The Empress Tames the Tyrant - Chapter 6

Alicia could tell what he was implying from the cold glint in his eyes, his indifferent expression, and his annoyed demeanor.

“It is an honor to dine with Your Majesty today, though I am but a humble presence.”

A look of bewilderment crossed his face as he watched Alicia smile sweetly and daintily dab her lips with a napkin.

“That’s not it. Didn’t you have something important to tell me?”

“Ah! I apologize for causing you concern with my frail health.”

Even after just a year, a person couldn’t change this much. Cayenne leaned back slightly in his chair, crossed his arms, and frowned.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“What am I?”

“There must be a reason for this. I’ll acknowledge your sincerity if you tell me.”

Cayenne’s dark eyes held strong suspicion. He still seemed to see Alicia as Lucan’s daughter.

“It’s been a year, and I’ll listen to Lucan’s nagging because of it. I’ll give you five minutes, so confess.”

Cayenne, clearly annoyed, took out a pocket watch and began timing, but Alicia remained unhurried.

“Your Majesty, I am sorry to say that I am struggling so much that I have even forgotten dining etiquette, as you have seen. Perhaps because of this, I find the Great Sage’s letter too difficult to understand so I cannot tell you about it.”

Her blue eyes gazed serenely at Cayenne.

They were still just blue and beautiful eyes, devoid of hostility, ambition, or greed.

“That’s, nonsense.”

Alicia struggled to suppress a laugh at Cayenne’s utterly dumbfounded expression. It was both fascinating and amusing to see the man who had been so fearsome and ruthless in her past life now wearing such a bewildered expression like a boy.

“Have you forgotten all those long letters you sent me?”

“I heard about them from the head maid, but yes, I don’t know the contents well.”

Knowing that she would make a strange face if she held back any longer, Alicia rose from her seat and bowed her head.

“I am sorry for being an inadequate Empress.”

Lucan’s Great Sage was the light of truth and a pioneer. So, it was not strange that an Empress who had suffered from a high fever and was somewhat lacking could no longer understand his noble and sublime intentions.

“I have no difficulty reading and writing, but I am too inadequate to understand the sentences filled with the Great Sage’s deep meaning, so I don’t think I can convey his meaning to Your Majesty any longer.”

“Huh?” Cayenne let out a dry laugh, but there was no hint of displeasure.

It was both fascinating and not unpleasant that the woman who had always been like a parrot, reciting Lucan’s moralizing without her own thoughts or feelings, had changed so much.

“So, the Empress is a woman who can speak her own mind.”

“I am honored.”

“There is no need to be honored. I hated what you had forgotten, so isn’t this a happy occasion?”

Indeed, Cayenne’s attitude had changed because Alicia had changed.

Remembering that there had not been a single day like this during their long and cold married life, she felt that her steadfast past life had been in vain.

“Isn’t that so? Lucan’s teachings and subtle instigations.”

Thinking about it now, it was a very simple problem.

There was no chance for Alicia to be happy between an Emperor who hated Lucan and a Lucan who ignored that Emperor.

“I no longer have the intellect to understand Lucan’s intentions. I am sorry.”

Alicia did not fall for Cayenne’s final test.

Instead, she widened her eyes as if she were truly sorry for not knowing and pretended to read his expression. She had read his expression countless times in her past life, so this was nothing.

“Indeed.”

Cayenne, having dispelled his last doubts, relaxed his furrowed brow and looked at Alicia.

“Your life was in danger due to a high fever. The Empress has suffered to overcome the illness.” It was still a nonchalant tone, but it was the first time Alicia had heard Cayenne’s encouragement in both her lives.

“I am honored, Your Majesty.”

Alicia mechanically replied and lowered her head to hide her expression.

The fact that the voice of the man she had considered a complete stranger still made her heart race was an unexpected truth.

“Um, there is one more thing I must ask Your Majesty to understand.”

“What is it?”

However, that feeling was not joy but a tremor from tension and unfamiliarity, far from the love between husband and wife. It was only natural since such feelings had never existed between them in the first place.

“In my current inadequate state, I cannot fully serve Your Majesty.”

Although somewhat delicate, her fair cheeks and rosy complexion hardly suggested an inadequate state.

“If that inadequacy is what you told me, I like it.”

Cayenne rose and strode to stand right in front of Alicia. This was something Alicia had not expected at all.

They were so close that their breaths would almost mingle if he came any closer.

“I must have misremembered your face.”

Cayenne had only looked at Alicia’s face properly once, at their wedding a year ago, when he forcibly lifted her veil and kissed her.

Immediately after the wedding, Alicia had spoken of her duties as a wife to Cayenne’s back as he prepared to leave, so he could not have remembered her face properly.

“I didn’t even know you had such blue eyes.”

