How to Hide the Emperor's Child - Chapter 44
There are three teddy bears with ribbons that look cute as if they were carefully made in their own way.
“If it’s Lady Astelle……”
“Yes, the daughter of the Duke of Reston.”
The deposed empress was in this castle was a fact known to everyone who lived in the castle.
The guards also heard that the deposed empress was looking after her grandfather and nephew.
It said that the deposed empress had a special fondness for her little nephew.
The knight listened to Hannah’s explanation and nodded.
“All right, this way please.”
Hannah and the maid went through the gates to the outbuildings to the east.
It was time for her to pass through the garden corridor leading to the annex.
As Hannah was walking on the flat flagstones that covered the corridor’s path, she stumbled and accidentally dropped the basket.
“Ahh……”
As the basket fell to the floor, a small glass bottle popped out and rolled.
It was a glass bottle with purple petals.
Hannah, startled, quickly picked up the glass bottle, packed the basket, and left.
***
“Please hold a tea party.”
The next day, Astelle went to see Vellian and asked for a favor.
“……I beg your pardon?”
Vellian wondered what he had heard just now.
‘Tea party?’
Astelle, who was sitting opposite him, asked a question in a very natural manner, “Have you been to the tea room in the garden?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“It was very beautiful in the middle of the acacia flower garden. I want to have a tea party in that tea room.”
Vellian smiled after a brief pause and said, “That’s right. Then you can have a tea party if you want—”
“But I can’t send out the invitations because there aren’t any ladies I know here. So the Count will host a tea party for me.”
“Pardon? No! I mean……why me, Lady Astelle?”
Vellian looked at Astelle with a puzzled look.
The tea party was a social gathering for noblewomen.
No nobleman ever hosted a tea party.
Well, it’s not legally prohibited, but it was customary anyway.
If a man were to host a tea party, the nobles of the capital would see him as a strange person.
Astelle said in a calm voice, “Have you forgotten what happened last time at the inn? You disguised the pharmacist as a maid to steal my luggage and medicine box. She sent me to the public bath and looked through my clothes.”
“……”
Astelle smiled as she watched Vellian’s gentle-looking face harden.
“I told you back then. I’ll get help from you later. Don’t you remember that too?”
“That……”
Vellian stuttered, then lowered his head and sighed.
“Excuse me, Lady Astelle.”
He put one hand on his forehead and said, “You will leave soon after completing the will of the late empress dowager, but I have to live in the capital for the rest of my life and work in the imperial palace.”
There was no way Astelle would do something like a tea party for no reason.
Vellian knew what had just happened.
Theor was almost kidnapped by a maid. He knew in detail the circumstances.
Even Vellian could guess who the culprit was.
“Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be for the rest of my life if I had a hostile relationship with the mother of the future empress?”
“Is that something I should be concerned about?”
At Astelle’s brazen question, Vellian was at a loss for words.
“……”
Astelle said with a friendly smile in front of Vellian’s dazed face.
“You seem to have misunderstood. I won’t hurt the Marchioness. It’s just a tea party. I would like to invite the Marchioness to make friends.”
“Make friends?”
Vellian stared suspiciously as if he would not believe such nonsense.
Astelle did not give up and spoke in a serious manner, “I want to openly and frankly tell her about what happened with Lady Marianne, and clear up any misunderstandings. I don’t want to be an enemy of the Croychen family.”
Astelle confessed frankly, “But if I were the one holding the tea party, the Marchioness and her daughter would not be attending. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Vellian looked at Astelle with his suspicious eyes.
There was not a single lie on her pretty face.
But he is Vellian and he was not easily fooled.
“Then can you swear to me, Lady Astelle? You will never do anything bad to the Marchioness.”
“Sure.”
Astelle placed one hand on her chest with an innocent expression, as if she would never lie.
And she swore seriously, “I swear on my father.”
“Hey…… I know how your relationship with your father is, the Duke of Reston.”
Vellian glared at her with a suspicious look.
“Then, can’t I take someone else?”
“Who are you going to swear on?”
