I’m Sorry I’m Not Qualified to Be Empress - Chapter 60
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Chapter 60
Black leather pants that fit perfectly and a sweaty white shirt stuck to the muscular upper body. It was impressive to see the long stretched legs going up the white arched stairs connected to the terrace. It was as if a slender black beast was coming up.
The count and his wife did not blink while swallowing dry saliva. They watched him walk this way from beginning to end.
As he approached, their eyes grew bigger and bigger.
In order to finally look up at Maxim standing in front of them, the couple had to raise their necks to the sky.
“Ah… oh…”
Probably no one had ever seen Count Jared and Countess Audrey so bewildered. The two of them froze like statues in disbelief, even with Maxim Lancert in front of them.
“Oh my goodness.”
Countess Audrey, who wouldn’t lose dignity even over her dead body, let out an exclamation from her opened lips.
His dark hair, wet with sweat, swayed lightly in the breeze. A drop of sweat dripped from his neck and disappeared under his shirt showing his hard muscles. It looked as if the swordsmanship training was intense, every time he took a breath, his stiff shoulders shook slightly.
Losing her dignity of a noble madam, Countess Audrey looked at him blatantly. It was a fresh feeling of vitality coming from a strong young man in the morning breeze.
Even the face looking down on them was like a sculpture without any blemishes, carved by the gods. Count Jared, who was well versed in art, looked at him as if he was appreciating a fine piece of art. Their shock was much greater because he was completely different from what they had expected.
“Um…”
Rose’s face flared up when her parents looked at Maxim so blatantly.
“They’re my parents.”
Talking to Maxim, Rose gently pulled the lace on her mother’s wrist. ‘Get a hold of yourself!’
“It’s pleasure to meet you, I’m Maxim Lancert.”
When he opened his mouth, the couple immediately corrected their posture.
“It’s an honor to meet you. I was really surprised.”
A very honest comment came out of Count Jared’s mouth. The couple politely bowed their heads and greeted him.
Before becoming the daughter’s husband, he was the King of the North, a threat to the Solstern royal family.
Maxim raised one eyebrow and curved his lips attractively.
“I’ve heard a lot about the Etoile family. You’re also famous in the North.”
As much as the Count and his wife were curious about him, Maxim was also curious about the Count and Countess.
What kind of people were that woman’s parents and how similar they will be to each other?
In fact, it turned out that the older brother looked more like his mother, and Rose Etoile had the same eyes as her father.
He wondered if this was what family was like and smiled inwardly.
The four went indoors to have breakfast together. Rose’s parents headed inside first, and she and Maxim deliberately slowed down.
Rose mumbled in passing.
“Thanks.”
“What?”
“You weren’t rude.”
Maxim stood up, folded his arms, and looked down at Rose.
“What do you see me as?”
“I’m sorry.”
Rose made a soulless apology.
“I think my parents were shocked.”
As if wondering what those words meant, Maxim narrowed his eyes.
“Because you look so spotless.”
He shrugged, gave her a smile as if it was ridiculous, and then walked alone.
“Have you already forgotten? We decided to be faithful to each other’s roles.”
These words flowed out of him bluntly.
Rose glanced at Maxim, who was going up to the second floor to change clothes, for a long time.
Countess Audrey, who returned after meeting Maxim, was busy. Her one and only daughter’s husband came to the house, and she couldn’t stay still.
As she could not even attend her daughter’s wedding, she prepared a welcome party for her daughter and her husband to relieve her longing. Of course, it was an extremely private family party that only members of the Etoile household could be invited to.
The invitation arrived today for Rose. She, who visited the study to inform Maxim, was puzzled when she saw the empty place. She couldn’t see him in the garden and wasn’t in the dining room.
‘Come to think of it, he went out in the morning yesterday and only came back late. Who the hell is he meeting?’
At that moment, she saw Jansen walking towards the study.
“Your Majesty.”
“Where did he go?”
“Your Majesty went out because he had someone to meet.”
“He’s meeting someone?”
Rose crossed her arms and looked at Jansen with a serious face. Seeing that he didn’t explain in detail, it seemed like a secret meeting. ‘What secret are you hiding from me?’
“Why is he meeting people outside instead of calling them over? If he moves recklessly, he would end up being caught in something unnecessary.”
“It won’t happen. Don’t worry.”
“How can you guarantee it?”
“If it’s really like that, wouldn’t Your Majesty want your family to be uninvolved?”
Hearing those words, Rose’s face hardened.
