Lawrence Oncidium sat up, holding his greasy head and soon became stiff when he realized that he was not in his room. "...Where am I?" "Have you woke up?" The peacock screamed silently when he saw me appearing in a thin gown. As soon as he realized that he was staring of the flawless skin of the 1st Princess, he turned his head away. "Why am I here?" He asked. "I picked a trash up from the ground and you gave me no thank you, isn't that too much?" "Who do you called a trash-- ugh!" Lawrence held his head as he remembered all of the last night's events. I felt a joy from looking at his distorted expression.
I approached the bed and sat down next to him and tried to ask him questions, but it seemed he was still in daze. It was my lips that brought Lawrence back into reality after drown in his own world. "What are you doing?" He asked in shock. "Kiss you," I answered. I watched how he roughly wiped his lips with his sleeves as if it was dirty. "Why do you hate me so much?" I asked in a soft ladylike tone. "Are you asking because you don't know? Or are you pretending?" Lawrence asked back with sarcasm. "Is it because of my maid's manure splashed on your shoes?" I asked trying to hide my excitement. "Yes." Lawrence got up and about to leave the room as he recalled the insulting attitude that night. "Lie. I know you've hated me from long time ago and even have this murderous intention towards me. Why?" The young Duke of Oncidium halted his step, turned to stared at me. "I heard that the princess had lost her memory after waking up from the bed." "Yes. It was a temporary symptom from the aftereffects of poison addiction. I have all my memories now. But how did you know that?" Although Poinsettia was an unknown princess, but whatever happened in the Imperial Palace must remained as a secret. But Lawrence continued to talk without answering my question, in form of releasing the inner feelings that were piled up with resentment. "After that, I heard that people were being beaten randomly." "Ah yes. I just showed to those who ignore the princess' authority and remember my dignity," I said. "No one in the predecessor was able to grasp such authority through such ruthless punishment," he said. "Why do you think that everyone who was born and grew up in the same environment like me should do the same how my predecessors were in their environment? I can do whatever I want differently without following what they did in their pasts," I replied. "Then there are any other ways to do that if you called yourself a human," he responded to my line. "What is it mean to be a human by your standard?" I asked him. But Lawrence shut his mouth, it seemed that he had enough arguing with me. "I guess some of your acquaintances have been punished by me." His forehead distorted for a moment before returning to normal. "Who is it?" He asked. "Even if I tell you, you won't remember that person." "Then, what do you want with me? I guess I should know who I am and apologized to you about what I did to you." He left the room without saying anything anymore, but I would soon see what was he hiding from me. "Bell, bring this letter to a man named Phillips on the second street. If you wear this golden bracelet on your left wrist, he will recognizes you." I passed a stamped letter to Bell. "Yes Your Majesty. By the way, the Duke of Oncidium is a very rude human being. So why did you..." "..." "Is it because he is handsome?" Bell asked carefully. "Huh?" "No. No. Please take your bath, Your Majesty." After a fierce kiss last night, I moved Oncidium to my room, instead of excited, I felt nothing when I was touching him. If everyone knew about this, they would spread another rumor in the party.
"Your Majesty. Today escort was someone requested by Sir Noah." Noah seemed to be struggling from yesterday to find the back of those who attacked him. However, the final boss had not been caught yet, so it'd be difficult for him to attend the party. "It is an infinite honor to be able to serve Your Majesty the 1st Princess tonight." It was Ludwig, the commander of the Imperial Knights, who came to me behalf of Noah. Ludwig was a handsome, dark skinned man with a pair of intense red eyes. "It's really a pity to have Sir Noah as an escort driver only. He's a great successor to me," Ludwig said. "I'm sure he is," I replied. I heard and knew that the people who cover Noah's skills weren't just one or two. It was said that during the time when Noah practiced swordsmanship at the training hall, knights from all over the Empire flocked to watch. "But Noah is mine." I suddenly whispered and Ludwig chuckled. "Haha. I know that." "1st Princess has a good personality," Ludwig said. "Thank you for the compliment." "Why do you accept me to be your partner?" I asked him. "It is true that I was curious about the princess I had never seen since I becoming a knight. It was only rumored to be but I was very surprised by the spirit and dignity that you showed me over the past two days. You had this overwhelming feeling," he answered. "Huh.." "I'm not trying to flattering you," he added. The way to the main banquet hall was not boring thanks to Ludwig who couldn't stop talking. "By the way, unlike Sir Noah, my dancing is still not that good." "It will be fine. You can start practicing for the future party like this," I told him.
