What Your Majesty Desires - Chapter 1.4

She had asked a very important question that could decide her fate, but he didn’t even flinch. “Are you an important person?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you important enough that I had to come here to kill you?”

“…”

His dry gaze pierced her blue eyes. Maybe he was genuinely curious about her answer. Surely, he wasn’t teasing her with such a serious face.

“Your Highness.”

Just then, a knight in a red cloak led several burly men into the bathroom with a clatter. It was fortunate that his attention had shifted elsewhere, as she was finding it difficult to answer his question, but Marilyn was only wearing a thin cloth.

The sudden appearance of the men startled Marilyn, as if she had encountered a band of fierce robbers, and she shrank her shoulders. As if she wasn’t already out of her mind.

“Your Highness.”

The word “Your Highness” from the knight in the red cloak confused her even more. She had guessed that the man was a nobleman from a prestigious family, but she never imagined he would be royalty.

“The Blue Diamond was not here. I expected something since Lord Rodri secretly frequented this place, but it seems to be just a woman’s room…”

“I know.”

“I apologize.”

The knight looked ashamed, as if everything was his fault. The man, however, ignored the knight’s embarrassment and turned his gaze back to Marilyn without a word of encouragement or comfort. At the same time, the knight’s eyes followed his superior’s.

“So, Rodri was coming here because of this woman.”

The knight’s sharp eyes quickly scanned Marilyn. She realized how kindly the man had treated her by simply staring at her earlier.

Besides. Just who was he to call the Emperor of the Dextin Empire “Rodri” as if he were a friend?

Despite Marilyn’s bewildered expression, the knight in the red cloak didn’t care and glared alternately at Marilyn and the tall curtains behind her. Only one thing came to mind about what was about to happen.

“I’ll do it.”

Summary execution.

Sure enough. Another knight standing to the right of the knight in the red cloak raised a gleaming longsword high above his head.

“W-wait a moment.”

What to do? Marilyn instinctively closed her eyes and stepped back. Then, she tripped over the long bath towel that was dragging on the floor.

“Ah!”

As the bath towel wrapped around her body loosened and fell, Marilyn hurriedly went down with it in a panic. Her body moved faster than her mind, and she was about to hit her head against the stone wall of the bathroom.

“Watch it.”

The man quickly came down and supported her head.

“Uh, ah?”

After a moment, Marilyn opened her eyes and looked at the man with a dumbfounded expression. It took her quite a while to realize that the warmth she felt on the side of her face was because she was leaning on the man.

“Are you going to sleep like this?”

“Pardon?”

That meant she had been leaning on him for that long.

“Ah? S-sorry!”

Only then did Marilyn quickly turn her head to the side and straighten herself up. What was she doing, leaning on a man she had just met and spacing out? Her cheeks flushed red, and she was so embarrassed that she had to fan herself. The man soon took his hand away from her and picked up the bath towel that Marilyn had dropped, placing it in her hand with a thud.

He looked stern, but he was giving her what she needed most right now.

“Your Highness, there’s nothing here.”

The knight who had wielded the longsword in front of Marilyn earlier came forward after searching the bathroom. Only then did she see the neatly cut curtains on the bathroom floor.

The knight had only removed the bathroom curtains that were blocking their view to check if there were any other enemies hiding in the bathroom, but Marilyn had been scared and overreacted.

‘…How embarrassing!’

Marilyn’s face turned even redder with belated embarrassment.

“Why don’t you get up now?”

“Ah? Y-yes.”

She nodded with a flushed face. But she was too busy rearranging her hands holding the bath towel to get up right away. Perhaps annoyed by her dawdling, the man picked her up as he got up and sat her down on a chair. She knew this wasn’t the time for this.

“T-thank you.”

Her heart sank. Was she doing this because she was scared?

‘Why am I so nervous?’

Her pounding heart didn’t seem to want to return to normal. Marilyn pretended to look at the floor and lowered her head to cool the heat rising from her face. It was no use. Just when she thought she was okay and raised her head, she met his eyes again. Beneath the man’s clearly defined eyebrows, deep, crimson eyes were staring intently at her blue eyes. As if he had something to say.

“Do you know her?”

The knight in the red cloak, who had been quietly observing the situation, approached the man and asked cautiously.

No. The man and Marilyn had met for the first time today.

“I don’t know. Have we met before?”

But the man’s answer even confused Marilyn.

“Jerome?”

The name of the knight in the red cloak was Jerome.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“There’s nothing to find here, so we should leave.”

They were leaving so easily? It seemed they weren’t assassins who had come to kill her. Then who were they? Why were they here? The man looked down at Marilyn’s face, which was confused because she couldn’t figure out what was going on, for a moment longer. That was it.

“Let’s go.”

As if he had only been looking at her because she was interesting, the man casually took his eyes off Marilyn and turned his body indifferently. That was what he was going to do.

“Princess!”

Until someone threw out unexpected information from outside.

“Aiden?”

The owner of the familiar voice was her escort knight, Aiden. Marilyn, who immediately recognized Aiden’s voice, looked at the door with a surprised expression.

“Princess! Princess, where are you?”

“Princess?”

It seemed the situation had gotten worse.

“I thought Rodri only had one daughter?”

At the word “Princess,” Jerome immediately narrowed his eyes sharply. The man, who had been indifferent, also looked at Marilyn again with a subtle chill on his face. Until just now, the man didn’t seem to have any business with her, but now he did.

“One committed suicide, so another one appears.”

“Pardon? What does that…”

Marilyn blinked at the man’s incomprehensible words. One had committed suicide? The only princess Marilyn knew was Princess Talia, who was born between Emperor Rodri and Empress Deborah. She had committed suicide? She had heard that the national marriage with the Gler Empire, which was incomparably more powerful than the Dextin Empire, was a great celebration. Moreover, she had heard that the prince of that empire was a really wonderful and kind person, and that Princess Talia was definitely looking forward to the engagement ceremony. But why had she committed suicide? Had Marilyn misheard the man’s words about someone else?

“Where did you take our princess? Princess, Princess Marilyn! Please answer if you’re here!”

Meanwhile, the outside became even more chaotic. When Marilyn didn’t answer, Aiden assumed that something had happened to her and shouted in an increasingly agitated voice.

“Aiden…”

I’m here. She wanted to answer loudly, but somehow she felt like she shouldn’t. Jerome’s expression, who was already looking at Marilyn hostilely, became even colder as the outside became noisier.

“Princess Marilyn?”

A soliloquy that raised the end of the sentence as if he had never heard the name before. Jerome gradually twisted his head to the side and repeated her name, which he must not have heard, carefully. Judging by his thorny gaze, she thought he would ask once more, “Are you really a princess?” But.

“Your Highness.”

While staring at her, Jerome looked for the man right next to him. His expression was chillingly murderous.

“It seems they are looking for a woman outside, so I will go out and investigate.”

He said he would go out and investigate, but Marilyn heard it as a threat to kill Aiden right away. No matter how brave Aiden was as an escort knight.

“It’s just dust flying around.”

Somehow, it seemed they wouldn’t be a match for these people. Apart from the simple numerical disadvantage, they had been exuding murderous intent from the start.

“Is there anything to investigate?”

“It’s not that, but I was worried that Your Highness would be disturbed.”

The man’s face, listening to Jerome’s words, was so relaxed that it seemed almost languid.

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