The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 20

20. So Much for Staying Dry

2021.03.13.

The Shatoan royal palace was in more disarray than ever due to Princess Lesilia’s return with the elite knightly order.

“How is the princess?”

Prince Tesler encountered a court physician coming out of Princess Lesilia’s bedroom after completing an examination.

“Fortunately, there’s nothing wrong with her physically.”

“What’s the likelihood the Emperor will notice?”

“While it may vary from person to person, if the princess takes the potion I prescribe right before the wedding night, she should be able to avoid suspicion on the day of the ceremony.”

“I will issue instructions soon, so be prepared to make that potion right away.”

“I understand, Your Highness.”

“Good. Oh, and Court Physician.”

Prince Tesler paused as he was about to open Princess Lesilia’s bedroom door, turning back to the physician with a serious expression.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“By any chance, is there a potion that induces… maturity?”

“What do you mean…?”

As the court physician asked, flustered, Prince Tesler gestured towards the princess’s bedroom door and said,

“A medicine that makes her think straight and improves her judgment, something with that kind of effect.”

“Such a potion… is beyond my capabilities.”

The court physician realized why Prince Tesler was asking such a question and replied, suppressing a smile.

“I see. Thank you for your trouble.”

Prince Tesler sighed deeply and entered the bedroom.

“Everyone, please step outside for a moment.”

He sent all of Princess Lesilia’s attendants out of the room. The princess pulled the blanket over her face and turned to her side, feeling displeased with her brother’s gaze.

“Lesil, sit up.”

Princess Lesilia didn’t budge at Prince Tesler’s words.

“Quickly.”

“No.”

“We need to talk about the foolish thing you’ve done!”

“Ehhh, I can’t hear you, can’t hear you…”

Princess Lesilia mumbled, covering her ears with both hands.

“This is completely insane. To run away right before a royal marriage with the Emperor of Lapion? How could you do something so reckless!”

“Hmph, why is that something I did? Isn’t it something you did, Brother?”

Princess Lesilia, who had been completely covered in the blanket, perked up and sat up at Prince Tesler’s words.

“What?”

“I never said I would marry the Emperor of Lapion!”

“Does that mean you disappear with a guy whose background you don’t even know?”

“Watch your words! Even if his origins are humble, he’s smarter than you, Brother!”

“Lesil, haven’t you come to your senses yet? Do you want to take the side of that mercenary now?”

“What?”

“How long did you run away, only to abandon that mercenary and follow the royal knights? Do you understand? Ugh, never mind.”

Prince Tesler sat heavily on the bed, pressing his temples with his hands.

“I’ve lived as a princess my whole life; wouldn’t it have been hard to suddenly live like a commoner? It’s only natural, what’s the big deal?”

“If you knew that well, why did you run away with a nobody without even a family name in the first place? Did you think it would be as comfortable as royal life?”

“I thought I would be happy just living with Norton’s handsome face… sob, waaaaah!”

Princess Lesilia pouted and teared up, eventually bursting into tears.

“Don’t cry. You’ll get wrinkles. Your face already looks worn out. Tsk.”

“Right, I shouldn’t cry. It’ll give me ugly wrinkles. Wait, what was I trying to argue about earlier? Ah, that’s right!”

The princess, who had stopped wailing, tapped her eyes with her fingertips and glared at Prince Tesler again.

“And, I was already pregnant, so I had no choice!”

Princess Lesilia was already pregnant before running away with Norton. If she had given birth in the royal palace, neither the child nor Norton would have been safe.

“So? Look, in the end, neither of them is by your side now! How pathetic.”

Prince Tesler scoffed and got up from the bed. The princess, who had been looking down, raised her head again.

“Brother!”

“What.”

“That day… you just let Norton and the child go, right? The knight commander said he would do that. Right?”

Prince Tesler hesitated for a moment. There was no way he would have let a mercenary who dared to elope with a princess of the Shatoan Kingdom go unharmed.

“Yes…”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell his younger sister that Norton had fallen off a cliff during a confrontation with the knights. The same went for the child the princess had given birth to after eight months. ***

“Aren’t you leaving?”

I asked, looking at Linelle, who showed no sign of getting up from the edge of the tub.

“Cold-hearted woman.”

Linelle muttered softly and splashed water on my face.

“Ah!”

You’re really enjoying splashing water on me.

“I was about to leave.”

“Your clothes are quite wet; would you like to wear my robe? The attendants following you might misunderstand.”

I was genuinely concerned about his wet bottom and made the suggestion.

“Ha, how thoughtful of you.”

He crushed my sincerity in an instant.

“Why? Are you going to lend me a dress while you’re at it? So my legs don’t catch a chill.”

“Well, since the embarrassment is the attendants’ burden anyway, that wouldn’t be bad either.”

I ended up laughing. My laughter, devoid of fear, echoed in the bathroom. Linelle definitely seemed to be twitching his face, but as soon as he met my eyes, he quickly changed his expression and forced a frown.

“By the way, you know, you’re probably the only person in the entire world, Zelda, who would send off the Emperor while sitting so comfortably without even a greeting.”

Oh dear, the etiquette towards the Emperor, which had briefly left my mind, returned. I quickly tried to get up from the tub, leaning forward, but then realized my situation and sat back down. Oh no, I’m naked. The sound of water friction in the tub was loud. Because of that, a large amount of water splashed on him, or rather, on the pants he was wearing, still sitting on the edge of the tub. It was already too late to remedy the situation, and he was already too wet. A major earthquake occurred in Linelle’s pupils. My pupils trembled just as much as I looked at him.

“…Ah? Ah!”

I let out a belated shriek and reached out my hands towards him, then stopped.

