Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 64

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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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Episode 64
“Yes, you there. Don’t dawdle.”
The footsteps drew closer, close enough that the Brooch fastened to their clothing became visible.
‘That crest.’
They were maids from the Imperial Palace, the laundry staff.
Belonging to the Knights Order he visited daily for training.
‘Damn.’
Edwin found himself stepping behind the shelter of tree branches before he could think, and immediately regretted it.
‘Why did I—’
He’d become so fixated on keeping his identity concealed that he’d reflexively hidden himself.
By the time he thought to step back out into the open, three maids had already entered the Garden.
The moment they arrived, the brown-haired woman glanced around as though about to share some grand secret, then let out an exclamation.
“Really, there’s no one here.”
“Right? I’ve worked in the Imperial Palace for six years now, and I’ve never seen a soul in this place, I’m telling you.”
The short-haired maid spoke with quiet satisfaction about how this was the perfect spot for a private conversation.
Edwin, suddenly transformed into a phantom, had completely lost his chance to slip away.
‘They’ll leave soon enough.’
Edwin exhaled quietly and stilled his breathing.
Better to endure it than risk drawing attention by departing now.
The last thing he needed was for Lina to appear while these maids were gossiping excitedly about seeing the Emperor.
Edwin twisted one corner of his mouth upward and leaned his back against the massive tree sheltering him.
While the three maids talked, he’d use the time to think through the lingering matter of restoring the fortress in the Southern Direct Territory.
The dirty-blonde maid, who’d been pressed near the garden entrance to explain herself repeatedly to the other two, furrowed her brow in what looked like reluctance.
“There’s nothing to explain.”
At that, the short-haired and brown-haired maids exchanged a meaningful glance.
As if by orchestrated timing, they each seized one of the dirty-blonde maid’s arms and linked them together.
“Bianca, you’re really not going to tell us?”
“If you keep teasing us like this without saying anything—”
The threat hung unfinished as their linked arms began to tighten with genuine force.
‘Is this going to turn violent?’
The two maids’ intensity was striking enough that Edwin, who’d been politely trying not to eavesdrop, found his attention drawn in despite himself.
Yet violence never came.
“Ugh, seriously. Della, Gemma, both of you, let go. You’ll stretch my clothes!”
The dirty-blonde maid Bianca grumbled and shook her shoulders as though wringing out laundry.
Della and Gemma tumbled away as if they’d been flapped like wet bedsheets.
They hit the dirt floor but only laughed, their giggles light and careless.
‘So discipline in the Imperial Palace hasn’t completely gone to seed if maids can roughhouse like this.’
Just as Edwin was about to close his ears again, having determined their play was innocent, a familiar name reached him.
“—and I’m telling you, there’s nothing between me and Lord Morgan.”
There was only one Morgan currently attached to the Imperial Palace Knights Order.
Tyron Morgan, who’d walked beside Edwin through eight years of trials and triumphs.
Only one.
Someone he’d known since childhood.
Even walking through a crowded marketplace, his attention would snap toward the mention of a familiar name.
And this place was quite quiet.
Edwin found himself listening intently to the three maids’ conversation.
“If there’s nothing between you two, why did you give him a Handkerchief?”
Della asked the question with the kind of crisp, cutting tone that felt like a slap to the ear.
“That was—”
Bianca struggled for a proper answer, her lips working soundlessly.
Edwin flinched involuntarily, remembering that he himself had once given a Handkerchief to Miss Diaz without it meaning what people assumed.
“He was sweating so heavily, he just seemed to need one. That’s all.”
Bianca’s reply came a beat too late.
‘Miss Diaz was crying too. I couldn’t let her go with tears on her face.’
As Edwin’s mind drifted to memories of the festival night, Gemma let out a short, derisive laugh.
“Is that really the only reason?”
“Was there no other intention?”
“Our Bianca isn’t the type to carry around handkerchiefs for every sweaty knight she meets.”
Their teasing chant, dragging out each word, was grating.
