My Sweet Deceiver

Chapter 1

“Remy Avery left for Amiens. He cannot enter the capital alive.”

“Really? It’s okay to just go out.”

To the aide’s report, the man replied sternly. The man picked up a small box lying on the desk, pulled out a cigar, and asked. Soon, the strong scent of cigars filled the room. The side face of the man smoking a cigar looked full of trouble. However, even that appearance was reflected artistically.

A statue sculpted by Lellania.

It was a nickname for Denis Grammoir. The first prince of the Valloise Kingdom and the undisputed crown prince. He was famous for many things, such as his excellent eloquence, sense of humour, and eyes on the situation, but what was most notable was his appearance. An appearance made by Lellania, the goddess of beauty.

Blueish black hair with good texture and green eyes that sometimes look blue and sometimes refreshing depending on the light.

Stephen Apollinaire, a romantic poet of Valloise, admired his beauty and even wrote a poem worshipping him. ‘A statue sculpted by Lellania’ is a phrase from his poem.

The poem begins with ‘A shining beauty’ and ends with ‘The treasure of Valloise’ disgusted Denis, who was the subject of the poem, as it was written like horse dung on the side of the road – in his opinion.

However, even if his opinion about the poem was negative, the poetry book was sold like hotcakes in the market. It was because of the fact that an illustration depicting him was published along with the poem. It was a crude illustration, about the size of a palm, but the women of Valloise carried it in their hearts.

So if anyone sees the beauty, how can they not turn around? He had such a look that they couldn’t help but glance at him, even if they didn’t dare look straight at him.

Denis, who had been contemplating for a while, striking the desk with his fingertips, quickly put out a cigar, put out the fire, and began to focus on the papers piled up in front of him again.

The crunching sound of the pen rubbing against the paper did not stop for a long time.

As time passed, Denis rubbed the nape of his neck, took off his glasses and placed them on the desk. He tilted his head to the back of the chair and glanced at the wall clock.

‘Between one o’clock and two o’clock.’

It was pretty late.

He realized that it was late at night.

After arranging all the processed documents neatly on one side of the desk, he left the office where he had been staying all day. The hallway was dark. Authority was evident in the straight gait without any disturbance.

The moment he left the office, his destination had been decided from the beginning. It is a haven that allows him to sleep comfortably, and at the same time, a place where the cause of his insomnia stays.

“You don’t even knock anymore, Prince.”

When he opened the door, he heard a woman’s voice. The woman, the owner of her room, was spinning a glass of wine in her hand. As if she knew who the guest was this night, she didn’t even look at the side where he was standing.

“Knock knock.”

Denis’ knocked’ with his mouth and gave her a charming smile that anyone would fall for. But still, she was looking out of the window, holding a glass of wine, as if she was gazing at something in the garden.

The moonlight was full outside the small terrace window. It was a full moon. Curtains waving with the wind and swaying like waves. Every time the curtains swayed along with the tune of the wind, the scent of the night flowed in. The scent of grass and breeze that can only be smelled in the deep dawn and night.

He sat down across from the woman.

“Because the night view from my wife’s room is the best in the palace.”

His manners were arrogant, but the way he sat there seemed indescribably comfortable.

“And this is how you are waiting for me to come.”

He winked. There was an empty wine glass on the table in front of where he was sitting. 

He picked up the wine and read the label.

“Chateau Mouton LaRoute”

He put down the bottle of wine and grinned. It was a playful expression.

“Your taste became like an old man. It’s something the Duke of Taiper would like.”

“It was a gift he gave me at my birthday banquet. People who don’t know the true taste of LaRoute, which is deep and mysterious, cannot be said to know wine.”

The woman snapped as if she were saying something obvious, and then brought her wine glass to her mouth.

“Yes. I do not know.”

He readily agreed.

The woman lifted one eyebrow for a while and put it down, perhaps because his consent was unexpected. For a while, she drank wine, savouring it as if there was no one in front of her.

The man sat down and looked at the woman until she emptied the wine glass, and he without taking a sip.

“But why are you not asking anything?”

He asked as the woman picked up the bottle of wine again.

“What do you mean?”

The woman looked at Denis properly for the first time.

“Remy Avery. Aren’t you mad that I put him away? I heard no reviews from you.”

“I see.”

Denis waited for an answer from her mouth. “I stay in this palace all day long. What do I know? And I don’t have any sort of affiliation with Count Avery.”

“No way.”

Denis snorted at her answer.

“Didn’t you sit still and deal with the other candidates when you were nominated for the Princess? Amelie with a scandal and Hashelle with death, wasn’t Remy Avery for doing those dirty things? Am I wrong?”

“…”

“You must have learned from that filthy noble, the Marquis of Ingeliger. So, you must have become a princess.” He said sarcastically. But the woman looked at Denis with a face that was not at all disturbed by his words.

Denis hated the woman’s blank expression.

If only he could break that mask she was wearing.

“My wife is really outstanding. Attitude, manners, and lies. Yes?”

Denis deliberately pulled out a thorn that she could react to and stabbed her with it. Her forehead slightly frowned at the word “Lies”, but she soon returned with a cold expression on her face again.

“There’s nothing more I can tell you. My family and I have never harmed the lady.”

“You never did…”

Denis was about to laugh at the woman’s lies. It was already after he confirmed that Amelie’s scandal had begun from Remy Avery. And the evidence that Remy Avery often met the woman in front of him.