“I do not know……how about my grandfather, the Marquis of Carlenberg?”
Vellian pondered over who Astelle valued the most, and chose her maternal grandfather, the Marquis.
He thought about Theor, but he couldn’t bet the five-year-old child.
Astelle swore obediently, “I swear on my father and grandfather. I won’t touch the Marchioness until the tea party is over.”
Velian still had a grumpy face with doubts, but when he heard Astelle’s oath, he couldn’t argue anymore.
“I see. I believe you because you say that far.”
“Thank you.”
Astelle smiled contentedly.
Because Astelle will never use her hand anyway.
‘I don’t have to do it with my own hands.’
The Marchioness was quick-tempered.
Such a person is the type to self-destruct without being attacked.
Astelle only needs to create the opportunity.
She didn’t care if she couldn’t keep her oath.
Her father, the Duke of Reston had cut ties with her.
And it wasn’t just her maternal grandfather, the Marquis of Carlenberg, whom she called ‘grandfather’.
The deceased former Duke of Reston was also her ‘grandfather’.
“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.”
Astelle swore calmly and concealed her inner feelings.
“And if this goes well, I will not ask Sir Vellian such a difficult request in the future. I will completely forget about your work at the inn back then.”
“……I wish I could believe those words,” Vellian muttered helplessly.
“Thank you for listening to my request. I was interrupting a busy person. I will take my leave now.”
It was when Astelle got up to say thank you. Vellian asked with a confused expression, “Are you going to invite His Majesty as well?”
Astelle looked back at him as if asking what he meant.
It seems that he really hated doing Astelle’s request.
Seeing that he deliberately mentions his name, knowing that she doesn’t like meeting Kaizen.
Astelle flatly refused, “This is a tea party held to get rid of old feelings, so there is no need to bring the emperor. Don’t tell His Majesty.”
***
The Marchioness looked at the luxurious envelope and asked nervously, “A tea party invitation?”
In the afternoon, an invitation to a tea party was delivered in the name of Vellian.
It was a polite request to attend a tea party in the tea room in the garden.
“Did you say that the woman has been to the main palace?”
“Yes. It is said that the Count and Lady Astelle talked to each other alone.”
The maid who brought the invitation answered the question of the Marchioness.
‘What had she planned?’
The Marchioness wasn’t stupid either.
There was no reason for Vellian, the emperor’s aide, to suddenly hold a tea party.
Why did a nobleman host a tea party in the first place?
‘It must have been her.’
It was clear that she had ordered Vellian to hold a tea party.
The Marchioness was watching what Astelle was doing in the annex.
One of her maids that she placed as a spy reported that Astelle had met Vellian.
And today, the invitation to a tea party came.
As anyone can see, it was Astelle’s work.
But why?
The Marchioness was unsure of her intentions.
She asked the maid again as she tapped the tabletop with her finger, “Did you say you saw the purple petals?”
“Yes, Madam. I saw it with my own two eyes,” the maid said once again what she had seen.
Astelle’s maid, who came out of the castle, dropped something from the basket, and it was a flower petal in a glass bottle.
‘Purple petals in a glass bottle.’
That ominous purple was the color of death.
The small purple petals, often called the Monkshood, were famous for their powerful poison.
Even the Marchioness, who was ignorant of herbal medicine, knew how poisonous the flower was.
Astelle’s maid has bought purple petals in a glass bottle.
The only evidence she had was the maid’s eyewitness report, but the Marchioness couldn’t think of any other purpose there.
‘This is obviously……she’s a cunning woman trying to get revenge on me.’
She was told that Astelle knew medicinal herbs and that she carried a bunch of medicine bottles.
Poor Marianne tried to inspect that woman’s suspicious medicine, but she was framed and suffering in prison.
What kind of hobbies does that woman have?
She’s like a pharmacist, that’s what low-level women do.
‘In the North where I grew up, such sassy women were slaughtered as witches, and Astelle had good reason to seek revenge on her.’
Yeah right, that must be revenge. She must have known that the Marchioness was the mastermind behind the kidnapping of her nephew that happened a few days ago.
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