Chapter 9
Maybe Somewhere, She’s Still Alive
2023.08.10.
A question must have flickered across his face, because Anette, as if reading Noah’s mind, answered it for him.
“It’s nothing much. Your side just seemed a little more flexible.”
“Ah, you’ve met Simoren?”
“He was easier to find than you. Not that I gained much from it.”
“Even if you sought me out, it wouldn’t have been much different. I have nothing to tell you either.”
“Really? I don’t quite agree.”
At Noah’s words, Anette let out a small laugh. The black-haired woman, smiling faintly, reminded him of ripples trembling across a river’s surface. The fleeting, ephemeral air about her only added to that impression. Noticing how he was briefly distracted by it, Anette continued without missing a beat.
“You’re the one who has the most ties to Lowell Hessen after His Majesty. Noah Ernst, top graduate of Bluoa Private School’s 14th class. I know your older brother died when the Hessen family mansion burned down.”
“……!”
“Your brother was apparently quite close with the Hessen brothers, wasn’t he? Close enough to visit their house during vacations. Then again, since you and your brother were both commoners, perhaps spending vacations at a noble friend’s house was more convenient……”
“Enough. Stop right there.”
At the steady stream of revelations from Anette, Noah’s face hardened in a way it hadn’t before. Up until now he had shown nothing more than polite discomfort, but now his expression cooled like a honed blade.
“How do you know all this?”
“There’s always a way to find things out.”
Noah felt the blood in his body run cold. No matter that Anette was a Martinek, no matter that she had Opretta behind her, there was no way she could know more than the Emperor himself. Yet the things she just said weren’t anything Opretta connections could explain.
That he had been born a commoner—fine, that could be overlooked. But the matter of his dead brother—no one knew about that.
No one, except Peter, who had covered up the truth, and Simoren, who had been close to him since school.
Unless she were a survivor of the Hessen family herself……
It was impossible. How could Anette Martinek possibly know?
As Noah stared at her with a tense, rigid expression, Anette smiled faintly.
“Did I scare you too much? No need to be so wary.”
“You expect me…… to believe that?”
“And if you don’t, what can you do?”
Her soft, delicate air chilled in an instant. Without changing her smile or her posture, she transformed from an innocent young lady into someone exuding the cold aura of an assassin.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t come here to blackmail you. The secrets I know will stay buried.”
“What on earth are you—”
“I only want an answer. That’s all. No one has given me one.”
Just a simple question, really. Anette lowered her gaze as if in regret, then smiled again.
And what spilled from her lips was indeed a single, deceptively simple question.
“If Lowell were alive… would His Majesty seek her out?”
Yet it was a question no one could possibly answer.
“Anette Martinek. What… what is it that you want?”
Noah asked in shock. Anette smiled with a trace of loneliness.
“Seems I won’t get an answer this time either. Don’t be so guarded.”
Because our goals are the same.
“I will put His Majesty’s madness to rest.”
‘So Noah Ernst was the last one.’
Lowell thought as she mentally retraced the people she had met that day.
After realizing Peter would never answer her question, she had started posing the same one to others. To an outsider it might have looked like she was desperately chasing Peter’s answer, but the question itself was only a pretext.
The real weight lay in the premise before the question: “If Lowell is alive—”
Peter thinks I know something about Lowell.
Strictly speaking, he assumed she had heard something about Lowell from someone else. But in essence, it was the same.
At this point, she alone was the one person with any “knowledge” about Lowell.
So if she went around hinting as if she knew something about Lowell’s survival?
Surely somewhere, a signal would come back.
Rumors in the palace spread quickly, and within this splendid labyrinth tangled with countless desires, surely someone would tug at the bait she had cast.
All she had to do now was wait.
Lowell returned to the palace quarters assigned to her. But there, an uninvited guest was waiting.
“Lady Anette, while you were away, the Dowager Empress… came to see you.”
For someone to enter uninvited when the host was absent was a grave discourtesy. Knowing this, the maids looked terribly flustered.
“If you wish, we can send her away now and schedule another appointment—”
“No. It would be rude to turn away a guest who came to see me.”
A glint flashed in Lowell’s black eyes.
“Show me in.”
The first prey had arrived.
The Dowager Empress, Monique Montmorency.
Her reputation could be summed up in a single line: a woman who had somehow managed to claim a palace and pretend to be the Empress Dowager, simply because the current Emperor had killed everyone else upon ascending the throne. In other words, she was vain, but ultimately harmless—someone not worth worrying about.
Of course, some might ask if perhaps she remained because she was close to the Emperor.
“If he was going to bring home a bride, shouldn’t he at least have consulted me? How could Peter proceed without so much as a word to me? After all, I’m practically like his mother.”
Anyone who knew nothing about Monique would realize within ten minutes of meeting her that she did not get along with Peter.
“Still, I thought Lady Anette would know proper courtesy and come to see me first, but I heard nothing. Very disappointing. The Duke and Duchess of Martinek were such good people, too.”
“…They were good people,” Lowell replied with a faint smile. The way Monique said it carried an implication—that while the Duke and Duchess were good, their daughter was anything but.
She comes running here in a panic after only two days and still dares talk so much.
Lowell felt mildly irritated for the first time in a while. When she had first come to Martinek, the Duchess had already been long dead, so she had never seen her. But Jurgen had undeniably been her benefactor.
Without Jurgen, Lowell never would have made it this far. She might very well have been seized and executed right there at the charred ruins of the mansion.
So Jurgen was more than just an adoptive father—he was her lifesaver. Even without knowing that, there was no reason to drag up a dead parent’s name in front of their child.
Monique was a woman who had polished herself in the court for years, mastering all the niceties of high society. There was no way she had mentioned the Martinek couple by mistake.
“Yes, they truly were good people. Since we’re acquaintances, I can speak freely about such things. Isn’t it nice?”
“…Acquaintances?”
“We’ve met before, haven’t we? You must have been about three years old.”
Ah.
At last Lowell realized why Monique had deliberately brought up the Martinek couple.
She wants to claim some sort of connection with me.
“Anette Martinek” was not just a fabricated identity Lowell had taken on. She had been a real person—Lowell’s age, with black hair and eyes, who died of illness before her thirteenth birthday.
Lowell had never heard more details than that. With the Duchess and Anette both gone, all she knew was that Anette’s black hair and eyes suggested she might have been Jurgen’s illegitimate daughter. After all, had she been born of the Duchess, she wouldn’t have had black hair.
Either way, it was my good fortune.
Anette Martinek had been frail from childhood, and except for her earliest years, she had never left the house. Which meant Lowell could step into her place.
The Martineks—especially the Oprettas—were reclusive. If the Duke had decided to conceal a child’s death, no one would question it.
Thanks to that, Lowell had been able to keep her noble status. Had she only been known as an adopted daughter, she never would have gained entry to the palace.
“To think that the daughter of a family I know should become Peter’s bride—what a delight. I do hope Lady Anette and I can be close.”
“It would be an honor, Your Highness.”
At Lowell’s docile reply, Monique’s demeanor softened as well.
Or rather, it grew less restrained.
“I worried endlessly about Peter, but now that you’re here, I feel at ease. I never liked that his head was turned by some girl named Lowell. No one even knows if she’s alive or dead. Don’t you agree?”
“Well… who can say? The world is full of uncertainties.”
Lowell smiled faintly as she traced the rim of her teacup. Beneath lowered lashes, her black eyes gave nothing away, her expression dry despite the curve of her lips.
“Perhaps… somewhere, she’s still alive.”
