Chapter 09
Her face was calm, as if she had become a detached outsider observing all these situations. She slowly approached Lev and bowed her head.
“Then I will take my leave now.”
It was Albina who was shaken by Nadia’s utterly unshaken demeanor. Albina watched Nadia’s retreating figure with a dazed gaze.
Impossible. How can she be so unaffected?
“That expressionāis it genuine?”
Albina muttered with a shocked face.
“She doesn’t seem to have been greatly affected by today’s events.”
“She does look that way.”
“How can she be like that? Is it because she has no social experience? For an ordinary person, this would be shameful enough to faint.”
Even in Lev’s view, it certainly was. No matter how much social circles are a battlefield without gunfire, even accounting for that, Albina’s attitude today was severely rude.
It was almost at the level of insulting her very personhood. Had he not been beside her, it would not have been strange for Nadia to severely punish Albina.
Of course, if that happened, Nadiaāalready disliked in social circlesāwould be completely cast out from people’s favor.
Regardless, the important point was that Nadia’s composure did not particularly look like acting. Still, it was not strange.
“I suppose that’s because she’s Agnes’s daughter.”
“Ah, I had forgotten. The daughter of the woman who seduced another woman’s husband while she herself had a husband.”
Albina sighed and pressed her forehead.
“Then I can’t insult her through such ordinary methods. What could shake that woman’s heart?”
Albina made a sound of troubled deliberation, frowning as if at a loss. Lev was about to leave, telling her to worry about that alone. He had repaid his debt by throwing her a target for her frustration.
“It would be easier if the queen loved Your Majesty.”
The small grumble that came at that moment caught his feet.
Lev turned to look at Albina with narrowed brows. Albina, belatedly realizing her mistake, wore an apologetic expression.
“Of course, with Your Majesty’s current attitude, that would be an unreasonable expectation. I have no intention of making unreasonable requests of Your Majesty either.”
Lev let out a short breath and turned away, walking out.
In any case, as long as it was not unreasonable, it benefited him as well to cooperate with Albina. Not that he did not wish for her misfortune.
‘But she is quite a formidable opponent.’
As Albina said, they had underestimated Agnes’s daughter. To not even blink after experiencing what happened today was truly remarkable……
“Ah.”
Just then, a raindrop fell on Lev’s forehead.
He frowned and raised his head. The sky, which had been clear, darkened in an instant and began dropping raindrops faster and faster.
Anton hurriedly pulled out an umbrella and held it over him. Lev resumed walking calmly as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, the raindrops became sheets of rain. The rain began pouring from the sky with a roar like a waterfall.
“A sudden shower. Good thing I listened when Lord Ilich said it looked like rain today.”
“So Lord Ilich had such a talent.”
“His knees aren’t good, you see.”
Tsk, Lev clicked his tongue lightly and was walking with his usual indifferent eyes when an strange sight came into his view.
“……Is that not Her Highness the Queen?”
It appeared so. The woman crouching down and curling up, and the woman frowning and holding an umbrella over her, was definitely Olga Ryavova.
“Why is she doing that? Is she ill?”
“Who knows. Perhaps she’s beside herself with frustration over what happened earlier.”
Lev answered casually and was about to walk past Nadia.
āFlash!
At that moment, lightning struck, and shortly after, a great peal of thunder rang out. At the same time, a woman’s small scream was heard. It came from where Nadia was.
“……A disgrace to the royal family.”
Lev finally let out a sigh and strode toward Nadia. Olga, spotting him, wore a startled expression.
“Your Majesty.”
“What is the matter?”
“I do not know either. She suddenly sat down as soon as the rain began……”
Lev sighed and knelt on one knee before Nadia to meet her eye level. Nadia’s body was trembling wretchedly like an aspen tree.
She was the woman who had not trembled even when she learned his identity, nor when she saw the deaths of her mother and half-brother. Lev furrowed one brow and opened his mouth.
