Chapter 15

I was too terrified to turn around. The prince shouldn’t have hit puberty yet, so why on earth was his voice so terrifyingly low?

“Lord Dylan, welcome back.”

“…Schwarz. What were you doing?”

With a completely straight face, Schwarz stood up and bowed deeply to the prince. What was with this disparity? I was technically the fiancée of Schwarz’s master, after all.

“I was talking with Lady Bertia.”

“Is that so? With Bell? What kind of talk?”

“Just idle chatter.”

Schwarz answered the prince’s question without a single hesitation, almost as if he had prepared this response in advance.

Schwarz handled everything when it came to the prince. As I let out a sigh of relief, I heard the prince’s reproachful voice calling my name.

Eh, me?

While I stood frozen in confusion, the prince called my name again. With a creak, creak… like a rusty tin toy, I turned my head backward. Standing behind me were a pale-faced Will and the prince, narrowing his eyes as he stared straight at me.

“Bell, what were you talking about?”

“……”

The spearhead had turned straight toward me!

I looked at Schwarz, silently pleading for help, but Schwarz refused to meet my eyes. He was telling me to figure it out on my own.

“Is it something you can’t tell me?”

“N-No…”

It wasn’t that I couldn’t tell him.

Screw it, I might as well just tell the truth. I didn’t want to lie to the prince. Even if I told the truth, the one in trouble would be Schwarz anyway. After all, it was Schwarz who had asked me to celebrate the prince’s birthday.

Even as a slight wave of guilt washed over me, I thought oh well and opened my mouth to speak casually, when a sudden, chilling shudder ran down my spine. The murderous aura emanating from directly behind me was off the charts. Schwarz was definitely running secret assassinations or something.

I decided I knew absolutely nothing.

“Um, does Your Highness know about my rumors?”

“Rumors…?”

Relieved that the murderous aura from behind had vanished, I looked at the prince, who was tilting his head with a blank look. This man truly was the epitome of a peerless beauty.

“It’s a bit embarrassing to say myself, but… that I’m a beautiful girl.”

“Ah, that? Because Bell hardly ever shows up to parties, the nobles just started making things up on their own. Well, the head of the Tybus family didn’t deny it, either.”

“A beautiful girl?”

Will, who had been standing quietly hidden behind the prince’s back, poked his head out. His wavy, unruly hair swayed with a cute bounce.

“Who’s this beautiful girl?”

“Just some unknown young lady from somewhere.”

“It’s Bell.”

Even though I hadn’t wanted Will to find out because he would definitely tease me, the prince went and said it anyway. Hearing the prince’s words, Will froze for a fraction of a second before his brow furrowed in a deep scowl.

“Huh? You’re the beautiful girl?”

“Hey now, that’s your older sister you’re talking to.”

When I pointed my index finger at him and glared, Will let out a small click of his tongue before correcting himself to “Big Sister.”

Will was surprisingly obedient whenever the prince was around, which was a huge help. It was because he knew he’d get praised by the prince if he listened to me. Right now, he was even letting the prince pat his head with a “Good job.”

Clinging to the prince’s back, Will stuck his tongue out in a bleh where only I could see.

“Big Brother Dylan! This person is not pretty at all!”

“Eh? Really? I think she’s plenty cute.”

The prince chuckled with a troubled smile, then glanced sideways at me. Why did nobody ever say I was beautiful?

“Look closely, won’t you? She’s cute.”

The prince tilted his head with a calculated cuteness, asking me, “Right?” I honestly thought the prince himself was cuter.

True to the prince’s words, Will stared at me intently, unblinking. It felt intensely embarrassing and agonizing. Did I have any pimples? No, I was fine. My skin was smooth, so I was fine.

Just as I felt like he had been staring for an eternity and a hole was about to burn straight through my face, Will finally opened his mouth.

“Average.”

Silence descended upon the surroundings. A breeze blew past, and the only sound was the rustling of leaves against leaves.

“Um, Will…”

The prince offered a rare, flustered, bitter smile as he placed a hand on Will’s shoulder.

“Well, you see, that might hurt Bell’s feelings, you know?”

“Eh? I just told the truth, though.”

For the first time in a while, I took a direct hit from Will’s arrows. I had thought I built up a fair bit of tolerance for Will’s sharp tongue, but apparently not.

“Hehehehehe.”

