The Prince’s Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 239
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 239. Karma (3)
Why is The Empress here?
Helena stepped back with surprised eyes.
“It seems you’ve forgotten the etiquette of greeting me first now that I’m The Empress, 2nd Princess Consort.”
The Empress, Melanie’s voice was dry.
The lukewarm tone that carried neither cold mockery nor hot anger somehow felt unpleasant.
“…I greet The Empress.”
Helena reluctantly grabbed her skirt and bent her knees with a begrudging expression.
Despite her face being crumpled with irritation and confusion, her posture was perfect enough to appear in an etiquette textbook.
“Sit.”
Melanie naturally sat on the sofa placed in the room.
The two knights who had followed her in went back outside and the door closed silently.
“…To dismiss your guards.”
Helena glanced at the closed door and turned around.
“I didn’t know The Empress trusted me so much.”
“Don’t misunderstand.”
Melanie, sitting with perfect posture, looked just like a doll.
“I dismissed the guards simply because subduing someone like you is no trouble at all even without guards. I am a Crowner after all.”
The Crowner Ducal House was a prestigious martial family.
The daughters of the ducal family were famous for receiving the same level of martial arts training as the family’s sons until their coming-of-age ceremony, unless there were special circumstances.
“And I believe I told you to sit.”
Gray eyes that had never readily shown emotion turned toward Helena.
“Are you planning to keep standing there?”
Only then did Helena slowly move and sit in the chair placed across from The Empress.
“I heard that The Emperor personally interrogated you this morning.”
Melanie spoke immediately as soon as she sat down.
“That you denied all the crimes committed by the Redcliff family.”
“The word ‘denied’ seems inappropriate, The Empress.”
Helena slightly lifted her chin.
It was a confident attitude as if she believed she hadn’t committed even the slightest wrongdoing.
“I merely asserted my innocence.”
“You mean the Princess Consort did nothing wrong at all?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“In other words, should I understand that the Princess Consort was unaware that The Marquis of Redcliff conspired with The Holy Kingdom to create mutant monsters through magic circles, threatening the security of not only The Empire but the entire continent?”
“…The Empress.”
Helena openly showed a displeased expression at The Empress’s question.
“Are you interrogating me right now?”
“What if I am?”
“I don’t understand why someone who surely knows that imperial women should not interfere in state affairs would make such a mistake.”
Helena leaned back against the chair with one corner of her eye twisted.
“Interrogation is a judge’s job, and questioning the crimes of imperial family members is something only The Emperor, the sole judge of the imperial family, can do.”
She who hadn’t budged even under The Emperor’s interrogation had no reason to open her mouth to The Empress’s questioning. But Melanie also showed no sign of being shaken by Helena’s shameless expression.
“Do you think I don’t know that, Princess Consort?”
“Since someone who should know best is suddenly acting this way, I’m speaking out of bewilderment.”
Melanie fell silent once again.
She quietly looked at Helena before speaking again.
“Then how will you explain the doubts about Prince Lloyd’s birth?”
“So why is The Empress asking such things…”
Helena flared up and shouted.
But Melanie immediately cut off her words.
“Imperial women cannot interfere in state affairs, but matters concerning imperial children are different.”
“What do you…”
“As The Empress, I am qualified to be involved in matters concerning all imperial children.”
Melanie continued speaking with both hands neatly placed on her knees.
“So I ask you, 2nd Princess Consort.”
Helena unconsciously gripped the armrest of her chair tightly.
“About Prince Lloyd’s birth…”
“That child is The Emperor’s son! He’s The Emperor’s son whom I bore through my own labor pains!”
With a crash, the chair fell backward.
It was because Helena had suddenly kicked back her chair and stood up.
“The Empress, what’s happening!”
“May we enter, The Empress!”
Urgent shouts from the knights came from outside, but Melanie remained unshaken.
“It’s fine, stand by.”
She gave orders to the knights outside in a calm voice and looked at Helena.
