If they were to tell Princess Julia Helena the whole story of Duke Cesare's broken engagement, they would have to reveal all the intimate details of San Carlo.
The three ladies were strictly speaking part of Duchess Rubina's faction. They did not have enough ties to Julia Helena to feed her information that would harm the Duchess's interests.
“Your Highness, I really can’t do this anymore!”
The middle lady was smart. She physically dragged her friends on both sides. The lady on the right ran at the first signal, and the lady on the left hesitated for a moment. However, she had enough sense to follow her friends when she saw them running. The lady on the left also ran. In the end, they all ran together to save themselves.
Julia Helena, left alone, stamped her feet in anger as she looked at the place where the women had run off to.
"Ah!"
She was going to chase after them, but Julia Helena really said, "I don't know who the ladies are." She's met so many foreigners lately that their faces look the same. She didn't have the confidence to recognize them even if she met them again.
“Oh my, I’m so annoyed!”
She stomped her feet once more. That didn't appease her anger. The young Princess stood there for a long time after they had disappeared, seething with anger.
Isabella was a suspicious woman with a strange aura about the King, and she had been acting very strange that day, she thought.
'That Isabella girl must have been screwed by Prince Alfonso, and Cesare must have been beaten up for listening to her.'
The three ladies were strictly speaking part of Duchess Rubina's faction. They did not have enough ties to Julia Helena to feed her information that would harm the Duchess's interests.
“Your Highness, I really can’t do this anymore!”
The middle lady was smart. She physically dragged her friends on both sides. The lady on the right ran at the first signal, and the lady on the left hesitated for a moment. However, she had enough sense to follow her friends when she saw them running. The lady on the left also ran. In the end, they all ran together to save themselves.
Julia Helena, left alone, stamped her feet in anger as she looked at the place where the women had run off to.
"Ah!"
She was going to chase after them, but Julia Helena really said, "I don't know who the ladies are." She's met so many foreigners lately that their faces look the same. She didn't have the confidence to recognize them even if she met them again.
“Oh my, I’m so annoyed!”
She stomped her feet once more. That didn't appease her anger. The young Princess stood there for a long time after they had disappeared, seething with anger.
Isabella was a suspicious woman with a strange aura about the King, and she had been acting very strange that day, she thought.
'That Isabella girl must have been screwed by Prince Alfonso, and Cesare must have been beaten up for listening to her.'
In ber heart, he was no longer 'the Duke' but 'my Cesare'. It was truly, truly disappointing to think that her Cesare had been hit because he had taken Isabella's side.
'Do you still have feelings for your ex-fiancé? Why are you listening to his words?'
If you broke off the engagement, then what? Without any regrets! Whether Isabella is in love with Alfonso or not, you have to go your own way!
Julia Helena should have thought more deeply about the phrase 'fighting over a woman', which is usually used when two or more men are courting a woman.
But when she imagined Cesare being infatuated with Isabella, she was so angry that she had no time to think deeply. She began to expend her energy in burning anger.
'Countess Isabella Contarini... She will be good to her husband!'
Julia Helena began to wonder what kind of a cuckold Count Contarini was that he allowed his wife to act like that.
'A woman without conscience and morals, with a husband who is like a fool!'
The reasoning process and the characters were all wrong, but the conclusion was right again today. Julia Helena, who seemed to be struggling but not struggling, was hovering precariously close to the truth again today.
***
Duchess Rubina wasn't the only one who cried and complained to Leo III after the chaotic banquet.
“Oh, I, oh! I don’t know why I went to that dinner party!”
“Isabella...”
“What Princess Manchike said is completely correct. What on earth qualified me to be there!”
As soon as Leo III came to see her, Isabella threw herself on the floor like a heroine of a play. The hem of her white dress was immediately soiled, but Isabella paid no attention. Leo III was surprised by her momentum and patted Isabella, who was sobbing wildly.
“Wasn’t it a dinner with the de Carlo and de Mare families?”
Nonsense, Isabella thought. But instead of venting her anger there, saying, 'Your Majesty knows best that it's a case of hiding one's eyes and pretending not to know!', she covered her face and wept bitterly. Pretending to be weak worked very well for Leo III.
His small shoulders shook, and Leo III's voice became even more gentle. It was a deep, green voice.
“Isabella...”
Isabella snorted inwardly. Huh! Where did you come from to collect this with your bare mouth?
“Your Majesty, I am so, so tired.”
She pleaded with tears, her amethyst eyes wet and clouded.
“I only need Your Majesty to be here. I am so intoxicated by the joy of laughing and talking with Your Majesty that I have endured all the troubles Lady Rubina has caused me!”
Leo III asked with wide eyes as if he were hearing this for the first time.
“Is Rubina bothering you?”
Isabella was dumbfounded. The King had seen Duchess Rubina wiping her off at the dinner table! Was he deaf, stupid, or just pretending not to know? But she decided not to fight Leo III. Leo III was a man with plenty to pick on.
