I Don’t Want A Prince In My Life - Chapter 2
Evening.
I finished my work and was on my way home.
I live in the lowest section of the city, where there are many strangers and misfits.
It’s a place where you can’t complain about what happens if you’re out after dark.
My current place of residence is barely enough to shelter me from the wind and rain, but I still had to make it there as soon as possible.
No matter how much a young woman hides her face with her hair and covers her body with tattered clothes, it is unlikely that she can walk alone and be safe.
My room was on the third floor of a house that was about to collapse.
On the ground floor lived the landlord, who is very fussy.
I slowly climbed up the creaking stairs to avoid upsetting him.
When I opened the poorly constructed door, a foul smell hit my nose.
Inside, a dead-eyed woman mumbles something to herself without greeting me.
She is my mother who was thrown out of the duchy with me.
Ever since she lost her status as a duchess six months ago, she has turned into a person who barely communicates.
What was once a beautiful figure is now a shadow of its former self.
“Mother. Have you not eaten your bread again?”
The hard black bread I had left in the morning lay untouched on the table.
Maybe she doesn’t have the energy to live anymore, so she doesn’t even want to eat.
For her, who had been used to gourmet food ever since she was born, hard and sour black bread may be hard for her to accept.
But white bread, what she used to eat, was not sold on the street, and it was the luxury of a few wealthy people who have their own bakers.
It was not something that a seamstress could afford.
“If you don’t eat it, you will get sick. Please eat it.”
I tried to hold the shredded bread close to her mouth, but there wasn’t much strength I had left in my emaciated arms.
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Suddenly, my mother, who has been frozen like an ornament, starts to shout something in a high-pitched voice.
I could speak some of the languages of the surrounding countries, but I could not understand the meaning of her words.
Occasionally, I could barely make out the words “because of you” or “if only you were here”.
I picked up a piece of bread that had fallen off the table and ate a simple dinner with it.
Why was I, the daughter of a Duke, living like this in the first place?
It all started when my father took the extreme step of letting his mistress and her daughter live in his main residence in the capital.
It was not unusual for a nobleman to have a mistress, but to have her live in the mansion with his own wife was an outrageous act of brutality.
Of course, my mother and I were against my father’s decision, but our words were not heard.
Eventually, a mediocre woman with brown hair and brown eyes, and Anne, who had the same hair color but with blue eyes like my father’s, were taken to the house.
It was obvious that she was my father’s child.
This is because the deep blue eye color of my father’s is called Royal Blue, a color of great prestige that appeared only to those with royal blood.
On the other hand, my eyes, inherited from my paternal grandmother, are light purple. Unfortunately, I did not inherit the color of the royal family.
Anne, who changed her name to Angelica in a noble manner, quickly won over the people around her with incomprehensible tricks.
My brother and heir to the ducal throne, Leon; the son of the Earl of Linden, who was the next Prime Minister, Christophe; Bernard, the son of a general who excelled in swordsmanship; Albert, the prince of a neighboring kingdom; And my fiancé, Crown Prince, Lionel.
Those five men were particularly fascinated with Angelica.
They were like knights in a fairytale, protecting Angelica from all malice and declaring her enemies to be evil.
I had often advised my brother and my childhood friends not to be so devoted to her, but they had never listened to me.
On the contrary, they accused me of being jealous of Angelica and of speaking ill of her.
Looking back on it now, I can’t help wondering why they were so devoted to Angelica.
They were, for better or for worse, suspicious aristocratic men who did not so easily forgive even their own families.
Anyway, as the exchange went on, I even got a bad reputation for being jealous of my half sister and harassing her.
The servants also began to favor Angelica and her mother, and our position in the house became worse and worse.
However, I never dreamed that my engagement to Lionel, which had been fixed from the time I was born, would be annulled.
On the contrary, I was accused of being my mother’s illegitimate child, and she and I were thrown out into the street.
I could still hear it now.
I could still hear Angelica muttering to herself, “You’re a villain, so you can’t win.”
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