My Sweet Deceiver

Chapter 12

***

“Danielle, what was in that bag?”

Sylvan, holding a drink in one hand and a cookie in the other, snooped into Danielle’s bag.

“Stop eating. You’re going to eat it all!”

Danielle handed the packed food to him despite being mean.

“What do you mean, are you eating it for the first time? Let me eat!”

“You’re so talkative. Leave mine alone!

They could hear Sylvan and Danielle sitting in the back seat, quarrelling with each other.

“What did Madam bring?”

Denis pointed to the picnic box next to Tehez.

“Well, everything will be delicious because it’s prepared in the royal kitchen.”

It was sincere. It was prepared by the best chef in Valloise, so it will be quite tasty even if it cools down.

“My wife is really not romantic.”

Denis looked deflated at Tehez’s words.

Outdoor tennis.

It was the date she promised Denis last time. After watching the game, she brought something to eat for a picnic in a nearby park.

Approaching summer.

It felt like the hot season was fast approaching due to the recent rain.

She looked up at the sky once.

The bright, scorching sun felt hot.

“The weather is hot.”

It was a complaint as small as talking to herself.

“Princess, your skin is burning. Here, parasol.”

One of her maids tilted the parasol, which she was holding, further towards Tehez.

One by one, the crowd filled up the empty seats.

As players appeared on both courts, the crowd clapped their hands.

A coin was tossed to decide who would go first in the game.

The player from the nobility was the first.

Benoit Gobert, a nobleman, was on the right, and on the left, Jannik Mei, a commoner.

Benoit naturally passed the ball over the net, and Jannik got the ball and turned it over again.

Really, it was a close battle with no way of predicting who would win.

Benoit took the points first, and Jannik also scored without losing.

“He’s pretty good at it.”

The loud clash of the ball hitting the racket resounded loudly in the hall.

Tehez could hear a small chatter from the crowd in the back seat.

“But wouldn’t Benois still win?”

“What do you mean? Jannik looks like he is in great shape today.”

“I’ll bet on Benoit.”

“I bet on Jannik.”

It looked like they were betting on the outcome of the match. Tehez knew the rules of the game of tennis, but this was the first time she had seen it in person.

She felt alive when she saw the players running around the court and hitting the ball. Denis, sitting next to her, watched the game without taking his eyes off it.

The match, which seemed to be boiling, began to change in the second half.

As if Jannik had lost his strength, mistakes began to appear. Without missing this, Benoit attacked.

The second half was one-sided. A player from the nobility was pushing his opponent.

“That player looks like he’s being beaten with a ball.”

“I know.”

“He’s a commoner, right? I was looking forward to it. Tsk.”

“What about the bet?”

People sitting in the hall could be heard chattering.

Nothing unusual happened.

It was a victory for a player of noble origin.

As the commoner was breathing hard, the opponent smiled, wiping off his sweat. Newspaper reporters ran out and began interviewing the winning player.

“What’s the winning factor today?”

“Should I say it’s a skill that I’ve been honing? Haha.”

“Really! That’s right. We watched a good match.”

The player who expressed his feelings in a confident tone laughed aloud so that all his neat teeth were exposed.

Tehez saw Jannik organizing his luggage across the court where Benoit was interviewed. His back looked all sweaty and grey.

The crowd was kicking their tongues, apparently expecting a commoner to win. After the interview with Benoit, the reporters went to Jannik and talked to him.

“What was the factor in your defeat today?”

“It’s probably because I’m not good enough.”

Jannik replied bitterly.

Another reporter then asked him.

“If you look at the performance of recent matches, you are on the poor side. What do you think is the reason? Are you in a slump?”

Jannik bit his lip as if he couldn’t answer.

“…I never thought of it that way. I never did.”

“And one more thing. Jannik, there was a rumour about your romantic relationship with the playwright Emma Junes last time.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait a minute! Please answer me! Jannik!”

“Please also answer why you swore in the last game!”

Jannik roughly packed his luggage into the bag so the reporters wouldn’t follow him and ran across the court and out of the arena.

Several reporters followed and ran after him.

It was an awful sight.

“Shall we go back to the palace?”

There was no expression on Denis’ face as he stood up. But Tehez knew instinctively.

That he was not feeling very well.

That he was thinking of a past that he wanted to forget.

Tehez hurriedly grabbed Denis’ sleeve as he turned around.

But if he goes back like this, he will sink deeply alone again.

“Prince! Why don’t you eat the lunch that the chef made for us in the park?”

