Looking for My Fiancé’s Lover

About 15 minutes had passed since I returned to Ezellot.
All the way back in the carriage, my mind was like a meadow with a typhoon sweeping by.

If I were to risk losing my pride and ask Lockherd to do me a favour, I would be able to inform Pancion of Caron’s struggle through him.
Though it might hurt Caron’s feelings a little since she wanted her situation to be kept in the dark.
Therefore, I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do.

Caron voluntarily chose to keep her mouth shut.
So I might be intervening with someone else’s affair, who I was not even close to, nothing more, nothing less.

Argh, I don’t know anymore!

What’s so matter about being nosy or not? Even if I were, it was unbearable to see Caron being treated as an uninvited guest in the place she was living in.

“Come here first.”

I got up and grabbed Rick’s arm, but Rick didn’t budge, an annoyed expression was displayed on his face.

“Are you crazy? What do you want me to do in front of that Caron, or whatever she’s called?”

“I’m not saying you have to do something.
Please stay with Caron so she doesn’t get bored while I go to Lockherd and talk to him.
Can you do that please? It’s nothing much though?”

“What can I even do? Aren’t you gonna go over there and come back pretty quickly?”

I clung more tightly to Rick’s body, swinging his arms wildly.

“I’ll do you a favour later.
Really! Honestly! I swear, okay?”

“This is getting more and more insane as the days go by…”

(Click).

That was then that I could hear the door click open lightly.
Someone entered the study room where there was only me and Rick.

“Lady Katrina?”

I knew the owner of this voice.
It was Caron who was supposed to wait while drinking tea in the drawing room.
Soon, the beautiful girl with long silver hair walked in with her narrow steps, in very careful movements.

“Oh, so you are here.
I waited for a while, and you didn’t come, so I wondered if something was wrong…”

Caron couldn’t finish her words as her eyes widened.
Her gaze was directed towards Rick, so I got up and introduced Rick.

“This-, this is my third brother, Rick Ezellot.
You must remember the name I mentioned in the garden earlier, right?”

A small sigh was heard from the side.

I’m sorry, but it’s already happened, Rick.

Rick slowly got up and bowed toward Caron.

“Nice to meet you, lady Entera.
I am Rick Ezellot, the third son of the Ezellot family.”

“Ah, um, hello.
I-, I-, I am…”

Stopping midway, Caron took a deep breath.
And she started over again, with her head bowed deep, just like the day she first met me.

“I am Caron Entera of the Entera family.
It is an honour to meet you!”

“You don’t have to greet me that formally.
I am grateful enough that you are hanging out with my good-for-nothing younger sister.”

Gross.
Rick, who responded with a quiet smile, was as neat and kind as a well-educated gentleman.
Even though this appearance of his was always seen in public, I still felt like my stomach was getting twisted every time I checked it with my own two eyes.

In the past, I would openly laugh at him, saying that he was acting totally different on the outside, and that he was such a hypocrite.
But not anymore.
Rick’s ability to put up a front was an essential virtue of a noble that I too had to learn.

“Says who is not good enough? How laughable.
Lady Caron, please don’t take it seriously.
He’s just joking.”

Rick didn’t even respond to me anymore.

It was unfair.
He always asked me to bring him a book from the library, call a maid for him or do small errands.
And all I asked of him was to keep a beautiful girl accompanied and make her feel at ease! What was so hard about it?!

I apologised, asking for Caron’s understanding again and left the study to go down the stairs.
Seeing the maids walking around the hall with bright faces, it seemed that Nezar was visiting.
It seemed there was no need to visit Lockherd’s room, so I headed straight to the drawing room on the first floor.

When I opened the door wide, a slightly different scenario from what I had expected was unfolding.
The first person I saw was Lockherd, who was sitting near the door.

“Oh dear, who is this? Our Ezellot’s reckless little girl has arrived.”

What’s more, with him, surprisingly, it was Pancion, not Nezar.
I silently wet my dry lips and then bowed.

“I apologise.
I didn’t know you were in a meeting.”

Why is Lord Pancion here?

If he came before me, it meant that he got on a carriage as soon as we parted at the chrysanthemum garden.
As far as I knew, it was the first time he had visited Ezellot Castle.
Moreover, it was not even a weekday, but on the weekend.

As I turned my back to quietly go out and close the door, I heard Nezar’s voice from inside the drawing room.

“It’s okay, come in, Kate.
We were about to finish it anyway, right, Sir Pancion?”

“Yes, I will see you at the Imperial Palace then, Your Highness.”

“Very well.
You have worked hard, even on the weekend.”

Pancion slowly got up.
It was a heavy and dull action, like the movement of someone that had just woken up.

I felt like they had been having a lot of meetings lately.
It’s not just a feeling, it had been hard to see Nezar and Lockherd’s faces for the past few days.

Pancion, with his back straightened, picked up the teacup and poured the last drops into his mouth.
It was a carefree movement as if he had just finished training.

“Come here, Kate.”

Nezar, leaning on the sofa with his body sagging no less than that, motioned towards me.
His languid voice resounded through the drawing room.

I instinctively wanted to turn to him, but then I stopped my steps and shook my head.
I had something that needed to be done.

“No.
I… The person I have business with is Sir Pancion.”

An empty silence fell as if an arctic blizzard had hit the still quiet room.

Why do my surroundings become cold whenever I talk? And especially in places with Nezar.
What the hell did I do wrong?

“Is that so? Then you can do it here without having to go out.”

He got a gentle smile with him, but at the same time, the atmosphere was so chilling that I could feel my hair standing on end at the back of my neck.