Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Empire's Rose
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The Empire's Rose.
The nickname and endearment by which people called Princess Raphaelle.
Beth gazed into the princess's blue eyes before her and had to admit the moniker fit perfectly.
A sharp thorn that beauty couldn't hide pierced through her petal-soft voice. The princess's eyes gleamed with hostility as she clutched the necklace key like she'd caught her prey.
Beth's hand struck the princess's away without mercy.
"Ha."
Raphaelle glared at her rejected hand with an expression of utter disbelief. If anyone other than Aines had witnessed the scene, Beth might have faced severe reprimand.
Beth's hand enveloped the key completely, shielding it from Raphaelle's gaze. Her dark, steadfast eyes showed no regret for her actions.
If anything, the look in her eyes seemed to scold Raphaelle, twisting the princess's red lips once more.
"I only asked because it suits you."
Raphaelle took a step back from Beth.
She composed herself demurely. Vulgar wench.
It was humiliating to feel jealousy toward a girl like that.
A penniless commoner receiving such an expensive necklace? It was obvious. Either as payment for being some old noble's mistress, or a token of illicit love with an officer she'd locked eyes with on the battlefield.
"Raphaelle..."
Raphaelle gave Aines, who looked worried, a gentle smile. No matter how close a friend, she couldn't let herself look ugly in front of someone beneath her.
"Beth's skin is so fair; it suits the necklace better, don't you think?"
"Y-yeah. You're right. It looks great. Pretty on you, Beth."
Aines hurriedly agreed, trying to diffuse the awkward atmosphere. But her efforts were in vain; the tension didn't ease.
Raphaelle tilted her head. Her golden hair swayed in the air along the slant of her shoulder. Even as she turned her head, the wench in her view didn't lower her steadfast gaze.
It didn't matter that Dever didn't love her. She could do without it.
She'd endured Dever treating her like a roadside stone for one reason. A war hero like him saw not just princesses, but the entire world the same way.
But if such a man looked at something else with different eyes...
Raphaelle straightened her head.
If a lowly roadside mutt caught his gaze, she'd gladly tuck it into her embrace, even if it dirtied her dress.
"It really is pretty."
She couldn't tolerate a second glance.
"That's a compliment."
She could endure becoming a bit uglier for that.
A second glance made her teeth grind in fury.
Beth stubbornly insisted and left the isolation room with Aines. With the hospital short-staffed, she couldn't just lie around—not even as head nurse. That was Beth's stance.
No matter how much Aines tried to dissuade her or force her back to bed, Beth's stubbornness was unmatched in Wayne, making it impossible to stop her.
Beth sent Aines down to the lower floor first, then crept down the stairs, wary of running into Madam Molly.
Seeking a quiet path, she exited through the hospital's back door. The early winter wind sliced through the thin collar of her clothes, chilling her skin. Hugging her arms as goosebumps prickled, she felt her body throbbing. It would have been strange if it didn't hurt after all that chaos.
Still, Beth moved her feet diligently, if slowly.
"Ah, Nurse."
Arthur, who had been smoking alone in a secluded spot, spotted Beth and hastily crushed his half-smoked cigar under his boot. Waving away the lingering smoke with a sheepish grin, he seemed embarrassed to be caught smoking at the hospital.
Beth intended to give a light curtsy and pass by. But Arthur approached, clearly wanting to talk properly. Everyone at the hospital had chatted with the ever-cheerful, optimistic prince.
Everyone except Beth, that is.
"How's your body holding up? As commander, all I can say is I'm sorry about what happened at dawn."
Contrary to Beth's expectation of some trivial joke, Arthur offered a sincere apology.
For a moment, she recalled Dever's stubborn face hurling harsh words. Her lip still stung from biting it to hide her hurt.
Why did it hurt so much anyway? She'd lived her whole life like that.
Now, she couldn't even tell if it was her heart or her thoughts in turmoil. As her head drooped, something seemed to drop inside her. Perhaps it was the weight of expectation.
The expectation that someone would come to save her.
Arthur quietly watched her slender shoulders rise and fall, lost in thought. In the winter wind, she looked so fragile she might blow away. Maybe that's why he shrugged off his uniform jacket and draped it over her much smaller frame.
Startled by the unexpected warmth, Beth jerked her head up. Her hands trembled as she tried to hand the jacket back.
It could spark rumors. People loved to gossip over nothing.
Arthur grinned. The golden-haired man, fluttering in the breeze, gave off a vibe similar yet different from his sister.
"Worried this'll become battlefield gossip?"
