Chapter 31
+25 BONUS
“It’s Prince Michael?!”
While everyone was shocked, they were soon on their knees in greeting. “Your Highness.”
Lilian was going to kneel too, but Michael stopped her.
Michael’s eyes narrowed as he looked around at everyone.
Instead of telling them to stand, he took Lilian’s band as everyone watched. “She is henceforth under my protection, and anyone who insults her, insults me. Understand?”
However, this simply felt unreal to Lilian, and it left her flustered.
For three years, she was the one who knelt to everyone else.
Hell, even when she was the treasured daughter of the marquis for fifteen years, she never had the privilege of an entire public kneeling before her.
As such, even as she stood by Michael’s side, she was not feeling gleeful or smug, even though she was looking down upon the heirs and heiress from illustrious families, each of whom were dressed grandly for the occasion.
She tried to pull her hand out of the prince’s grasp a couple of times, only to fail as he would tighten his grip.
She did not try too hard either, as the prince was clearly defending her–how could she snap at him as everyone else watched?
As Lilian stayed silent and lowered her gaze, she and the prince appeared just like a couple to everyone else.
Seeing that, Emma was annoyed for some reason.
Throwing all caution to the wind, she snapped at the prince right then, “Your Highness! She’s a lowborn–how could she stand with someone as noble as you?”
At this point, everyone in the capital knew that Lilian Kerr’s mother was a midwife–an ingrate who swapped her own child with her employer’s.
The treachery was horrendous, and the daughter of that woman was allowed to stand at the side of a prince?!
However, though Emma was livid, she was left watching as Michael’s expression darkened, his tender gaze suddenly murderous. “It seems that you didn’t hear me, Ms, Stark. Men, help her pick her ears clean.”
At his orders, two valets strode up, seizing Emma right then.
Both Emma and Betty were terrified, with the latter promptly exclaiming, “Please, Your Highness! Ms. Stark just wasn’t thinking! She meant no insult! You don’t have to go that far!”
She might well end up deaf afterwards!
Even Lilian did not expect Michael to be so savage despite his mild demeanor.
Just before Emma was going to be taken away, she tugged on Michael’s sleeve, and he tored in surprise toward the dainty hand.
She had obviously taken steps to treat it, but the traces of chilblains were still obvious
As he turned further, he saw that Lilian was frowning and pursing her lips antewardly, “to Highness, it’s the sacred festival of Felton Shrine Let’s not cause a disturbance, especially in front of a holy place.”
She was not pleading for mercy for Emma, however, only pointing out that one should not cause a disturbance in a place of prayer.
Still, it sounded way more reasonable than Betty’s ‘wasn’t thinking“.
Finding a good mood just then, Michael smiled. “You’re really more reasonable than I am. In that case, I shall let it slide today.”
At his words, the valets holding Emma released her.
She was already in tears, and she dropped limply on the ground right then.
Michael looked around at everyone once more and said, “I don’t like to repeat myself, so you’d all do well to take my warning to heart… or you’d just have to bear with the consequences once you leave the gods‘ protection.”
And with those words, he turned back to Lilian. “Let’s head inside.”
Even as the prince took Lilian’s hand and led her in the shrine as everyone else watched, she regretted everything that had led to this.
She should never have come, even if she used to love the attention, enjoying the way people stared at her anywhere she went.
