Free Web NovelAfter that, Rishe soothed a flustered Elsie and set Oliver to work at once.
What she was about to do was, of course, not something she could keep from Arnold.
However, since Arnold had said he would “focus on official duties,” she didn’t want to interrupt him. Besides, if this reached Arnold’s ears in the wrong way, it could end up troubling him instead.
Oliver, as his attendant, ought to understand that kind of “trouble.”
Rather than hide it to the very end, the plan was to report to Arnold after it succeeded—and with that policy unchanged, she made several preparations.
And after breakfast, Rishe went to see someone other than Harriet.
Oliver joined her, standing behind Rishe.
Seated across the table from her was Raul, disguised as Curtis.
Perhaps because word had been passed in advance, there were no guards standing watch.
He hadn’t even brought a valet; Raul brewed the tea himself and slid a cup toward Rishe.
“Here you go.”
“...Thank you.”
“Unusual color, right? People drink this where I grew up.”
The tea, green as jade, had a distinctive, fragrant aroma.
Even in his Hunter days, Raul had liked this tea and often served it to Rishe and the others.
“The silver-haired attendant there—want some?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Oliver declined gently, but there was a certain stiffness in his tone.
He had likely heard from Arnold that this “Curtis” was a fake.
He probably also knew that, though Rishe had realized it, she hadn’t reported it to Arnold. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
“Then let’s get to the point.”
Raul lifted his teacup, took a sip, and began.
Rishe also ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) wet her lips, savoring the bitterness she hadn’t tasted in a while. She set the cup back on the saucer and met Raul’s eyes anew.
“First, my thanks. ...Thank you for arranging Sigwell knights around Lady Harriet’s rooms.”
“After the message, ‘I want to talk, so make time,’ the next was ‘lock Harriet in her room and increase the guard.’ Never mind Harriet herself—shutting up the Head Lady-in-Waiting and the Fabranian knights was the hard part.”
Raul exaggerated a shrug.
Feeling sorry for that, Rishe took a breath and spoke.
“I want to cooperate with the purpose that brought you to this country.”
“...Purpose, what purpose?”
Raul grinned and leaned back against the chair.
“As you can see, I came as Curtis’s shadow. He’s a little under the weather right now. We can’t have our crown prince absent from the wedding celebration of the Galkhein crown prince and his bride, right?”
“That’s a lie. Just as His Highness Arnold said, your actions must be against the will of the Sigwell royal family.”
More precisely, he hadn’t gotten their approval.
She knew how Raul thought. If it was something the Sigwell royal house would never allow, he wouldn’t seek permission in the first place.
He would slip out of the country without a word and act without a word.
“If you were acting under royal orders to bear Prince Curtis’s name, you’d have carried it through to the end. You wouldn’t show your true face before me or reveal your own name, would you?”
“No, no, that couldn’t be helped. The moment I stood before you as ‘Curtis,’ I knew I’d been seen through. No point hiding it from you.”
“That’s a lie as well. I acted as though I hadn’t noticed you were an impostor. Rather than make use of that, to brazenly come meet me—no matter how you look at it, that’s unnatural.”
She had long wondered why he would take such actions.
But now she understood.
“You think very highly of me.”
...Of course I do.
Having spent time at his side as a Hunter, Rishe knew just how capable Raul was as a “shadow.”
The true Raul would never do something the real Curtis wouldn’t.
“If you were acting on royal instruction, you would never be discourteous to His Highness Arnold. ...From what I heard from Lady Harriet, Prince Curtis doesn’t seem the sort to do such things. And yet I found it strange that you deliberately pretended to court me and kept approaching.”
Raul chuckled softly.
“That’s just because you’re cute.”
“...That’s a lie, too.”
Exasperated, she fixed her gaze on the red eyes narrowed in amusement.
“The reason you’re here is to rescue Lady Harriet from Fabrania, isn’t it?”
“—...”
Raul gave a slow blink.
“Lady Harriet is under strict restrictions regarding proximity with men. Even guards, if they’re male, can’t go near her. — No, even if you disguised yourself as a woman, the Fabranian knights wouldn’t leave her.”
In fact, that had been the case yesterday. She had been reproached for seeing Harriet without an escort and glared at by the Women Knights.
“If you want to be alone with Lady Harriet, taking the form of her kin—Prince Curtis—is the best course.”
“...I see, so that’s how you read it. That I didn’t keep up the Curtis act with you or Arnold Hein because the ones I wanted to deceive were the Fabranian side?”
“No. ...If we hadn’t noticed to the very end, you meant to reveal your true identity yourself, didn’t you?”
At that, Raul looked faintly surprised.
“Your conduct is far too dangerous. Spiriting Lady Harriet away while posing as Prince Curtis would be a national betrayal toward Fabrania. If you were acting for the Sigwell royal house, then at the very end you would have to reveal, ‘I was a counterfeit Prince Curtis.’”
He hadn’t shown himself to the crown princess out of whim or to court her.
He had likely intended to make the Galkhein crown princess testify that “that was not Prince Curtis.” He hadn’t hidden his eye color behind bangs like Harriet’s, because those eyes would be crucial evidence.
Even so, Raul wore a frivolous smile.
“Why would I save Harriet in the first place?”
Tilting his head, he lifted a hand lightly and went on.
“Because the king of Fabrania won’t acknowledge her and she’s treated poorly? No, no, that happens all the time. No bride in a political marriage ends up happy, and Harriet knows that’s how it is.”
Then, narrowing his eyes, he said in a sardonic tone:
“There’s nowhere that requires me to go save her.”
“...”
Rishe slowly opened her mouth.
“If Lady Harriet were merely not getting along with her fiancé, that might be true.”
“...Huh?”
“Last night, in the bag of mine that Lady Harriet used, something like this had been put inside.”
She loosened the drawstring of a hemp pouch, angled it so the contents could be seen, and set it on the table.
Watching it, Raul asked without changing his expression:
“From the circumstances, it was Lady Harriet who put that in the bag.”
“I see. Are you about to tell me Harriet tried to pin the stigma of a thief on you?”
“To pin a stigma? Hardly. This doesn’t have that kind of value.” freeweɓnovel.cøm
Rishe reached out and took a single gold coin from the pouch.
It bore no marks of circulation—no scuffs or scratches—and gleamed, slick and mirror-bright.
“...I heard it from the Head Lady-in-Waiting. The Galkhein Gold Coins Lady Harriet has were prepared by His Majesty the King of Fabrania, who told her to ‘shop to your heart’s content in Galkhein.’”
Taken alone, it could sound like the words of a man who means to let his fiancée indulge as much as she wishes.
But in reality, it wasn’t so.
“If that’s the case, then these gold coins would be ones that circulated not in Galkhein but across the sea in Fabrania, yes?”
“Well, even if so, there’s nothing strange about that. There are Exchange Offices in the port of this very town, right? In Fabrania too, travelers and merchants from Galkhein would use gold coins, and those would circulate and...”
Raul’s words cut off.
“Right. If they were coins used in Galkhein, then carried abroad and eventually gathered up, there’d be nothing odd about them.”
“...”
“But the coins here are very clean. As if they were newly minted. ...Freshly struck coinage is scarce even within the country.”
Rishe held the coin out to Raul.
“Why would gold coins that are supposed to have come from Fabrania all be as good as new, with no traces of circulation?”
“...The way you put that is awfully mean.”
He took it, lifted it before his eyes, and narrowed them.
“They’re counterfeit minted in Fabrania—you’ve known that from the start, haven’t you.”
