Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 120

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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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Chapter 120
When Edwin returned to the Imperial Palace, what he found was Kyle—rarely flustered.
A reaction of that magnitude could only mean a large-scale natural disaster had struck some provincial fief.
“What’s happened?”
To Edwin’s inquiry, Kyle hedged and avoided giving a direct answer.
“Don’t make me ask twice.”
Just as Edwin was about to lose patience, the answer that finally came was unexpected.
“The Crown Princess of Bellot and Lord Rohas have requested an urgent audience.”
“In the middle of the night?”
Edwin’s tone was sharp with irritation.
“They say they have something important to convey.”
Kyle added with an uncomfortable expression.
Edwin, who had been dragged away from his date, was in a sour mood, but he did not neglect his duties for that reason.
“Where are they now?”
“In the Reception Room.”
Edwin headed straight for the Reception Room the moment he heard Kyle’s answer.
As he opened the door and stepped inside, he caught sight of Everett Rohas and the Crown Princess, who had been pressed together, startling apart with haste.
Edwin glanced back at Kyle for a moment.
His gaze could be roughly translated as: ‘An urgent matter, you say?’
‘Let’s hear them out first.’
Kyle mouthed silently.
Edwin decided to listen, as Kyle suggested.
Of course, if the reason proved trivial, those responsible would pay dearly for interrupting his date.
Edwin waved off Everett, who had hurriedly stood and moved to bow, then took his seat. Kyle activated the Eavesdropping Prevention Artifact.
The Crown Princess and Everett appeared outwardly unremarkable.
Everett had always been wary of the Emperor, so his demeanor was no different than usual, and the Crown Princess’s composed attitude was likewise unchanged.
It was only from Kyle’s expression, grimly set, that one could infer the matter was serious indeed.
Only after confirming that Kyle had activated the artifact did the Crown Princess speak.
“We should expedite the state wedding.”
The Crown Princess’s face, strong-boned as befitted a woman of Bellot, had turned pallid.
The Crown Princess, who had not caught even a cold during the long negotiations between the Empire and Bellot, had gone pale…?
Though he knew he ought to be concerned, Edwin could not conceal his bewilderment.
Yet he was not greatly alarmed, for though her voice insisting on hastening the wedding was grave, her manner was not entirely serious.
Rather, a faint excitement could be felt.
Everett, who had been sitting stiffly with shoulders braced since Edwin entered, wore an expression nearly identical to the Crown Princess’s.
Everett’s gaze, which had been fixed forward, shifted subtly.
The light in his eyes as he looked at the Crown Princess had softened.
In that moment, Edwin surmised that the Crown Princess’s reason for advancing the wedding was something along the lines of ‘I cannot bear to be parted from you for even a day’—something nauseating in its sentimentality.
Though Edwin had desired for these two to find mutual affection, accelerating the state wedding posed a problem for him personally.
However, this was an entirely private concern.
Edwin made a habit of maintaining a distinction between public duty and personal interest.
“Your reason?”
Edwin asked, hoping the reason would allow for some negotiation.
This time, Everett moved to answer instead of the Crown Princess.
But in that instant.
“Ugh.”
The Crown Princess retched.
Pallid complexion.
Lemon Tea, placed only before the Crown Princess.
And beside it, Everett, restless yet unmistakably happy.
‘Surely not…?’
It was a more effective explanation than words could provide.
Now he understood why Kyle had summoned him from his date.
This was indeed serious.
The excuse about not wanting to be parted for even an hour would have been a hundred times preferable.
Edwin wanted to grab himself by the collar for having threatened retaliation should the reason prove trivial.
Edwin’s eyes flickered with shock.
Yet the Crown Princess and Everett, lost in their own world, seemed too occupied with their own consternation to spare any attention for Edwin’s visible distress.
“Are you all right?”
Everett, his face twisted with concern, brought the cup of Lemon Tea to the Crown Princess’s lips.
The Crown Princess’s expression showed appetite in the negatives, but perhaps mindful of Everett’s sincerity, she took a small sip.
Everett smiled as though the very act of watching her drink was endearing.
Before long, the two seemed to have forgotten they were in the Emperor’s Reception Room.
Edwin had not yet fed Lina in front of others.
