Looking around, she noticed that the nobles in their masks were all eavesdropping.
‘Thank you.’
How wonderful it was for him to set the table like this; Ariella was grateful. Now she just had to enjoy the meal.
Taking a small breath, she tried to summon a sad expression.
“Aaron, you rejected me first.”
“No matter what, that doesn’t mean…!”
“Really… you’re being too much.”
Her thin voice became damp and soon hot tears streamed down her white cheeks beneath the mask.
It was only natural that everyone, including Aaron, was taken aback.
Ariella Bedford, who had always shown a calm and elegant demeanor, was crying. And it was because of her fiancé, the prince!
“Is it… Lizzy again? Did she tell you to do this? Don’t talk to me, don’t dance with me.”
Even more shocking words followed.
The nobles forgot to manage their expressions and gaped in disbelief.
Lizzy. Who was that?
Did the prince have a mistress? A mistress who even instructed him not to dance with his fiancée?
“How could you do this? You said I was still your fiancée…!”
“Eli!”
Aaron, his face pale, hurriedly interrupted her. He had finally grasped the situation.
Mentioning Lizzy in a ballroom full of nobles was madness.
‘Is family honor no longer visible? No matter how jealous you are, that’s too much!’
Even at this moment, Aaron blamed Ariella for the situation. He didn’t consider that he was the one who had started it.
“Come with me. We need to talk somewhere else.”
He grabbed her arm with an arrogant expression, but Ariella roughly pulled her arm away.
Glancing around, she saw that the man she had danced with was nowhere to be found. It seemed she had bought enough time to escape.
“No. I’m going back now.”
“What?”
“After all, you’re not going to dance with me today.”
Was she wrong? As she added this, Aaron merely twitched his lips, unable to respond.
Ariella didn’t wait any longer and passed by him. Her steps were so quick that he couldn’t catch her.
Her figure grew distant, and soon only Aaron remained in the center of her gaze. It was the opposite of the result before the dance began.
‘Damn it…!’
Feeling the piercing gazes, Aaron clenched his fists tightly.
Because of their earlier conversation, he had become the bad guy who abandoned his fiancée, who had waited eight years for marriage, and took a mistress. That wasn’t a big problem. It was natural for a man to have one or two mistresses.
The real issue was that he appeared to be a pathetic man who was wary of his mistress. The great Aaron Fernandit de Waveland, the prince of the magnificent empire.
A snicker. He heard the sound of air escaping from somewhere.
With a fierce expression, Aaron found the culprit.
“Lord Mackenzie. Were you just laughing?”
“Oh, no! How could I dare to do that!”
“Then did my ears deceive me?”
“Th-that’s not it…”
Suddenly!
Aaron’s hand grabbed the shoulder of the short lord.
With a voice so menacing it made his heart tremble, he continued.
“Seems like something good happened… Tell me about it, okay?”
He had picked the wrong target! The lord’s face turned pale in an instant.
Desperately, he shot a glance at Lady Emily for help, but she merely turned her head away, as if there was nothing she could do. She knew best the temperament of her second nephew, who had pushed aside the first to sit in the prince’s seat.
‘Why did I invite him in the first place?’
Lady Emily sighed deeply, regretting it too late.
The atmosphere of the ball couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Unaware of the impending incident, she thought this way.
Ariella’s steps as she left the ballroom were incredibly light.
She barely managed to suppress the joyful smile that was about to bloom on her face.
The corridor of the marquis’s mansion she was walking through was not a place where many people passed by, but it had many connecting passages, so one could never know when someone might suddenly appear. Therefore, she had to be cautious for now.
Just as she thought this, someone suddenly popped out from the passage ahead.
Could it be Aaron? Nervous, Ariella halted in her tracks. However, thankfully, it was someone else.
A small stature, a plump figure, and a scraggly beard came into view one after another. His face was so flushed that it was hard to recognize him, but upon closer inspection, she could identify him.
It was Fletcher, the duke of the border region near Ashbon.
“Ugh, cough…”
True to the rumors of his love for alcohol and women, he appeared to be very drunk even now. His staggering gait and the strong smell of alcohol confirmed this. He was even holding an empty glass in his hand.
‘I need to avoid him.’
Getting entangled with a drunkard was something she always wanted to avoid. Especially if the person had a bad reputation.
