0.
“No, this time there are three of them, they say!”
The noblewoman startled at her own ringing voice and covered her mouth.
But compared to the shocking rumor that had set high society boiling, that seemed hardly a flaw at all.
The rumor that “that Anastasia Roxan has made three men kneel before her at once this time,” that is.
“I heard it too. They say one of them is a priest who has lived as a servant of God!”
“A priest? You mean that gentleman from then, don’t you? The one whose beauty didn’t seem of this world.”
The shoulders of all the noblewomen gathered there twitched at once.
With that description alone, they knew immediately who it was.
To be honest, beauty of that degree was exceedingly rare even in the capital, where all manner of rare and lovely things were said to gather.
“And another is the man who returned after rendering great service in the war this time……”
“Surely not?”
“None other than Duke Gladinair!”
“Good heavens.”
“How very like a madwoman! Of all the many men she could have chosen.”
This time, everyone thought of that man without a trace of human warmth.
Even dressed in clean, sharply tailored attire and possessing a fine, well-formed appearance, he was still a man who felt chilling, like a murderous fiend drenched in blood.
Even a polished marble floor looked, when he walked across it, as though he were crossing a mountain of corpses on a desolate battlefield.
“Then who is the third supposed to be?”
At the question, curious enough to sound innocent, everyone’s gazes gathered in one place.
“Well, they say he is a pretty-faced manservant.”
“A manservant?”
“Does that mean a commoner?”
Someone asked back in a voice whose interest had cooled slightly, as if they had expected something more.
Just then.
The doors of the banquet hall opened, and cries announcing someone’s arrival rang across the hall in succession.
“Baroness Anastasia Roxan has just arrived!”
“Duke Isitan Gladinair has just arrived!”
“Sir Prien Izanar has just arrived!”
As if by agreement, everyone’s gaze turned at once toward the entrance of the banquet hall.
Not even the sound of breathing could be heard.
Beyond the open doors, a woman appeared abruptly and descended the stairs.
Long hair like ebony flowed in waves, and striking golden eyes shone beneath it.
The man standing at her side with his arm offered as though escorting her was Duke Gladinair.
On the woman’s other side was a young man with a boyish air, dressed neatly in a servant’s uniform.
And behind them, a man in priestly robes as white as snow followed with a respectful expression.
When the situation called for them to hush up the rumor if anything, she had appeared in the banquet hall with her chin held high?
And all of them together, at that?
Everyone in the banquet hall was swept up in the same astonishment.
The only ones unaffected were the parties involved.
The woman, wearing a fresh smile from beginning to end, began tasting the desserts on one side of the banquet hall one by one.
Surrounded by three men.
Strangely, whenever the woman so much as took hold of a wineglass, it somehow ended up in the hands of one of the three men.
When the woman, her expression somewhat sullen, opened her mouth and said something, a faint warmth hovered over the faces of the three blunt men.
“Good heavens……”
Exclamations that could have been shock, groans, or perhaps admiration slipped out in hushed voices from all around.
“See here, Baroness Roxan.”
It was then. Someone had mustered the courage to approach them.
“May we take this behavior of yours as an admission of the rumors spreading through society?”
“Rumors spreading through society, you say.”
The woman, Anastasia Roxan, displayed a smile that shimmered darkly like the sun in an oil painting.
When the one who met that endlessly seething gold head-on flinched a little without realizing it.
“The rumor that these three men fell victim to a potion that made them love me.”
“……”
“And so they have been reduced to lowly dogs who love me. Is that the rumor you mean?”
A sneer seeped into the woman’s smile.
* * *
Yes. I knew at least one person would come and ask me.
Like a thug who had found an excuse to pick a fight, I stared at the man as though he were laughable.
“Yes, and what if all of that is true?”
“How could you!”
As if they had been waiting for it, several more people crowded in behind the man who burst out in anger.
“How appalling!”
“What on earth possessed you to do such a thing again?”
“There is a limit to how much one can disgrace one’s family!”
“Shouldn’t you receive proper punishment this time?”
“Your Grace! Say something! Are you not also a victim of this dreadful woman’s……”
Isitan raised one eyebrow.
Even at that slight reaction, the nobleman was overwhelmed for a moment and stopped speaking. Isitan asked him,
“What is the problem?”
“Pardon? Wh-what do you mean, what is the problem……?”
“I am happy.”
I tightened my lips so it wouldn’t show that they were trembling.
To think I had lived long enough to hear Isitan say something like that.
“In the end, I think I must be blessed to have become able to love a woman like this.”
It was so serious that one couldn’t tell whether he meant it or was joking, and at the same time, it was outrageously absurd nonsense.
“Baroness Roxan is loyal, brilliant, and worthy of respect. On top of that, she is dazzlingly beautiful. There is nothing lacking in her as someone to love with my life on the line.”
Even I felt dizzy listening to it, so there was no need to mention everyone else.
“Is that not a far better position than that of a mangy cur who kicked away his own good fortune?”
His gaze found Rohwinas Canesion precisely where he stood among the crowd.
“Naturally, I have no desire or intention to do something I will regret bitterly like someone else.”
My eyes met those of Meriana Peregrine, Rohwinas’s fiancée, who stood beside him.
Perhaps sensing that my heart was weakening, someone reached behind the hem of my dress and clasped my hand.
It was Jaka.
Our eyes met.
Behind him, I could also see Prien, guarding my side like a shadow.
“If we, the people concerned, say we are fine with it, what business is it of yours?”
Jaka responded sharply, looking around at the people.
“The baroness explained everything to me. Even so, it was my choice to remain by her side.”
Prien, too, made his will clear in a steady voice.
“Therefore, I must decline any excessive interference or condemnation.”
“I told you, I am happy.”
“……Your Grace. That is enough, so please stop.”
I signaled to Isitan through clenched teeth.
Then I looked around at everyone and shrugged.
“That’s what they say. So what will you do?”
Everyone was looking at me as though I were a madwoman.
Yes, go ahead and think of me as a madwoman all you like.
I won’t stop you anymore.
A strange thrill brushed past me.
“……”
So, this.
How had it ended up like this again?
Everything began four years ago, on the day it was revealed that my famous and beautiful lover had drunk a love potion.
In an instant, I became known as a madwoman who had drugged a man and forcibly made him hers.
No, should I say it began when he drank the antidote and threw me away like a worn-out shoe?
Or else.
Not long ago.
From the moment these three men drank a love potion and confessed their love to me at the same time?
In any case, my life had once again begun to change steeply some time ago.
‘Are you somewhere here?’
The true culprit who mixed the potion.
The enemy I must find, no matter when.
This time, I would absolutely not meekly fall into the mire the way you wanted.
Now, even if I had to throw away everything I had, I intended to see this through to the end.
Love was not something that could be obtained by begging.
The love potion had never once been my will.
So.
‘I swear on my entire life, this time, I will definitely.’
Find you.