The Clover Pact
“Sob…”
Edwin sat huddled against the outer wall behind the annex of the Third Prince’s Palace. Stifling his tears in bitter frustration, he looked utterly wretched. As Rachel approached, he lifted his head, his eyes rimmed with red.
“What? Why did you follow me?”
“Why else would I?” Rachel held out a clean handkerchief to the sniffling boy. “If your nanny doesn’t follow you, who will?”
“Go away.” Edwin turned his face away from the handkerchief and buried it between his knees. “Just leave me alone. You never cared about someone like me from the start anyway.”
“How could Your Highness’s nanny not care about—”
Before she could finish, Edwin sprang to his feet and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“You said you weren’t going to be my nanny anymore!”
“Who told you that?”
“Emilia told me everything! She said you were quitting!”
“Well, I suppose I will step down eventually.”
“What?”
“Just not right now.”
Edwin scowled at her reply. “So you are leaving someday.” He dropped his head again, his shoulders slumping. “I know you hate working under a pathetic prince like me. I already know.”
“Your Highness.” Rachel held his gaze, her voice steady and calm. “Do you remember what I told you before?”
“What?”
“That unless the weak resort to cowardice, they cannot protect themselves, others, or anything at all.”
“…I remember.” Edwin’s brow furrowed, his pride clearly stung by the reminder.
“However,” Rachel said, looking directly into his eyes, “there is another way.”
“What?”
“A way to protect everyone without ever having to become a coward.”
Edwin’s ears seemed to perk up at her words, and he slowly lifted his face. “What is it?”
“You simply have to become strong.”
“…What?”
Unlike the weak, the strong had no need for cowardice. Or rather, to put it accurately, cowardice was completely unnecessary for them.
“The world may have vicious strong men, but it has no cowardly ones,” Rachel continued. “Because they have no need to be.”
She placed a hand gently on Edwin’s shoulder. Emma had wished above all else for this boy to be happy.
Happiness.
Truthfully, Rachel did not know the secret to being happy either. She had once dared to dream of happiness for a fleeting moment, only to meet a gruesome, miserable end. Yet, if there was one truth she had learned with absolute certainty, it was this:
In this merciless world, the weak can never afford the luxury of happiness.
She studied the young Third Prince before her. A small, frail frame, coupled with anxious, trembling eyes—to anyone’s glance, he was the very picture of defenseless prey.
“Your Highness is weak. Exactly as Her Highness Emilia said.”
“You—!”
“Yet it matters not.”
“…What?”
“Because I will make you strong.”
It was neither a suggestion nor an offer; it was an absolute declaration. Edwin blinked his wide, bewildered eyes.
“Why?” The question slipped from his lips, entirely different from what she had expected. “Why are you suddenly saying this? I thought you didn’t care what happened to me.”
He frowned deeply, genuinely unable to comprehend her motives.
“A promise was made, so it must be kept.”
One had been made before she died, and the other just last night.
“Therefore, I will never leave Your Highness’s side.” Even if he were to command her to go. “At least, not until Your Highness no longer needs me.”
Though, naturally, that ‘until’ would be decided entirely on her own terms.
“What in the world are you talking about?” Edwin’s scowl deepened. He seemed to have no recollection whatsoever of what had transpired the previous night. “A promise? With whom?”
“Shall we cut the idle chatter and head back?”
“Head back? Where?”
“Where else?” Rachel took him firmly by the hand and pulled him along. “We must go soothe Her Highness Emilia.”
“I’m sorry, Lia. Brother was wrong.”
“Hmph!”
“I said I’m sorry. Won’t you please forgive me?”
“Hmph—!”
Emilia pointedly snapped her head away the moment her brother returned. By all appearances, she was thoroughly incensed.
“Princess Emilia, why don’t you forgive His Highness? Look at how earnestly he’s begging,” Catherine coaxed gently, holding the little princess securely in her arms.
Only then did Emilia finally pout and open her mouth. “Brother picked on Lia like a villain! Why should Lia forgive him?”
Kneeling on the grass, Edwin visibly withered at the word ‘villain.’ In a matter of seconds, he had been demoted to the exact same tier as Lloyd.
“I really made a mistake. I’ll never tease Lia again, all right?”
“Hmph! Hmph!”
“If I ever pick on Lia again, then…”
Rachel cut in smoothly before Edwin could finish his sentence.
“Then I shall give His Highness a proper scolding.”
“Naychel will?”
Emilia peeked over, clearly tempted by the proposal, but quickly crossed her arms again in a stubborn huff.
“Hmph! But Naychel is going to abandon Lia and leave. Liar!”
“I am not. Where would I possibly go?”
“Naychel isn’t leaving?”
“No. I am not going anywhere.”
“Reaaally? Really not leaving? You’ll stay right beside Lia?”
“Yes.”
“Kyaaaaa—!”
In a flash, Emilia wriggled out of Catherine’s embrace and launched herself toward Rachel.
