Chapter 9: Two People in the VIP Room
ALEXANDER stood in the VIP viewing room on the second story, looking down from the window at the scene below. He snorted to himself.
“About time, huh?” he muttered, sounding pleased.
“You really shouldn’t be spying on them,” Rosalind chided.
“Perhaps, Rosalind, but if they’re out in the open like that, they’re bound to get noticed.”
“You still shouldn’t.”
From the window, the two of them could clearly see Edward and Amy standing a short distance away from the group of people surrounding Kevin. Alexander couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, of course, but they seemed intimately close. Finally, he saw Amy put Tigger down on the ground.
He caught a glimpse of a soft light, which was sure to be Amy’s healing magic.
This window was the best spot in the venue to watch the matches, but now that there was an intermission, Alexander and Rosalind were the only two in the room. He had made a beeline for the window as soon as he got there.
“Don’t most participants go to the first aid room or their waiting room after a match?” Rosalind asked. “Why did you come here first? There’s no rush—there’s plenty of time before the final match. That’s what Jahal did,” she added, growing suspicious and firing a quick look toward where Letizia and the others had gone inside.
Having only sloppily brushed the dust off his clothes, Alexander was still dirty, and even though his injuries weren’t severe, they still hadn’t been treated.
Alexander only turned his face toward Rosalind. He didn’t look like he wanted to move from where he was leaning beside the window. He looked amused, the corners of his mouth lifting at the way Rosalind’s protest was disguised as an honest question.
“I guess you’re right. Why don’t you take me to the first aid room then, Rosalie?”
“I told you not to call me…” Rosalind sighed. “All right. Let’s get you looked at right away.”
“Really? You’ll join me?” Alexander asked, eyes widening in genuine shock, despite being the one who invited her.
“I’m just using it as an excuse to get out of here,” Rosalind whispered back, looking around the room furtively.
The stadium was extremely plain, its appearance exuded only brute strength, but the inside of the VIP rooms, particularly the room on the uppermost floor for the royal family, were decorated quite elaborately.
A carpet was spread over the large room, and gorgeous tapestries hung from the walls. The windows that faced the stage were surrounded by ornately decorated frames.
Light snacks and refreshments were also provided in the VIP rooms, making them an elegant watering hole for famous, high-ranking aristocrats to congregate and mingle with one another.
Rosalind had been planning to watch the team matches as a normal citizen from the general audience seating with her relatives. But after Letizia came to pick her up the night before, totally out of the blue, Rosalind ended up spending the night at the marquess’s house and had come with them to the stadium that morning.
It had been a nice perk being able to visit the waiting rooms before the matches, even though she wasn’t anyone’s family member of fiancée. But Rosalind had never expected that she would be brought all the way to the VIP room.
“I’m very thankful for the invitation, but I think it would be strange for me to be in a room like that,” Rosalind had tried to protest.
“Really? I don’t think so,” was all Letizia said in response.
The maids had meticulously prepared Rosalind’s hair and face at Letizia’s house that morning. Even the dress they let her wear that day complemented her features wonderfully, so she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb with all the other high-bred ladies in the room.
But this was a room for famous, high-ranking nobles only.
Allowances had been made for Rosalind because she was a friend of Letizia’s and an acquaintance of Duchess Camilla, but as a lady from the countryside that hadn’t even debuted in society yet, simply existing in that room made her feel inferior.
Even so, when she was with Letizia, Rosalind managed to hold her own somehow despite her nerves, but ever since Jahal came in, things rapidly started falling apart. Letizia had repeatedly looked to Rosalind to rescue her from his attentions, but as any intervention would have just been futile on her part, Rosalind took the initiative and became a wallflower.
That was why when Alexander walked in, Rosalind instinctively became slightly—no, incredibly relieved.
It’s such a relief when there’s someone you know in a situation like this!
“This is no place for a country bumpkin, you know,” Rosalind sighed.
“You’re being oddly uptight,” Alexander remarked.
“This is how I always am.”
“And that’s what I like about you.”
He always casually said things that might lead her to get the wrong idea if she took him seriously. They had always joked around like this, so Rosalind rarely fully believed everything that came out of Alexander’s mouth. With how stressed she was about even being there, Rosalind couldn’t afford to brush it off as a joke.
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’m very much serious. Oh! Rosalie, look!”
“Wait! Alec!”
Alexander suddenly grabbed her shoulders and marched her to the window.
He told her to look down, and she did so with some trepidation. Below, Rosalind saw Amy and Edward hugging each other—or rather, Edward holding Amy tightly in his arms.
“Good for you, Ed,” Alexander muttered with a relaxed expression. His mouth smiled in a gentle curve and looked totally genuine—he meant what he said.
“…Are you really okay with this?” Rosalind asked, the question falling from her lips.
“Oh? Do you doubt me? It’s nice to see your childhood friend’s first love work out.”
“I suppose you’re right…” Rosalind said evasively to Alexander’s confident reply.
Rosalind knew Alexander was fond of Amy. He never denied it, and even though he was old enough for a fiancée to be arranged for him, he always avoided the subject, further substantiating Rosalind’s suspicions.
The only reason she and Alexander were close was because they had become friendly with each other through the endless practices for her music recital.
“I like Amy. I had been thinking of asking her to marry me if things didn’t go well with Ed,” Alexander answered nonchalantly.
But that was as far as Rosalind’s suspicions were correct.
“If you take in a former fiancée candidate of a prince who broke off their engagement, wouldn’t that make the royal family indebted to you too?”
“Huh?”
Amy was currently the only fiancée candidate for the Third Prince, and naturally had not been allowed to look for any other partners besides Edward. Even if Amy were to drop out of the running now, nearly all of the age-appropriate partners had already paired off.
And even if Amy didn’t have anything to do with why the engagement didn’t work out, rumors would spread like wildfire that it was because she wasn’t a woman capable of being anyone’s fiancée. It would become incredibly hard for her to find a good match, and that would be on the royal family’s conscience.
But if she were to marry into the Duke of Coverdale’s family—a branch of the royal family—it would be a different matter entirely. Amy would not only avoid vilification but she would be rewarded for her many years of being in the restrictive position of the Third Prince’s fiancée candidate.
“So it would be an act of kindness?”
“Hm… I can’t say that’s not part of it. There wouldn’t be any trouble from my parents if I chose Amy, either.”
“But what about Amy’s feelings?”
Alexander laughed.
“You’re one to talk! You were about to marry a man so old he’s a grandfather for your family’s sake.”