TPB 12

Chapter: 12

“Ian? Weren’t you supposed to be staying at Windsorbell Palace today?”

Charlotte, who had shut herself away in the study after telling everyone not to disturb her, couldn’t help but be startled when Ian suddenly appeared. Perhaps he had been in a hurry—her younger brother’s face was more flushed than usual.

“Did you run here?”

Finding the sight unusual, she lifted one corner of her lips in mild amusement.

Ian asked bluntly,

“What other choice is there?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Not Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte Martina Rose Astiers—but just Charlotte. What kind of choice does she dream of making?”

The corner of Charlotte’s mouth that had been raised slowly fell.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

“If you could choose something other than marrying into another royal family and leaving Grand Batten—what would you choose? What would you want to do?”

Recalling how Charlotte, despite everyone around her saying such things were unnecessary for a princess, had stubbornly followed the same rigorous education in statecraft that Edward received, Ian changed the way he phrased the question.

The smile vanished completely from Charlotte’s face. Her brother was smiling lightly, but he was absolutely not joking.

“Do you even realize what you’re saying right now?”

“Let’s make a different choice.”

Just imagining it felt exhilarating.

Something so simple—why had he never thought of it before?

The one destined to become king was neither Edward nor himself.

It was Charlotte.

The prince was saying out loud what a princess had never been able to say first.

Perhaps the jury had been divided, because they returned to the courtroom only after a full three hours. The judge addressed them.

“Is Miss Natalie Dawes of the Warfield barony guilty or not guilty?”

The jury foreman stood and glanced briefly at Natalie.

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut. She knew perfectly well that this trial had been intended to hand down a prison sentence.

If she was going to be imprisoned anyway, she had wanted to say something—anything—in her own defense instead of relying on a silent attorney. That was why she had given her own final statement.

It turned into more of a fierce battle of wills than a defense, though…

Facing the verdict, she couldn’t bring herself to feel humble. Her fingertips trembled as she clenched her fists, but the shaking wouldn’t stop.

“Not guilty.”

Ah…

Her closed eyelids fluttered. When she slowly opened her eyes, the tears pooled there fell to the floor with a soft drop, and her vision cleared. It didn’t feel real. She could hear the prosecution shouting rough objections.

Natalie closed her eyes again. Tears streamed endlessly through her lashes. The two-month-long nightmare was finally coming to an end. At the very least, she had escaped the worst.

The day after David’s final trial, newspapers reported that Crown Prince Edward had gifted Queen Violet’s necklace to Eris, the former Princess Consort of Hinesnover.

As if he had been waiting for it, Edward openly acknowledged the scandal and announced that he was renouncing his right to the throne.

“Your Highness will regret this for the rest of your life!”

The House of Lords, indignant that the crown prince had so easily given up the throne, unanimously voted to strip him of his succession rights.

Surprisingly, they seemed to have little lingering attachment to him.

After all, there was still another prince.

With the shocking abdication dominating attention, public interest in David vanished overnight.

To Natalie, everything felt like a dream.

She had spent most of the royalties earned under the name “David” on legal fees and other costs related to the David trial, and once public interest faded, she fled back to her hometown of Warfield as if running away.

She didn’t yet know—still painfully naïve—that the world was cruel, and that the real nightmare was only just beginning.

Three years passed that way. Natalie Dawes and David seemed to be slowly forgotten.

Not all gentlemen are created equal.

One could divide them endlessly, but it was an unchanging rule that members of the White Tail Club sat at the very top.

White Tail was an exclusive gathering of nobles—only gentlemen with the finest lineage, wealth, and education could join. Naturally, not just anyone could enter. Membership was granted solely through recommendations from existing members, and rumors even claimed that appearance was part of the qualification.

Gentlemen who couldn’t enter White Tail mocked it as a pretentious club of stuck-up snobs, but in truth, they desperately wanted to be part of it. Simply being friendly with a White Tail member and visiting the club once was enough to become a major point of pride.

Roger Heaton—a naval lieutenant, second son of a family without a title or connections—was, by all accounts, unqualified even to knock on White Tail’s door.

So when he was given the chance to visit the club through a naval academy classmate who was a member, Roger had no reason to refuse.

“So, who’s this fellow?”

The man who greeted them spoke in a surprisingly pleasant voice for someone from a club of supposed snobs.

“Sir, allow me to introduce you. This is Lieutenant Heaton, a classmate of mine from the academy.”

“…Ah. A pleasure, Mr. Heaton. You’re quite the fine-looking fellow!”

Roger felt eyes like those of a reptile sweep over him from head to toe in an instant.

“Is that Heaton—as in the son of the royal physician, Mr. Heaton?”

The gentleman immediately sensed that Roger was nothing special. His gaze, posture, and tone grew arrogant all at once.