The woman staggered slightly and stood up from her seat. There was no emotion to be found on her cold face. She spoke her words sternly, looking at Denis.

“…I have a headache. It would be better if you just leave, Prince.”

“Where?”

“To the Prince’s bedroom. It is already too late.”

“My bedroom?”

Denis asked her as if it was the word he had heard for the first time in his life.

“Tehez Ingeliger.”

He stood up, calling out Tehez’s name. There was an unpleasant noise from the chair scratching against the floor. 

The eye-level changed.

Denis, who was looking up at her, now stared down at her.

A streak of night breeze blew between them as their eyes met.

“I can’t sleep. Isn’t that the same for my wife?”

He took one step closer to her. Denis, who stood in front of Tehez without a moment’s notice, looked down at her and whispered sweetly.

“So the wife has to help her husband fall asleep. Is not it?”

Denis stroked her hair and tucked it carefully behind her ear. The woman’s hair was like a thin thread, and with the slightest friction, it would create static and splatter.

Patting her hair. 

She knew very well what sign it was…

“Tehez, make me sleep.”

At the end of those words, the woman was held in the arms of the man as if it were a set procedure.

She saw sweat dripping from the man’s forehead, running down his temple and onto the woman lying below. The man’s shirt was hanging randomly at the bedpost, and the woman’s pyjamas were curled up on the floor.

Even if she was a woman with no expression, she did not hide her expression at this moment. The fact made him satisfied. He had a satisfied smile on his lips. Tehez, lying down below, was having a hard time. Pain and pleasure repeatedly flooded in and disappeared like ebb and flow. Her confused hand kept slipping down, wandering without knowing what to do.

“Hold it here.”

Denis clasped Tehez’s hands and wrapped them around the back of his neck.

Every part of his body looked ferocious. The man’s thighs, broad shoulders, and a chest woven with muscles as thick as her waist. He had a body that was hard enough that even a single finger wouldn’t go through it.

She looked down at Denis’ chest. A tattoo was engraved on the left chest, behind it his heart.

An inscription engraved with a picture of Nate, the official religion of Valloise.

“God is watching.”

Tehez put her hand on his tattoo.

She could clearly feel his heart beating under her skin. His heart was beating fast, perhaps because of excitement.

She snarled, clutching his left chest tightly.

“You don’t even believe in God. Who would imagine that there’s a tattoo on the Prince’s body?”

“Even if I look like this, I’m a pretty faithful believer.”

After saying those words, he lowered his eyes and even looked virtuous at first glance. Soon, his face was smirking and looked disgusting. But she couldn’t really hate him.

“And people can’t imagine it, so you can do it, right?”

He pulled her waist again.

Tehez swallowed the scream and laughed like a man.

“You’re a liar, Prince.”

“Praise, thank you. Perhaps because I heard it from an authority in the field, I feel different.”

Tehez did not wake up until late in the morning. There was no place that didn’t hurt. When she came to her senses after washing her face, the customer who arrived at dawn had already disappeared. She tried to sweep the place where she lay down with her hand. 

She didn’t feel any warmth at all.

‘Last night you didn’t sleep a wink.’

Tehez shook her head.

Denis suffered from severe insomnia. Only the three of them knew of this: palace, his aide and her.

He had mild insomnia from an early age, but his symptoms worsened after the behind-the-scenes war intensified due to the succession of the throne with Fabrice, the second prince. It was not uncommon to not be able to sleep for one day, and if he could not sleep for three or four days, it was to the point that he had to get some sleep.

Although not as much as Denis, Tehez also suffered from insomnia. She was very nervous, so if there was anything that bothered her even a little, she would toss and turn and eventually stay up all night. Yesterday too, if he had not come, she would have stayed up all night like any other day.

Remy Avery. The second son of Count Avery. As Denis said, he was the one that Tehez used like an ally. Then he got caught up in fraud. Of course, Remy Avery didn’t actually commit a crime.

However, just because Remy worked with Tehez, Denis set him up as an example.

To show Tehez.

That must have been the reason. A warning not to steer clear of his own affairs, but that didn’t stop Tehez from taking his hand.

Because Denis must become the next king. It must be Ingeliger to put Denis on the throne. Tehez slowly began to organize the to-dos in her head.

“You don’t have any plans for this afternoon, but you have an appointment with Jacques Rimière in the afternoon tomorrow.”

A woman who stood in front of Tehez, sitting in the office, finished reporting.

“Let’s go out.”

Tehez said with a coffee cup in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

There was no news. A fight in the Newb Shabel region, a few days of rain, new technologies that will be presented at the World Fair, farmers who harvested peaches as large as their palms, and a quarrel at a social club.

Tehez enjoyed her coffee. She had heard the advice of the royal court that coffee is not suitable for insomnia. Nevertheless, there was nothing like coffee as a way to clearly awaken the mind.

Tehez put down the newspaper and stared blankly out the window. As the guest who came last night said, the view outside her room was breathtaking. Her bedroom, with a beautiful view, was on the same floor as her office.

A view of the palace garden soaked in the water from the morning dew came into view. Gardeners were pruning geometrically formed garden trees. Vivid and green vegetation. She thought that fresh colour resembled the eyes of someone she knew well.

An unbeliever, a pessimist, a friendly deceiver.

And… someone who hates her.

Tehez lifted her sentimental consciousness to subside ashore.

It was time for her to get back to work.

(To be continued…)