An Intense Initiation (3)
"Who told you to butt in?"
This little punk? Barking at me without a shred of gratitude for saving his neck?
Still, how could a nanny dare lose her temper at an imperial prince? I forced myself to lower my head before him.
"My apologies, Your Highness."
"Stop lying. You're not sorry at all."
It was a startlingly sharp observation.
He's quite perceptive for how he looks.
Edwin, the Third Prince, had far more unexpected sides than I had anticipated. Charging recklessly at someone twice his size, blurting out whatever crossed his mind without a second thought...
They called him a penniless prince, so I expected someone meek and timid. But this is...
I leveled a sharp gaze at the boy staring right back into my eyes. Only his face is angelic.
Just then, Edwin narrowed his eyes at me with an unimpressed scowl. "The old hag told me you were sick and couldn't come out today. Was it all an act?"
Old hag?
I seemed to recall the princess calling the head maid the exact same thing earlier. Did both siblings share a blood feud with her or something?
"It was merely a mild headache, Your Highness. It passed quickly. Thank you for your concern."
I bowed politely to express my gratitude, but something felt distinctly off. Edwin was glaring at me with overt displeasure.
"Is something the matter, Your Highness?"
Edwin tilted his head, studying me. "Somehow, you seem different from usual."
"Do I? In what way?"
"You're uglier than usual."
"......?"
The out-of-nowhere personal attack left me momentarily speechless.
"...Your Highness, have I perhaps committed some discourtesy against you?"
"Stop pretending to be close to me. It's annoying."
Despite my efforts to maintain equanimity, his reply remained bristling with hostility.
"Even if you came here with Emma's recommendation, I'll never trust you."
Emma's recommendation?
I narrowed my eyes, dredging up what the head maid had said earlier. The head maid said I was hired on Lady Konrad's recommendation.
Then was Lady Konrad's given name Emma?
Emma Conrad?
A prickle of familiarity pinched my brows before I could stop myself.
...No way. It must just be someone with the same name. Even the surname is different.
While my mind wandered for a split second, the prince snapped in a shrill voice, "You're on the old hag's side anyway. I know everything."
Every single reaction was outside my expectations, putting me in an awkward spot. At his age, children usually trust and follow their nannies without question.
Seeing him guard himself so fiercely made it obvious that the original Rachel Brown hadn't been much of a nanny. And the head maid clearly disliked me, too. Just what had this nanny been doing during her two weeks in the imperial palace to rack up this many enemies?
I deliberately arranged my face into a troubled expression and bowed my head. Regardless of the circumstances, if I wanted to stay here for the time being, I had to play the part dutifully.
"Your Highness, I am merely your nanny."
"Ha!" Edwin crossed his arms and snorted derisively. "Liar. The old hag must have told you I was here."
"......"
"Told you to drag me back, didn't she? What, is she going to confine me to my room again?"
Did a head maid possess the authority to order an imperial prince confined to his quarters? Swallowing the question rising in my mind, I bowed silently before him. When faced with awkward questions, silence was always the best policy.
The prince continued eyeing me from the corner of his gaze, then tossed out a question out of nowhere. "By the way... how did you figure it out earlier?"
"Figure out what, Your Highness?"
When I asked in return, Edwin yelled in frustration, "How did you know those bastards were cheating!"
"I simply saw it."
I recalled Gale's clumsy sleight of hand. He and the orange-haired boy had only started cheating from the second round onward. After all, if they cheated right from the start, the mark might refuse to accept the outcome.
He probably thought the trick would work on me, too. Completely oblivious that I had let myself be fooled on purpose during the second round.
Hah, not a chance. Trying to fool me with such amateur tricks.
Recalling the countless hustlers and con artists I had seen in the back alleys, I clicked my tongue internally. Compared to their dexterous hands, Gale's skill was nothing more than a water strider splashing on the surface.
Yet Edwin pouted, reluctant to accept my explanation. "Liar. I couldn't see anything."
"That is because this was Your Highness's first time encountering such things. There is nothing unusual about it."
At my words, he arched an eyebrow. "Then are you saying you've seen it a lot?"
"...Yes, something like that."
"How? Do nobles get to see stuff like that often?"
I looked into the prince's innocent eyes. Though they remained fierce and bristling with wariness, an unmistakable naivety peeked through from underneath—the kind of eyes I could never have possessed in all my life.
Abruptly, memories of the place where I had lived surfaced in my mind.
If someone dumped a kid like this there, he wouldn't last half a day.
To survive in that world, one had to become a swindler adept at every deceitful art. And I had been no exception.
