The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 46

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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 46

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The spacious ballroom was filled with colorful dresses and tailcoats. It looked like a blooming flower garden.

From afar it appeared clean and beautiful, but like a flower bed, if you dug beneath the surface, it would be crawling with insects.

Lindsey Dyce moved through the flowers like a shadow in her black maid’s uniform, holding a tray full of wine glasses like a shield.

Eyes and ears serving her master confirmed the movements of the insects hidden beneath the petals.

“The Raskails were impressive ten years ago. But well, I’m not so sure about now.”

“The gem mines aren’t going anywhere, so the ducal house will still be wealthy… but the gap from all these years is significant. Honestly, Raskail’s influence now compared to Duirebourg…”

These were ordinary social butterflies.

“Wow, seeing this ballroom makes it feel real. The Raskail family has truly returned! Finally, a focal point for the northern nobles!”

“To think the princess we thought was dead has returned – how overjoyed her family must be. It’s a miracle itself.”

People like these were beneficial insects like ladybugs or honeybees.

“What a waste of a title for that family. To throw away ten years just because one little girl went missing… Anyway, if we use this opportunity to manipulate them well through the princess, we could get mining rights…”

“Frankly, how can we know where the princess has been or what she’s been doing? Missing at ten and memory loss for ten years? Doesn’t that sound too much like an excuse? Maybe she was sold to some back alley and lived a filthy life, and they’re trying to cover it up…”

These types were pests that needed to be exterminated.

Having assessed the ballroom’s atmosphere as part of her amethyst duties, Lindsey then confirmed the key nobles in attendance.

‘The Baroness Winterfield and her sons. The baron and viscount couldn’t leave the border, so they’re absent from this social season again.’

‘Marquis and Marchioness Nisa with their children, Count and Countess Darius with their children, Baron and Baroness Sage with their children…’

‘Marquis and Marchioness Blen, but their daughter didn’t come? I heard she was eccentric…’

Meanwhile, a pink-haired girl aggressively devouring desserts caught her eye.

‘From Duirebourg, only the princess attended. The duke is absent.’

A brunette lady and her younger brother, older sister, and a gentle-looking middle-aged man who glanced at that girl while keeping their distance.

‘Count Everett’s husband and three siblings. Count Everett herself didn’t come.’

A curly-haired young man surrounded by pests.

‘Prince Joseph of Adickl. Requires caution.’

Since it was a debutante ball, mostly young nobles attended, and families whose heads came personally either had connections with Raskail or wanted to establish them.

‘…The Crown Prince would be the latter.’

Unless his purpose was to win over the Raskails, there was no reason for the Crown Prince to personally attend a ducal daughter’s debutante ball, no matter how grand.

‘The Crown Prince did push Adickl aside for now, but couldn’t completely eliminate him. He still has succession rights. He’ll also need a way to check Duirebourg, which remained safe by stepping back when the Grand Duke was rampaging… Then Raskail would be perfect.’

It was a reasonable deduction as Raskail’s amethyst. It was impossible to fantasize that the Crown Prince attended the princess’s debutante ball with the purpose of somehow meeting a particular maid.

‘Good, I should organize this and report to my master.’

Lindsey glanced at the Crown Prince surrounded by nobles desperately trying to catch his attention and passed by.

Crown Prince Gideon responded appropriately to the chatter of the nobles around him while thinking.

‘After the first dance, when the second song begins, I’ll deliberately spill wine on my clothes…’

Something like winning over the Raskails wasn’t important. His entire focus was on the plan Ethan had conveyed.

This remained true even when the young Duke Raskail stepped onto the platform to give a welcoming address, and when the Duke escorted today’s protagonist, Princess Lillieta, into the hall.

“Oh my goodness…”

“How…”

Even as the nobles were amazed by Princess Lillieta’s dazzling beauty upon her first appearance in society, and even those who had been ready to criticize were left speechless, Gideon was absorbed only in thoughts of meeting the maid suspected to be Rita.

Just then, a wine glass slipped from the stunned Prince Adickl’s hand and shattered with a crash.

Only after the Crown Prince turned toward the sound and saw his stupefied cousin’s face did he check the face of the princess standing beside the Duke.

‘…She’s a beauty.’

