MFTR 88

Chapter 88

 With Eyes That Burn With Desire

Anette, her expression stunned, tore her gaze away from the glass case displaying a handkerchief and turned it toward Cardin.

He was sharply inspecting the room, checking whether there was any dust in the corners, or if the frames on the walls were hanging level.

The walls were covered with portraits—apparently ones Cardin had painted himself—of her. It was embarrassing enough, but what drew her attention even more was the bundle of red hair carefully gathered and displayed.

Why on earth would he keep my hair?

She couldn’t ask. Even if she did, it was obvious he wouldn’t give her a proper answer. All she could do was swallow dryly.

Yet instead of feeling suffocated as she should, her chest grew strangely heavy.

Her red hair, just like her eyes, had been a symbol of shame that brought her ridicule and scorn all her life.

And yet, seeing it treasured and kept like something precious—it was baffling, hard to believe.

Whether he had gathered it when he brushed her hair, or since the time the temple had demanded strands for proof, she didn’t know, nor did it matter.

While Anette was still unable to look away from the display of her hair, Cardin went over to a soft armchair by the wall and sat down.

He leaned back into it as though it were perfectly familiar, crossed one leg over the other, and spoke in a displeased voice.

“If that bastard Jeon Millard had handed over the sword obediently, I could have hung Rubellino in this room until Your Highness recovered your health.”

The sharp, unfamiliar tone startled Anette for a moment, but soon she found herself more focused on the content of his words.

“He clearly means to find a way to see Your Highness’ face. Hah! As if I’d ever allow that sight!”

It seemed the person Cardin had been so on edge about all this time was Jeon.
And the gift the Emperor and Empress had sent was…

My sword. Rubellino.

Though she knew others called it that, Anette herself had never once referred to her blade by that name. She silently mouthed the ticklish syllables, deeply moved by the imperial couple’s thoughtful consideration.

When she’d left the sword behind at Hayworth, she had forced herself to let go, telling herself she would never wield it again.

Even after her wrist healed, she hadn’t dared hope she could take it up once more. The idea of holding Rubellino again had never even crossed her mind.

And yet now—she was to have it back.

“Why? Do you think I’m being petty too?”

Cardin suddenly asked her with a crooked look.

What could a cat possibly know…

Anette narrowed her eyes at him, exasperated at his habit of tossing out remarks no normal person would follow.

His scowl deepened as he began his grumbling.

“But do you know what kind of eyes that bastard looks at you with?”

“Miyaong? (What kind of eyes does Jeon look at me with?)”

Unable to contain her curiosity, Anette let the words slip out.

Had Jeon looked at her with disgust, perhaps?

But no—I never felt anything like that.

In fact, thinking back, Jeon had treated her more indifferently and evenly than anyone else at Hayworth.

He had never shown open dislike, never voiced any complaint about serving under her.

If anything, that constant formality was sometimes more uncomfortable…

Still, seeing how fiercely Cardin bristled over it, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of doubt.

Ten years of knowing Jeon—yet she found her heart swaying more by the words of Cardin, whom she had known barely a month. Illogical, unreasonable—yet surely Cardin couldn’t be mistaken.

Anette pressed her forepaws over her eyes as if to block the thought.

Could it be that Jeon, behind my back…

“He looks at you like he’s burning alive with wanting you.”

“…?!”

She froze, doubting her ears.

“I saw it the first moment we met.”

“Mya, myang? (H-how could you tell?)”

“How? Because he has the same eyes as me. Eyes that follow only you. You’d have to be a fool not to notice.”

Tsk. Cardin clicked his tongue and went on.

“Arrogant bastard. He’s not even your knight, yet he’d stand guard outside your tent whenever you went to bed. Or when you bathed by the lake, he’d make sure no one else so much as came near. What a ridiculous man.”

Anette, frozen like a statue, faltered.

She had never imagined Jeon would do such things.
And how on earth did Cardin even know all this?

Her curiosity lasted only a moment before her mind grew muddled again.

Honestly, she found it hard to believe Cardin’s words.

