Chapter 37

Looking away from the window, Lard turned to her with a slight frown.

Hesitating a bit, she brought up a new topic to change the awkward atmosphere, but it was something she found difficult to say.

“Well, I met the crown prince before meeting that imperial knight. Ah! Of course I met him by chance as I was lost…”

“The crown prince? Did he do anything rude to you?” He asked, interrupting her. As he was talking about the crown prince, she found his way of speaking was rather unusual.

“I’ve experienced some embarrassing moments, but… ”

Looking at his frown curiously, she briefly briefed him about what happened between her and the crown prince. As the crown prince asked her to convey to Lard the message that he would send her invitation to the Burgonu Forest hunting contest through Lard, she felt it was right to tell him in advance and seek his understanding.

Anyway, she knew the whole thing was her fault.

“The crown prince is a little eccentric…Humm…Burgonu Forest hunting contest.”

Although ‘eccentric’ was not enough to describe the whole personality of Isaac von Benyahan

Lard didn’t elaborate.

“It may be a nuisance to you, but it was ordered by the prince… I think I have no other choice but to accompany you that day. Please do not be offended.” Lard casually said he had no problem when she politely asked for his understanding.

As the prince’s weird behavior was already widely rumored, Lard was just worried about what kind of eccentric behavior he had shown this time.

In fact, the prince had some hard feelings about Lard, in particular. He began to feel bad about Lard after he smashed the prince’s head with the handle of a sword after he threw a sword at the training center. Lard did not overlook the prince’s lack of discipline as far as swordsmanship was concerned.

When she was done telling Lard about the prince, she again began to separate the ivy from her dress. Lard glanced at her and noticed that one of her shoes was still in the spot where she had stood. The golden chain that had been around her ankle was broken and laid across the carpet.

He walked over to pick it up cautiously without making the chain clink against the shoe. He momentarily thought she lost the shoes because of the disturbance in the hallway. He quickly glanced at her face.

On the spot where the shoes had remained, there were ivy vine and leaves that had fallen from her body. While he was looking at the floor carefully, he saw the odd and familiar scene of the ivy sprouting from the carpet. It was part of the vine that had initially been wrapped around her legs, but was broken when she removed it. He pulled it gently. It was clearly rooted in the carpet.

From a common sense point of view he could not understand it easily. Nonetheless, it was not strange or unfamiliar to him because it was very similar to that sticky grass he had seen at Rajabude Museum. The grass sprouting out of the carpet and the emergence of a plant that didn’t suit the room at all.

Lard again looked at the side of her face. The various suspicious circumstances he had been wondering about were intricately intertwined in his mind.

“Ah! I’m finally done! Sir Schroder! I’ve succeeded thanks to your help! Look! Is my dress okay?”

She exclaimed to him with an excited voice. Freed from the ivy wrapped around her body, she was happy beyond description. And it wasn’t an overreaction, given that she had a hard time removing it until now. Responding to her happy reaction, he quickly walked over to her and placed the shoe in front of her foot.

“Good job. The shoe was broken, as you see,” he said, searching for a handkerchief in his pocket.

After he removed the chain from the broken shoe, he tore the handkerchief then tried to put it back on the ring of the missing chain.

When he succeeded after several attempts, he put the shoes on her foot, and carefully tied the handkerchief around her ankle. Adjusting his grip to tie it around her thin ankle so she wouldn’t feel any pain was something he had never done.

While he was at it, she was at a loss about what to do.

‘Is this guy not yet detoxified?’

When he touched her ankle to tie the handkerchief, she felt dizzy. She was kind of in panic at his excessive kindness for a while, which she couldn’t understand. After all, she barely opened her mouth, “Wasn’t that handkerchief a gift you received from another woman? If that’s the case, I think I’ll feel uncomfortable.”

“… Do not worry because I have never accepted a handkerchief from any woman. “He said gently, looking at her face. While watching her feeling embarrassed, he tried to erase the images of the ivy fully embedded in his mind. Despite such efforts, however, his eyes kept turning to the side of the couch where the ivy had magically sprouted from the carpet.

“Well, have a good night.”

“You, too! Goodnight!”

Seeing Lard off after he escorted her home, she finally managed to overcome the awkward atmosphere.

In fact, she avoided meeting his gray eyes several times as she couldn’t look straight at him.

He responded calmly to her, as if she was the only one who cared about her lips bumping into his. It would have been more uncomfortable for both of them if they had felt very uneasy about it. At the end of the concert, she could barely return to the royal box and managed to reassure Isaac von Benyahan that had not left early. Actually, the curly-headed man on the stage looked at the brightly lit royal box to find her. She felt creepy when she noticed the prince trying to confirm that she was in the royal box with Lard. She felt she was caught in a troublesome situation. She worried her lip.

The good news was that she didn’t run into Dylan Lennox again. There was only one knight standing with discipline near the stairs where Dylan had been standing, but she could not find him.

She was astonished when the knight saluted Lard with a loud voice when he passed by.

Other than that, there was nothing surprising or disturbing when she returned to the royal box.

Of course, Lard cast a cold glance at the knight saluting him loudly.

Anyway, she felt greatly relieved because she didn’t see Dylan again. She had no way of knowing that actually, Dylan’s seniors were interrogating him at that moment over his pursuit of her because of Lard’s extremely cold gaze at them.

Awakening from her idle thoughts, she staggered toward the second floor.

Like a flower that bloomed in the day and fell at sundown,, she was overwhelmed with exhaustion. She went through a series of events that she couldn’t endure today.

She lay on the bed in her dress and stayed put for a while.

Gradually, her blank expression changed. She closed her slightly open lips as if to utter something emotionally. In no time, she began to scream hysterically.

In her screaming, she harshly reproached herself.

‘How stupid I was! Why did I suffer all this humiliation and embarrassment by going to the concert? I would have been better off rejecting his offer like a coward.’

She rolled around on the bed angrily. As she moved and raised her legs up and down, not only the blanket but also her dress were crumpled and messed up, but she didn’t care.

Her head was spinning like a top. Although she barely overcame the crisis,she only bought a little more time to save her face. She was not sure what Lard thought about her when he found her coiled with the ivy vines. There was no chance that Lard, noted for his strict and meticulous attitude, could take her far-fetched explanation at face value.

“Well, he might have some suspicion even now, but as I strongly clarified, he will let it pass.”

But she didn’t believe that he would.

“Ahhhhh!” She began to scream again.

‘How could I do something so stupid?’

She felt like crying. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

The problem was that this crisis would not over. The Burgundy Forest hunting contest was coming up and Crown Prince Isaac had demanded her presence to alleviate his boredom! She was supposed to attend the event eight days later. Unless the prince had amnesia and forgot what she told him, or an unusual spring rainy season came soon, there was no chance that the hunting competition would be canceled. She had no choice but to brace for another crisis.

Apart from her forced encounter with Lard, the fact that she might bump into Dylan again was even more frightening to her.

Wendy jumped out of bed and sighed deeply as she couldn’t control her nervousness.

The moment she was about to take off her golden dress and throw it on the bed, she noticed a white handkerchief tied around her right ankle.