They announced my appearance as usual and everyone stopped whatever they were doing to bowed in respect to me. Everyone started to dance when the music started, and just like what Ludwig said, he was bad in dancing. Tonight, I felt that I wanted to join the young ladies. I wondered what the young aristocratic ladies were talking about these days. Ludwig showed his 'I don't like to be in the middle of ladies' expression but he had to do his job, escorting me as a knight. I thought it'd be nice to join the young noble ladies for some chatters since they were very docile and love to study.
We approached a group of young noble ladies and Ludwig trembled like a true gentleman as they started to giving him compliments. "Lord Ludwig!" "You're more beautiful tonight, ladies." Ludwig flashed a smile. I smiled only by watching them and greeted them. "How is everyone?" "...May the glory of this night be with you. I'm the 2nd daughter of Ardosia, Aschenputtel, greet Her Majesty." "Glory night, Wilhelmina's 3rd daughter, Elise greeting Your Majesty." Then the group of five or six noble ladies started greeting me one by one, and I got a jackpot as the next one introducing herself, the next generation representative of the social world, the 2nd Princess, Lobelia. This group was the daughters of those who dominated the social world and would replaced them in each aspects like, diplomacy, politics, and military affairs.
"Oh my sister. Where did you go last night?" Lobelia asked. "You looked for me? Why?" I asked back. "Of course because I wanted to enjoy the party with my older sister. I'm so happy to see you come to me tonight," Lobelia smiled sweetly and she stood up to gave up her seat. 'Ah. You are treating me like an elder now?' I thought to myself. "Thank you for warming up the seat for me," I smiled at Lobelia. "Yes.. Of course." Lobelia was taken aback by my words and she forced her smile. "You are in the age where you should have been married, older sister. Sadly it's because of your weak body immune," Lobelia started her opinion. "As my marriage in the future will be celebrated grandly, I guess the 2nd Princess doesn't need to worry about my condition," I replied.
"Your Majesty. Tomorrow is the last day of the party. What's your type of man?" A noble lady asked. "But there aren't few good aristocratic men who are single now. The good men have already married with good women and I heard the rest are the troublesome men," another noble lady added. "Don't worry, Her Majesty. If you look for it, there are still left one or two." At that time, a young lady named Daphne, famous for being gossip lover, opened her mouth. "Isn't the Duke of Oncidium still single?" The atmosphere became cold all of sudden. "Hey, do you know how high his position is? He also rejected the 2nd Princess' confession." "Maybe he likes men and not women.." Then all of them giggled with their own imaginations. 'Oh so Lobelia already reached out to Lawrence Oncidium?' I asked to myself. As I listened, I couldn't held my smile. "I think Her Majesty the 1st Princess is in a good mood," a noble lady said. "Maybe Her Majesty is thinking about her future marriage. It'd be nice to all the young ladies to marry some good men. Who wouldn't want to marry a good man?" "But Duke of Oncidium never asked for a dance of spoke to a lady first." "Is that right? Yesterday, he shared the same bed with me all night. So I couldn't tell if he was a peacock or a courtesan. I'm so glad he only slept with me," I barged into their conversations. Suddenly everyone stopped talking and looked me. "What did you say? You lie!" Lobelia yelled as she stood up angrily. "Sister! Do not defile the honor of the Duke of Oncidium anymore! Nobody here will believe such false remark!" "Is it a lie? Or is it the truth?" "He's never going to do that!" In the past, I was about to introduce the Duke of Oncidium to Emily, but I never thought that Lobelia had this kind of thought about him. Because of Lobelia's yelling, the crowds were gathering us now.
"How long has Your Majesty has such relationship with the Duke of Oncidium? Is there any conspiracy between you two?" Someone asked. "The two of princess were destined to be different from when they were young. No matter how much you can say 1st Princess, it is not right to lie and insult a noble." And so again, they were all arguing to against me. "What do you mean is that I was wrong?" Only with that question and a low toned, I managed to shut them up. "It's the Duke of Oncidium!" A noblewoman announced. And Lawrence was there, standing where everyone turned at him as he was looking at me with his furious eyes.