ESL Chapter 60

Lea looked down at the clothes she was wearing. Trousers that only men would wear, paired with a white shirt that came all the way up to her neck. She had even bound her chest to avoid being found out as a woman. On top of that, with the dirty-blonde male wig that Razen had prepared for her, the girl had vanished entirely — and what the mirror now reflected back was an androgynous, pretty young boy. Following Luciel’s warning that Cheor might send people to search the branch office, they had decided to head to the royal palace, and she was currently in the middle of disguising herself to avoid the checkpoints along the way.

“It’s been a while. Wearing men’s clothes, that is.”

Come to think of it, back when she had been living in the Kingdom of Hamel, she’d been forced to wear dresses or gowns inside the house due to Lark’s strict upbringing — but outside, she had always worn men’s clothing while chasing down wanted criminals. And since the time she actually spent at home was minimal, it meant that, in the end, she had been in men’s clothes the vast majority of the time. Even so, she hadn’t worn a wig back then.

Because I could just throw on a robe…

Those days were so much easier… Lea chuckled quietly to herself and stepped out of the room guided by a handmaid. She glanced around the reception room and asked,

“Where’s Luciel?”

At her sparkling, expectant eyes, Berchel gave a hollow laugh and said,

“It seems he’s too embarrassed to come out. Speaking of which, the first time I met young Luciel, he was…”

“Shut that mouth, Berchel.”

Berchel had been smiling as he began to bring up a story from Luciel’s childhood, but a voice so chillingly cold it raised goosebumps shot out from behind him, and he flinched into silence.

“Wow — Luciel, you’re genuinely beautiful. You look completely like a woman.”

Lea marveled as she watched Luciel walking toward her. Dressed in a golden gown with a full, sweeping skirt, wearing a long, wavy bronze-colored wig, and with makeup applied on top of it all, he was nothing short of dazzlingly gorgeous.

As Luciel came and stood before her, Lea looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. Ah… everything was perfect, except for one thing.

“You’re too tall for a woman.”

At Lea’s observation, Razen, who had been watching the two of them, smiled and said,

“Since you will be seated inside the carriage for the journey, that should not pose much of a problem. More than that, I do wonder whether the young lord will be feeling well on the way.”

Hm? Only then did Lea look more closely at Luciel’s complexion. It had been hidden beneath the makeup and she had missed it at first, but looking carefully now, he did seem slightly pale.

“What’s wrong, Luciel? Is your stomach bothering you?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Luciel gave her a gentle smile as though to reassure her, then shot a glare at Razen the moment Lea wasn’t looking. Whether he’d be feeling well — and wasn’t it this very person who had put him in this state?

[With all due respect, since the young lady is still wearing clothing that is uncomfortable on your account, surely you can endure at least this much, my lord.]

That had been what Razen said to him before he put on the dress, when he had tried to stop the handmaids from crowding around him and cinching the corset tighter. Truthfully, it wasn’t a wrong thing to say. Because of the marks he had left on her, Lea had been wearing nothing but stifling, high-collared clothes for days, styles she didn’t even particularly like. In the end, left with nothing to argue back, he had no choice but to let the handmaids do as they pleased. The handmaids had tightened it mercilessly, and as a result, his abdomen had barely enough room left to breathe.

‘Truly, I have newfound respect for women who can dance in something like this. If I eat anything in this state, I feel like it’ll come straight back up.’

If it was this suffocating even on him with his muscles, it could only be worse for women. His gaze drifted briefly to Lea’s waist. The waist visible beneath her shirt was slender enough that a corset was entirely unnecessary — thin enough to fit within the circle of one of his arms. Once he had confirmed just how slight her waist was, he did at least understand why the handmaids had cinched his corset so aggressively.

“It seems everyone is ready — shall we make our way to the carriage now?”

At Razen’s words, Lea nodded and then looked toward a closed door in the room and said,

“Please look after Ian for me while I’m gone.”

The physical wounds had all healed, but the real problem had been the blood loss. The doctor had said that it was fortunate he had taken the potion quickly enough to prevent any internal organ damage, and had issued the verdict that Ian needed to rest for at least three days. Even after receiving that assessment, Ian had refused to back down from insisting he would come along, and when Lea was at a loss for what to do, Razen had smiled pleasantly and said,

[If you can stand up, then by all means, come.]

With those words — a sedative injection, immediately. Somehow having obtained it from the doctor at some point, Razen had administered the injection to Ian’s neck with a smile on his face — swiftly and cleanly.

The memory of that moment made Lea shiver slightly without meaning to. Razen was reassuringly reliable when he was on your side, but if you imagined him as an enemy, he would be a rather formidable opponent to deal with. His execution and judgment were astonishingly precise and swift, and he was equally skilled at keeping his emotions in check.

‘I’m so genuinely glad he’s on my side.’

Sending her silent applause to MacLean for the judgment of choosing Razen, Lea looked once more at the room where Ian lay. He would certainly be furious when he woke up later — but for now, this had been the best choice available.