Though Edwin knew his own Handkerchief had carried intentions he hadn’t fully understood at the time, which somehow made their mockery all the more cutting.
Eventually, Bianca’s composure cracked.
“It was a Handkerchief full of selfish intentions. There. Happy?”
Bianca made it clear her feelings were hurt, crossing her arms and turning her head sharply away.
Gemma and Della tried to soothe her.
She wasn’t truly upset, it seemed—her arms uncrossed after only a moment.
But her tone remained sharp and defensive.
“You two need to read the room. Yeah? It didn’t work out, so I’m not saying anything. We just exchanged a Handkerchief and met a few times outside. Don’t read into it.”
‘There’s no need to cut it off so harshly.’
Edwin, who’d begun empathizing slightly with Bianca, raised one eyebrow in disapproval.
Once she’d opened her mouth, Bianca’s complaints came pouring out in earnest.
“I must’ve been out of my mind, chasing after someone who wanted nothing to do with me, pressing a Handkerchief on him. I was the one who suggested we meet, and he just swings a sword every single day without rest—”
Her anger intensified with each word, her fists clenching until the well-trained muscles of her forearms swelled visibly.
If someone placed a Laundry Bat in those hands now, even Morgan—over two meters tall with a scarred face and a nickname like Grizzly Bear—would be brought to his knees.
But her friends didn’t seem threatened by those forearms at all.
Della and Gemma, who’d been listening quietly to Bianca’s grievances, asked in confusion.
“But Lord Morgan agreed to the date, didn’t he?”
“And after you brought it up, he asked to see you again, didn’t he?”
“We thought things were going well.”
At her clueless friends’ words, Bianca’s face fell flat. She unclenched her fist and let out a long sigh.
“Going well? The man’s got no confidence—it’s his first relationship.”
Edwin, who’d been struck by guilt, jerked at the accusation.
“Whatever I do, it’s just ‘Whatever you want, Miss Bianca, that’s fine by me.’ That’s all he ever says.”
‘I wanted to do what Miss Diaz wanted.’
Edwin’s mind flooded with memories of himself answering ‘Whatever you wish, that’s fine with me’ whenever Lina asked what he wanted to do.
Bianca’s complaints continued, indifferent to Edwin’s internal crisis.
“He flinches when I so much as hold his hand, trying to pull away. He won’t say anything unless I ask him first!”
Edwin was beginning to realize that perhaps it was Morgan who deserved his empathy, not the dirty-blonde maid.
Edwin found himself reflecting on who he used to be.
Bianca cried out, her voice heavy with accumulated sorrow.
“I can’t even tell anymore if he’s interested in me at all!”
Now one with the tree itself, Edwin made excuses on Morgan’s behalf.
‘He’s so interested it frightens him into silence.’
At least, that’s how it had been for him.
Though it did Lina little good, this excuse he couldn’t speak aloud.
Bianca never heard Edwin’s silent defense either.
Still, having vented aloud seemed to ease her frustration somewhat. Bianca’s voice grew quieter.
“I thought he was kind of cute, so I wanted to try meeting him.”
Thinking of Morgan, Bianca’s face grew dreamy.
Remarkably, she genuinely seemed to find the two-meter-tall Morgan adorable.
Past tense, now.
“A fox I could meet, but a bear—that won’t work.”
Edwin felt as though lightning had struck his crown when he heard her sudden change of heart.
Lina’s image seemed to overlay Bianca’s face before him.
‘How can a heart change so easily?’
Even though the woman before him wasn’t Lina, his chest ached.
“Besides, a man who’s that frustratingly passive really isn’t attractive.”
“Right. And the ones who leave you guessing are the worst.”
Once Bianca seemed to have made her decision, Gemma and Della joined her in condemning Morgan’s passivity.
True friendship, indeed.
Edwin watched the naked critique unfold before him and quietly reflected.
Morgan had much the same taciturn nature, it seemed. There were many parallels.
Edwin was quite good at learning things.
By the time the maids, finished with their grievances, had gone, Edwin was a markedly different person from the one who’d hidden moments before.

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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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