When I started letting out a creepy, eerie laugh, both the prince and Schwarz looked over at me in alarm.

“I-It’s fine! Bell is cute!”

“Indeed. Lady Bertia is sufficiently beautiful, so I believe you are fine just as you are.”

“It’s fine. I’m just a woman who could never be called a beauty, even by the most generous of flatterers.”

As I puffed out my cheeks in a pout, Will—who had been silent until then—walked closer to the prince and whispered softly into his ear.

“Did I say something bad just now?”

“Well, Will, maybe you should exercise a little more tact.”

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the prince let out a resigned sigh.

Will looked completely baffled, utterly clueless as to what he had done wrong. I was just glad the initial victim had been me. No matter how good-looking a guy was, a man who couldn’t even offer a single polite compliment to a girl wouldn’t just be unpopular—he’d be in danger of failing as the head of a house.

High society is a cesspool of lies.

That was what my father had told me.

Just as I opened my mouth to offer him a little sisterly advice, a soft thud impacted against my body. Looking down at my abdomen, I saw a tuft of silver-gray curls bouncing cheerfully.

“Will? What are you…?”

“I’m sorry, Big Sister.”

When Will lifted his face, a thin film of moisture shimmered in his blue-tinged eyes. Catching the light, they looked even more dazzling.

“It was just… embarrassing to say it honestly… I’m sorry, Big Sister, I hurt your feelings, didn’t I? Big Sister is… really pretty.”

With a soft parting of his lips, my younger brother unleashed a smile fit for an angel. The way he lightly clutched at the hem of my dress right as he said “pretty” was calculated to a fault. Cute. An angel. A total angel.

“Wi-Will! You are so impossibly cute!”

“Is this the kind of reaction you wanted?”

The arms I had outstretched to embrace Will were expertly dodged, cutting cleanly through empty air.

“Eh?”

“Big Brother Dylan said I needed to show more tact.”

When I looked over at the prince in sheer despair, he had a hand pressed to the bridge of his nose, staring down at the ground. Schwarz, too, wore a somewhat distressed expression.

“Will… I don’t think that counts as exercising tact at all.”

“Why not? I did exactly what Big Brother Dylan told me to do?”

“If you’re trying to show tact, you don’t go blurting out like a fool that you only did it because the prince told you to.”

When I scolded him with a lecturing tone, Will’s face clearly twisted in sulky annoyance.

“I… I did my best with it.”

“Let’s try to learn the difference between what’s okay to say and what isn’t, alright?”

I patted his head with a gentle, sweet smile, but Will wrenched himself away from my hand and bolted straight toward the prince.

“Big Brother Dylan… Was I no good?”

“Well. Getting the correction right was good. However, when you tell a lie, you have to make sure the other person doesn’t see through it. Understood?”

“So that they don’t see through it…?”

“H-Hold on, don’t go feeding him weird ideas!”

Will tapped a finger against his chin, striking a thoughtful pose.

“Understood, Big Brother Dylan!”

In stark contrast to Will, who replied with bright, cheerful vigor, I clutched my head in my hands. Will was going to be corrupted. He was going to be corrupted by the prince.

“Bell is thinking that Will is going to be corrupted by me, aren’t you? That’s harsh.”

I honestly started to seriously wonder from time to time if the prince possessed some kind of mind-reading ability.

Even so, as even I knew, it was an unavoidable skill for someone who was going to become a family head. After all, high society was a cesspool of lies. If you mastered the art of lying, you’d be invincible. The prince probably knew that and was teaching it to Will for that exact reason.

“No, actually, I’m quite grateful. If Will masters the art of lying, he’ll undoubtedly become the darling of high society.”

“The darling of high society… What a cheap-sounding title.”

“And isn’t that just his current self?”

Schwarz looked at me with a look of utter exasperation, while the prince shook his shoulders and chuckled with amusement.

I was being made fun of…

“Shall we take our leave now, Schwarz?”

“If that is what Lord Dylan wishes.”

What an absolute prince-supremacist.

I shot a half-lidded glare at Schwarz, but the man himself acted as though nothing was the matter, maintaining a completely composed expression. The prince didn’t find it strange in the least, either, likely because it was an everyday occurrence.

As Will was talking with the prince, Schwarz walked over closer and whispered to me as he brushed past.

“I’m counting on you for the birthday.”

To give Schwarz peace of mind, I gave him a deep, firm nod.