So, Cayenne had arbitrarily remembered the Empress as a rigid woman who resembled Lucan’s old men.

“Your Majesty.”

As the distance between her and Cayenne narrowed, Alicia instinctively took a step back and lowered her head.

“Do you dislike my rough hands?”

No matter how much she corrected the mistakes of her past life, the man Cayenne would not change. He was still caught up in this delusion.

“No. They are proud hands, bearing the marks of wielding a sword to protect the people.”

A moment of silence followed. Startled, Alicia cautiously raised her head to look at Cayenne, and his expression was also stiff.

“I am sorry, I did not dare to say anything about Your Majesty’s hands.”

“It’s alright.”

Fortunately, his voice was softer than his expression. It was also warmer than she had ever heard in her past life.

“Now that I think about it, I am reminded that I have not fulfilled my duties as a husband.”

Alicia hesitated and took another half-step back without realizing it.

In her past life, it was a marital bond she had wanted but could not have, but now it was a bond she would refuse even if it were given to her for free.

“Is that why the Empress treats me so strangely?”

To Cayenne, the Empress was just Lucan’s doll and parrot in the Imperial Palace. If there was an advantage, it was that he could stop hearing the nobles’ demands to marry.

“Yes. I do not deny that I have neglected the Empress.”

But what about the woman before him now?

Alicia’s figure, with her blue and transparent eyes that Cayenne had never seen before, a beautiful twenty-year-old woman like a flower just beginning to bloom, was elegant and graceful.

“I don’t know if it is because my memory is careless or because something has changed in the Empress after her illness but somehow, everything feels different.”

As the conversation unexpectedly lengthened, Alicia’s lips felt parched. She had assumed that Cayenne would simply finish the dinner and leave, as he had never shown her this much interest in her entire life, but this was a disaster.

“The physician said that my previous illness was due to a high fever, so I will rest more.”

“Your health does not seem bad to me.”

Cayenne was right. Alicia’s face, as she had seen in the mirror earlier, was more vibrant than in her past life.

“Thanks to everyone’s care, the physician said that I have outwardly improved.”

If she had known that the Emperor would return so quickly, she could have skipped a meal to create a gaunt complexion, but the irrepressible vitality of her youth was now frustrating.

“Outwardly?”

Cayenne deliberately echoed Alicia’s words. Hearing her words returned to her in Cayenne’s chillingly low voice made her feel goosebumps and a strange sensation inside.

“Yes. But he said that I still need treatment and rest. Please forgive me for not being able to serve Your Majesty in my inadequate state.”

Alicia slightly bent her knees and stood up.

Honestly, she still didn’t know what kind of man Cayenne was, but if he had at least a minimum of conscience and reason, he would let her go, claiming to be a patient.

“Hmm.”

Cayenne made a strange noise and visually scanned Alicia’s shimmering platinum blonde hair and the fair cheeks shadowed by her equally white eyelashes. It was such a blatant gaze that it felt as if the places he was looking at were hot and throbbing, even though he hadn’t touched her.

“Cough, cough!”

She was so nervous that her lips and throat became parched, and she let out a dry cough. It was purely coincidental, but thanks to it, she saw an opportunity to break through this situation.

“Cough, ahem, Your Majesty, I am sorry to say that I am still too inadequate to serve Your Majesty.”

The cough was not intentional. Her throat was truly dry and her voice cracked due to the tension that had built up throughout the dinner.

She couldn’t even dare to deceive him in the first place. Even in her past life, Cayenne had a strangely good ability to discern the other person’s inner thoughts and see through deception. In other words, a clumsy trick was the path to digging her own grave.

“I will order the physician to prioritize the Empress’s treatment.”

“I am honored.”

Alicia replied in a half-cracked voice and lowered her head.

Contrary to her expectations, she thought he would just come to the Imperial Palace, take care of his business, and leave, but she was uneasy about why he was suddenly interested in the Empress’s Palace.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Oops, Alicia had unknowingly stared at Cayenne’s face with a surprised expression.

“Ah!”

Cayenne had said that he found her, the Empress, unfamiliar, but that was the same for Alicia. It was only natural since she was learning for the first time today that he was a man who could say such things.

“It’s nothing.”

Having no more excuses to make, Alicia took a few steps back for no reason. Cayenne also took a few steps closer, following her, but coincidentally, the door leading outside was next to her.

Of course, there was no way Alicia would miss that opportunity.

“I will escort His Imperial Majesty.”

Seeing Alicia holding up the hem of her dress and paying her respects, Cayenne had nothing more to say.

“Please, take care on your way.”

There would be few people shameless enough to stay in this atmosphere. On the battlefield, he could simply cut down everything that stood in his way, but even he did not have the nerve to remain here after receiving such an elegant farewell.