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Chapter 66
Elegant music played while the food was served in an orderly manner. In the warm air, the inside of the restaurant bloomed vividly. Maxim was a little astonished as it was his first time experiencing such an atmosphere. It was surprising that families could be so friendly without hating each other.
Nobility without pretentiousness or showing off. The familiarity came so naturally from their gestures that the stranger felt a sense of incongruity.
“Uncle, stop teasing me. I am no longer a child.”
Louis Etoile whispered something in Rose’s ear, and Rose smiled and glanced at him. He shrugged and made a funny expression. With his round face and red cheeks and nose, he looked like an ordinary man who was drunk and ambling on the road without his wife and not the principal of the Imperial Academy.
“The atmosphere is really good today because Hans isn’t here. He rebuked me whenever I said something, but look at today. How peaceful the table is. Brother Jared, let’s hold our family gatherings only when Hans is not here. I won’t even know where the food goes because I’ll only focus on him.”
“I had to send Hans as a priest, not Ian, who is kind and gentle. Hans needs character training. If he had it, he wouldn’t bewitch the Imperial women and run around like that.”
Hearing that, Rose laughed softly. It was a pity that Hans was not present. She missed the curmudgeonly remarks he uttered to her uncles and cousins.
As if glass beads were bouncing on a silver plate, Rose’s clear and cheerful laughter brightened the atmosphere. Maxim discreetly peeked at Rose smiling with tears in her eyes. He felt a little unfamiliar with the woman who smiled and showed her emotions honestly. Of course, the image he had seen so far was not her real appearance, rather, it was the woman in front of him now. Glancing affectionately to each person, listening to their story, and smiling lovingly with her lips softly relaxed. In Maxim’s eyes, for a moment, a transparent and brilliant light seemed to shine only around Rose Etoile. His eyes were cold and calm as he looked away from her.
In retrospect, he never had a regular family. Even when his parents were alive, he couldn’t remember the three of them together in one place. His father was always cold as if he was angry whenever he saw his mother, and his mother was a woman who lived in unhappiness. Born to such people, Maxim had never received warm attention from either side. What about the uncle and wife who were still alive? Thinking about the crazy family history of relatives who couldn’t even separate affection from other businesses, he smiled bitterly.
For him, the appearance of this family was inevitably surprising. He joined this family unintentionally through his marriage to Rose Etoile. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a stranger. Since he had never experienced such an atmosphere before, he felt more thoroughly lonely and isolated. At this moment, as if he was all alone in such a crowded, lively place, a transparent curtain covered him. He had never been cared for within the confines of a family, so he never thought it would happen in the future. This was because the correlation of unhappiness in this induced marriage, which he had been struggling with for a long time, was deeply ingrained in his mind.
‘Have you not seen for yourself the tragic life your parents had when you lived with them?’ One day, he would marry a suitable woman to improve his succession, but it was clear that entering into marriage would only be from a sense of duty. Whoever the unfortunate woman may be, just marrying him would make her regret it. He was a cold-blooded man who couldn’t give love and didn’t know how love felt.
‘How is it any different from living with a monster? I’m sure she’ll be as unhappy as my mother anyway.’ That’s why he wasn’t even interested in the existence of any woman. Because it felt sinful.
As Maxim was alone with his gloomy thoughts, someone bumped his glass of wine. Ajani Etoile, famous for being a genius architect –according to Countess Audrey– smiled at Maxim.
“Aside from Helevant, there is no place I haven’t built a design of mine. But now the opportunity is finally here thanks to my cousin Rose. There is a groundbreaking architectural style that I created recently, and when I have time, I will come to you with a design.”
“Ajani.”
Rose’s aunt was ashamed of her son’s aggressive sales pitch, so she called him.
“I can’t wait to see how groundbreaking the design is.” As Maxim spoke, the atmosphere on the table softened again.
What was more disconcerting was that the feeling of loneliness was only felt by Maxim alone. They did not exclude him from them even for a moment. When he was about to say something, they looked into his eyes first, and when the subject was over, they looked at him as if asking for his consent, and when he had a faint smile on his lips, they had a satisfied expression on their faces. As if Maxim Lancert was a person surrounded by rumors. Their eyes were not those of wariness toward him, but those of wanting to be seen well by a new family. It seemed that for them it was more important that Maxim was Rose Lancert’s husband than that fearful king of the north. The force to attract him, a stranger, into their family was natural and powerful. Maxim had the illusion that he had been a member of this family for a long time. The feeling was awkward and uncomfortable, so Maxim had to keep holding his glass up to quench his dry throat.