“Queen.”
“……”
“Nadia Turik.”
At that call, Nadia flinched and slowly raised her head. The moment he met her face, Lev unwittingly flinched.
Her large eyes were utterly terrified. It was indeed a look he had never seen before. Lev was somewhat taken aback.
“……Your Majesty?”
At the frightened, frozen voice, he quickly came to his senses. Lev regained his composure and asked.
“What is the matter?”
“Ah……”
Nadia’s dazed eyes seemed to gradually regain focus at the question. She soon shook her head and answered.
“Nothing. It’s nothing…… I just lost strength in my legs.”
Her condition did not seem entirely normal enough to believe that answer readily.
However, he had no desire to probe further, so Lev wore an expression of indifference.
“Get up now. A queen of a nation looking like this is not a pleasant sight.”
“……Yes.”
Hearing that, Nadia hurriedly tried to rise but plopped down again. Seeing her flustered expression, it seemed strength would not enter her legs.
When she tried to press her palm to the ground to push herself up, he could no longer just stand and watch. Lev lifted her into his arms.
“Ah……!”
A startled groan came from the woman. It was not only Nadia who was startled. Everyone around watched the king’s action with the same expression.
“Which way is the Queen’s Palace?”
Lev asked Olga with a composed face. Olga quickly came to her senses and took the lead. Lev followed behind her.
“……Your Majesty, I am alright now.”
The quietly silent daughter of Agnes opened her mouth.
“You may put me down……”
“So you can lose strength in your legs again and plop down absurdly for all to see.”
Lev cut her off with a sneer and asked coldly.
“Do you not care at all for the dignity of a queen?”
It was a kind of provocation. Recalling what had happened today, it was obvious she would flare up at these words.
‘You, who think so much of a queen’s dignity, give me such humiliation today?’
Perhaps she would start with something like that.
‘Just what is the reason you made me queen?’
She might end with a question like that. Either way, he thought he would not hear the answer she wanted, and silence persisted.
Nadia said nothing. As if she accepted it. Lev was irritated by that attitude.
“Now you’re openly ignoring me.”
“……That is not it.”
Poke her once more and her mouth opens. He waited to see what she would say, and out came a deflating answer.
“I apologize.”
Ha, at the unexpected apology, he was so dumbfounded that he even stopped walking. Rumble, crash! Thunder struck unexpectedly.
“Ah……!”
The moment she heard that sound, Nadia curled up tightly and buried her face in Lev’s arms.
The way she hid her face completely, like a child pulling a blanket over her head, left Lev staring at her with a mix of disbelief and bewilderment.
Fine, let us see how long she stays like this.
“I’m sorry, I apologize……”
Her body trembling as she begged forgiveness might well have seemed pitiful, but Lev’s face as he watched her was cold as ice.
It was only natural. Her own mother had done this very thing before Agnes’s eyes with her father. What feeling would Agnes’s daughter doing this give him?
Haa, he let out an irritated sigh. He would have liked to hand her over to others, but in any case, having the queen in another man’s arms was not a pleasant sight either.
In the end, he carried the trembling Nadia all the way to the Queen’s Palace. The stronger the rain became, the more the lavender scent at the tip of his nose grew, and it grated on him. Had she gone to the Lavender Garden again since that day?
Only after entering the Queen’s Palace did Lev set Nadia down. Nadia, her face completely pale, glanced at Lev and hurriedly bowed her head.
The woman whose skin had already been white as plaster now truly looked like a plaster statue. Lev frowned and watched her, then turned away without a word.
If Albina knew, she would be astonished and tease himā”You went that far to help me……?” Having seemingly wasted only time, Lev felt needlessly annoyed.
Perhaps it was because Agnes’s daughter carried her mother’s scent. Lev opened his mouth immediately.
“Tell Lady Ryavova to remove all the lavender-scented oils from the queen’s perfumes, understood?”
She was a woman who grated on his nerves in many ways.
