“Are you all right?”
And so, despite himself, Raphael kept getting concerned about her.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who would ever be easily hurt, yet for some reason, he kept feeling like she might be wounded emotionally. It made him realize that his own contradictory behavior—wishing she’d be hurt and leave—was far more despicable.
Louisa’s gaze met Raphael’s. Her violet eyes wavered faintly.
‘…What does he even mean, am I all right?’
Caught off guard by Raphael’s sudden question, Louisa blinked a few times. Then she noticed the subtle tension in the people around them, as if they were watching for her reaction.
“Ah…”
She sighed inwardly with slight exasperation.
‘Looks like everyone’s uncomfortable because of Raphael.’
Even if he was the commander of the Holy Knights, Raphael was still the First Prince.
In informal settings, it was said one didn’t need to greet royals without cause, but pretending you didn’t see someone of such stature was nearly impossible.
‘It’s like going out to eat and running into your boss. No…’
It was more like running into the company CEO.
Louisa didn’t think for a second that the tension was because of her. In fact, she even believed she understood how the others felt.
She had caught a few hushed comments earlier, but hadn’t made them out clearly. And she had expected to be disliked anyway—yet none of the gazes felt as sharp as she’d imagined.
And from the looks of it, Raphael had noticed the stares as well and was simply asking out of politeness.
“I’m fine.”
Louisa gave a slightly awkward smile.
Since there was no turning back now, she figured the best way to help was to get them out of sight as quickly as possible. She signaled the nervous maître d’ with her eyes to guide them to a table.
She didn’t even notice the shocked looks around her or Raphael’s blue eyes narrowing in frustration.
Fortunately, there was a private space upstairs.
There were only three tables up there, and they were the only guests. It offered a much-needed escape from the prying eyes downstairs.
They didn’t need to place an order.
Louisa had briefly worried about what to do if the thick steak she spotted downstairs didn’t appear, but to her relief, it arrived after the appetizers—clearly the restaurant’s signature dish.
‘I feel like I’m starting to take food way too seriously.’
She had vowed to enjoy herself without worrying about others, but perhaps she had some unresolved trauma related to food in her past life.
She’d been constantly told to eat less, to give up food for her older brother. Being forced to eat scraps had been her norm.
‘This meat is insane. The palace food was great, but this is just as good.’
The thick steak cut easily and melted in her mouth. It didn’t even need sauce—the pure taste of the meat alone was extraordinary. She felt truly lucky to have opened her eyes in this world.
‘This place lives up to the hype. If Raphael takes me to restaurants like this every time, I wouldn’t mind seeing him every day.’
She almost started humming with joy.
Though she briefly thought of Raphael while devouring the food, she had no interest in the man sitting in front of her.
After all, he looked at her as if she were a worm on the street.
He wasn’t one to start conversations, and even if he did, it was unlikely to go in a good direction.
So Louisa pretended not to notice his gaze boring into her and focused instead on drawing up her personal survival plan.
‘How much personal savings do I have? Judging from her personality, I doubt the old Louisa saved much. I should earn some money for the future.’
While Louisa was calmly diving into her own little world, Raphael watched her cheerful demeanor and began to stack his misunderstandings.
How could she smile so openly after being the subject of nasty gossip? Had she already forgotten? Was she that happy just being around him?
He interpreted everything in the way most flattering to himself.
“Do you like me that much?”
It was an incredible case of delusions of grandeur.
‘Yeah, if I don’t get married, I’ll have to live under my father’s watchful eye. If I do get married, I’ll be stuck under my in-laws. Honestly, the smartest option is to quietly save up and go independent.’
But Louisa had zero interest in Raphael. She had been too busy eating and daydreaming, so she only caught the tail end of his question.
‘Do I like it? Oh, he must mean the steak? What kind of obvious question is that?’
Louisa nodded confidently.
“Of course I do.”
Raphael’s handsome face twisted into a grimace.
He had received countless confessions in the past, but never one so blunt and straightforward. His face showed a rare moment of flustered confusion.
He opened and closed his mouth like a man at a loss, before managing to choke out a response.
“…Do you have no shame?”
“Why would that be embarrassing?”