“Your Highness, be careful or you’ll get hurt!”
“I wuv Naychel—!”
Emilia threw her chubby arms around Rachel’s neck, nuzzling her face affectionately against her collar. Stiffening like stone for a split second, Rachel slowly rested a hand on the girl’s small back. Such blind, unreserved affection remained thoroughly foreign and bewildering to her, yet she could not push it away. After all, she was the one who had decided to remain by their side.
“Lia, what about me?” Edwin asked, staring at his sister with wounded, crestfallen eyes.
Emilia let out a haughty, magnanimous sniff. “Fine! Since Naychel is here, Lia will forgive Brother!”
The young princess narrowed her round, blue eyes into an imperious glare. “Instead, you have to make me flower rings and flower crowns! All of them! Otherwise, no forgiveness!”
“A-All right! Just wait a moment! I’ll make them right away!”
Terrified by his sister’s ultimatum, Edwin dropped to his hands and knees and began plucking white clover with manic urgency. Even a famished hare foraging for food could not have worked with such frantic fervor.
“Pfft.” Catherine failed to contain herself and burst into laughter. “Ahahaha—!”
“Hey! What are you laughing at!”
Watching Edwin bristle in embarrassment, Rachel quietly turned her face aside. Emilia caught the slight twitch of her lips and immediately chirped with wide eyes.
“Naychel just laughed too, didn’t you?”
“…Not at all. I did no such thing.”
“You did! Naychel smiled!”
“I did not smile.”
“What is this! Why is everyone laughing at me!”
That day, Edwin was only able to earn his little sister’s forgiveness after weaving clover crowns for all three women.
“How fares the Third Prince?”
“He spends his days as usual, Your Highness. Yesterday, he was seen frolicking among the flowers with the Princess.”
“A fitting pastime for that deficient boy. Plucking flowers like a pair of little girls.”
The Second Imperial Consort, Helena, inspected her impeccably polished fingernails with a satisfied smirk.
“Nothing suspicious on his part?”
“No, Your Highness. No unusual movements have been detected.”
“How fortunate that he knows better than to hasten his own demise.”
Helena glanced down into an open jewel box presented by a maidservant, then looked back up.
“By the way, have you investigated that nanny?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A masked shadow operative kneeling in the distance bowed reverently.
“Her name is Rachel Brown. Twenty-one years of age, she entered the palace one month ago.”
“Brown? A noble house?”
“Yes. She is the adopted daughter of Count Brown, a petty frontier nobleman. She was brought into the palace upon a letter of recommendation from the former nanny.”
“She shares ties with the dead nanny?”
“Indeed. It was the former nanny who arranged for Rachel, an orphan, to be adopted into the Count’s household.”
“Hmph.”
Not even the biological blood of some backwater aristocrat, but an adopted orphan.
An orphan from the gutters?
Helena’s crimson eyes narrowed coldly.
Faylinn seemed rather fond of that wench, though.
She recalled the quiet exchange she had shared at a banquet with Countess Faylinn Katrina, her trusted confidante.
“I do not believe Your Highness needs to worry much about the Third Prince.”
“And why is that?”
“Because he remains entirely unchanged. Furthermore, his new nanny is rather decent.”
“Decent in what manner?”
“Polite, subservient, and above all… her eyes were dead.”
“Dead eyes?”
“Your Highness is well aware of my eye for discerning character, are you not?”
“Of course. So you are saying she poses no threat?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Your reasoning?”
“Those who carry such eyes care only for keeping their own bellies full. She lacks the ambition to ever exert herself on someone else’s behalf.”
Faylinn had spent years navigating high society and possessed an uncanny talent for dissecting people down to their marrow. Coming from her, Helena had little choice but to take the appraisal as fact.
Thinking of what happened to Lloyd, tearing that wretched girl to pieces wouldn't suffice to quench my fury.
Though she had strictly ordered her son to leave the matter alone for now, her pride still rankled.
How dare a lowly commoner humiliate an Imperial Prince.
She despised the Third Prince’s nanny with every fiber of her being. However, the Emperor himself had publicly decreed his pardon. Stirring up needless friction now would only invite scrutiny.
Helena waved a dismissive hand, uninterested in dwelling on the subject further.
“Enough. I have neither the time nor the patience to concern myself with the foster child of some provincial nobody. Dismissed.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The masked operative offered a crisp bow and vanished like smoke into the shadows.
The moment he disappeared, Helena called out to the attendants waiting beyond the threshold.
“Someone, attend me!”
“You called, Your Highness?”
“I require some rest. Have tea and refreshments prepared in the rear garden.”
“Right away, Your Highness.”
Leading a trailing retinue of maids, Helena made her way toward the gardens, thoroughly convinced she could finally relax in peace.
Little did she realize that even Faylinn’s vaunted eye for people was utterly useless against someone who had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of remaining completely invisible.