Chapter 44

There are three teddy bears with ribbons that look cute as if they were carefully made in their own way.

“If it’s Lady Astelle…”

“Yes, the daughter of the Duke of Reston.”

The deposed empress was in this castle was a fact known to everyone who lived in the castle.

The guards also heard that the deposed empress was looking after her grandfather and nephew.

It said that the deposed empress had a special fondness for her little nephew.

The commander of the Guards Army listened to Hannah’s explanation and nodded silently.

“All right, this way please.”

Hannah and the maid went through the gates to the outbuildings to the east.

It was time for her to pass through the garden corridor leading to the annex.

As Hannah was walking on the flat flagstones that covered the corridor’s path, she stumbled and accidentally dropped the basket.

“Ahh…”

As the basket fell to the floor, a small glass bottle popped out and rolled.

It was a glass bottle with purple petals.

Hannah, startled, quickly picked up the glass bottle, packed the basket, and left.

***

“Please hold a tea party.”

The next day, Astelle went to see Vellian and asked for it.

“… I beg your pardon?”

Vellian wondered what he had heard now.

‘Tea party?’

Astelle, who was sitting opposite him, asked a question in a very natural manner.

“Have you been to the tea room in the garden?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“It was very beautiful in the middle of the acacia flower garden. I want to have a tea party in that tea room.”

Vellian smiled after a brief pause and said, “That’s right. Then you can have a tea party if you want…”

“But I can’t send out invitations because there aren’t any ladies I know here. So the Count will host a tea party for me.”

“Pardon? No! I mean… why me, Lady Astelle?”

Vellian looked at Astelle with a puzzled look.

The tea party was a social gathering for noblewomen.

No nobleman ever hosted a tea party.

Well, it’s not legally prohibited, but it was customary anyway.

If a man were to host a tea party, the nobles of the capital would see him as a strange person.

Astelle said in a calm voice.

“Have you forgotten what happened last time at the inn? You disguised the pharmacist as a maid to steal my luggage and medicine box. She sent me to the public bath and looked through my clothes.”

“……”

Astelle smiled as she watched Vellian’s gentle-looking face harden.

“I told you back then. I’ll get help from you later. Don’t you remember that too?”

“That…”

Vellian stuttered blankly, then lowered his head and sighed.

“Excuse me, Lady Astelle.”

He put one hand on his forehead and let out a pained sound.

“You will leave after completing the will of the late empress dowager, but I have to live in the capital for the rest of my life and work in the Imperial Palace.”

There was no way Astelle would go out and do something like a tea party for no reason.

Vellian knew what had just happened.

Theor was almost kidnapped by a maid. On the day of the incident, he was told in detail the circumstances surrounding it.

Even if Vellian wasn’t told anything, he could guess who the culprit was.

“Have you ever thought about how difficult it would be for the rest of my life if I had a hostile relationship with the mother of the future empress?”

“Is this something I should think about?”

At Astelle’s brazen question, Vellian was at a loss for words.

Astelle said with a friendly smile in front of Vellian’s dazed face.

“……”

“You’re getting a strange misunderstanding. I’m not going to harm the Marchioness. It’s just a tea party. I want to invite the Marchioness to be friends.”

“Friends?”

Vellian stared suspiciously as if he would not believe such nonsense.

Astelle did not give up and spoke in a serious manner.

“I want to openly and frankly tell her about what happened with Lady Marianne, and clear up any misunderstandings. I don’t want to be an enemy of the Croychen family.”

Astelle confessed frankly.

“But if I were the one holding the tea party, the Marchioness and her daughter would not be attending. That’s why I’m asking you.”

Vellian looked at Astelle with his suspicious eyes.

There was not a single lie on her well-groomed face.

But he was Vellian and he was not easily fooled.

“Then can you swear to me, Lady Astelle? You will never do anything to the Marchioness.”

“Sure.”

Astelle placed a hand on her chest with an innocent expression, as if she had never lied.

And she swore seriously.

“I swear on my father.”

“Hey… I know that you had a bow to your father, the Duke of Reston.”

Vellian glared at her with a suspicious look.

“Then, can’t I take someone else?”