“I will see to it that he rests well. Please go without worry.”

Razen smiled warmly back at her. Lea gave him a nod and stepped out through the back door of the branch office alongside Luciel.

Berchel had agreed to stay behind at the branch office as well, acting on Luciel’s suggestion that there might be people who would recognize his face. Fortunately, since Berchel held a proper business license for an antique bookshop within the Yurasen Empire, it meant that even if a search was conducted by the Mihael family and he was discovered, he could be protected at the branch office as a citizen of the Yurasen Empire. At first Berchel had tried to insist on coming along, just as Ian had — but the moment Luciel cast a single glance his way, he meekly changed his answer to staying at the branch office, which had left Lea puzzled.

After walking some distance away from the branch office, a carriage bearing the royal seal of the Kingdom of Teor came into view. Guster was seated on the coachman’s box, and like the two of them, he too had a hat pressed down over a wig and a false beard attached. As Lea and Luciel approached, he bowed his head in greeting.

“I’ve been waiting for you. Please, step in.”

Following his words, the two of them climbed into the carriage, and it set off toward the royal palace.

“Is the Crown Prince someone who can be trusted?”

Lea was watching the dim streets passing by outside the window when she asked, and Luciel, seated across from her, looked at her steadily and answered,

“At the very least, he’s not the kind of man who would join hands with my uncle.”

“That’s a relief. So what’s the plan once we’re inside the palace?”

“First I’ll need to meet with my aunt. And I’ll need to check on the state of the elders as well… But more than that — are you all right? Is it fine for you to keep staying here?”

“Yeah. For now. I still have about a week left.”

“A week?”

At Luciel’s question, Lea turned and looked at him. She furrowed her pretty brows slightly and answered,

“Yeah. I have to attend that wretched debutante ball in a week.”

“Ah… that ball where you make your debut when you come of age? Doesn’t it go on for four days?”

“Apparently. It’s a complete disaster. And it’s not even just one day…”

Watching her heave a deep sigh, Luciel found a smile coming to his lips without him quite realizing it. Well, of course someone with her personality would have no love for an event like a debutante ball. On a whim, he imagined her walking in on his arm, and asked without much thought,

“So you’ll be entering on the arm of Duke Kaien?”

“Ah, I wanted that… but Kaid is my partner.”

“…Kaid…?”

As a man’s name left her lips, Luciel’s voice went slightly rigid — but Lea didn’t notice, and nodded.

“The Third Prince of the Yurasen Empire. His Majesty the Emperor said that the lady, who had finally been found after seventeen years, ought to make a splendid debut, and told me to choose among three of the princes. The only one I had any prior acquaintance with was Kaid, so I had no other choice. He had told me with such confidence before that I’d be taking his hand — I had no idea what he meant at the time, but apparently it was about this.”

I wanted to walk in on Father’s arm though… Even now she clearly found it disagreeable, and she was muttering to herself in complaint. Watching her, the light in Luciel’s eyes cooled and settled into something sharp. The Third Prince, Kaid… he had heard of him through rumor. He was a prince of a great empire, and yet had also reached the level of a Sword Master, and his looks were striking enough that he was quite well-known across the continent.

‘For a pest, he’s a rather large and troublesome one.’

Run-of-the-mill pests could be swatted or dealt with by spraying repellent. He would soon have the capability to do exactly that. But for a man of the caliber of the Third Prince of a great empire, the situation was different. No matter how much authority Luciel held as the head of the Mihael Ducal House — which could sway both the Kingdom of Teor and the Kingdom of Hamel — in terms of rank, he was one step below an imperial prince. In short, if the Third Imperial Prince truly had feelings for Lea, there was no other method available besides a direct contest. Because that Third Prince was not about to wait patiently while he worked to win her heart.

‘The problem is that I’m at a disadvantage both in terms of time and distance…’

Luciel felt his mood growing increasingly sour. Right now they were together, but by Lea’s own account, there was only a week left at most. When the time came, she would return to the Empire. And he would be stuck in Teor for some time, unable to move, while he cleaned up the mess his uncle had made of the family. They say that when bodies draw close, hearts follow — the best he could hope for was that they wouldn’t grow distant in the interval.

He had closed his eyes and sunk into his thoughts, when soft fingers touched his forehead — startling him enough to open his eyes. There was Lea right in front of him, pressing her fingers against his brow and smoothing out the furrow there. In those gemstone-red eyes framed by long, dark lashes, there was worry — worry for him.

“We’ll make it to the palace safely. If it comes to it, we can just fight our way through. So ease up that pretty face of yours.”

The rose-petal lips that were whispering to him — how sweet they had been, his body still remembered. As if in a trance, Luciel slowly raised his hand. His hand had just barely reached toward the back of her head —

“Hiiiiigh!“

With a tremendous whine, the moving carriage came to a sudden stop.