Celebrity Lady - Chapter 45

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Celebrity Lady
Chapter 45
“A proposal? What—uh, what’s that?”
“You know, becoming a married couple? Making a promise to be a married couple. If I propose to you, you just have to accept.”
“And then we become a married couple? Can we live together?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I want to!”
Lubert accepted readily, and the boy laughed for a long while at her earnestness.
“Well, since we’ve made a promise, I’m afraid we have to part ways for today.”
“Mm… okay.”
Lubert understood the boy’s desire to console her, so she didn’t press him further and turned to leave, though it pained her to do so.
When Lubert returned home that day, she had to endure a scolding from Molga, who was crying as if worried, and from her eldest brother Biego, who was furious—but it didn’t trouble her greatly.
As long as she could see that gentle boy again…
Nothing else seemed to matter.
* * *
Click.
A brass pendant carved with the shape of a lion.
The moment I returned home, I took it out from where it had been carefully kept in my jewelry box and opened it.
Inside the pendant, which had a small groove when opened, lay the powdered remains of the rose the boy had given me seven years ago.
“Mm…”
I gazed at it quietly.
All through my continued training with Larck, my mind had been elsewhere.
Even now, back home, I couldn’t stop recalling that night at the Festival seven years ago.
“That lion mask…”
It was Cedric Raizer.
‘And all this time, I’ve harbored an unrequited love for him because of that night.’
Eight-year-old Lubert had lain in bed, lovesick and pining, thinking of nothing but ‘who could that older brother have been?’
‘It was obvious he had to be of high rank.’
So wouldn’t he be one of the young nobles around the same age?
As I was mulling this over, Cedric appeared before me. And by chance, I learned his circumstances too.
He said he’d been severely punished by his father and confined to quarters, which was why he hadn’t been able to enjoy the Festival.
‘The lion mask made sense too. He said it was hard to tell me his name because he’d snuck out without his father knowing.’
Young Lubert became convinced on that basis alone that the lion mask must have been Cedric.
How could I have been so certain they were the same person on such flimsy evidence?
“That… the day you helped me in the lion mask. That was you, Lord Cedric, wasn’t it?”
Well, because I went directly to Cedric and brought it up, and heard his answer with my own ears.
“I was so grateful back then. You got me home safely, didn’t spread word about me getting lost, and… you played with me.”
“Ah, well… yeah, I suppose so.”
“I—I like you! I’ve come to like you! Please accept this!”
That day when I’d gathered the courage to go find Cedric.
I’d given him an expensive cravat and blurted out a direct confession, and Cedric had responded,
“Haha, you got me. Shh, don’t tell anyone about this, alright?”
“Of—of course not!”
He’d definitely nodded in agreement.
Click.
I closed the open pendant and tilted my head back slowly.
And in the moment my eyes shut tight.
All the memories of Cedric that had dogged me my entire life flashed past like a lantern show.
“I followed him around after that.”
Strangely, Cedric was nothing like that first meeting—he was never gentle with me.
‘Every time I grew tired and tried to stop loving him, I’d fail. Fail. Fail again.’
Whenever Lubert’s interest began to fade, Cedric would offer subtle flirtation—like tossing a scrap of bread to a beast starved for four days.
“You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“I missed you.”
“Do you still like me?”
Cedric’s gentle smile and voice were like rain on parched earth for my weary heart.
Over time, Cedric showed more interest in Lilia than in me, and even joined in the twins’ cruel teasing—but…
“Why couldn’t I forget that memory?”
Because I couldn’t let go of that night at the Festival, I’d always soften toward him.
He was the first person to treat me, a discarded child, with tenderness.
The one who didn’t scold me even when I cried and whined.
The one who promised we’d marry and live together someday.
“Ugh…”
For forty-five years straight, Lubert had believed with absolute certainty that the lion mask that night was Cedric.
“What if it wasn’t…”
“Why have you been muttering to yourself like that this whole time?”
Wisht, who was sprawled lazily across my bed, asked.
“Wisht, why is my life surrounded by so much garbage? Should I just accept it as fate?”
“Nothing surprising about that.”
“True enough.”
I gave a bitter laugh, straightened my slouched posture, and put the pendant around my neck.
“If only I hadn’t wasted all those years chasing after a waste of space without ever meeting another man.”
My grip on the pendant tightened.
“I hope you weren’t mistaken about this, Lubert.”
* * *
The next day.
When I asked if he could train with me again tomorrow, Larck agreed readily.
