~Chapter 103~
Part 2 Epilogue (5)
“So, Dane. Whose is the silver dress that was in your room?”
After finishing unnecessary errands at the palace, Camilla questioned her husband as soon as he returned.
Dane, still enjoying the sweetness of newlywed life, was slightly embarrassed but understood the situation when she said “dress.” He smiled faintly, thinking he didn’t mind a little teasing from his wife.
“…Are you smiling now?”
Camilla’s tone still carried the sharpness of her past as the witch of the Mowin family. Dane ignored her force and stepped into his room with her.
“…It’s quite embarrassing, so I didn’t mention it before. But it’s better than leaving you with the wrong impression.”
“Embarrassing?”
Camilla was puzzled. Embarrassing? What could Dane possibly feel ashamed of before her?
“Camilla, do you remember? Back when you stayed at the Grand Duke’s house before my birthday… you wanted to order a party dress from Madame Sollic.”
Camilla recalled those happy days at the Grand Duke’s residence.
“Ah, that was when the Baroness Mowin staged Nina’s kidnapping and came to the Duke’s house to complain.”
“Yes. You were so flustered that you never met Madame Sollic back then.”
Camilla hesitated, then asked with a hint of doubt:
“The dress you made back then… is that the silver one?”
But the dress seemed too large for the Camilla of five years ago. Madame Sollic had said Dane ordered a dress every year, which didn’t make sense.
Dane took a box from the cupboard. When he opened a much smaller box than the one Camilla had found days earlier, it contained a dress that would have fit her five years ago.
“No, that one back then was this.”
A beautiful green dress with vine patterns.
“…I wanted to show it to you the day you met my father alone, but I had to let you go without showing it.”
Camilla remembered the day she came out of the audience with the Duke. Young Dane had been waiting with a box in his arms.
-“Dane? What’s this?”
-“It’s nothing. Not the right time, so don’t worry about it.”
Now, those memories returned to her mind.
“Every year as my birthday approached, whether I visited Escalus or not, I ordered a dress to match my formal wear. I used the same pattern every time.”
The same vine motif had been used to craft dresses for his partner each year.
“…You sent them to me?”
“Yes. They were all returned.”
Dane explained that the letters accompanying the gifts, saying they were unwanted from his sister’s fiancé, were delivered back by his messenger.
“I never received any of them.”
“Ha, I didn’t think you would.”
The letters and gifts had all been blocked by the Baron.
“And yet, you prepared this for me every year?”
By now, five boxes of varying sizes lay on the floor.
“…Yes. I didn’t know the exact size, so tailoring would be needed, but I just sent them anyway.”
For five years, continuously. The final one was the silver dress he had ordered this year.
‘I thought he had forgotten me.’
“And I only took it out now to throw it away.”
Dane said he wanted to discard the dresses, thinking them slightly embarrassing. Camilla stared at him.
“…Why throw them away?”
“Hmm?”
“By your logic, they all belong to me.”
Camilla opened each box, admiring the beautiful dresses, then smiled brightly.
“Then I’ll keep them.”
“What?”
“Let’s see.”
Her eyes sparkled as she examined a white dress with gold vine patterns in the third box.
“This one is white? The lace is so full and elegant… I could tailor this for the ceremony.”
“Wait, Camilla. I wanted you to get something better. This one is outdated; we don’t have to use it—maybe throw it away…”
“No. This is a trace of how much you missed me.”
Camilla wrapped her arms around Dane’s neck, standing up.
“Then, it’s all mine.”
Her eyes glimmered with happiness. Dane returned the gaze, then gently kissed her.
“Well, whatever you want, my wife. But we should make a similar one for the ceremony. I want to sprinkle diamonds over it.”
“That’s too extravagant… ugh?! Dane?!”
Before she could finish speaking, Dane scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Camilla lightly hit his shoulder but didn’t resist.
“Camilla, I love you.”
Camilla glared at him playfully, then laughed.
“…I love you too, Dane.”
Her happiness was right there in front of her.
Sure, at the welcoming ceremony for the Cardinan delegation next week, a prince with a thing for married women might bother her. Dane might have to point his sword at him.
Suddenly, news could arrive that the Empress Dowager died at Regulus Monastery.
Even after the coronation and wedding, a few years later, Lucy’s surprise announcement could make Camilla rethink all her future plans.
But that was all in the future.
For now, the Grand Duke and Duchess enjoyed the present.
Meanwhile.
The Empress Dowager, Reina, opened her eyes in her coffin.
The lid was open. Night dew brushed her nose. Looking up, she saw the dark night sky, not the filthy, cramped monastery.
Finally, I’m free!
She had pretended to be dead using a golden potion.
“…Those wicked people must be enjoying their victory. Ha!”
She remembered the humiliation of being jeered at by onlookers and drinking muddy water on the way to the monastery. Her teeth clenched at the memory.
“Those wicked people!”
She couldn’t forgive Camilla, who betrayed her; Dane, who stopped her; or Emperor Ioseph, who didn’t fall quietly.
If she hadn’t taken the potion to feign death, she’d still be trapped.
The Empress Dowager huffed at her rescuers:
“What are you doing?! Don’t just support me!”
She had entrusted the golden potion to a loyal old maid, so that if investigations came, she could avoid suspicion.
“Once again… I will teach these fools a lesson…!”
“The first thought after reviving is that?”
“…H-How dare you talk back…!”
When someone she thought was a maid spoke, she yelled sharply, and her supporter let go of her arm.
“…?!”
The Empress Dowager fell to the floor, cursing.
“What are you doing…!”
The figure looked down coldly.
“Hehe, have you forgotten my face, Your Majesty?”
“…What?”
The moonlight revealed an elderly woman with sharp eyes and golden pupils beyond wrinkled skin.
“I don’t need to be Grand Duchess. I only wish to stay by Prince Damian’s side.”
That voice flashed in her mind.
“…Stella?!”
Impossible. She should be dead, exiled from the empire, long gone… yet here she was.
The elderly woman raised an empty golden potion bottle, nodding with interest.
“To make such a potion… fascinating. Like mother, like daughter…”
“N-No… how could you…! You should be dead!”
“See? I was right.”
A voice from behind whispered. The Empress Dowager doubted her ears.
“Amelia!”
“She drank a potion to feign death. We knew she would revive, Your Majesty.”
Amelia held a sleeping child close, speaking softly.
“Hmm, useful information. I accept you as one of us.”
“Thank you, Madame.”
Amelia bowed elegantly. The Empress Dowager shouted.
“Amelia! What are you doing?! Why are you clinging to her?!”
“…It seems a little noisy. Shall we handle it?”
The elderly woman nodded. Amelia’s black-clad followers drew crescent-shaped swords.
“I-It… it can’t be…!”
She had barely survived, yet this wasn’t the end.
Her end… was still ahead.
The cemetery fell silent under the moonlight. The elderly woman whispered:
“Meisa, I forgive you.”
She smiled softly, shining the empty golden potion bottle in the moonlight.
“But I cannot forgive Escalus, nor this empire, who cast me into ruin.”
And.
“Sister-in-law.”
“Lucy?”
“If I… knew the future, what would you do?”
In a clear, precise voice, the girl with another secret spoke on her seventh birthday:
“Please trust me and help. Three years from now, a terrible plague will begin!”
The stage for a new story had begun.