“I’m well aware that the 2nd Princess Consort bore that child through labor pains. I personally prepared your birthing chamber and found the midwife to assist with your delivery.”
“But how dare you harbor such ridiculous suspicions?”
Helena shouted while swinging her arms as if to tear through the air.
“Don’t tell me that even The Empress, who is rational and calm in all matters, believes those strange rumors circulating in high society?”
The 2nd Princess Consort’s face, which had surely been relaxed just moments ago, had turned deathly pale.
“Those are just fantasies that Countess Katarina made up to slander me! You should punish that woman who insulted not me but the imperial family…”
“Allen Driff.”
The Empress uttered someone’s name like an incantation.
A name that might be desperately familiar enough for someone to want to forget.
“From your expression, it seems you know him well.”
Helena’s eyes widened as if they might tear.
Her face was now so pale that not a trace of color could be found.
“To determine the truth of the rumors you mentioned, I called Countess Katarina to ask her directly.”
It was half truth and half lie.
It wasn’t that Melanie had called Countess Katarina to ask, but rather Countess Katarina had come directly to the Empress’s Palace and confessed the story herself.
“When you were still called the young lady of The Marquis of Redcliff, you were quite close, I hear.”
Allen Driff, knight of The Marquis of Redcliff.
He was an unremarkable man born to commoner parents.
Even so, it was too precious a life to be torn apart and killed by a marquis’s hand before even reaching thirty.
“I heard his corpse was abandoned on a mountain without even a grave. I’m told that man’s parents also jumped off a cliff not long after, heartbroken over losing their son.”
“No, no. Such things never happened…”
Melanie quietly watched Helena, who looked precarious as if she might collapse at any moment.
“I ask you once more, 2nd Princess Consort.”
“…Stop, please stop.”
“Before becoming Princess Consort, did you really have nothing happen with that man?”
Nothing happened? Nothing at all?
Helena covered her face with her delicate hands.
‘I truly love you, Helena. Even without your title, even without a fortune, I love you simply as the woman you are.’
On a day when bone-chilling cold snow storms raged.
Helena’s knight stood his ground without moving an inch at her single word.
‘Helena, I would stake my very life to be with you. So let’s run away together.’
In her ignorant childhood, she had believed those words completely.
Back then, Helena hadn’t forgotten how to harbor vain hopes.
‘Did you think you could betray the marquis’s family and remain unharmed?’
But reality completely shattered the hopes she had harbored.
Helena could never forget the day her father forcibly turned her head to make her face her lover’s corpse.
‘This is the end that awaits a tool that doesn’t obey its master.’
The lover who had whispered that he would love her more than his own life appeared as torn chunks of meat on the very day they had promised to run away together.
‘My beloved daughter, this father has exterminated the mongrel who dared to covet you without knowing his place, so don’t worry anymore. You just focus on the marriage proposal with His Imperial Majesty, understand?’
Fear squeezed between despair and sorrow to dominate Helena’s entire body.
Was the ‘tool’ father mentioned Allen, or was it me? If I rebelled against father’s orders like Allen did, what would happen? Then I too would…
‘…Yes, father.’
In the end, Helena declared her surrender to her father before her lover’s death.
And that day, her soul was shattered to pieces along with her lover’s corpse.
So brutally that it could never be put back together again.
“No, no…”
Helena’s voice trembled finely.
She covered her face with her delicate hands and shook violently.
“I don’t know anything! I don’t know, I tell you! I didn’t do anything wrong! It wasn’t me!”
“Please calm down, 2nd Empress.”
Melanie rose from the sofa.
Standing up, she took a step toward the 2nd Empress who was restless like a lost child.
“Aaaah! Don’t come! Don’t come near me…!”
“It’s dangerous, Empress. Please stop.”
Helena screamed and staggered backward.
Despite The Empress’s restraint, she grabbed whatever was within reach and threw it at her feet.
“Stop it, Helena!”
Along with the call of her name, light flashed before Helena’s eyes.
It was because The Empress had struck her cheek hard.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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