Chapter 69 - My Savior Who Will Destroy Me
Sister, I'm The Queen In This Life
Ariadne bit her lip. Her simplest route of escape was blocked. People started buzzing.
"Is that woman Cardinal de Mare's second daughter? The one who defeated the Apostle of Acereto?"
"Wasn't she renowned for her theology? Would a faithful girl do such a thing?"
"How do you know people's inner thoughts! Even in the monastery, if something is forgotten, the priests get into an uproar!"
Someone asked Ariadne.
"Take off your mask!"
It was a request that had absolutely no logical correlation. This was because no one present could see the face of the mysterious woman who had run away.
Unmasking Ariadne could not be of any help in discovering the Marquis de Campa's elusive lover.
However, people added words one by one, half out of curiosity and half to confirm their group dominance.
"That's right, take off your mask!"
"Let me see your face!"
"Why are you so embarrassed that you can't take off your mask?"
A plausible reason was added later.
"When the secret love girl takes off her mask, all her makeup will be gone. She wasn't going to bite and suck with her lips. She won't be able to take it off because it will mess up her face."
Ariadne had no intention of taking off her mask here. Taking off the mask itself was not difficult. However, once you give in to the public's irrational demands, even in small ways, they tend to demand more and more. To the subdued Lamb, the masses could become far more cruel than the sum of their individual members. If she loses momentum, it collapses in an instant.
Ariadne held her head high and answered.
"It is true that I am Ariadne de Mare, but I am not the Marquis de Campa's secret lover, nor am I in a position to prove anything to you. On the contrary, I am very offended by this absurd misunderstanding."
Ariadne only told the truth, but regardless, someone was offended by Ariadne's noble attitude. That anger quickly spread to the people around him.
"Misunderstanding? There is so much evidence, how can I be mistaken?"
"What is a bracelet? Why don't you take off your mask?"
It was a tea that everyone was boiling over.
"It's not a misunderstanding, it's a slander."
It was not Ariadne that answered the crowd's questions, but a deep male voice. It was Prince Alfonso, whose transformation period had ended and who was now transitioning into the voice of a full-fledged adult.
Alfonso had been wandering around the garden in a distraught mood ever since Ariadne coldly left him in the garden. In his head, he kept repeating that he was looking for Lariesa, but in reality, the person he was desperately looking for was Ariadne.
He searched for the woman in her golden dress, and all the time he wished she had black hair rather than the brown hair she had, healthy skin that was shiny and calm rather than pale, dry, and white.
In the meantime, there was a big commotion, so he rushed to see the woman he wanted to see the most, standing in the vacant lot.
The moment he discovered her, he had no choice but to admit that he had not been looking for the Grand Duchess Lariesa. He no longer felt like wandering around the garden. His destination was in front of him.
However, the woman he was looking for was attracting attention for an unpleasant incident. If diplomatic relations were to be considered, Prince Alfonso should never have said that he was here with Ariadne.
Alfonso was by nature a person who took duty and responsibility seriously. But his mouth moved as it pleased.
"Little Lady de Mare was always with me.."
Ariadne was in danger after receiving ridiculous slander. He did not stop at just helping with his words but ran out to the very center of the clearing and stood next to Ariadne. Alfonso instinctively wrapped her in his arms and hid her from the eyes of others. Meanwhile, crowds were still gathering. Alfonso held Ariadne in his arms and raised her voice, shouting loudly to the people.
"There is nothing to see here. Lady de Mare was always with me. To say that she, a virtuous lady, is the love interest of the Marquis de Campa is a false statement and a serious insult to her reputation."
One of the nobles politely objected to Alfonso's words.
"However, Your Majesty the Prince, you do not know Lady de Mare's every move."
The public wanted a scapegoat.
"That's right, just now you didn't come together, you came separately."
"If I'm not the one who was next to you the whole time, how can I prove the alibi of the entire prom?"
Alfonso raised his tone strongly and pushed.
"Lady de Mare continues the ball from beginning to end! She was with me."
Alfonso did not persuade but gave orders. He had the dignity of a future monarch.
"Her whereabouts are clear, so stop talking about this now. Let's all disperse. And someone please call an attendant to clean up the person lying on the floor."