I knew well enough how swamped he was with work even after leaving court.
‘How unnecessarily kind of him. Just like that lion mask.’
I swallowed a hollow laugh and spoke after we’d been running for a while.
“Your Highness.”
“Mm?”
“Why have you never married, even at your age?”
“Huh?”
Larck tilted his head and turned to look at me.
He was nineteen.
In the world I originally came from, he might still be considered a minor, but things were different here. Especially for Larck, who was not only an Imperial Family Member but Crown Prince besides.
Imperial law considered sixteen the threshold of adulthood, so a nineteen-year-old Crown Prince would hardly be unusual if he were already married with a child or two.
“Usually, imperial heirs marry almost as soon as they turn sixteen. Many are already betrothed by twelve or thirteen.”
“That’s true.”
“But why haven’t you taken a consort yet? Parliament nobles must have nagged you about it endlessly.”
“Why are you suddenly curious about that?”
“Just am.”
“Well, I suppose…”
Larck shrugged thoughtfully.
“I simply wanted to be careful. You can’t marry just anyone as a consort.”
“Ah, I see. So you considered proposing to me because I’m around the right age and the legitimate daughter of Duke Diolus’s house—someone who’d be a suitable Crown Princess and politically advantageous?”
Larck paused and laughed apologetically.
“No, well… if you insist I give a reason, I suppose that would be it, but it feels wrong to say it so bluntly.”
“Are you telling me there’s no other reason besides that?”
“Huh?”
When I stopped running, Larck naturally came to a halt beside me.
With a confused look on his face, I pulled the pendant from around my neck and brought it into view.
“Mm…?”
Larck narrowed his eyes to look at it, then suddenly smiled in surprise.
“Cute, isn’t it? This lion pendant.”
“Yeah, it is cute. Who gave it to you? Whoever it was has excellent taste.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha…!”
“Hahaha!”
The way Larck laughed playfully was enough for me to know he recognized the pendant.
Laughing along with him, my heart was torn between exasperation and relief.
‘Could it be that the reason he hadn’t married all this time—staying unwed even at nineteen—was because of that silly promise to become a married couple?’
Before I knew, I’d misread his intentional approach…
But now that I did know, my heart felt strangely unsettled.
“Lord Cedric Raizer gave it to me.”
I said it with a bright smile, and Larck suddenly staggered, his large frame swaying.
His brow furrowed sharply as he asked,
“Who gave it to you?”
“Lord Cedric Raizer.”
“…No, that’s not—”
“Yes, it is. Seven years ago, at the National Day Masked Festival.”
Larck’s lips parted slowly in disbelief, and he looked as though he wanted to say he was the one who’d given it to me.
“I got lost that day, and I met Lord Cedric wearing a mask.”
“Wait, hold on. My lady, that—”
“Please, let me finish. Lord Cedric showed me around the Festival that day when I was lost and crying, gave me this pendant, and—”
Suddenly, heat rose within me. I closed my eyes and steadied my breath before continuing.
“When I didn’t want to part with him, he promised he’d come propose to me later. That way we could be a married couple and live in the same house.”
“But that’s—”
“It was Lord Cedric. I asked him directly myself.”
“What? Cedric Raizer said he was the one in that lion mask?”
“Ha ha, lion mask? I never said it was a lion mask. I only said he was wearing a mask.”
Catching Larck off guard, I gritted my teeth and smiled brightly at him.
“You heard from your brother Victor that I harbored an unrequited love for Lord Cedric for seven years, didn’t you?”
“Wait. Don’t tell me…”
Larck shut his eyes tight and grabbed his creased brow.
“Yes, that’s right!”
Unable to contain my welling emotions, I raised my voice and stepped closer to Larck.
“That day, I stupidly fell for the masked Cedric!”
“Ah…”
“My time! My sincerity!”
The injustice of having devoted my entire life to chasing after a piece of garbage overwhelmed me, and tears spilled out.
“What are you going to do about it…?”
I lashed out weakly, driving my fist against Larck’s chest, and he went rigid.
“You should have found me sooner, or at least told me eventually…”
“…”
“I didn’t even know it was you, and I’ve been… this whole time…”
God, it’s so unfair.
I forced out the words, my lips trembling despite myself.
“For seven whole years I chased after Cedric Raizer, and I nearly spent my entire life doing it until the day I died!”
Larck, taken aback, quietly caught my fist against his chest and fell into stunned silence.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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