TPB 8

Chapter: 8

Natalie, suddenly overcome with a sense of emptiness, murmured as if talking to herself.

“…I thought my life would be something special. It’s hard to put into words, but I really believed I’d end up doing something different.”

“Something other than being someone’s wife, mother, or an old maid?”

At Christina’s blunt phrasing, Natalie let out a short, humorless laugh.

“Of course, I’m not saying a lady’s life has no value.”

“Right. You just mean it doesn’t quite suit you.”

“…I know it’s childish to complain like this when I haven’t accomplished anything on my own.”

“That’s right. You’re whining.”

At the cold remark, Natalie found herself chuckling again despite herself. With a hollow smile, she continued.

“Lately, I’ve started thinking maybe my mother’s right—that maybe I’m the problem. Everyone else lives by enduring things, so why am I the only one making a fuss….”

“Oh, Natalie. Are you going to start that too? This place is dull enough as it is.”

“…….”

“You’re not being excessive. Honestly, I think the same way you do. Every day I wonder who I really am—what I truly want, what I actually desire.”

“…Is that why we’re so close?”

“Obviously.”

Christina and Natalie looked at each other and smiled.

“But since we don’t actually have any other choices, shouldn’t we at least enjoy everything we can within these limits? So, Miss Dawes, shall we talk about the stories we love? While you were dancing with idiots, listen to what I managed to overhear.”

Linking arms with Natalie, Christina skillfully wove through the crowd at the ball, speaking in a hushed voice.

After a tale about a recently widowed noblewoman reuniting with her first love, she moved on to a story about a young soldier who fell in love with his mother’s friend.

Natalie’s eyes widened again and again as she covered her mouth to stifle her screams of shock. This was the true thrill of a ballroom.

“And this one—you absolutely cannot repeat anywhere.”

At last came the magical phrase that instantly sharpened her listener’s attention.

“David is actually Prince Ian.”

“…….”

“Isn’t it incredible?”

“…Pffft!”

Caught completely off guard by the absurd claim, Natalie burst out laughing. Feeling the surrounding gazes, she hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth.

Christina narrowed her eyes at her reaction.

“Don’t laugh. If you think about it, it makes sense.”

“Ah… Christina, you’re amazing. You’re honestly the funniest person I know.”

“There are rumors that Prince Ian, with that dazzling face of his, leaves broken hearts everywhere—one lover in every country, even. All of David’s novels are just his personal experiences.”

“What are you even saying—hahaha! No, absolutely not. If those were his experiences, how would you explain his latest work?”

“Well… still! Think about the male lead in David’s first novel. He’s exactly Prince Ian. Blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin—and a duke. And isn’t Prince Ian the Duke of Valderma?”

“So every duke belongs to David now?”

“Good point. And what about the pen name ‘David’?”

“So what?”

“Prince Ian’s middle name is David!”

…I didn’t know that.

Who memorizes the ridiculously long full names of royalty anyway? Most people just remember Prince Ian or the Duke of Valderma.

“Doesn’t it sound convincing? They say the streets are buzzing with rumors that David is Prince Ian. There’s even talk that the suspension of the serialization was ordered by the royal family.”

Thanks to his controversial new novel—centered on an affair between a noblewoman and a stable hand—David had been engulfed in scandal. Interest in him was unusually intense. Gambling houses were taking bets on his identity, and reporters knocked on the publisher’s doors daily. In the end, David halted the serialization.

“Again, from Noble Cut? That place is a mess. Half their stories are fake. If it’s right, great; if it’s wrong, who cares.”

“…That’s where it started, though.”

Of course. It seemed Christina had been deeply impressed by that article claiming Prince Ian might be David.

“They’ll all be fined for insulting the royal family soon enough. Why is everyone so obsessed with his identity anyway? You seem smart most of the time, but the moment David comes up, you lose it.”

“You really don’t think so?”

“I’d bet my entire fortune that it’s not true.”

“You don’t even have a fortune.”

Since Natalie refused to play along at all, Christina puffed out her lips and grumbled. Natalie shook her head at the sight, then fell briefly into thought.

Somehow, it felt like she might be able to say it now.

“…Christina, actually—”

Just as she was about to call out to her, as if she’d made up her mind—

“Breaking news!”

Dong! At the exact moment the bell tolled midnight, someone shouted.

