Chapter 10
Knock, knock, knock.
“Grand Duke, I’m coming in.”
I opened the door after knocking.
Carlos was seated in his office, wearing glasses. He glanced at me dryly as I entered and asked,
“What is it?”
“I heard you skipped lunch.”
I set the tray down on his desk as I answered.
His gaze briefly touched the food, then lifted away.
“Have you decided to get a job here as a servant instead of being a princess?”
Carlos asked as if he were looking at something bizarre.
Yes, I understood that reaction too.
That was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to deliver it myself.
“Calming your rampaging mana with purified stones isn’t enough. If you want to live normally, you need to fix your eating habits and your sleep schedule as well.”
Carlos let out a scoffing laugh.
“So you want to act as my physician instead of a servant?”
“…I’m taking care of the health of the guardian I’ll be relying on for the next four years. If something happens to you, it’ll put me in a difficult position as well.”
“And you made this yourself for that?”
“…I borrowed Mia’s help a little. No, quite a lot.”
My gaze slid awkwardly to the side.
It was far too skillful to boldly claim I had made it myself.
Instead of picking up his utensil, Carlos asked coolly,
“On what basis should I trust the princess and eat this?”
His cold eyes fixed on me.
“Ah… um.”
It seemed Mia’s warm reaction had briefly made me lower my guard.
This was the response I had originally expected.
It was natural.
And yet, for some reason, my chest felt tight, as if something were pressing against it.
If Carlos decided to suspect me, there would be no end to it.
After wetting my lips for a while, I finally said,
“…Do you think I’m insane enough to attempt such an obvious poisoning?”
I tried to sound natural, but my voice trembled like a quaking leaf.
Carlos simply looked down at me without answering.
Growing anxious, I squeezed my eyes shut and blurted out,
“It’s because of the eggplant and the blue primrose.”
“…What?”
“If you cook eggplant and blue primrose together, it detoxifies the demonic energy accumulated in the body. So this isn’t just food, it’s—”
The more I spoke, the more tangled my explanation became.
Even through my closed eyelids, I could feel his cold stare.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“…It would be. It was only researched within the imperial family. It was a combination discovered by the royal chief researchers, and I saw it from the side—”
I was rambling.
It had been perfectly organized in my head, yet once it left my mouth, it became a mess.
‘Calm down. You’ll only sound more suspicious like this.’
Taking a steady breath, I added,
“A body exposed to demonic energy cannot recover with purified stones alone. The toxins accumulated inside must be expelled, and the combination of eggplant and blue primrose does that. In the imperial palace, this combination was always included in His Majesty’s meals.”
Only then did my words come out a little clearer.
But Carlos’s expression did not change.
“Do you have any proof?”
“…Proof?”
“You say it’s imperial confidential research. How am I supposed to believe that?”
“That’s….”
I fell silent.
Proof? Of course I had none. There were no documents I could present—only what I had personally seen and experienced.
“I just… thought it would help you.”
My voice trailed off.
He wouldn’t eat it anyway.
It would probably be thrown away.
I fidgeted with my fingers, then reached toward the plate to take it back.
“If you don’t feel comfortable, then forget it. I don’t want to force you.”
I had already told Mia about the eggplant and blue primrose combination, so she would make something suitable in some other way.
Just then—
“…Fine. Leave it.”
“What?”
At the sudden voice, I opened my eyes in confusion.
When I looked up, Carlos was still staring at me with the same dry expression.
I simply blinked, unable to process it.
He frowned deeply, clearly irritated by my blank look.
“That vacant expression doesn’t suit you.”
“I thought I must have misheard.”
“I said leave it.”
So I hadn’t misheard.
‘What?’
Still slow to react, I stood there dumbly until he jerked his chin toward the tray.
“You may not know this, but thanks to the princess’s father, I’ve developed resistance to most poisons.”
For a long time, the emperor had used every possible scheme to try to kill the Grand Duke.
When I was about seven, there hadn’t been a single poison that hadn’t been sent to this estate.
That was why he ate crops grown only in the back of the ducal grounds.
“There’s no poison in it.”
“It doesn’t seem like there is.”
He lifted his eyelids and looked at me directly.
“What are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“Are you going to keep watching? Or are you planning to monitor whether I finish the plate?”
“No, I was just surprised. I didn’t think you’d actually eat it.”
“You’re saying something amusing, considering you’re the one who shoved it at me.”
Carlos gave a crooked smile. It was brief.
“Unless the princess secretly brought some unheard-of poisonous herb from beyond the continent, it won’t affect me much.”
He picked up his fork.
“I can distinguish most poisons by taste. If this truly were an assassination attempt, it would give me a good reason to deal with the princess at my own discretion.”
With that, Carlos took a bite of the eggplant rollatini.
I stared blankly at the scene.
It was strange.
Something in my chest felt warmly heated.
What is this feeling?
Did I eat something bad? That couldn’t be it.
Feeling that odd sensation, I asked cautiously,
“…How does it taste?”
“Not bad.”
“…Really?”
Before I knew it, I was smiling brightly.
“That’s a relief!”
He paused.
Carlos looked up and stared at me.
His expression shifted subtly before hardening again.
A beat later, realization struck me, and I pressed my lips together.
‘Did I smile too much?’
It wasn’t even a particularly pleasant face to look at.
Embarrassed, I turned my head slightly.
“Then please enjoy your meal.”
I should leave before he says anything else.
I gave a small nod and hurried out of the office as if fleeing.
Click.
The moment the door closed, my heart began to pound.
‘He said it wasn’t bad.’
I didn’t even know why I was so happy, but my steps felt oddly light.
Suppressing the urge to hum, I walked down the hallway.
Without realizing it, I found myself walking on tiptoe.
‘What should I make next?’
There were still many recipes I could share.
Herb combinations good for detoxifying demonic energy, teas that improved sleep quality.
If I asked Mia, she could make them quickly.
All the way back to my room, my mood remained strangely buoyant.
The moment Lorea left, Carlos’s hand stopped.
Clink.
The fork was set down on the plate.
He picked up a napkin and quietly spat out the food he had just put in his mouth.
His expression turned cold.
He had never intended to eat it from the beginning. He had only been curious. What on earth was the princess thinking, doing something like this?
Carlos stared down at the plate, his brows narrowing.
That expression from earlier kept coming to mind.
The smile that had bloomed across her face at just one comment—not bad. The way her eyes had looked genuinely happy.
It had been the expression of a mere thirteen-year-old.
Lost briefly in thought, Carlos shook his head.
‘She’s still the princess.’
The half-broken puppet raised by the emperor.
The villainess of the imperial palace.
There was no reason for him to care about such a smile.
Carlos lifted the plate and tilted it over the trash bin.
Clatter.
He watched indifferently as the eggplant rollatini slid down along with the sauce.
Then he returned to his desk.
He picked up the documents, but the words would not enter his eyes.
That face kept flickering in his mind.
That wide, radiant smile—like a child who had just received a gift.
“…How troublesome.”
Muttering lowly, Carlos rubbed his forehead.
There was no reason to care.
There shouldn’t be.