“…I feel tired. Let’s go back.”

Tehez hastily suggested something else.

“Otherwise, there is a restaurant famous for grilled trout around here. If that’s okay with you, why don’t we eat before we return home?”

“…I don’t want to eat.”

“Well, then, there’s a lake just a short way by carriage, from there-”

“Madam, please let’s go back.”

Denis cut her off.

He was being respectful to Tehez.

Denis was usually polite to everyone else, but her. Except when joking around.

Being respectful to Tehez meant that he didn’t want to say anything anymore.

It was Denis’ way of speaking that she should be respectful to drawing the line.

Denis’ mouth, which was closed coldly, did not open until she returned to the palace.

It had been a long time since she had spent time with him.

In the end, it ended badly. Tehez was disappointing. She returned to her bedroom to pick wine corks to end the day that had ended in a bad mood.

She felt troubled.

What was she supposed to say to Denis at that moment?

Was it right not to offer any consolation?

What would be the right thing to say if she was to comfort him?

Tehez didn’t know the answer.

It would have been easy if the emotions were excluded. What is needed and what is not.

Her world was divided into only two things.

Take what you need, throw what you don’t.

But why she didn’t want him to look sad?

Her feelings have nothing to do with his succession to the throne, and she should not worry about such things.

Although she tried to ignore it, Tehez kept reminded of Denis’ shadowed face.

Denis had an inferiority complex that he was a commoner.

That’s why he was more strict with himself to look royal.

He was the ‘son of a commoner.’

That was another name Denis had.

Tehez was well aware of how he was treated by the conservative aristocrats. And how badly the media chewed on his story when he lost Queen Charlize.

But being aware of it and pretending to know it was clearly two different things. Although she knew it well, she had never brought the matter up in front of Denis.

She came from a line of conservative high-ranking aristocrats whom he despised.

The youngest daughter of a renowned Marquis in Valloise. Her father was the Foreign Minister, and her brother was an employee of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Besides, she also grew up without difficulty and became a Princess.

He didn’t know what she would be like from inside, but on the surface, she was a young girl from a noble family who didn’t know anything about the world. So her consolation to him, who has a sense of inferiority, would probably sound like easy-to-do lip service.

If only she could comfort him…

Tehez felt her chest tighten.

She wanted to know how to fit in his world.

She wanted to know how to do it right.

She took out a Temalion, not a LaRoute, and poured it into a glass. She opened the window, and as a habit, looked out of the window.

She hoped that the cool breeze would soothe her stuffy heart a little.

The moonlight fell, and the gentle wind puffed up the curtains like freshly made bread.

The garden she looked at casually, under the white moonlight…

She should see a silhouette.

Seeing a familiar figure, she tried to get up hastily, but her knee hit the table. The wine glass, which had been shaken, fell to the floor.

There was a bang, a breaking sound, and the wine glass shattered against the flawless marble. Broken glass and blood-red wine glistened in the moonlight, forming a river.

But she approached the window as if possessed by a stranger and knew neither the turmoil nor the pain in her knee.

It was him who stood in the garden like the Spirit of the Night.

It was Denis in a precarious atmosphere that seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Tehez ran out, forgetting her dress was painted red.

If it wasn’t a dream, she wanted to hold on to the Spirit of the Night before he disappeared.

As I went down to the garden panting, she saw him standing without moving.

“Prince.”

She called him, standing three steps behind him.

“Tehez.”

Denis turned his back and looked at her as if he had just woken from his deep sleep.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Denis pointed to Tehez’s skirt. She could feel his eyes scouring every corner to see if there were any injuries. When she looked down, her dress was stained with wine, like blood.

“No, no. I just spilled a little wine.” Tehez added hastily.

“It’s a big deal.”

Denis relaxed his shoulders and took a deep breath, perhaps reassured by her answer that she wasn’t hurt.

Maybe she was out of breath, so her chest increased its volume and then reduced it repeatedly.

Tehez was watching the series of actions silently. Under the moonlight, he was breathtakingly beautiful. His face looked pale as usual. Somehow, it felt pitiful or innocent. His shoulders, which were always proudly stretched out, seemed exceptionally small.

‘A weak look doesn’t suit you.’

Tehez called him carefully, as if watching a wounded beast.

“Prince.”

“Yes.”

One step.

“Were you taking a walk?”

One step.

“You can’t sleep?”

The last step.

“It was quite hot today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Teherz approached him, exchanging words. Dennis didn’t seem to have noticed yet that she was coming closer.