Chapter 10
Prince Adrian and I bowed to the Dowager Empress together.
She took one look at him and clicked her tongue.
“You recover for one day and already make your mother wait nearly an hour?”
The words sounded like a reprimand.
The indulgent warmth beneath them made it clear they were not.
Adrian smiled without shame.
“Your son impulsively took Evelyn to see the peach blossoms outside the city and lost track of time. Please forgive me.”
The Dowager Empress huffed, then waved for seats to be brought.
Only after we were settled did she glance toward my stepmother.
“Repeat what you said earlier.”
My stepmother immediately knocked her forehead to the floor.
“This subject has failed in teaching her daughter. I never expected Princess Evelyn, in her greed for rank and wealth, to use such despicable means to climb into the prince’s household—”
The palace maid beside her trembled and quickly added, “At the flower banquet, I personally saw the princess place wet pebbles beside the pond. That is why His Highness slipped and fell into the water.”
For one dizzy instant, I almost laughed.
So this was the accusation.
My stepmother truly believed I had staged the entire rescue to entrap the prince.
She had come all the way to the Dowager Empress with nothing but a maid’s words and a rotten heart.
The Dowager Empress turned toward me.
“What does the princess say?”
My knees loosened on instinct.
I had just begun to rise and kneel when Adrian’s hand closed firmly around my waist, holding me in place.
His eyes were half-lidded, his voice icy.
“To falsely accuse one’s own daughter. Madam Hart truly has a poisonous heart.”
My stepmother went pale, but she pushed on.
“Your Highness, if the princess had not admitted it herself, this subject would never dare—”
Adrian cut across her without looking at her.
“You mean to say the princess confessed to a crime she did not commit, simply so you could come here and frame her?”
My stepmother choked.
Adrian’s expression did not change.
“Who told you I slipped on pebbles?”
I looked at him, startled.
That was exactly what had happened.
On the day of the banquet, I had gone to the pond with a terrible idea in mind. I had planned to scatter stones, create an accident, and then save him in front of everyone.
But when I saw him standing there—alone, bright-eyed, harmless, vulnerable—I could not do it. I had picked the stones back up.
And somehow, in one cruel twist of fate, he had fallen in on his own anyway.
Adrian squeezed my hand.
Then, in a voice so calm it felt unreal, he said, “I entered the pond to catch fish and misjudged the depth. The princess saved me. I fell in love with her at first sight. Afraid she would reject me if she knew I’d acted childishly, I made up a different story.”
He paused and turned toward the maid.
“My casual remark somehow became something you personally witnessed?”
The maid’s face drained of blood. She immediately looked to my stepmother for rescue.
The Dowager Empress did not give her the chance.
“Take them away.”
It happened so fast I barely had time to breathe.
The maid was dragged out sobbing. My stepmother too.
Only later did I learn the full punishment.
For falsely accusing a royal princess, my stepmother was stripped of rank, publicly caned, and confined to the Hart estate. The family itself remained standing only because of ancestral merit, but everyone understood their prestige was rotting from the inside.
The Emperor heard that Adrian had come to the palace and sent for him to play chess, so the Dowager Empress kept us overnight.
That night, after returning from the Emperor, Adrian went first to the bath.
I lay in bed for a while listening to the water, then quietly slipped from under the covers and walked toward the bathing room.
When I wrapped my arms around his shoulders from behind, his body tensed at once.
Then he relaxed.
“Did I wake you?”
I shook my head and picked up the cloth by the bath, using it to wipe the water from his back.
After a long moment, I asked softly, “Why did you lie for me today?”
I had seen him fall into the pond with my own eyes.
He turned and caught my hand, idly playing with my fingers.
“I know you could have defended yourself,” he said. “But this was the fastest way to end it for good.”
He leaned back against the edge of the bath, water dripping down his chest.
“Mother trusts me most. She values my feelings most. Once I spoke, there was no need for you to prove anything further.”
He was right.
The Dowager Empress had looked at me with suspicion before.
But the moment Adrian stood beside me without hesitation, everything changed.
I stared at his profile.
“Did you never once wonder if what she said might be true?”
If someone accused me of plotting against him, should he not at least have doubted me?
His answer came without pause.
“What she said wasn’t true.”
My throat tightened.
“But if I had thought about it?” I pressed quietly. “If I had once been tempted?”
My confession was harder than I expected.
“At the pond that day, before you fell in, I did think of using you. I needed a royal favor. I was desperate. But I couldn’t do it. I took the stones away.”
I swallowed hard.
“If I had truly meant you harm—”
He pulled me into the water.
The kiss he gave me swallowed the rest.
Steam curled around us. His mouth was fierce enough to rob me of breath. By the time he finally let me go, tears had gathered helplessly at the corners of my eyes.
He held me against him, voice low and rough.
“No matter what you thought, you still saved me in the end. Isn’t that right?”
I nodded immediately.
“Yes.”
“That’s enough.”
He kissed the tears from my eyes one by one.
Something inside me gave way completely.
No one had ever trusted me so absolutely.
No one had ever chosen me first.
I clutched at his shoulder and whispered the truth that had lived in my chest for months.
“I only wanted mercy from the throne. I didn’t want them to marry me to Simon Prescott.”
His expression softened.
“You are my wife,” he said simply.
Then, because he knew exactly how to pull me from the edge of tears, he brushed his lips to my forehead and asked in that same quiet voice, “Do you still want that eight-treasure duck from Golden Pavilion?”
I laughed through the wetness in my eyes and nodded.
He smiled.
“Then tomorrow, after court, I’ll take you.”