Chapter 68

“Yes…… well, that’s fine.”

As soon as the prince answered, Lady Sherrington entered the dining hall and sat opposite him.

“Thank you for inviting me, Empress Dowager.”

Lady Sherrington, who smiled innocently, immediately greeted the prince.

“Nice to meet you, Prince.”

“I don’t think it’s the first time.”

The prince smiled an obscure smile.

“Aren’t you the one who fell down in the banquet hall yesterday?”

Lady Sherrington covered her cheeks with embarrassment.

“Oh, I didn’t know you’d remember that. I’m sorry, I was too excited to wear my new shoes that day and made a mistake.”

“Things like that happen.”

Lady Sherrington’s cheeks became redder as the prince smiled and passed it over.

“Thank you for your assistance.”

“Did I help you?”

The prince looked puzzled.

The lady’s bright smile hardened a little.

“Yes…… thanks to you, I escaped an embarrassing situation.”

“Ho-Ho, it’s fate that the two of you met like this, so let’s make a toast, shall we?”

In an awkward atmosphere, the Empress Dowager held a wine glass with a girlish smile.

The prince had no choice but to hold up his glass of wine that he had not even touched yet.

Fortunately, the flavor was just right to drink lightly.

Even after that, he had to drink a series of glasses because of the Empress who raised her glass whenever she had time.

He didn’t even know how many glasses he had emptied.

“Oh, prince, you must have drunk too much.”

The prince frowned slightly when he vaguely heard the Empress Dowager’s voice.

He certainly feels his eyelids getting heavy.

But if it was wine, even in the East, he could drink a few glasses lightly at meals…….

Strangely enough, his eyes kept closing.

“I’m sorry, but can I ask Lady Sherrington for the prince?”

He tried to answer that it was okay as he heard the voice of the empress from afar, but his lips couldn’t open.

In an instant, the prince’s body slowly collapsed on the table, and the Empress hurriedly beckoned her servants.

“Hurry up and take the prince.”

Then she touched Lady Sherrington’s shoulder. The lady’s face frowned automatically because of the strong grip, but she could not complain in front of the Empress Dowager’s eyes, which seemed to pierce her skin.

“You can do it, right?”

Lady Sherrington had no choice but to nod.

“Yes, Empress Dowager.”

꧁꧂

“Kka! Kka!

The crow kept crying and knocking on the window of Cardan.

“What’s going on?”

Ruffling his disheveled hair, Cardan asked in a subdued voice.

He felt like he didn’t sleep these days because he kept on obsessing over useless thoughts these days.

“Kkak! Kkak!”

The crow pecked Cardan’s hair with its beak. His messy hair began to resemble a magpie house.

“I’m awake. I’m awake. I have my eyes wide open, so just talk.”

Then the crow flew to the map and pointed to the palace where the prince is now staying. And flew to the Empress Dowager’s Palace.

“Kka! Kka!

The crow flapped its wings vigorously as if it were in trouble.

Cardan rubbed his forehead.

“Empress Dowager’s palace? You can’t enter the Empress Dowager’s Palace.”

The Empress Dowager was the only one who knew of the existence of his crows. Perhaps that’s why the Empress ordered her servants to shoot when a crow appeared near her palace.

“Kka!”

A crow flew to the Grandfather’s clock mounted on one side of the wall and flapped its wings fervently.

“It’s been four hours since the prince left for the Empress Dowager’s Palace?”

“Kka!”

The black bird jumped up and down, urging, “I can’t go, so do something about it!”

Cardan brushed his hair roughly with his fingers and put on a gown over his pajamas.

He had a sinking feeling that he was too late.

When he arrived at the Empress Dowager’s Palace, a carriage was parked in the front yard.

It is unlikely that the prince rode it to cross the short distance from his palace to here.

As he looked at the carriage door, as expected, the pattern of the Marquis of Sherrington was evident.

“Ha.”

Cardan burst into a short laugh.

It was not difficult to grasp what the Empress Dowager was trying to do.

He doesn’t know what her purpose for connecting the Prince of the East and Lady Sherrington was, but it was clear that it was a suspicious move.

Cardan muttered his expletives and messed up his hair with one hand.

“We’ll have no choice but to invade.”

He’s already called a tyrant, so who can do anything about him?

Cardan sighed briefly and pushed out the guards of the Empress Dowager’s palace who were guarding the gate first.

Fortunately, things proceeded smoothly.

All he has to do is go straight to the floor where the bedrooms were gathered and check the rooms one by one.

No one dared to stop the Emperor in this imperial palace. Unless there are servants here who are extremely loyal, they will immediately back down if they don’t have a death wish.