"I have merely seen it a few times in the marketplace, Your Highness." I offered him a gentle, unbothered smile. "Their hands were far slower than the people I used to see."
"What? Then they were just nobodies." Edwin wore the bruised face of a boy whose pride had taken a hit.
"It was unavoidable that Your Highness was deceived..."
"I wasn't deceived! And don't get all smug just because you're uglier than me."
Would a quick smack upside the head knock some sense into this kid? Should I test it?
I struggled to unclench my twitching fists. If rumors spread that the nanny hit an imperial prince, I'll be thrown out immediately.
Besides, strictly speaking, Edwin wasn't wrong either.
Staring intently at the boy, I curled my lips into a bright, sweet smile. "Your Highness, do you happen to know something?"
"Know what?"
"When another person appears unsightly to you, it is usually because the heart looking upon them is unsightly."
Edwin blinked at my words. Within a split second, his face contorted in outrage.
"Y-You... are you saying my heart is ugly? Are you insulting me, an imperial prince?!"
A child is still just a child.
I maintained an unruffled smile at his outburst. "I am not insulting Your Highness. It is merely loyal advice offered out of the hope that Your Highness will nurture a righteous heart."
Watching Edwin huff and puff, I added calmly, "Because I am, after all, Your Highness's nanny."
He glared at me with fiery eyes before bellowing at the top of his lungs, "Cut the nonsense! I hate people like you the most! You hear me?!"
Panting with indignation, the prince jabbed an accusing finger in my direction.
My, what a screeching little brat.
I wasn't particularly fond of arrogant brats either. Behind the painted-on smile, my gaze settled into cool detachment.
After glaring daggers at me for several long beats, Edwin snatched the bracelet from my hand. Then, like a gust of wind, he sprinted off toward the Third Prince Palace.
While I hadn't expected words of gratitude, this was still rather bewildering. Watching the boy's retreating back as he fled at full tilt, I raised an eyebrow.
"What is his deal?"
"My Lord?"
The man, forgetting even to answer his subordinate's call, recalled the 'creature' he had just witnessed.
Would she reach around here?
The man brought a hand to the level of his solar plexus.
Slightly disheveled grayish-brown hair. Skirts fluttering in the wind. And eyes resembling deep green topaz.
The young woman who had scaled a wall taller than herself with effortless grace possessed something peculiar that pulled at his attention. The simple fact that she had noticed his gaze while he remained concealed in the shadows was proof enough.
"She piques my curiosity."
The corners of the man's lips curved into a sharp slant.
Beside him, his adjutant, Oliver Green, grimaced upon hearing those words. "My Lord, did you perhaps take a blow to the head?"
Though daring to question his lord's mental state promptly earned him a rap on the crown.
"That hurt!"
"Spare the rod, spoil the impudent adjutant."
Oliver clutched his head in grievance and protested, "You vanished without a word and had me worried sick, and then you come back without uttering a single explanation! Can you blame me for asking?!"
"Am I so unreliable a man that you need to worry over me?"
"Well, even if Your Majesty were dropped in the middle of a desert, you would stroll back completely unscathed. But still..."
Oliver trailed off. Watching the man's cool composure made his own fretting feel entirely pointless.
Draped in darkness like a mantle from head to toe, the man radiated sheer, unbridled strength from every pore. The golden eyes gleaming like those of an apex predator were enough to turn anyone's knees to water at a single glance.
"Whew... regardless, we are in the heart of enemy territory, are we not?" Oliver sighed, facing the chilling gaze he still hadn't grown used to. "There are too many eyes watching. Please refrain from drawing attention to yourself."
To his adjutant's heartfelt counsel, the man merely responded with a faint smile.
Finding that expression ominous, Oliver's eyes narrowed. "My Lord, absolutely not."
At the sudden refusal, the man raised an eyebrow. "What is 'not'?"
The adjutant frowned deeply and added, "I don't know. Whatever it is, the answer is no." He squinted at his sovereign. "Every time Your Majesty makes that face, I feel years shaving off my life."
"You worry over the most useless things."
The man cracked his neck to the left and right as if loosening tension, then fixed a languid stare ahead. "Do not fret. I am well aware of our priorities."
"That sounds suspiciously like you intend to wander around as you please the second your duties are done."
"This is why I appreciate you, my adjutant. You are wonderfully quick on the uptake."
"Haaah... My Lord. Don't tell me you're still looking for that woman?"
Oliver lowered his voice, his expression laden with unease.
"For Kyla Angel?"