The Grand Duchess Was Drunk
The Grand Duchess was drunk.
Up close, Rebecca's condition was far worse than it had appeared from a distance.
"......Heh."
"......"
There was no room for excuses — she was unmistakably, completely wasted.
Her face was flushed a deep scarlet, an even more extreme version of the look she wore whenever she was embarrassed, and her legs trembled and wobbled beneath her, making it abundantly clear that Rebecca was in no way in a normal state right now. I honestly marveled at how much alcohol a person would have to drink to end up like this.
"......What exactly happened here?"
Unable to make heads or tails of the situation, I turned to Mikhail, who stood beside her. By imperial law, anyone who had not yet undergone their coming-of-age ceremony was forbidden from drinking alcohol alone. What on earth had the Crown Prince of this empire been doing while a pre-debutante young lady drank herself under the table?
"......I have no defense. This one's on me."
Mikhail admitted his fault so cleanly, so outright, that it was I who found myself at a loss for words.
"The Valencia girl was all alone, so I kept her company for a bit of conversation. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the drink she fetched for herself would be alcohol."
"......"
"Don't glare at me like that. In a sense, I'm a victim here too."
Only after hearing that did I finally take a proper look — and sure enough, the Crown Prince's face was slightly flushed as well. The textbook complexion of someone a little tipsy. Judging by all the circumstances laid bare before me, Mikhail had clearly drunk the liquor Rebecca had brought over without a second thought.
"......I apologize, Your Highness."
The one who owed an apology here wasn't Mikhail. It was me. Looking at the situation as it stood, the Crown Prince had merely lent an ear to a lonely Rebecca, and had merely drunk a beverage she handed over without thinking anything of it. At this point in time, not only Rebecca and I but Mikhail himself had yet to undergo his coming-of-age ceremony. The true victim here was the Crown Prince.
"Think nothing of it. As I said before, I accepted and drank that drink thoughtlessly myself, so the fault is partly mine. No need to apologize."
Fortunately, the Crown Prince waved his hand, insisting I owed him nothing, and only then was I able to let out a small, quiet sigh of relief.
I had gotten the sole Crown Prince of the Empire — the heir to the imperial throne — to drink alcohol. Could there possibly be a greater disaster one could cause?
'......Surely not.'
It was probably impossible. This alone was already an unforgivable blunder. And yet, the creeping sense of unease refused to leave me.
"Surely she didn't say anything rude to you, Your Highness...?"
I asked Mikhail carefully.
"The Valencia girl has been treating me with less than perfect courtesy for far longer than a day or two. I couldn't care less about that. Let it go."
"......"
Unfortunately, his answer confirmed that my premonition was at least partially correct. The little menace of a Grand Duchess seemed to have caused a far bigger disaster than I'd imagined. My gloomy predictions had never once been wrong.
"Ah. You wretched brat."
"......"
Rebecca, who until this very moment had been too deep in her cups to gather her wits, seemed to have only now noticed my presence.
"Abandoning your fiancée in the banquet hall and running off... You awful, awful man."
Coming from her, the words practically wrung a sigh out of me on their own.
"......I believe I owe you another apology after all. My apologies."
Mikhail looked every bit as dumbfounded by this turn of events as I was. He had gone so far as to drink unplanned liquor just to keep a lonely young lady company — and not only had she been rude to him, she was now firing off remarks like that at the very fiancé he'd gone out of his way to bring back to her. I could easily imagine exactly how absurd the whole thing must have seemed to him.
"There's a rest lounge where guests can recover and collect themselves. In my judgment, the wisest course is to take the girl there."
"......Really, Your Highness?"
"Of course. Chamberlain!"
Mikhail's shout was low, yet it rang out clearly even across the distance, and at his call, a man who appeared to be the head chamberlain approached us.
"Guide these guests to one of the vacant rest lounges."
"At once, Your Highness."
"......Thank you, Your Highness."
Nothing but genuine gratitude came out of my mouth. From the Crown Prince's standpoint, this whole affair must have felt like a bolt from the blue — and rather than blame Rebecca for making him drink, he was arranging for her and me to have a place to rest for a while. It seemed I would have to do some soul-searching about all the years I'd read the original novel and thought ill of its protagonist, Mikhail.
"However — if you are feeling grateful, know that I shall be reducing the amount of compensation money slated to be sent to House Zernias and Ducal House Valencia."
"......"
Until that very moment, I had been on the verge of hearing the most shameless words in the world. Mikhail, with a perfectly straight face, was announcing that gratitude would be rewarded with a pay cut.
"No complaints, I trust?"
"......"