He is the Prince of the Eastern continent so he must have been given a pretty fancy bedroom.

He was intensively searching the guest rooms along the hallway when someone blocked him.

“What’s going on?”

It was the Empress Dowager.

The Empress Dowager, who blocked the front of the bedroom with her body when he was about to break it open, did not give in to the falling gaze of Cardan.

“Ah, I had an appointment with the prince. He never showed up. I came here because I heard he was here.”

The Empress Dowager chewed her lips, as if she had not expected the prince to have another schedule.

“Oh, I see. But the prince is in no condition to drink too much. You’d better go home now so that he can rest here today.”

Cardan took a step back.

“He drank too much.”

The Empress Dowager relaxed her body with relief.

Taking advantage of the gap, Cardan quickly pulled the doorknob and opened the door.

“It’s okay. It’s an appointment he can keep even if he drank too much. No, it’s rather favorable.”

And she didn’t know what he was talking about, so he passed by the Empress Dowager who looked at him stupidly and stirred the room without hesitation.

Sure enough, in the innermost bedroom, he found the prince lying on the bed. Lady Sherrington, was struggling with her corset next to him.

“Stop moving.”

“Oh my god!”

When Cardan crossed the bedroom in a few steps, Lady Sherrington, was surprised and fell on her hips.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty…!”

“I’ll reprimand you for this later.”

Cardan carried the prince over his shoulder like a burden.

Still, nothing good will come out if he shows up with the prince unconscious in his own territory. As a result, he draped the sheet loosely over him, making him look like a bossam.

(t/n: bossam/보쌈 is a Korean dish)

“I’m in a hurry right now.”

The eyes of Lady Sherrington, have grown calm.

Her shaking eyes seemed to be imagining something dirty, but he couldn’t afford to think about it.

Cardan left the bedroom right away.

“May I ask what your schedule is?”

Perhaps for the sake of her last protest, the Empress Dowager blocked him again.

In the look she gave the prince on his shoulder, there was a faint sense of anxiety.

Is she worried that what she’s trying to do will be discovered, or…… I’m not sure if she’s worried about the prince’s safety. Either way, it was not very pleasant.

“I don’t understand why you have to take a drunk person at this late hour.”

That’s right. We didn’t have a schedule.

“You don’t need to know.”

Cardan, who couldn’t find a proper excuse, shrugged his shoulders.

While the Empress Dowager looked at the body of the prince, who was swaying with him as he walked out, Cardan quickly escaped from her. He strode out of the hallway.

“The reason why the prince was left alone with Lady Sherrington, in this state of unconsciousness at the Empress Dowager’s Palace will surely be asked tomorrow.”

In his mind, he wanted to overthrow the Empress Dowager even now, but the safety of the prince was a priority now.

If he’s poisoned and is unable to wake up, then the alliance with the Eastern continent will fall into ruin no matter how he deals with the Empress Dowager.

‘If it’s poison… should I call Erina first?’

Cardan’s steps quickened.

꧁꧂

“D, Duke! Duke!”

I woke up in the middle of the night when someone banged on my office door.

“What?”

Once I opened the door with sleepy eyes, the servant stood stamping his feet as if he had seen a ghost.

“What is it this time?”

Perhaps all the servants who wake me up at night belong to the Imperial Palace.

In my mind, I just wanted to close the door in front of the attendant.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty calls.”

“His Majesty?”

I crossed my arms.

I would have run out of my mind before, but I’m not fooled anymore.

There was no need for such poor manipulation.

“I don’t know the details because he didn’t say anything except for the order to call the Duke.…!”

The attendant barely breathed in, his face pale.

“His Majesty and the prince returned to the palace together!”

The prince?

She felt an ominous feeling.

“What do you mean? Tell me more about it.”

“Suddenly, he stepped out in a light gown in the middle of the night……!”

The attendant pretended to carry something around his shoulder.

“It wasn’t long before he brought the prince wrapped in a sheet.”

Now that I realized the seriousness of the situation, I was astonished.

“Bossam or what?”

When I screamed, the servant also nodded his head in tears.

“On top of that, the prince was unconscious!”

In the end, I grabbed the back of his hand.

“Hey, are you saying that he was drugged?”

“I don’t know…”

I shook my head in bewilderment.

“Crazy. Crazy. This can’t be true.”

The sound of the alliance breaking in two and my escape sinking into the cold sea sounded like a hallucination.

“The rumors are already rife! It was difficult to find a servant who wanted to work in the Emperor’s Palace, but now I’m planning to move all of them to another palace!”

♥♥♥

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