Of course. How could it possibly be Jeon…

She gave a disbelieving little laugh and shook her head.

She had always thought Jeon knew nothing of her connection to the late queen. But she was wrong.

When she had first joined the Royal Knights, she had known nothing at all about Jeon.

She only knew of his father, Marquis Millard.

Her nurse, Sara, once told her stories of the late queen—her dearest friend had been Marquis Millard.

Anette, who always felt guilty even to think of the late queen as a mother, couldn’t help but feel a kind of closeness once she learned Jeon was the marquis’s son.

Of course, she never dared hope to be friends.

She only thought perhaps the reason Jeon never mocked or shunned her like the other knights might be because of his father’s influence.

But that was a foolish delusion.

〈Quit the Royal Knights at once. If you don’t want to inherit the family, then at least join the Guard instead.〉

Not long after she entered, she happened upon a scene: a man visiting Jeon at the knights’ barracks, scolding him harshly.

At a glance, his resemblance to Jeon made it obvious—this was Marquis Millard himself.

She didn’t understand why he was so angry, so she lingered awkwardly near the wall, unable to go inside the training yard.

〈Aren’t you curious why Marquis Millard wants Sir Jeon to leave the Royal Knights?〉

A cold voice startled her from behind.

Turning, she found herself under the chilling gaze of the captain of the knights, Gramis—the same man who had, from her very first day, demanded she go back.

Once, he had been a knight to the late queen. He now said, biting out the words:

〈It is because of you, Princess. Marquis Millard mourns the late queen deeply. For his son to be in the same place as the princess he resents—it is unbearable.〉

Like ice water poured over her head, the truth struck her.

Ah… I really was foolish.

Gramis was right.

The late queen, once healthy, had died because of her. And Anette bore the blame.

Anyone close to the queen would naturally despise her.

Even Sara, she sometimes thought, must have only taken pity on her because she could not bring herself to abandon the queen’s child.

Convinced she would never be loved, only hated, Anette had listened as Gramis pressed on, telling her of Jeon’s family troubles.

She had imagined Jeon, as heir of such a great house, must have grown up cherished. To learn instead that he had been neglected by his parents, that he too had lost his mother young, shocked her.

Perhaps because she herself had lost her mother, she had felt a kind of kinship.

Her face had gone pale, and Gramis had clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms.

I hadn’t wanted to go this far…

But if he was to keep her from blending into the knights, he had no choice.

He had seen Jeon, once full of discontent toward his family and the world, strangely docile only toward Anette.

He had seen Anette herself, curious and attentive to Jeon after first meeting him outside the palace.

And in those moments, Gramis had felt a gnawing unease.

It was too soon, too reckless a thought, but he was certain: the two of them could never be.

Hadn’t Marquis Millard himself come storming after his son, furious at his presence here?

A man who had loved the late queen so deeply would never, ever accept Anette as a daughter-in-law.

Gramis knew well the pain of carrying a love doomed never to be fulfilled.

So in the name of protecting Anette, he drew the line before any feelings could take root.

And just as he intended, Anette never saw Jeon as more than a fellow knight. If anything, she grew uncomfortable around him.

For even if none of it was her fault—the scandals of the late queen, the strife between the marquis and his wife—her very existence must have been unbearable to him.

If Jeon hid his discomfort out of courtesy, then she could only feel sorry.

Thus she kept her distance.
It was, she believed, the only kindness she could offer.

But—

“So tell me, wouldn’t it make your blood boil too, if you were me?”

Cardin’s bitter certainty about Jeon’s feelings made it hard for her to dismiss entirely.

Could it really be true, that Jeon…

As Cardin continued pouring out his frustrations to her, he suddenly let out a hollow laugh.

“What the hell am I even doing?”

The absurdity of confiding everything to a cat who couldn’t even understand him had struck him.

In the silence that followed, his low voice dropped softly.

“But I could never say things like this to the princess herself. So what else can I do?”

Startled out of her thoughts of Jeon, Anette lifted her head and looked up at Cardin.