[NW] I Don't Want a Prince in My Life - 3

Chapter 03: Unexpected Reunion

Now then, I was presently residing in the kingdom of Theophilus which neighbored my motherland.

I was expelled from the duke’s home with my mother, and we used the dress and jewels we wore to exchange for money and quickly fled to the neighboring country.

The reason being that Angelica’s supporters were everywhere. We were afraid of somebody possibly hoping to cause us harm now that we had lost the duke’s favor and support.

In addition, my mother was falsely accused of infidelity and thus divorced, so we couldn’t rely on my mother’s family either. We feared the anger my maternal grandfather—a duke—would direct at us, so we declared that we would cut all ties.

With no one to rely on, we had no choice but to run away.

My mother and I hid our former status and came to this country as commoners.

It was not easy for two women to travel between countries.

We even had the mercenaries we hired to escort us trick us and steal our money.

The only fortunate thing on the journey was finding a dying pair—a parent and her child—on the way and borrowing their identity.

I forsake the name Cecilia Bratley and took the name on the identification paper: Pia. Thanks to the previous Pia, I barely managed to secure a right of residence in Theophilus.

But when we finally arrived in the country, we were practically broke.

I had never paid attention to such matters when I lived as a duke’s daughter, but money was absolutely necessary to live.

At that moment, I recalled my experience making dresses and decided to work as a seamstress for a tailor in the capital.

Frankly speaking, working as an interpreter would be more profitable, but interpreters deal with diplomacy and business transactions so I would first need to gain a stable lifestyle to prepare the support and personal grooming necessary for the job.

Therefore, I decided to earn a modest living for the time being and maybe one day, become an interpreter or a governess to instruct children from the upper class.

To help with that, I earned some money by translating books as a side job.

But to prevent the people from my motherland from discovering my current whereabouts, I had to be careful about which jobs to pick.

I couldn’t trust anyone anymore. No matter what others do to me, I won’t get hurt.

My mother never committed adultery. The color of my eyes I had inherited from my paternal grandmother was proof.

There was no doubt in my mind that my father believed both my mother and I died somewhere out in the wild.

That was why my struggle to keep living was my act of revenge against my father and those who discarded me.

＊＊＊

Sometime after that proclamation was first announced, the enthusiasm around it gradually died down.

The reason being that the crown prince, Albert, had rejected all the women who came forward.

Albert, having stayed in my motherland of Percival up until recently, was one of the men charmed by Angelica.

He had returned from studying abroad in Percival just the other day, but I highly suspect that he was brought back after getting into a fight over Angelica’s love.

My basis for this was there were serious fights over Angelica’s love even before my engagement was annulled.

The sight of talented and handsome men squabbling and competing for Angelica’s affection was so outlandish that it, in turn, became unsightly.

I had always thought that Albert was composed and disciplined to avoid any international problems, but I could see why his patience could run out.

And as I feared, Albert returned to his country from studying abroad soon after I arrived here.

I dug through my memory to recall his face.

Albert had sleek black hair and his eyes were a darker shade of violet than mine; they were indigo. He was your quiet, intellectual type of prince.

He was acquainted with me and my former fiancé Lionel since long ago, and I recall us having played together when we were younger.

But with his heart stolen by Angelica, he cast aside his friendship with Lionel and me and gradually grew more obsessed with Angelica.

His feelings developed to terribly resemble my younger brother Leon, and my fiancé Lionel, who were both charmed by her, and the only thing I could think of at that time was “Again.”

When I thought back to that time, I could still feel the anger boiling deep in me, as well as the feeling of futility.

What truly upset me was Angelica never stopped the men from fighting. Rather, it looked like she was watching, laughing in amusement.

She merely smiled, not taking any responsibility for the problems that she created. Far from guilt, she felt delight.

The crown prince, heir to the throne, fought with his close friends who would one day become his subordinates, and this created mayhem in high society. No, that was not all. Such fights would negatively affect and lower the unifying power of the crown.

But no matter how many times I pleaded with them, none of them listened and instead saw me as someone who was hostile toward Angelica.

Just before my engagement was annulled, I no longer cared for the future of Percival.

Rather, I felt slight joy from being freed of my duty as the future queen consort.

That showed how far Angelica threw the country into chaos all by herself.

“Have you heard? The prince apparently turned away every girl who went to see him.”

“He was indifferent to them, no matter how beautiful they were. Do you think he swings the other way…?”

These plausible theories came up around half a year after the proclamation was made.

It had been roughly one year since he returned to his country.

He probably still hadn’t forgotten about Angelica, but he was a failure of a prince if his people made such rumors about him.

The most important job of royalty was to continue their lineage for the future. Once the bloodline could no longer produce offspring, conflicts over succession would break out and ravage the country.

That was why the crown prince’s marriage was a heavy matter of concern for the citizens.

Moreover, Albert would turn 21 years old this year. It was extremely abnormal for him to be this old without being married, let alone have a fiancée.

But that had nothing to do with the current me.

I was steadily earning money from my main job as a seamstress and my side job as a translator, and recently, I finally managed to fix myself up to land a job as an interpreter.

I truly thought it would take longer than this, but a merchant who saw my translated works and sold them hired me as a specialist. And he unbelievably also gave me entrance pay.

I quit my job as a seamstress and used my entrance pay to move to a safer residence. Thanks to that, my mother’s condition greatly improved.

Her ranting and raving, which happened all day long, lessened, and she seemed to be slowly accepting reality.

It seemed like everything was getting better.

But a demon was lying in wait to throw off my calm, peaceful days.

Even though I swore to never trust anyone anymore, I had completely let my guard down at that time.

“Pia, can you bring some tea for our guests?”

I was ordered by the manager and headed to the reception area.

I was hired as an interpreter on paper, but in actuality, my job resembled more of a servant as I was ordered to do various chores.

However, given that the merchants often dealt with books, which were basically items for the literate intellectuals, I wasn’t ever treated poorly.

As such, I brought over some tea as ordered, but I didn’t expect such a reunion was waiting for me in that room.

“Cecilia…”

The person inside who addressed me by my old name was the crown prince of this country: Albert Blair Theophilus.