Rose immediately noticed that he was strange.
“Your complexion is bad. Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”
Rose asked quietly as she cut the food. While talking to her cousins sitting next to her, she continued looking at him.
“No. I just have a little headache.” He answered briefly in an emotionless voice. Contrary to saying that it was nothing, his expression gradually sank. At the time, the fake marriage proposed by Rose Etoile was considered insignificant. However, he was starting to feel more and more convinced that he had made a foolish mistake. Whether it was a fake marriage or a real marriage, in the first place she was a woman who did not suit him at all.
Whenever she tries to change her heart, if he doesn’t hold on to her, he’ll end up with irreparable regrets. He had an ominous feeling that he would be the one who suffered terribly. The soft deer meat in his mouth was chewed like tough leather. The finest wine went over his throat like a mixture of rough sand. Maxim’s neck suddenly became cramped and he pulled up the collar of his shirt. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Right now, he wanted to escape to a space where he could breathe alone without anyone.
A familiar pain, as if the head, which had been fine until recently, would be split, began.
Haa…
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“Are you alright?” Rose asked with a rather contemplative face. Thanks to that, all eyes on the table turned to Maxim.
“I’m sorry, but I have to leave first. I’m not feeling well.” Maxim rubbed his forehead and rose from his seat leaving the place quickly.
“Your Majesty! Maxim!”
Rose ran after him. The rest of the guests just stared into each other’s eyes.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Maybe the food didn’t fit his taste.”
“It must have been that we were too loud. He touched his forehead as if in pain.”
“I know the best physicians in the capital. I think I’ll send one over tomorrow.”
While everyone offered divided opinions regarding the sudden departure of Maxim Lancert, the count and his wife held hands and exchanged worried eyes.
Late at night, Katrina’s face, who appeared in the chapel again, was calm and full of determination. She said as she handed a rolled reply to the man.
“Make no mistake.”
The man quickly disappeared into the darkness. Instead of returning to her room as she did last night, Katrina entered the chapel. Whether to repent of her sins or to pray earnestly for what she wanted, she put her hands together and placed them on her forehead.
‘Maybe this is the last chance…’ Katrina stared silently at the flickering candles on the podium. When she heard that a crisis was an opportunity, she thought that maybe it was a godsend for Ayla to return to the tribe.
As soon as her pretty and poor child returned, she hurriedly married the chief of the tribe. Standing in the carriage going back to the tribe that day, she could guess what kind of turbulent resolution must have lodged in Ayla’s heart. After some time passed, a secret letter for Katrina arrived with a surprising offer.
[Let’s do business while Maxim Lancert is away.]
Her body trembled thinly as she recalled the long years of regret she had to experience when she married into the Lancert family. Katrina, who was young and beautiful like the goddess of snow, fell in love with Pierre Lancert, who once hid on the outskirts. He was not young, and he had even been married once, but he had an aristocratic dignity and elegance that tribal men did not have. It was also attractive that he was of royal descent. Of course, he was not the eldest son to inherit the throne, but nobody knows the ways of the world.
“Marrying a barbarian woman! Isn’t it a shame for the family?!”
“You’re leaving a big stain on the Lancert family.”
“It’s clear he’s possessed by a witch. She is the woman who will destroy the royal family. Look at that evil energy.”
Personal attacks and insults toward her, a foreigner, were to be tolerated. Until the birth of his son Isaiah. Her husband could not even return to the capital simply because he married a tribal woman. His son Isaiah could also not be recognized as a descendant of the Lancerts. It was as if they had been expelled from the family, so the three of them lived on the outskirts as if they were not there.
Then a message arrived telling him to return to the capital. It was shortly after the sudden death of her husband’s older brother, Maxim’s father, Khalifa Lancert. Fearing that the royal family with only an unstable queen and little prince left would fall into chaos, the elders’ council summoned Pierre. They had treated them as someone who didn’t exist but suddenly told them to act as uncles until the situation stabilized. Ironically, even in such a situation, conditions were enforced.
Her son Isaiah Lancert couldn’t set foot in the capital, so he must be left in the tribe. The elders tried to trick Pierre, fearing that if he brought Isaiah with him, he would try something.
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It was then that Katrina vowed that she would one day avenge all of this resentment.
——
I can’t blame Katrina. Even though Maxim is not at fault (when he was a kid, as an adult I don’t know since that’s a story we don’t know yet) if I was in her shoes, I would burn the whole kingdom for my family.
Aside from that– my poor Maxim!! I can relate so much to his feelings of being out of place! He needs love and hugs!
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