Estelle began to develop feelings for the story's protagonist.
A thoroughly common cliché.
But that utterly standard heroine event had gained a wild variable — me.
If the Duchess was right,
then Rebecca was now heading for a garden that no one but Mikhail, Estelle, and the assassins were supposed to enter.
Which meant she would wreck Estelle's heroine event and tangle the original storyline beyond repair.
After all, according to the original plot, Rebecca and the Crown Prince were supposed to meet for the first time not today, but tomorrow — the second day of the Imperial Banquet.
Determined to keep the original story from warping any further, I hurried to the garden as fast as my legs would carry me —
"······Who's there?"
"···."
— and managed, entirely without meaning to, to tangle it even worse.
Rebecca's heart was pounding as though she had some fatal illness.
The reason, as always, was her fiancé — Albert Zernias.
"Of all the ways I have seen you these past three years, my lady, you are most beautiful today."
"From your hair, so bright and lovely that I long to touch it, to your cheeks flushed with embarrassment, to eyes that hold me and me alone — down to lips that make me think of nothing but wanting to claim them. I find myself wishing I could turn this moment into a portrait and keep it for the rest of my life."
"As I always say — what on earth would you do without me?"
"Am I not right, my dearest fiancée?"
Every word her fiancé had spoken as they danced together.
Every word he'd murmured as he caught her the instant a misstep nearly sent her sprawling.
Every word he'd whispered into her ear at the end, holding her close after she'd nearly fallen.
None of it would leave her head.
She knew they were lies — pretty fabrications spun just to tease her.
They had to be the lies of that insufferable fiancé of hers, the one who so thoroughly enjoyed getting a rise out of her.
And yet.
And yet why was her heart racing like this?
It wasn't anger over losing a silly dance bet. She was far too well aware that mere irritation couldn't set her chest hammering like this — besides, the bet itself had all but slipped her mind entirely.
That was precisely why she had bolted from the dance floor at once.
Because she couldn't begin to guess what state she'd end up in if she let him keep holding her.
Because she was terrified that her fiancé might actually hear the deafening thunder of her heart.
Discarding entirely the dignity of the Valencia Grand Duchy's daughter that she always kept polished, she fled as fast as her feet would take her.
Her flight ended in the washroom.
She had the feeling that if she didn't douse her face in cold water this instant, it would quite literally burn away to nothing. So she scrubbed at it with cold water, again and again.
She didn't worry about ruining her makeup.
She used cosmetics that never ran with water — makeup that could only be removed by magic. No matter how much water she threw at her face, not a stroke of it would come off.
Come to think of it, that was strange too.
Why on earth had she put so much effort into her makeup tonight? Into dressing up so carefully?
She had always regarded the Imperial Banquet — her debutante — as nothing but a tiresome chore. She went only because, as the future Duchess of Valencia, she needed to make her formal appearance; had she a single older brother or sister to inherit the ducal seat in her place, she wouldn't have gone at all.
And yet Rebecca had adorned herself more beautifully tonight than she ever had in her life.
Lipstick she would never have touched under normal circumstances. A necklace. Even earrings, which she had never once worn for fear they'd hurt.
Not once in her life had she lavished this much care on cosmetics and finery.
Who had she wanted to show all of it to?
Could it truly have been... her fiancé?
······Impossible. It wasn't as though she liked Albert Zernias. She certainly didn't love him.
Why would she ever want to show her most beautiful self to a fiancé who was nothing but a thorn in her side?
Rebecca couldn't understand it.
She couldn't understand her own heart, her own feelings — and that left her utterly lost.
Still tangled in that confusion, she returned to where her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Valencia, were gathered.
"······Rebecca? What are you doing here? Lord Albert came by looking for you just now."
That was when she learned her fiancé had been searching for her.
"Lord Albert thinks you've gone to the garden, dear. He's headed there now."
Her mother, having relayed the news of Albert's visit, went on to tell her that he had set off for the garden —
"······Rebecca? Where are you going?"
— and Rebecca, as though bewitched, found herself walking toward the very garden Albert had gone to.
With not the faintest idea of what awaited her there.