My Engagement Got Broken, But I Don’t Remember Getting Engaged in the First Place

Chapter 72: Relentless Pursuit of First Love

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“Today, the atmosphere in the royal castle is quite tight for the first time in a while.” Andrea said.

As she poured some tea, Nora tilted her head in puzzlement. “Atmosphere?”

She was only familiar with the royal castle recently, so she had no idea how it normally was before. She couldn’t tell if the atmosphere was getting any tighter or not.

As per Andrea’s taste, she added a bit of warm milk in her tea and gently placed the cup on the table.

“It appears that the Chancellor has come back after being gone for quite a while. His presence alone creates some tension in the air, and His Majesty always has high expectations of him.”

“Speaking of which, Thor—I mean, I heard from His Majesty that the Chancellor has not been feeling well.” He was said to have been particularly troubled with handling the matter related to Duke Lindell.

I wonder if he’s fine?

“Yes, he’s getting on his years. Such a pity that he doesn’t have any child to assist in his work. His Majesty has always bugged him to raise a successor.”

It seemed like the Chancellor had no children. Or so she’d heard. Since he was from a noble house, there was the succession to consider, and even though the position of Chancellor wasn’t necessarily passed down from generation to generation, it was customary to be succeeded by the children and grandchildren.

Finding someone and raising them to be the next successor would prove to be quite difficult. At this rate, the Chancellor would mostly like to adopt a child and raise them to be the successor.

It seemed like the story from another world and it’s at times like this when Nora was thankful that she didn’t come from a prestigious lineage of aristocrats.

“By the way, Nora. Can you tell me the story of how you and Elias ended up together?”

“How we ended up together?”

Why would you be curious about that? Besides, I’m not even sure where to start…

For Nora, it all started with that evening party where she had her engagement broken and was consequently proposed to. But then again, it was Elias who had been looking for her, after they had met when they were young.

In that case, she might as well mention about when they were young, but Nora couldn’t actually recall much.

Seeing her looking troubled and at a loss for words, Andrea let out a soft giggle and smiled. “I didn’t think you’d be that troubled. Actually, I’ve already heard the rough story from His Majesty. To summarize, it was mostly Elias’ relentless pursuit of his first love.”

“Relentless pursuit of first love…”

It was such an extreme way of putting it but it was quite accurate so Nora couldn’t help but groan inwardly.

“Then, do you know how Elias and His Majesty met each other?”

“I heard that His Majesty was poisoned by Duke Lindell and it was Elias who had helped him.”

Andrea nodded slowly and picked up her teacup. “It was around five years ago. Our family hosted the banquet and Duke Lindell, who was just the duke’s son at that time, poisoned Thorvard’s glass, who was then the second prince.”

It was something she already knew, but now that they were discussing it, Nora was curious about something.

“Why did Duke Lindell poison His Majesty? I heard that he was close with the first prince, but wouldn’t he become the king even if they did nothing?”

From Nora’s perspective, Duke Lindell’s actions seemed to pose more danger to himself and the first prince than anyone else.

After taking a sip of her tea, Andrea blinked her eyes repeatedly. “Mm, you’re really good at brewing tea. It tastes so good!”

“Thank you. It’s all thanks to the Head Maid’s guidance.”

Nora, in fact, already knew how to brew tea, but the Kranz family had their own unique way of brewing tea. Their method of brewing only a small amount of tea leaves on hot water was not something Andrea, the future queen, would drink. As such, when presented with a huge amount of tea leaves to use, Nora didn’t quite know how to adjust the formulation, but thanks to the Head Maid, she was able to get the hang of it.

“Originally, the first prince was to succeed the throne as planned. However, there was an issue with him, and because Thorvard was outstanding, they started reconsidering the order of succession to the throne. My house, the Melnes family, was on Thorvard’s side, so I suppose they just planned to get rid of all the obstacles at once.”

But even so, that was a dangerous plan. If it were to be discovered or fail, the first prince would be at a disadvantage, and Duke Lindell could be executed for attempting to assassinate a member of the royal family.

“Why did he go to such lengths… and carry it out himself?”

Since he was the duke’s son, he could simply hire or manipulate someone to do it for him. Just like what Viola did, who hired an unrelated staff to poison Nora.

“If the first prince had ascended the throne, I suppose there would have been some sort of quid pro quo. At the same time, they were aware that if Thorvard took the throne, it would be disadvantageous to them. I don’t know the details either, but he appears to have done a lot of bad things.”

Even if that was his motive, I still don’t understand why he would carry it out on his own.

I thought that perhaps he came up with it on the spot and acted without much afterthought, but then having possession of poison readily was rather strange.

“Thorvard knew that the first prince was that kind of person, so he was not only wary of the prince himself, but also of the items prepared by the servants in the castle. That’s why he had Duke Lindell himself open the bottle of wine in front of him and asked him to taste it first… But at that time, Thorvard didn’t know that the first prince and Duke Lindell were that close.”