“Who are you going to swear on?”

“I do not know… how about my grandfather, the Marquis of Carlenberg?”

Vellian pondered over who Astelle valued the most, and chose her maternal grandfather, the Marquis.

He thought about Theor, but he couldn’t bet the five-year-old child.

Astelle swore obediently.

“I swear on my father and grandfather. I won’t touch the Marchioness until the tea party is over.”

Velian still had a grumpy face with no doubts, but when he heard Astelle’s oath, he couldn’t argue anymore.

“I see. I believe you because you say that far.”

“Thank you.”

Astelle smiled contentedly.

Because Astelle will never use her hand anyway.

‘I don’t have to touch it myself.’

The Marchioness was quick-tempered and violent.

Such a person was the type to self-destruct without having to attack.

She only needs to create an opportunity to self-destruct.

She didn’t care if she couldn’t keep her oath.

Her father, the Duke of Reston had cut ties with her.

And it wasn’t just her maternal grandfather, the Marquis of Carlenberg, whom she called ‘grandfather’.

The deceased former Duke of Reston was equally a grandfather to Astelle.

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.”

Astelle swore calmly and concealed her inner feelings.

“And if this goes well, I will not ask Sir Vellian such a difficult request in the future. I will completely forget about your work at the inn back then.”

“… I wish I could believe those words.”

Vellian muttered helplessly.

“Thank you for listening to my request. I was interrupting a busy person. I will leave now.”

It was when Astelle got up to say thank you. Vellian asked with a puzzled expression.

“Are you going to invite His Majesty as well?”

Astelle looked back at him as if asking what this was.

It seems that he really hated doing Astelle’s request.

Seeing that he deliberately mentions his name, knowing that she doesn’t like meeting Kaizen.

Astelle flatly refused.

“This is a tea party held to relieve old feelings, so there’s no need to bring the Emperor. Don’t tell His Majesty.”

***

The Marchioness looked at the luxurious envelope and asked nervously.

“A tea party invitation?”

In the afternoon, an invitation to a tea party was delivered in the name of Vellian.

It was a polite request to attend because there will be a tea party in the tea room in the garden.

“Did you say that the woman had been to the main palace?”

“Yes. It is said that the Count and Lady Astelle talked to each other alone.”

The maid who brought the invitation answered the question of the Marchioness.

‘What had she planned?’

She wasn’t stupid either.

There was no reason for Vellian, the emperor’s aide, to suddenly hold a tea party here.

Why did a nobleman host a tea party in the first place?

‘It must have been her.’

It was clear that she had ordered Vellian to hold a tea party.

The Marchioness was watching what Astelle was doing in the annex.

One of her maids that she placed as a spy reported that Astelle had met Vellian.

And today, the invitation to the tea party came.

As anyone can see, it was Astelle’s work.

But why?

The Marchioness was unsure of her intentions.

She asked the maid again as she tapped the tabletop with an anxious hand.

“Did you say you saw the purple petals?”

“Yes, Madam. I saw it with my own two eyes.”

The maid said once again what she had seen.

Astelle’s maid, who came out of the castle, dropped something from the basket, and it was a flower petal in a glass bottle.

‘Purple petals in a glass bottle.’

That ominous purple was the color of death.

The small purple petals, often called the monk’s hood, were famous for their powerful poison.

Even the Marchioness, who was ignorant of herbal medicine, knew how poisonous the flower was.

Astelle’s maid has bought purple petals in a glass bottle.

The only evidence she had was the maid’s eyewitness report, but the Marchioness couldn’t think of any other purpose there.

‘This is obviously… she’s a bad girl trying to get revenge on me.’

She was told that Astelle knew medicinal herbs and that she carried a bunch of medicine bottles.

Poor Marianne tried to inspect that woman’s suspicious drug, but she was framed and suffering.

What kind of hobbies does that woman have?

She’s like a pharmacist, that’s what low-level women do.

‘In the North where I grew up, such sassy women were slaughtered as witches, and Astelle had good reason to seek revenge.’

Yeah right, that must be revenge. She must have known that the Marchioness was the mastermind behind the kidnapping of her nephew that happened a few days ago.