Thinking that the fun spectacle was over, the crowd of nearly 100 people was grumbling and trying to turn away.
"We were together. Prince, come with me."
Another woman wearing a golden dress appeared from the bushes. She, like Ariadne, was a medium-sized Princess of Lariesa who wore a volto mask. She looked like a mess from wandering around in the bushes. Larriesa must have been having trouble breathing, her Volto mask pulled loosely under her chin as she struggled to breathe.
"Who is that woman again?"
"Why, didn't you say that a state guest came from the Kingdom of Gallico! Isn't she the Grand Duchess?"
"For some reason, her language is not good."
Grand Duchess Lariesa, who had come with all the scraps of grass that could be found in the forest, asked Prince Alfonso in an even more pitiful manner.
"You weren't with that woman. I was there with you. Lie. It's all lies. Who is that woman?"
It was the moment when the scandal of the Marquis of Campa was instantly elevated to the scandal of Prince Alfonso. The prince is lying. For whom? The crowd was once again agitated by Grand Duchess Lariesa's.
"You mean the Prince wasn't always accusation with the little Lady Des Mare?"
"Wait a minute, so you made up a fake alibi?"
"Why is that Grand Duchess crying?"
Lariesa said that Prince Alfonso had lied, and tears were rolling down from her brown eyes, which were downcast like those of a cow. She, who lives in Lari, couldn't believe what happened that day. Her sister's 'Golden Prince' was transferred to her. It was the most perfect day in her world, but then she ruined the mood by making strange noises and her Prince was protecting a woman she didn't know. She wanted to hit the woman in the face with her own hand.
"Prince Alfonso, who is this woman?"
Lariesa, enraged, began to appeal to Alfonso in Gallic.
"Weren't we in the midst of formal marriage talks in both countries? How can promises between countries be so light?"
The nobles who could speak Gallic were surprised by the story of the national marriage. There's talk of marriage going on!
They looked alternately at the newly appeared noblewoman, Prince Alfonso, and Ariadne. The crowd was very upset. Prince Alfonso closed his eyes. How on earth can he fix this?
"Well, why would the Grand Duchess come all the way to Etruscan! She came because they were talking about getting married. But her intended marriage partner spent time at the ball with another woman."
"Grand Duchess Lariesa has now come down to the Etruscans to meet Prince Alfonso. This has become a rumor all over the country, and now she can't get married anywhere else, but the man is preoccupied with something else. Tsk, tsk."
-"No, is it the Marquis de Campa's lover who is selling his mind off his prospective fiancee? The Prince's eyes on women are just...He looks like his father. Ugh!"
It was now becoming an established fact that Ariadne was the mistress of the Marquis de Campa.
"Then the Second Lady de Mare has no one to prove her alibi? That bracelet is yours, right?"
"It's a Collezioni mask and necklace set with a Collezioni bracelet. How many of them are there? Plus, the colors of the dresses overlap. I'm completely sure."
The situation was worse. In the meantime, Alfonso decided to do what he could. He called his secretary, Bernardino, who was in the crowd and gave him some instructions.
After receiving the Prince's order, Bernardino ran towards the Queen's Palace.
After giving instructions, Alfonso licked his dry lips. Now all that's left is to wait. He felt sick to his stomach. Ariadne also bit her lip.
But her thoughts were racing elsewhere. Grand Duchess Lariesa. She is the daughter of a noble monarch who appears wearing the tiara of the Grand Duke of Valoa. She did her best to pretend not to care in front of Cesare, but when she saw Lariesa with her own eyes, her heart ached.
'The Grand Princess of Valoa is nothing. Just wait a little while.'
If that incident happens, the Grand Duchess of Valoa will never be able to go near Alfonso.
Ariadne tried to calm herself by reflecting on an event that would occur in the future. But anxiety began to creep in. Will the same incident happen again in this life? Is the future fixed? If 'that incident' doesn't happen... She didn't even want to think about it. The difference in the situations of Lariesa, who was aiming for the position next to the Prince with the power of the state behind her, and Ariadne, who had to do it on her own, was stark
"You! Say it!"