“I’m the second son.”

That much, at least, he could handle. Wearing an easygoing smile, Roger answered politely. Years at the academy and in the military had taught him how to placate others.

“Hm. If I recall, your elder brother once examined my father. A man not given to praise, yet he spoke highly of your brother.”

“I’m honored you remember him, sir.”

That was as far as the gentleman’s interest went. Soon, the conversation shifted to matters known only to those in high places.

Roger stood beside them, carefully managing his expression, tipping his glass of cognac whenever his face threatened to twitch.

Bastards. High-ranking nobles are always like this.

After sizing him up, they immediately turned to topics he couldn’t possibly join. Even so, he smiled even harder beside them, like a clown.

Damn it. Of all things, why bring up my brother?

He hurled every curse he knew in his mind.

Born awkwardly as a second son, Roger wasn’t even as intelligent as his brother Justin. That was why he had chosen the naval academy instead of studying medicine.

During his cadet years—when he’d finally escaped his brother’s shadow—he had never doubted his future success. But becoming an officer didn’t guarantee advancement.

The military was no different. Connections and status mattered. The Heaton family had no military ties, and while they were technically upper class due to their professional standing, they were only barely so.

As his peers were promoted step by step, Roger was always left behind. Seven years into his naval career, he was still only a lieutenant.

And it was peacetime. Officers’ already meager salaries were halved, and becoming a war hero—or earning a rapid promotion—was out of the question.

It was a brutal realization. He should have noticed back when all his fellow officer candidates were sons of distinguished noble families, but by the time he truly understood, it felt too late to change paths.

That was when the reptile-eyed gentleman finally mentioned something worth noting.

“It’s been noisy since Prince Ian returned from his tour.”

“Ah, Colonel Valdemar, you mean?”

Roger’s classmate chimed in. He was a naval major and, like Roger, an academy classmate of Ian—so he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.

Colonel Ian Valdemar.

At that moment, Roger’s grip tightened around his glass. If White Tail nobles were “bastards,” royalty was on an entirely different level.

Three years ago, Ian had been only a major. Now he had risen two ranks to become a colonel—without ever going on a mission. A life where honorary promotions were handed out just for existing.

Born a prince of Grand Batten—and with that face, too. How could the world be this unfair?

Memories surfaced of their trainee days, when the prince had shone even while crawling through mud alongside everyone else, and how, whenever they served on the same ship, Ian had singled him out for relentless scrutiny. The forced smile slipped from Roger’s face as long-buried inferiority surged up. He believed there had never been anything wrong with his conduct.

His classmate continued,

“I saw the papers. I’ve never seen so many people at the central train station. The prince and princess are astonishingly popular.”

“Wasn’t it their return after a full year? I heard there was gossip because they came back later than planned.”

“Well, isn’t that because Princess Charlotte—who’s stubbornly refused to marry all this time—accompanied him on the tour? Imagine how difficult she must have been, a princess who’s never done anything rough in her life. Delays were inevitable.”

Though praise and heartwarming stories followed the princess wherever she went, the conservative elites of Grand Batten clung to their prejudices and heard only what they wanted to hear.

“Haha!”

The gentlemen who openly disparaged the princess burst into hearty laughter. Roger hastily composed his face and joined in a beat later.

“Hahaha!”

Roger knew how pathetic he looked.

But there was a reason for this clownery.

This humiliation is a trial for securing a good marriage.

It was true that the Heaton family was wealthy, thanks to generations of royal physicians. But most of that fortune would go to Justin, the eldest son who inherited the family profession.

What Roger would receive amounted to a single countryside villa and barely enough money to live on—at least by his own extravagant standards.

Now that he was finally twenty-seven, if he wanted to maintain his wasteful, indulgent lifestyle, he needed a breakthrough.

The inspiration came from his younger sister, Emily.

Three years earlier, worried that her cousin Natalie’s scandal would permanently ruin her marriage prospects, Emily had married in some haste.

For a rushed choice, her husband wasn’t bad. Though he lacked the title Mrs. Heaton had wanted, he had a stable income.

And thanks to Emily’s dowry, he had gone from wealthy to extremely wealthy. Watching this, Roger had thought:

I just need to seduce and marry a naïve noble lady with a large dowry.

That was why Roger Heaton was more than willing to bow his head to these arrogant gentlemen—men who could connect him to affluent high-society daughters.

A man brushed past the laughing “gentlemen” and entered a private room, grumbling in a sharp voice.

“When did White Tail start letting in just any stray dog? I come back after ages and it’s turned into a kennel!”

He flung the door open and then froze.

“Oh… that startled me. You were already here.”

Sitting on the sofa at the center of the room was a guest who had arrived before him.