“Yes...”
Instead, she shed tears.
“It’s really hard when Your Majesty isn’t around... I don’t even want to say what she’s saying... The more I think about it, the more my body trembles...”
Even if Leo III were to question Rubina, she wouldn't be able to say much. She's indeed been harassed countless times, and even if she denies it, Leo III won't believe her.
“T, this is... Rubina...!”
As the King shuddered with rage at his old concubine, Isabella made a bombshell announcement.
“I just want to leave the palace.”
Leo III looked at Isabella in surprise. Not a single woman had ever said she would leave him.
Isabella looked at Leo III with a tear-stained face and appealed.
“Rather than living in the palace and being humiliated like this, I would rather take refuge in a convent and live there!”
Of course, it was a bluff that had no intention of being kept. But Isabella was an excellent actor. Isabella's purple eyes sparkled with determination. Leo III's body trembled.
“No, Isabella!”
This was an immediate threat to Leo III. Several thoughts quickly raced through the King's mind.
He first thought about what society would say when the maid of the Duchess, the King's favorite, went off to a convent. They would surely think that the King had no choice but to send a woman to a convent because of the power of Duchess Rubina. It would be shameful. That would never happen!
Next, Leo III tried to gauge whether Isabella would actually carry out this threat. What kind of child was Isabella? Could she give up this wealth and honor?
The old King narrowed his eyes and looked at Isabella. Isabella also saw through the King's thoughts. She struck first.
“I have already experienced the life of a nun. It is physically hard there, but my mind is at peace!”
That's a lie. She didn't want to go to the convent even if she had to die soon. The Convent of Saint Angelo was a terrible place.
“It is a hundred times better to live comfortably in a convent, eating dry bread and plain water, than to eat delicacies from the mountains and the sea in the palace, anxious about when you might get stabbed in the back of the head!”
It was fortunate that they had at least some dry bread and plain water. They had to clean the convent floors with a rag soaked in dirty water, and when they had met their daily quota, they were given a piece of dried and twisted bread. Even that was often snatched away by stagnant water. Isabella had not given herself up to the likes of Ottavio for nothing.
“If Your Majesty would only visit once in a while... I would consider that my full compensation and live a life of seclusion in a convent.”
It could not be possible. It would be scandalous for an old King to be hanging around a convent. Isabella was sure that if Leo III had even a shred of ill will toward her, she would never be allowed to be sent to a convent.
And she had the confidence that even an old man who had been given the day of death would not be able to let her go, even though he had never slept with her. This was a firm self-esteem that had been built up by the men she had met throughout her life, and so even if a fight went wrong like now, and she was on the verge of flying to a convent, she would not waver.
Isabella raised her head and looked at Leo III earnestly.
“I didn’t believe in love.”
“Love...?”
Ottavio seemed like love at the time. A man who showed up at that horrible convent with a bag full of sugar and flour, if he had his limbs intact, would seem like the best love of his life. It might be the same even if his limbs weren't intact.
“Yes, if you call the feeling of longing love, then it is love.”
Even Leo III, an old man with white hair, could have truly loved her if he had met her then.
“If love is not the feeling of respect, affection, and longing to see something when it is not being seen, then what is love?”
Right now... Is it a tool of greed and revenge?
“If you’re not looking at me... do you miss me?”
“Your Majesty, isn’t that the case with me?”
Yes. When Isabella was out of sight, Leo III often thought of her beautiful, high-pitched voice, her babbling like a magpie, her skin as smooth as porcelain, and her beautiful eyes, nose, and mouth that made him lose his soul when he looked at them. Those harmonious features. Just like everyone else, she had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but how could Isabella’s look so captivating?
“That, that’s right...”
“Me too!”
The beautiful Isabella could not possibly have loved Leo III because of his youth and appearance, but Leo III did not think too deeply about it. Regardless of his appearance, most women were drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet. It must have been because he was attractive.
All that mattered to Leo III now was that Isabella thought of him and that they thought of each other.
“Ohh...”
“I was able to endure this life of poverty, eating only the food I was supposed to eat, without receiving a single penny of salary, all because I loved Your Majesty the King!”
Leo III chewed on the word 'love' over and over again. In the meantime, the realization that 'Isabella didn't have any living expenses' flashed through his mind.
The confession of love from a woman younger than his own child was so sweet that it left no room for other normal thoughts to creep in. For example, the reflection that women in their twenties rarely like older men as a romantic interest. Isabella said with her head down.
“But... Your Majesty’s thoughts on me end here. Even if poor Isabella is insulted and kicked here and there, Your Majesty has no intention of saving me.”
“How could that be!”
“I left the convent because of love. I entered Your Majesty’s court because of love. And now I am being hurt like this again.”
Isabella muttered with a sad expression.
“...It wasn’t about having courage.”
“Hey, Isabella...”
“Please let me go.”
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