“Hah… What exactly is so great?”
Louisa was baffled.
What did loving steak have to do with shame? And she had no idea that Raphael tended to scowl when embarrassed, so she just assumed this was more of his usual dislike toward her and grew increasingly annoyed.
‘People say not to bother even a dog while it’s eating… tch.’
Was he seriously criticizing her for not acting coy?
If that was the case, then what a prudish thing to be uptight about. Was the male lead always this stiff?
If so, the heroine was in for quite a tough time.
“…Do I need a reason? I just like it.”
Louisa pouted, her lips sticking out in protest.
‘Whatever. He’s going to end up someone else’s man anyway. I should focus on my own future. If I had just kept pretending to listen while spacing out like usual, I wouldn’t be hearing this nonsense. That’s it—I’m done listening to him.’
Maybe she had let her guard down too much after escaping that hellish home. Not that anyone here liked her either.
‘I’m Louisa. I can’t forget that.’
She had to focus on survival. Louisa restarted her internal happy-circuit calculations.
‘I’ll earn money, go traveling, buy a nice house somewhere with a good view, and live in comfort. But how do I earn money here? I wish the original novel mentioned the heroine buying a mine or something—then I could use that info. But no, nothing useful like that.’
A bitter smile flickered across her face.
At that moment, Raphael’s blue eyes flickered, briefly betraying emotion that didn’t match his frozen expression.
It lasted only a second—like a wave pulling back from shore—but Louisa, swept up in her daydreams, didn’t notice.
‘In the end… I have to work again.’
The steak she had been enjoying a moment ago now felt rubbery in her mouth. She put down her utensils with a listless expression.
“……”
“……”
An awkward silence began tightening around them like a noose.
Raphael hadn’t even taken a bite of his steak, yet he already felt like he had indigestion. It was too distinct a feeling to brush off.
He wanted to fix whatever was causing this irritation. He assumed it was just her reckless behavior making him feel sick, and grit his teeth.
“…Say what you will, but it won’t work. Give up.”
Louisa muttered in a sigh-like voice,
“Ugh, I don’t want to do this…”
It was a perfect display of mutual monologuing.
Unlike the warm spring breeze outside, a chilling atmosphere filled the duke’s office.
The family doctor shrank slightly as he faced the back of Duke Blake, who stood with his hands behind his back, staring out the window.
“You said you don’t know the cause?”
At that low, ominous tone that sounded like it could sink into the floor, the physician gulped.
“I apologize. The only confirmed symptom is nausea before vomiting blood, so identifying the cause will take time. We’re examining various possibilities, including aftereffects from different poisons. Please allow us more time.”
In truth, they hadn’t even identified what kind of poison it was. The scope of investigation was enormous.
The only thing left behind was an empty bottle, and Louisa acted as if she had forgotten the entire incident—making it difficult to question her directly.
No one knew what poison she had ingested, or where she had even gotten it. Both Brown and the family doctor were investigating, but no real progress had been made.
“Since she recovered after drinking holy water, we’re focusing on poisons that react strongly to divine energy. We’ll do our best to bring results soon,” Brown added beside the physician, his eyes determined.
Silence fell.
The duke closed his eyes tightly, suppressing his complex emotions.
‘It’s all my fault.’
It had been the first time in ages that he had come to the capital.
Egon Blake had remained in the North, using the excuse of frequent monster activity. But when Louisa asked to live in the capital, he finally relented and sent her with his brother Damian as her guardian.
Louisa had lost her mother the moment she was born.
The first thing she ever saw upon entering the world was her father, hunched over, grieving the wife he had just lost.
So he had wanted to grant her every wish.
Only one thing had made him hesitate: an engagement to the imperial family. He had wavered, concerned that the prince—whose goal was to become a cardinal—might only hurt her in the future.
But while he was hesitating, Louisa had drunk poison.
‘I hesitated, thinking she would be hurt later… I never imagined she’d act so extremely while I was still deciding.’
The moment he heard of her suicide attempt, the duke dropped everything and rushed to the capital.
He couldn’t even bring himself to say anything—afraid of hurting her further. So instead, he decided the best course was to proceed with the engagement, just as she wanted.
