As instructed, I’d gone to meet with the prince’s fiancée.
“Remember. You need to capture her,” Nadir told me.
“Capture her?” I asked. “What is she, a wild animal?”
“She may as well be.”
How could a noblewoman possibly be close to being a wild animal?
“The idea is to bring Leticia back to the royal palace, yes?” I asked.
“Correct,” he confirmed, nodding. “His Highness ought to be speaking with Leticia by now. Then, I’ll go and meet with her. My sister is bound to realize a storm is coming. She will run away. Guaranteed.”
“You sure sound convinced of it.”
“She’s not the type of person to listen when you ask her to behave. Making her run away on purpose is the way to catch her,” he explained.
I could hardly believe the man was talking about his own sister.
“You two are siblings, yes? You share the same blood and everything?”
“We are proper brother and sister, born of the same parents, yes.”
“And you have no intention to respect your own sister’s wishes?”
“Political marriages are a given for nobles, no?”
Sadly, this wasn’t quite what I’d been told growing up, so I didn’t really understand where he was coming from.
I was so grateful to my adoptive parents for not being the kind to pawn off their own daughter for money! And I was very grateful I didn’t have a brother who would pawn off his own sister for power!
“I know you’re thinking something rude,” he remarked.
Sweating at my own transparency, I managed to force an awkward smile.
“Either way, you want my assistance in keeping your sister from escaping,” I said. “Got it, got it.”
“You don’t need to say that twice,” he snapped.
Why was I, at this age, being scolded by this man as if he were my mother? Inconsiderate prick.
Said prick knocked on the door of an estate—significantly smaller than the one at the capital—and a woman, a maid by the looks of her, answered immediately and let us in.
“Are you well?” he asked his sister.
“Brother!” snapped Leticia, ignoring his attempt at pleasantries. “What’s this about my engagement still standing?!”
It was only natural she’d confront him this quickly, I supposed. Most likely she’d been overjoyed to think that her engagement had been broken off, only for the prince to then promptly follow up with a declaration that it, in fact, had not. Doubtless she’d never imagined this could happen.
“It would appear His Highness has not, in fact, broken it off,” he said.
“What?!” she retorted, frantically pressing for an explanation. “But back then he said we were no longer—”
“Try and remember, Leticia. Did he categorically state your engagement was broken off?”
For a moment, she froze, the color quickly draining from her cheeks. The realization that those crucial words had never been explicitly spoken had likely hit her.
At the ball, His Highness had only replied vaguely to her statements. Not only that, every other person present at the venue had been planted by Nadir.
“He...did not explicitly say our engagement was broken off,” she admitted dejectedly.
“Indeed he did not,” Nadir agreed.
“What’s going on, then?!”
“It would appear he never intended to break it off in the first place.”
“What?!”
I felt a little sorry for her in her confused state. Her brother had set her up to deliberately misunderstand things, after all. Anyone would have gotten the wrong idea in that situation, not just Leticia.
But, from my perspective, being loved by someone like that was something to be desired, and so I decided to stop sympathizing. I was envious!
“He wanted to make you jealous, it seems,” Nadir explained.
“J-Jealous?” Leticia stammered.
“Yes. As in, upset he was showing interest in—”
“I know what ‘jealous’ means!” she cut in.
It appeared as though Leticia did not understand the prince’s plan.
“His Highness fancies you, it seems,” her brother explained.
“He did say something like that earlier...” she said.
“You never paid him any attention, so he wanted to test you.”
“And even through his test I paid him no mind,” she retorted.
Poor Prince Clarke, rejected so thoroughly!
“Indeed. But it would seem he was quite happy you actually looked at his face for once.”
Earlier, before we’d come to this estate, His Highness had been in a much better mood than before at the ball.
“Huh? How do you know about that when it just happened?!” Leticia demanded.
“I was the one who brought His Highness here,” Nadir said nonchalantly.
“You what?!” Clearly she hadn’t expected that, given how she raised her voice.
Indeed. Her own flesh and blood had betrayed her. Hopefully she would take it as a lesson to be learned, and be more cautious in the future.
Unbothered by Leticia’s outburst, Nadir continued, “He said that now that you have a reason to get to know him, he wouldn’t mind it if you only fell for him after the marriage. He was, however, concerned about how quickly you ran off to one of our territories, so he’s making arrangements.”
“What arrangements?” she asked, her face turning pale.
“For the wedding ceremony.”
“Nooo!” she cried out in despair, clearly unable to handle the news that her wedding preparations were still underway. Losing even more color, she implored her brother to do something.
Also, I’d been standing there that entire time. Hello?
“Um, have you considered, perhaps, not ignoring me?” I asked quietly to put a stop to the siblings’ never-ending quarrel.
Leticia’s eyes widened, as if she’d only just noticed me.
“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten all about her,” Nadir spoke up. “She said she wanted to see you, Leticia, so I brought her here.”
“You forgot?!” I snapped at his nonchalance. This was not the kind of thing one simply forgot!
He, however, seemed unfazed.
“Be... Buh... Brie!” Leticia exclaimed, seemingly having given up on remembering my name and using her made-up nickname for me instead.
“It’s Brianna!” I corrected her. What a tasteless girl, giving me such a rude nickname!
Leticia tilted her head curiously and said, “So, Brie, I don’t mean to grill you, but you look different.”
“Bri-an-na!” I reminded her yet again.
“What happened to the croquettish—I mean, coquettish act?”
“I’m over it!”
Perhaps she’d sensed a change in me since our first meeting, because she eyed me as if asking why that had happened.
“I thought I had a chance when the prince approached me, you know! Turns out, he’s head over heels for you! I was just part of his little test. What a joke!” I said, clenching my fist as I spoke. “And because of that whole kerfuffle, my punishment was to take those horrid princess lessons for who knows what reason! They make no sense! They’re so strict! What’s up with that?! Who scolds people for happening to yawn?! Isn’t yawning just a thing people do?!”
“It sure is,” she agreed with a nod.
“I knew you’d understand!” I exclaimed, clasping her hands. Of course she understood! She’d wanted to escape so badly!
Given how all anyone had done until this point was disparage me, something so simple as having someone relate to me touched my heart. Nadir, the mastermind behind this ploy, wouldn’t have been sympathetic to my plight.
“You’re incredible,” I told her. “You survived ten years of that?! I could never. I barely lasted a day.”
“Don’t give up!” she said as if to encourage me. “You can do it!”
“No can do!”
“I mean, you could become the crown princess!”
“Not a chance in hell! The prince has categorically stated that if he marries anyone but you, he will not have children!”
She’d probably been saying all that in an attempt to get out of the engagement, but when she heard those words, she froze.
“It would seem His Highness has no interest in marrying anyone else,” Nadir said, seemingly amused as he cruelly laid the reality of the situation on his sister. “I would suggest you give up.”
“Nooooooo!”