“Then are you saying they are that dangerous? Who is he meeting?”
“No, don’t misunderstand me. Wouldn’t it be a nuisance if suspicious people went in and out of the Etoile family’s mansion?”
Jansen tried to dismiss it as a trivial matter, but Rose smiled bitterly.
“The world knows that Rose Etoile is his wife, and the Etoile family are his in-laws, so what good is meeting outside?”
Jansen just smiled quietly, not knowing what to say. Rose muttered to herself with a stiff face.
“You came to Solstern because you wanted to… Accepting the invitation to the wedding was just a disguise. If I had known, I wouldn’t have tried to convince you.”
Rose felt it was funny that she had tried so hard to persuade him.
“That’s not true at all. I’m sure His Majesty came here for Her Majesty the queen.”
Jansen’s words were of no help at all. Her suspicions, as to who he was meeting and what schemes he was devising, only grew bigger.
The next day, after completing his swordsmanship training at dawn, Maxim was ready to go out. This time, Rose didn’t slack off in bed. As soon as dawn broke, she got ready to go out in advance and was waiting for his exit.
Natalie was not there because she was given time off to spend with her cousin, her only family member. As long as she avoided Hannah’s eyes, she could get out of the mansion without anyone knowing.
She wanted to check what kind of people he was meeting and what he was planning.
“I won’t miss it.”
As soon as Maxim went out, Rose rode a horse she had prepared in advance.
Rose did not understand why he was ridin to a quiet farmhouse on the outskirts of the Capital. In the ruins, weeds were thick and few people were left. There were dark gray clouds in the morning, so there was no light in the sky.
‘How much longer are you going to ride?’
She wondered whether he had a destination or he had noticed she was following him.
At the moment of such suspicion, she saw someone. The man standing alone in the demolished monastery building was clearly strange. What was even more strange was that Maxim saw him and just passed by. Rose clearly saw it. The man standing there showed signs of welcome when he saw Maxim, but his expression changed rapidly when he saw her.
As soon as Maxim passed by the monastery, the man climbed on the horse and rode to the opposite side. Passing by, she could see the man’s face head-on.
‘I’ve seen that face somewhere.’
Rose tried to bring out the face from a faint memory. When she looked back on the horse, the man looked back at her, too. The wind blew his hair in the wind, revealing his face.
‘I remember him!’
Then, she remembered exactly where she had seen the man.
‘It’s the man next to my father. They were hung together!’
It was a face that appeared in the most terrifying memory.
‘Why did he want to meet Maxim?’
The two passed by without seeing each other, but it was clear that they had decided to meet at the monastery earlier. It must have been that Maxim had noticed something and pretended not to know him. While Rose was riding after him, it felt like her heart was pounding because she was afraid and frustrated.
It was terrifying to see the face of a man who had been horribly decapitated like her father again, but it was even more shocking that he had a connection with Maxim.
While riding on the horse, Rose looked back on the events of that time one by one. He, whom she had just seen, was beheaded for conspiring to rebel with the North against the Empire. It turned out that he, a middleman trading ore or wood, was eager to develop weapons and explosives behind Cassiax. He succeeded in associating himself with the Etoile family. And accused Count Jared of being involved even though he couldn’t find a speck of evidence and charged him with treason.
Everyone knew how absurd it was because few of the traders or merchants had never traded with the Etoile family at least once.
However, everyone remained silent in the reality of a bloodstorm caused by madness. They were in a situation where their heads would fly off if they opened their mouths by mistake.
It was not known whether he had just made a false confession through harsh torture or whether Cassiax had concocted a false testimony, but one thing was clear: that person should never be involved with.
“Maxim?”
As she rode, lost in her thoughts, Maxim had disappeared. Rose was looking around at a fork in the road and found his horse. His horse was lying in an abandoned house where no one lived.
When Maxim was nowhere to be seen, she quickly got off her horse and went into the abandoned house.
“Mhph!”
As soon as she opened the old door, a large hand blocked her mouth and dragged her in strongly. Rose struggled, Maxim looked down at her from behind and released his hand.
“Shhh!”
“What are you doing!?”
“Why the hell did you follow me here!”
“That…”
Rose had nothing to say. Anyway, it’s true that she had secretly followed him. This place, which she thought was an abandoned house, had a strong stench, as if it was a large brewery.
“I was wondering what you were up to.”
“Is that why you were tailing me and waiting for me to see you?”
“Tailing you?”
As Rose’s voice grew louder, Maxim covered her mouth again.
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