Lyle’s eyes followed the gazes of the ladies-in-waiting, full of anticipation and expectations in their sparkling eyes.
A man and a woman were in the middle of a beautiful garden full of pale pink roses. dea and Baron Ian Hestia were standing side by side and sauntering.
Baron Hestia, whose cheeks were red from what they were talking about, stared at dea in confusion. His sweet face, reminiscent of a young boy rather than a man, blatantly revealed his overt infatuation with her at a glance.
Even though such an expression wasn’t directed at them, the maids were watching with longing. But how about dea, who was right next to him? Even though Lyle couldn’t see her countenance from his vantage point, she was the object of the baron’s affection.
Lyle beca anxious. He tried to peek at dea’s face, but it could not be seen from where he stood. Then, unconsciously, his face hardened.
He strode into the garden. In his presence, so of dea’s maids turned to him.
“Y-Your Majesty!”
The lady-in-waiting covered her mouth and pressed her lips together, probably embarrassed by the loud exclamation she had inadvertently let out.
dea and Baron Hestia also turned to look at her loud cry. dea found him and brightened.
Internally, Lyle felt a little relieved by her delighted expression, but he was still full of anger. He knew it was Baron Hestia’s first day working as the Empress’s escort, but he was displeased the baron was spending ti one-on-one with her instead of waiting in the presence of the other guards.
As he approached hastily, Baron Hestia hurriedly offered his greetings. dea looked at Lyle, her eyes twinkling.
“Your Majesty.”
“…… Why is the baron here? I saw your knights at the entrance.”
“I wanted to ask him sothing about Luke, so I asked him to accompany .”
Were they talking about his brother-in-law? It made sense in his head. What could they do in such an open garden? Weren’t all the attendants watching?
Even though he knew it all rationally, his heart was boiling.
‘Was I such an ugly man?’
He also knew that by using the aphrodisiac of the imperial elixirs, dea could only reach the heights of pleasure with him, and no other man would be able to give her the sa.
But his heart was chilled to the core.
‘Why am I like this? dea is…….’
Ah… … .
dea was no longer the person who declared her love for Lyle, clinging on to him nor eager to get his attention. Instead, he now loved her and even got her pregnant, but she had never once told Lyle that she loved him.
When he had whispered the words “I love you,” she happily accepted his confession, but the words “I love you, Lyle” never ca out of dea’s mouth. It was just his one-sided sentint.
‘dea, do you still…… love ?’
Lyle had seen dea’s past infatuation as obsession, not love. If she had loved him, she wouldn’t have been able and unilaterally force and coerce him to do what she wanted and ignore his feelings. Instead, he was hurt, and his trauma was disregarded…… Lyle had been convinced that the feelings dea had harbored for him were not love.
But today’s dea was not desperate for Lyle’s love. She had cared about his wounds and considered his emotions but never asked for love. She just received what she was given without expectations.
The mont he realized it, Lyle’s heart sank heavily. It occurred to him that dea had accepted his confession not out of emotional sentint but to live and retain her position as Empress.
In order to adapt to survive.
The Empress accepted her position and slept with Lyle, but…… That didn’t an she loved him. It was entirely possible that dea’s heart could reside sowhere else.
Lyle regretted appointing Baron Hestia as the Empress’ knight. He felt that no matter how much dea had begged him, he should not have allowed it.
If she fell in love with Baron Hestia… even if it was one chance out of a thousand, or one in ten thousand…..
“Your Majesty?”
Lyle stood silently with a stiff frown as dea called out to him, puzzled. Then, blinking and waking up from his ruminations, he looked at her and then at Baron Hestia, kneeling beside her. He had the urge to smash that fair face.
“Baron Hestia. Were there any difficulties on your first day?”
“Everyone has treated well, so I’m still… … .”
Contrary to his kind words, Lyle’s expression was cold. dea tilted her head.
She wondered if that look was because he was interested in the main character, Seira, but because she was a ‘man’ and that might an he would be having an affair—did his feelings get twisted and repressed, so it ca out as hatred towards the culprit, Seira?
‘Well……. Maybe it’s too far of a stretch,’
A simpler, more straightforward hypothesis would be Lyle was jealous of Seira…… However, dea, who recalled Lyle’s cute jealousy shown in the original novel, was befuddled.
‘Why does he look so bad and offended…… .’
The dilemma of his jealousy appeared in the original story after their relationship had beco one of lovers. Currently, Lyle had only repeated his confession to dea unilaterally, and they were not in love with each other.
The situation was different from Lyle in the original work, which had already won Seira’s heart and only revealed his jealousy at a cute level in order not to reduce his standing in her eyes. Realizing that he had not won dea’s heart, Lyle’s jealousy was as different as the sky and the earth from the novel.
“Your Majesty, are you alright?”
Lyle, staring at Baron Hestia, was startled by dea’s remark. He was conscious that he was glaring at Baron Hestia but was unaware that he had been showing such blatant displeasure.
“Oh, no… … .”
I’m jealous.…… Lyle was ashad of his foolishness and stupidity. Yet, despite him occupying the noblest seat with the Emperor’s grand honor and dignity, here he was, jealous of a provincial baron.
The maids cheered with a shriek at the sight of Lyle blushing. Shy, handso n were the best!
At his montarily bewildering reaction, dea was only more baffled. He looked good, but why was he shy now?
Feeling the gazes of the maids who were watching with shining eyes in the distance, dea walked up to him.
“You look tired. Let’s go in, Your Majesty.”
“Ye-yes.”
Naturally, Lyle wrapped his arm around her shoulders and glanced at Baron Hestia. If he had any sense, he would know it ant that he should keep his distance.
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