“Is this… are you telling me to freeze to death on the way?”

Linelle looked down at his wet pants, which now clearly showed he had made a mistake.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. If I survive.”

He finally lifted his bottom from the edge of the tub and stood up.

“Your Majesty… I can’t see you off. Please return safely.”

I greeted Linelle in a timid voice. He turned back to me with a scowl.

“Zelda, are you really just going to send me away like this… uh oh?”

His body swayed greatly.

“Be careful!”

In a fleeting moment, the water in the tub soared up like a fountain with a splash and then disappeared. And in front of my eyes.

“Yo, Your Majesty…?!”

There he was, looking like a drowned rat. Although, there’s probably no such thing as a handsome rat like that anywhere in the world.

“Ugh, the floor!”

He shouted, pointing to the floor with his hand.

“Yes? The, the floor?”

“Someone left soap on the bathroom floor.”

He said, elegantly wiping his wet face. I quickly peeked my head out of the tub and looked down at the floor. The soap I had used and left out before he came into the bathroom was miserably crushed on the floor. That was a really precious soap… On the day I left the Shatoan royal palace, Bonis, who shared the same room with me, secretly took one from the royal bathroom supplies storage and put it in my luggage. If I were to talk about this soap, it was a rare soap that left a subtle lavender scent all over the body until night, even if used in the morning. Sigh, what a waste.

“You fell into the tub of all places?”

I asked, looking at him with obvious suspicion.

“I’m sorry about that. It’s just that you happened to leave the soap on the floor.”

“That’s my fault… I guess. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m also sorry that I happened to fall safely into the tub.”

“…?”

“I should have slipped and cracked my head, shouldn’t I? Don’t you think?”

“I was careless. Please forgive me.”

At Linelle’s imposing voice, I slyly lowered my eyes that had been glaring at him.

“I didn’t expect to get this wet, but now that it’s happened… I guess I have to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Take a bath.”

Suddenly, my body flushed with heat. At the same time, the temperature of the water in the tub also rose. At Linelle’s declaration to take a bath together, blood rushed from my toes to the top of my head.

“Did you perhaps put a magic heating stone in the tub? The water seems to be getting hotter?”

Linelle tapped the bottom of the tub with both hands, searching for a non-existent magic heating stone.

“Linelle? That’s my foot.”

“Oh, is it? Then is this it?”

“That’s my knee.”

“I see.”

“There’s nothing in the tub.”

“Really? There’s no magic heating stone in here? That can’t be…”

He waved his hands around, accidentally bumping into the side of my thigh.

“I said, there’s nothing!”

I replied, gritting my teeth.

“Ah, my apologies. It was too soft to be a magic heating stone.”

“Did you hit me on purpose?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said no?”

Linelle sat down in the tub, finally settling in, and asked with a smirk.

“…In the end, your clothes are all wet.”

“Indeed, what should I do?”

I sighed, looking at his face, which seemed to have some kind of scheme.

“Surely you wouldn’t kick out someone with no clothes on, stark naked, would you?”

Ah, is that what you wanted to say?

“My face doesn’t suit that color to wear your gown.”

He pointed to the deer antler coat rack attached to one wall of the bathroom. A pink silk gown hung on the rack.

“Should I have the attendants bring you clothes…?”

“It’s late at night. They need to rest too. Don’t you think? I already have a reputation as a tyrant.”

Linelle suddenly spoke in a benevolent tone.

“I may work them hard during the day, but this tyrant wants to let them rest at night.”

He smiled languidly, placing one hand over his chest.

“By the way, why does the water keep maintaining its temperature?”

He tilted his head, scooping up the steaming water in the tub with both hands.

“It even seems to be getting hotter?”

“It’s probably because the water was so hot from the beginning…”

Since I couldn’t reveal the truth to him, I had no choice but to make excuses. But his face changed to an even more incomprehensible expression.

“Even so, when I get into the tub, the hot water cools down quickly. The water temperature drops so much that it almost becomes ice water.”

“…Ah.”

“So I can’t stay in the tub for long if I can help it…”

He looked at the steam rising above the tub with a curious gaze, then looked at me sitting in front of him with a strange look.

“Zelda, is it really because your heart is so warm?”

He asked the question and immediately shook his head, correcting himself.

“No, there’s no way the water would stay this warm because of that, it’s really strange.”

Ah, Linelle’s curse will be an advantage in the summer. If I’m by his side during the hot summer, it’ll be much cooler, right? We had something that we desperately needed from each other. Look at it now. If he hadn’t fallen into the tub a little while ago, the water might have risen to a temperature that would cause burns by now. I often used this phenomenon. When something upsetting happened, I would soak in the tub, and when the water temperature started to rise, I would put two raw eggs in the tub. The eggs I put in like that would become delicious soft-boiled eggs by the end of the bath. The joy of eating hard-boiled eggs after a bath is something only those who have experienced it would know. It would be difficult to expect the birth of hard-boiled eggs if I took a bath with Linelle. He closed his eyes tightly and leaned back in the tub.

“Haaa… this is nice. I stopped by the training grounds before coming to the Empress’s Palace.”

“Is that so?”

Hearing those words made me want to go to the training grounds too. I looked down at my hands. As I imagined wielding a sword, my hands trembled like a withdrawal symptom. I should ask Sharon later where the training grounds are located in the royal palace.

“Yeah, it feels like all the muscles that were tense from swordsmanship are relaxing.”

Linelle’s expression looked truly relaxed, as if all his fatigue was melting away. Seeing that, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to get out of the tub quickly. In the end, I admired his moist face, which appeared and disappeared through the steam, and waited for him to open his eyes again. But after a while, I couldn’t see him sitting across from me.