Beth's ears flushed at his teasing question. Mortified that she'd imagined scandal where the prince hadn't, she felt embarrassment flood her.
A faint soap scent wafted from the flustered woman to Arthur on the wind. His face briefly stiffened at the smell, then he narrowed his eyes more mischievously than before.
"Let's call it the Empire's prince encouraging the medical staff. You wouldn't refuse a royal's goodwill and embarrass me, right?"
Neatly framing the situation, Arthur draped the jacket back over her shoulders. Only then did Beth relax a bit, offering a curtsy that was longer at the end.
Though her prim response left him a touch disappointed, it was just like the rumored Beth Jens—always proper, an iron fortress of a woman. The gentlemanly thing was to back off now.
Instead of parting sooner, he watched her retreating figure toward the barracks for a long while.
"She's got a blade-like quality, kinda like Dever."
The moment they heard she'd survived, Dever had bolted from his tent. When he'd ranted about shooting her or some nonsense negotiation tactic, Arthur thought he'd lose his mind.
Sometimes Dever acted so ruthlessly like the late Duke Cassius that even Arthur got chills—like this morning.
Though they were the two pillars leading the Nexus Imperial Army, everyone knew Dever was the true leader.
Yet whispers of whom the soldiers trusted more, whose abilities they acknowledged more, relentlessly tormented Arthur's ears like they had legs.
And those whispers reached the emperor's ears too.
After the previous emperor's sudden death, his brother Hoyden ascended without solidifying his base. Paranoid about losing the crown prince position, his arrows naturally pointed at Dever.
The duke of Nexus—the emperor's greatest supporter, yet potentially the most terrifying rebel force if he willed it—the army commander.
Arthur was Dever's friend and comrade, and the new emperor's eyes. If a wind stirred in Dever's heart, it wouldn't shake just him.
And this morning, Arthur vaguely sensed Beth at the center of that wind.
"So tiresome. Really."
A long sigh escaped Arthur's lips. The cold wind around him didn't feel chilly.
He just wished it would blow harder, uprooting the stirring inside him entirely.
Beth flopped onto her bed. If she showed up at the hospital, everyone would ask about the dawn incident. Drowsiness crept in; between her slow blinks, she glimpsed Arthur's uniform.
How to return it? Better to leave it with Madam Molly than meet him later.
It might be rude to the madam, but it seemed the best option. She dreaded scandal with a prince more than being teased—given her personality, mockery was preferable to rumors.
Just a quiet, peaceful life flowing by.
That was what Beth wanted most.
Pushing away the waves of sleep, she let out a small breath.
As she shed her bloodstained nurse uniform from dawn, the necklace gleamed strikingly against her jet-black hair cascading over her shoulders.
'Who gave you this?'
The princess had demanded, voice sharp as a blade, convinced it couldn't belong to Beth despite hanging around her neck.
Is it expensive?
She let out a small chuckle at the silly question that popped into her mind.
Of course it was; its original owner was Duke Dever. It would be weirder not to wonder. To her eyes, it didn't look much different from the trinkets the itinerant peddler brought to the hospital sometimes.
Beth's faintly smiling lips soon hardened.
Maybe from her blood that dawn, the key was stained dark red, making the already worn key look even more shabby. It was amazing the chain still sparkled pristinely despite the key's state.
Mindlessly fiddling with the necklace, Beth soon buttoned up a fresh nurse uniform with a resolute expression.
In that time of terror, she'd desperately waited for Dever.
And now, she waited to meet that man once more.
This time... so they'd never meet again.
The necklace was overdue to return to its owner. The hidden necklace was no longer visible.
"Oh, Beth!"
Beth realized she'd timed it terribly the moment she entered the hospital lobby.
Normally at this hour, Madam Molly would be in the director's office handling admin work, so she'd felt safe entering the lobby. But as if her half-baked plan had backfired, there in the lobby were the madam, Raphaelle, Dever, and Arthur.
"Beth, dear heavens!"
The madam sighed in exasperation. She should be resting in bed, not striding through the hospital entrance!
Dever was equally dumbfounded by Beth's unexpected appearance. The only ones unsurprised, having seen her escape the isolation room, were Raphaelle and Arthur.
"The emperor should see this."
Arthur broke the silence with a sly quip. As the madam rubbed her temple in headache, her eyes caught the worn, oversized bag in Beth's hand.
"What's with the bag?"
Beth's pale face openly showed her distress under the unwelcome attention. Things really weren't going her way today.
Unable to do much, she just fidgeted with the bag strap.
At the sight, Raphaelle's eyes sparkled.
Inside the bag was Arthur's uniform.