“Huh? What?”
Elliott didn’t understand what was happening, but as he kept struggling toward shore, the answer came flying a few seconds later.
Right after the girl on the shore swung her arm, another little rock smacked him in the head. She was throwing stones to keep him from reaching land.
“Aaaah?!”
If Elliott fled into the center of the pond, she would let him get away, but any closer to shore and she would send rocks flying. Her aim was precise, and she always hit her target.
“E-Eeeeek!”
He was helpless, but he couldn’t give up on reaching the shore. Even if he were to stay where he was, his little legs couldn’t reach the bottom.
While he was desperately trying not to drown, Elliott’s gang gathered around the girl on the shore, all of them in a sorry state. They begged her to spare Elliott, but she didn’t listen to a word of it. She eyed Elliott, toying with one of the rocks in her hand.
As he watched the adults rush over, Elliott’s consciousness gradually faded away.
The scene around the pond had turned into bedlam. While the maids treated the bloodied boys, a number of chamberlains leapt into the pond to save the drowning prince. No one was heavily wounded, but they all needed first aid followed by a doctor’s visit, so the adults had called all of the palace’s court physicians, even the ones who were off duty.
When the king and queen arrived, having received word of what had happened, they looked around what resembled a battlefield as they listened to a report on the incident.
“So, that is what unfolded, if we are to believe Lady Rachel of the House of Ferguson, the only one who’s been able to keep a level head.”
“Hmm...”
Even though they were only young boys who had no decision-making abilities, it was hard to believe that more than ten of them had decided to gang up on a little girl over an accidental breach of decorum. But then again, they’d lost to her and nearly gotten the prince killed. This was beyond a mere failure of education—for both Elliott’s group and the girl.
The king’s head hurt as he tried to figure out how he ought to interpret this.
Over by the side of the pond, Duke Ferguson, who’d gone quite pale, was holding his daughter, the young lady at the center of this calamity. No matter how the chamberlains had pleaded with her, she wouldn’t stop throwing rocks at Elliott, so her father had grabbed her and stopped it himself.
The young girl, who was as adorable as a doll, had no expression on her face, and with the way her father was holding her, she looked as though she actually were a doll. However, the king shuddered as he saw the blatant hostility and murderous intent in her eyes.
The duke began apologizing and attempted to explain, but the king looked at the calm face of the young lady in his arms.
“Rachel, was it? Could I talk to her?”
Rachel tilted her head to the side. “Will this take long, Your Majesty?”
“Hm? What do you mean?” the king asked gently.
Six-year-old Rachel was completely serious when she replied, “They’ll stop handing out the cherry cheesecake if I don’t hurry, so would you mind waiting until I’ve been able to get some?”
The king was taken aback and didn’t know how to react, but he did order a chamberlain to go get her some cake.
The queen nodded with approval. “Your Majesty,” she said to her husband.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Rachel really is something.”
“Well...I won’t deny that...”
Not in a way I can approve of, though, thought the king.
“I’ve decided. Let’s make Rachel Elliott’s future wife,” the queen said as if it was a stroke of genius.
How did she come to that conclusion in a situation like this?
The king didn’t understand his wife any better than he understood the duke’s young daughter, and without thinking, asked, “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. To think she could cause a scene like this and yet still be able to explain it calmly and objectively... That’s not an easy thing to do.”
“I’m sure it’s not, but maybe she’s such a child that she doesn’t understand what she’s done?”
The queen turned to Rachel and asked, “What do you think about the fact that you hurt Elliott, Miss Rachel?”
“I’ll be executed, I suppose?” she answered. “If so, I’d like to at least have some cherry cheesecake before you cut my head off.”
“What do you think, sire? Look at the courage she has to remain so calm in the face of capital punishment!”
“I’m more curious about this cherry cheesecake that young Miss Rachel is so fixated on.”
When Elliott awoke from his deep slumber, he didn’t remember the garden party. To be more precise, he remembered something had happened, but his recollections were fragmentary, like a dream.
Taking advantage of this, the queen introduced Rachel to him not as the culprit who’d injured him but as his newly chosen fiancée. Elliott was confused by how quickly that decision had been made, but their marriage was more than a decade off at this point, so it didn’t seem like something he needed to care about.
“There you have it!” the queen assured them. “Elliott’s accepted it, so give us your daughter and I’ll forget all about the garden party incident.”
“You’re not being reasonable!” the duke protested.
There was no way the duke could resist once the king and queen had made up their minds, especially when they were offering to overlook an incident where his daughter had brutalized the prince. They’d come ready for all possible objections, and he was in no position to oppose them when it meant his family would be declared innocent.
“What’s the harm? I doubt you’ve found a husband for her yet anyway,” the king stated.
“Well, no, but...are you sure?” the duke asked.
“About what?”
The duke sighed and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “About the girl who did all that marrying into your family.”
Well, when he puts it that way... Wait, no, stop.
The king shook his head to dispel those thoughts. “I-I mean, it’s not the sort of thing that could happen twice. Mm-hm.”
“Here’s hoping...” the duke said, finally giving in.
It would still be more than a decade before the two of them caused a far greater incident.