Drunk or not, a Crown Prince was still a Crown Prince.
"Here we are, my lord."
"Thank you for guiding us."
"Not at all. Please make yourselves comfortable and return whenever you're ready."
The rest lounge to which the head chamberlain had led us was far more spacious than I'd expected. At this level, it was less a rest lounge and more a private chamber worthy of any ordinary noble — one could comfortably live out the rest of one's days in here, so long as meals arrived on time.
"......Heeoh."
Thump.
I laid Rebecca down on the bed first, since she was still too drunk to gather her senses. By some means or another, I had managed to half-carry the Grand Duchess all the way to the lounge — but the problems were far from over.
"......Now what."
The problem of what, exactly, to do with the drunkard of a Grand Duchess sprawled across the bed.
My first thought was to fetch the Duchess of Valencia, or perhaps the Duke himself. But the banquet had not yet ended, so summoning Rebecca's parents to this place was out of the question. And more importantly—
"Rebecca? Is that true, my son?"
"......"
"Where are you right now? Tell me this instant."
The Duchess of Valencia doted on teasing her daughter more than anyone alive. If word of this reached her ears, I had no doubt it would give birth to an embarrassing episode in my fiancée's history that would never be forgotten for the rest of her life.
"......Let's not."
For Rebecca's sake as much as my own, I decided to shelve option one.
With option one derailed by practical(?) concerns, I began brainstorming alternatives. The second plan I came up with was this: to search the rest lounge for the hangover remedies that were surely stocked there.
This was hardly the first imperial banquet ever held, and Rebecca was hardly the first person to end up in such a state. There had certainly been other nobles who drank themselves into a stupor and retreated to these lounges to recover. The imperial palace, whose preparedness had to be flawless at all times, could not possibly have failed to make provisions for exactly these sorts of people.
"This one, perhaps."
True to my expectations, the cabinet in the rest lounge held a surprising abundance of hangover remedies. My own parents, Count and Countess Zernias, were fond of their drink as well, so I recognized most of the bottles from having seen them around the house many times. I picked out the one that looked most familiar, fetched a cup of cold water to help her come to her senses, and carried both back to Rebecca's side.
"......Ughh."
Even after I'd gone off to find things that might help her, the Grand Duchess remained sprawled out, dead to the world.
The contrast was stark — the dignified ducal heiress who always maintained such immaculate poise, and Rebecca now, rumpled and disheveled as could be. I tried to hold it in, truly I did, but the laughter burst out of me anyway.
"......Pfft."
It was true that I'd harbored the hope of getting to see a side of Rebecca I'd never witnessed before. But never in my wildest dreams had I imagined it would be a sight this thoroughly undone. The other readers who, like me, had read The Crown Prince Wields a Sword probably couldn't even conceive of their munchkin Grand Duchess looking like this. To that 'Rebecca Valencia' who was so perfect in every single respect that she seemed less human than machine — who could possibly have predicted such a blissfully slack, utterly adorable, cat-like state?
Perhaps my laughter had simply been too loud.
"......What's so funny."
The fallen Rebecca snapped at me, demanding to know what exactly I found so amusing. She still hadn't shaken off the drink, judging by the dazed, half-in-half-out-of-dreams look on her face.
"Leaving your fiancée behind... enjoying the banquet all by yourself... and what's so funny about that?"
"......I didn't exactly enjoy myself, I assure you."
That much was true. Knowing no one there, I had been picking listlessly at the banquet food all alone until Isabella Bluebell so unexpectedly appeared. The Grand Duchess's accusation made no sense at all.
"What do you mean you didn't enjoy yourself? I saw you... chatting away so happily with Lady Bluebell..."
"......You know Lady Bluebell?"
Truthfully, I was less surprised that Rebecca had seen me talking with Isabella, and more surprised that Rebecca knew who Isabella was at all. According to the original novel, the two ducal heiresses — Rebecca and Isabella — were supposed to be meeting each other for the very first time today. It was terrifying to even contemplate just how badly the original story's flow had been derailed.
"Why would I not know her? Bluebell... a ducal heiress."
"I hadn't realized you took an interest in other noble houses, my lady."
"Do you have any idea how much... studying I've done?"
At my words, Rebecca pushed out her lips in an unmistakable pout. Whether she was sulking because her fiancé — me — had failed to appreciate her efforts, or sulking because I'd gone off chatting with another woman while leaving her behind, I couldn't tell. But one thing was certain.
"Anyway... don't change the subject."
"......"
Three undeniable facts: my thoroughly drunk fiancée was thoroughly sulking at me. She was demanding an answer from me. And I had the strangest sensation that I had lived through this exact situation before.