With that face, plus the background of being the Raskail’s youngest daughter and the intriguing story of disappearing and returning, the Raskail princess would undoubtedly be the star of this social season.

But Prince Adickl’s reaction was concerning.

The fool was practically drooling as he stared at the princess, and if Raskail followed Duirebourg in forming an engagement alliance with Adickl, it would be troublesome and had to be prevented somehow.

‘None of Duke Raskail’s children are married yet. The second son is a holy knight? Excluding him, we should select suitable matches for the young duke and princess from our side.’

That was the extent of the Crown Prince’s thoughts about the princess. His calculations about appropriate families to connect with Raskail ended instantly, and his interest ceased simultaneously.

Even while greeting the Duke, offering ceremonial congratulations, bowing to the princess, and placing his hand on the princess’s back for the debutante’s first dance, he was thinking only of the maid from the photograph Ethan had given him.

So when the princess spoke during the waltz, the emotion Gideon felt was ‘annoyance.’

“Your Highness the Crown Prince.”

“Yes.”

When he replied indifferently, the princess didn’t continue. Not even while they spun around the ballroom surrounded by countless people to the waltz the orchestra played.

Somehow her gaze felt piercing. The princess was staring up at him intently.

Gideon found even that gaze annoying. No matter how beautiful the princess was, it meant nothing to him. He was also far too accustomed to noble ladies being unable to take their eyes off him and then approaching him.

Over the past four years, with slight exaggeration, every unmarried noble lady had at least once performed strange acts in front of him like dropping handkerchiefs or swaying conspicuously.

Usually he skillfully and politely deflected such advances, but.

‘Today it’s difficult to accommodate them.’

Was the princess’s name Lilliana? Lillieta? It seemed like Lillieta, but he wasn’t quite in his right mind so he couldn’t be certain. So he decided to just call her princess.

“Do you have something to say to me, Princess?”

Even while asking out of courtesy, Gideon anticipated the answer. Obviously she would make advances.

The princess hesitated and only spoke after he took her hand and spun her around once.

“What do you think of patchouli scent, by any chance?”

So it was advances after all.

Gideon almost let out a bitter laugh.

Four years ago, shortly after his return, he had drawn his sword upon smelling patchouli at a ball.

Since the Crown Prince nearly killed someone at a ball, it was quite a major incident. Rumors of madness even spread, causing various troubles in the aftermath.

Therefore, it would be harder for any imperial noble not to know that he disliked patchouli scent.

Should he call this act of pretending not to know that charming, or bothersome?

“I don’t particularly like it.”

“…Neither do I.”

A predictable answer. The princess seemed to want to continue the conversation using their common ground as a topic.

Since she was Duke Raskail’s beloved daughter, he would normally have played along appropriately, but Gideon’s entire attention was focused elsewhere. He was also terribly tired from not sleeping a wink for several days.

“I see.”

So he cut off the conversation with a short response.

The princess seemed to want to say more, but he deliberately avoided meeting her eyes and kept his mouth firmly shut.

Before long, the song ended.

Gideon released the princess’s hand, stepped back, placed his hand on his chest, and bowed. Across from him, the princess froze for a moment before soon grasping her dress hem and returning the greeting.

Though a beat late, it was a flawless, textbook curtsy. Because of that, nothing particularly special was felt. It was befitting of a noble family’s daughter.

The strangeness was felt when she straightened her knees.

He realized that the princess’s gaze was examining his eyes, particularly his right eye, with unusual persistence.

Thinking back, she seemed to have been looking at his eyes continuously during the waltz too. He had thought she was trying to make eye contact, but it felt slightly different from that. As if she was searching for or trying to confirm something.

His right eye, of all things. An inexplicable irritation arose.

Gideon lightly touched his eye area and asked.

“Is there something in my eye?”

“…No.”

“Then why… Never mind.”

He started to ask for a reason but stopped. Over her shoulder, he could see the orchestra preparing for the second song.

The real ball was beginning. Nobles wanting to waltz emerged in pairs here and there.

Gideon gave the princess a light nod, then turned away. He passed through the crowd of nobles toward a servant holding a wine tray. The gaze clinging to the back of his head was strangely bothersome, but he quickly dismissed his interest.

‘Ethan said he’d be waiting when I leave the hall with the excuse of spilling wine.’

Now it was time to go meet the possibility that was Rita Pascal.

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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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