If you stayed late enough at a ball, you were sometimes rewarded with whispered scandals too improper for the newspapers. Tonight seemed to be one of those nights.

“Natalie, what were you just about to say?”

“Nothing.”

Natalie smiled awkwardly and shook her head. Her courage had vanished in an instant.

I’ve already quit that life. I’ve decided to seriously look for a husband and live the ordinary life of a proper lady.

What would be the point of confessing now?

Her rebellion was over.

Natalie forced herself to calm her racing heart and steeled her resolve.

*****

“Those gnat-like nobles are probably whispering behind our backs again.”

The dry voice was steeped in long-held resentment and anger.

Ian slowly set down his teacup and lifted his gaze. Before him stood his mother, Queen Violet, her expression as cool as her tone.

Though she was in her late forties, she still looked barely past thirty—an astonishing feat. She was widely known as the woman who brought the ancient Astierus royal bloodline of beauty to its absolute peak.

Before Princess Charlotte earned the title ‘the legendary beauty,’ it had belonged to Violet. Now, she might be called ‘the legendary beautiful queen.’

With Queen Violet’s brilliant blond hair and blue eyes, and King Ernest II’s pale green eyes and platinum hair, the sculpted Crown Prince Edward was born. As for Charlotte and Ian—called angels by many—you could believe Violet had borne them alone, so identical were they to her.

“I’ve never been this disappointed. Not even when Ernest first brought a mistress into Windsorbell Palace.”

Still beautiful as ever, Violet nonetheless looked utterly exhausted.

For the young queen—once noble and naïve—her husband’s scandals had been devastating. She raged, suffered, and eventually resigned herself to them.

And she alone preserved her dignity. She endured for over twenty years. It was only natural that she became obsessed with duty, responsibility, and strict morality.

Knowing this well, Ian quietly inhaled at the word disappointed leaving his mother’s lips.

“Edward, yes—but Eris as well. How could they disappoint me so thoroughly? They must have forgotten the grace of being raised at all.”

“Well. Wasn’t it Grandmother who raised her, technically?”

At Malik House, it had been the late Queen Dowager who actually raised the three siblings and their cousins.

“So you’re saying that makes it acceptable?”

Violet glared at her son as she coolly challenged him.

“Among the nobles, there’s already talk that Eris was divorced because she had an affair with Edward. And you still seem indifferent.”

“If I truly didn’t care, I wouldn’t have come when you called. I only just escaped being tormented by princess portraits a few days ago.”

Ian lifted the corners of his eyes in a gentle, placating smile, but Violet was not easily swayed.

“Yes. You’re better than Charlotte, at least.”

Frowning slightly as she thought of her daughter who never came no matter how often she was summoned, Violet sighed.

“No, Charlotte is always better than me.”

Ian replied lightly with a cheerful smile before continuing.

“So, why did you call me?”

“You and Charlotte already knew, didn’t you?”

“Not that it would turn out like this.”

He meant it sincerely. If she was asking whether the rumors about Edward and Eris spreading overnight were planned—he could only call it coincidence.

“Even as siblings, should we celebrate good genes?”

“The only pride of the Astierus family—beautiful faces on otherwise lifeless bodies.”

Violet shot her son a sharp look at his flippant remark.

“Dave, enough wordplay. I didn’t summon you just to hear you complain.”

Scolding him with a childhood nickname, Violet gestured to her lady-in-waiting, who placed a magazine on the tea table.

“There’s a reason I called you here to say unpleasant things.”

Noble Cut

A third-rate magazine, yet powerful enough that anyone literate had seen it.

True to its name, it specialized in aristocratic scandals. It would not be an exaggeration to say it grew on the back of Ernest II’s affairs.

There were limits to censoring the press. Violet loathed the magazine, calling it “parasitic filth.”

“Edward’s disgrace is, fortunately, still confined to the nobility. But your problem seems more urgent.”

Who Is David?

The headline of the special feature released alongside David’s new novel was readable from several meters away.

Beneath it was a carefully drawn illustration—five realistic figures believed to be David. At the center stood a man labeled ‘Prince Ian.’

“They’re shameless beyond belief. This is all because your father destroyed the dignity of the royal family. To dare put a prince’s face in such a ridiculous magazine.”

A full spread on an erotic novelist—how could people have so little else to do?

Ian stared at the blot of black ink that captured not even half of his actual appearance and thought just that.