I couldn’t let this chance pass me by, so I asked the three ladies a question. “Um, Lady Opera mentioned that the Dragon Duke might have multiple personalities. Is that true?”
“Multiple personalities?”
“The Lord Dragon Duke?”
“Did Her Highness say that?”
“Y-Yes, she did,” I stammered. The three ladies glanced at each other and tilted their heads in confusion.
“Rather than multiple personalities, it’s more like... Hmm, how should I put this...?”
“I wonder...” mused another.
“Memory loss, perhaps?”
After the third woman said that, the other ladies looked at each other.
“Memory loss?” they both said.
“Yes. Do you remember when the Dragon Duke first showed his face in public after a hundred years? On that day, he was very distressed. I have no idea what might have caused it, though...” One of Lady Marthe’s children was a secretary to the Dragon Duke, and it seemed that they had seen the Dragon Duke’s state firsthand that day. “Apparently, he was shouting that he had found Charlotte and that he was on the way to look for her.”
I felt my heart leap. To think that he had found me out on that very day...
Suddenly, I remembered his words to my past incarnation.
“I’ll find you... No matter where you’re reborn, I promise that I’ll find you!”
He had been looking for me, just as he’d said. But why?
The Dragon Duke’s last words to Charlotte had been so vehement and tainted with resentment. What had happened between them? I had no memory of whatever it was. I could remember that their romance had been like two lovebirds straight out of a fairy tale, but all the important memories were completely missing from my mind.
Lady Marthe held my hand gently. Apparently, I had been trembling without realizing it.
“I apologize. I should have explained first. Charlotte was the Dragon Duke’s fiancée who passed away,” she told me.
“I’m all right. Thank you for telling me about her.”
I had no intention of telling these three ladies about my past life. I seem to have worried them, so I apologized for doing so.
Lady Marthe kept holding on to my hand and continued. “The Lord Dragon Duke didn’t listen to the people trying to stop him and insisted that he would look for Charlotte. They tried to pin him down with magic, but...”
The Dragon Duke was the pinnacle of all dragonkin. It would be impossible to stop him with magic.
“He shook off all his restraints and tried to fly out of the castle, so Duchesse Langue de Chat tried to use a kind of Forbidden Magic on him.”
It wasn’t clear what kind of magic Duchesse had used on the Dragon Duke, but the Dragon Duke had suddenly calmed down and begun to listen to the people around him. After that, he’d never talked about Charlotte again.
“The Dragon Duke’s gloomy personality just vanished without a trace. He is a bit bratty, but he has become a dashing young man, completely different from how he used to be.”
Those close to the Dragon Duke whispered about how he was practically a completely different man.
“They talked about how he might be a body double or that he was actually the Dragon Duke’s bastard child, but I surmised that Duchesse Langue de Chat must have simply sealed away the Dragon Duke’s memories.”
At first, Lady Marthe had thought that it was unlikely, but inexplicably, the Dragon Duke had enrolled in the magic academy and started learning about politics and state affairs from Duchesse. Thus, Lady Marthe had come to the conclusion that he must have lost his memories until that point.
“My husband once said that the Dragon Duke used to be a friendly and pleasant young man. But ever since the dragonkin became involved in wars, he became curt and gloomy,” Lady Marthe added.
“Then that means the current Dragon Duke is his real personality, right?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Everything fell into place in my head regarding Van. He had been dragged into wars and had agonized about it. Charlotte had been his only place of respite—the oasis of his weary heart.
If the Dragon Duke hadn’t killed Charlotte, then the number of suspects dwindled considerably. I’d heard that the Kingdom of Sacristain had sent an assassin to kill her, but I couldn’t think of a reason why they would murder their own princess.
“Um, do you know who might’ve wanted to kill Princess Charlotte of Sacristain?”
“It must have been someone who did not want the marriage between Princess Charlotte and the Dragon Duke to push through,” replied Lady Marthe.
The other two ladies nodded in agreement.
Lady Marthe pointed at me and continued. “Lady Mille-Feuille, I believe that person is the same one who attempted to take your life. Whoever it is does not want any woman to get close to the Lord Dragon Duke.”
My heart thudded in my chest, and my lips trembled. Someone who wants to eliminate every single woman who gets close to the Dragon Duke...
“You mean...”
Duchesse Langue de Chat.
I was about to utter his name when Lady Marthe placed a finger on my lips. She was telling me not to say his name out loud.
“I am sure that we are thinking of the same person,” she said to me.
“Indeed.”
“There’s no mistaking it.”
Lady Marthe smiled at me gently and reassured me. “We will be investigating him, though I don’t think that he will drop his guard quite that easily. Lady Mille-Feuille, do you think you can wait a while longer?”
Lady Marthe wouldn’t be the only one investigating him—Lady Nonette and Lady Tuile would cooperate as well.
“We will probe into him until the day of the Founding Anniversary.”
“We will solve everything so we can all enjoy Her Highness’s party.”
“Thank you very much for your help,” I told them.
That day, I returned home with three powerful allies on my side.