At Alfonso's silence, Grand Duchess Lariesa turned her arrow towards Ariadne.
"Why are you silent? Even if you have ten mouths, don't you have anything to say?"
Lariesa became frustrated and called out to Ariadne in Gallic. The same thing happened to Grand Princess Larriesa, who was upset inside her. It feels more comfortable to blame the mistress rather than her husband, who cheated on her all by herself. If Alfonso becomes a bad person, she herself becomes a nerd for falling for him. That was something Lariesa couldn't handle.
So she changed her direction. The nine-tailed fox must have hit the still Prince with her tail. When Ariadne did not answer, Lariesa dweller assumed that it was because she did not know Gallic, and so she cornered Ariadne in Etruscan.
"Secret love affair, you bad person! Prince, secret love affair, uncleanness! You bad person!"
In addition to her secret affair with the Marquis of Campa, her secret affair with Prince Alfonso was becoming a fait accompli. Ariadne chewed the inside of her mouth. How does she overcome this?
Lariesa's excitement was increasing. She revealed her identity to her husband-to-be and told him all she wanted to say with Gallic.
"I am Grand Duchess Lariesa, daughter of the Grand Duke of Valoa!! I am planning to marry Prince Alfonso of your country. Who are you to slap your tail at my man?"
Grand Duchess Lariesa approached Ariadne and started shouting while clawing at her.
"I hate immoral people like you who do not respect sacred marriage the most!"
In Grand Duchess Lariesa's mind, it seemed like her wedding with Prince Alfonso was already over.
***
Prince Alfonso immediately called his secretary Bernardino and gave him a few instructions when the Grand Duchess Lariesa was getting close to Ariadne. She couldn't leave Ariadne like this. No matter what the Kingdom of Gallico said, whether the marriage agreement was broken or whether knights were dispatched to the border, he was determined to sort out this mess.
When he thinks about common sense, the best thing to do in this situation is Queen Marguerite's intervention. The Queen, a doctor who diagnosed that Lariesa was overly excited, and an attendant from the Kingdom of Gallico who would lead Lariesa away would be able to calm the situation. Bernardino ran inside the palace to find the necessary personnel. But before the secretary returned, this situation was overcome by a completely unexpected person.
"Well, it seems there was a misunderstanding"
It was a voice with a smooth tone and a pleasant tenor tone. As he finished speaking, he lifted his mask askew, revealing his face across his forehead. His handsome, sculptural face glowed smoothly in the moonlight and the torches placed here and there in the garden.
"Count Cesare!"
"It's Count Cesare!"
After savoring the shock people felt when they found out his true identity, Cesare grinned and answered.
"The Prince is willing to endure stigma for the sake of this half-brother. It seems that the bond we grew up with together cannot be broken."
It was an insult to the royal family to bring up the story of the King's bastard at an official event. Cesare was originally unable to even mention such a story during Alfonso's presence. But now Cesare was Alfonso and Ariadne's only ally. Alfonso was now in no position to say anything to Cesare.
Cesare, attracting everyone's attention, leisurely made his way through the crowd and entered the very center of the clearing. He passed by Grand Duchess Lariesa and stood next to Ariadne, elegantly kissing the back of Ariadne's hand.
“Lady de Mare.”
“Count of Como.”
Cesare, who received Ariadne's greeting, grinned.
"It looks like someone is very jealous of the Young Lady? What should I do with this? After today, there will be a lot more jealous people."
After telling her a joke, Cesare turned to the crowd and raised his voice.
"This Young Lady is not the Marquis de Campa's mistress."
He glanced at Alfonso.
"He's not the Prince's secret love interest either."
Cesare looked at Grand Duchess Lariesa and showed a graceful bow, slightly bending his knee and slightly putting one leg back.
"There is nothing to worry about, Grand Duchess. Everything will go as it should."
Cesare, who spoke to Lariesa in a whisper in Gallic, looked at everyone and shouted.
"This Lady is the woman I am courting. She was with me the whole time."
It was the appearance of a second man who claimed to have been with Ariadne and a third man who was believed to have been with her. Besides, Count Cesare is openly courting her? The hall suddenly became noisy.
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