Though he had received food from her before.
But that had been at a restaurant, and there had been reasons for it.
His eyes, grown indulgent toward his own romance after falling into first love, turned cold.
The Crown Princess and Everett emerged from their private world only after Kyle intervened, gauging Edwin’s mood.
“Ahem. If I may, Your Majesty has a question.”
Only then did the Crown Princess’s softened expression harden back to its usual stiffness.
She seemed to assume Edwin had already grasped the situation, so she spoke directly.
“I am pregnant.”
Though he had suspected, confirmation sent a chill crawling up the back of his neck.
The Crown Princess continued speaking, seemingly indifferent to Edwin’s reaction.
“In Bellot, children born before marriage are treated as illegitimate.”
Bellot had stricter laws concerning bloodline than the Empire.
In the Empire, an illegitimate child could achieve official registration through a process of acknowledgment.
But in Bellot, illegitimate children could not legally be formally registered into a family line, nor did they possess inheritance rights.
The state wedding needed to be advanced—this was indeed a matter requiring urgency.
Otherwise, the Successor to the throne’s firstborn child would be deemed illegitimate and stripped of succession rights.
Though the couple’s marriage was disastrous for his own romantic situation, it was the Emperor’s duty to offer congratulations.
Yet the first thought that entered Edwin’s mind was: ‘But why?’
The people of the Eastern Region were conservative.
Fiefs closer to the capital were somewhat more progressive, but the closer one ventured toward the border, the more pronounced the tendency became.
When he and Lina had gone on assignment to Diegis, he had offered the innkeeper an excuse—that abstinence from the marriage bed before the marriage ceremony was fully complete was the custom of Everett Rohas’s home village and its surrounding lands.
Bellot, sharing a border with the Eastern Region, was likewise quite conservative.
Given such circumstances, Edwin had genuinely not anticipated that the two would come requesting to advance the state wedding after conceiving a child before marriage.
As Edwin’s thoughts manifested in his expression, both the Crown Princess’s and Everett’s faces flushed crimson.
Now emboldened by being before his beloved, Everett offered a small excuse.
“The thing is, when we only meet indoors, alone together…”
It was an understandable explanation, though decidedly more information than necessary.
Whether the Crown Princess had pinched Everett somewhere hidden behind the table, he flinched.
The Crown Princess, deliberately clearing her throat to dispel the awkwardness, composed her features and continued smoothly.
“Among those pushing the candidates for a state bride, there are those displaying suspicious movements. You instructed us to draw out time as much as possible, but… if the ceremony is not held by next month at the latest, we cannot avoid the excuse that the baby is eight months old.”
The Crown Princess evidently believed that the reason for concealing her meetings with Everett was simply a trap to lure out suspicious factions.
She regretted missing the opportunity to clear a debt by properly executing the task Edwin had requested, but seemed unaware that the Emperor’s desire to advance the wedding stemmed from his own deeply personal circumstances.
‘Next month?’
He would need to tell her soon—he was mentally prepared—but the moment a time constraint materialized, Edwin felt his breath catch short.
It was not as if having the state wedding next month meant he had until next month to act.
Even though Bellot was a poor nation, a state wedding was still a state wedding.
To prepare within roughly a month, starting tomorrow would already be tight.
Edwin, who typically treated the Crown Princess with indifference and spoke curtly, made an unusually formal proposal.
“Let us delay the official announcement of the state wedding slightly. In return, the Empire will assume all preparations.”
His intention was to buy some time with money.
Though such a proposal ought to be difficult for the Crown Princess to refuse, an answer did not come easily.
True to her cautious nature, she seemed to be weighing his intentions.
Edwin was currently adopting a notably submissive posture.
Should she suspect a political motive, he could not predict how this persistent Crown Princess might turn the negotiations.
To extract an answer from the Crown Princess, Edwin chose to lay bare his own position.
“It’s for personal reasons. Rohas already knows.”
The Crown Princess’s gaze turned toward her lover, whose expressions were easier to read.
Everett answered softly in the affirmative.
The Crown Princess was calculating in nature, yet she was also a woman who understood that a debt of the heart was sometimes more effective than a promissory note.
“Very well.”
He had barely managed to buy time.
But heaven was not on Edwin’s side.

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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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