Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 107: The dress

Chapter 107: The dress

Ave didn’t wake as early as everyone else in the palace, who had been woken up by the loud scream of a woman after finding the hanging body, because the room she was given was at the end of the palace, far away from the entrance so she was spared from all the commotion that had taken place. She woke up with a smile on her face, having never enjoyed her sleep this much since she’d been thrust into this world.

Sitting up in bed and putting aside the pillow she found herself hugging, which held Lucian’s lingering scent, she glanced at the side he had slept in last night and found it empty, as expected. She didn’t expect him to sleep in until she woke up, and she was somehow glad he wasn’t here, it would have been awkward and embarrassing to wake up to his erection again like the other day.

She flushed at the thought of his erection and slapped herself on the cheeks before climbing out of bed to stretch her arms and body. She had a mission to accomplish today for the sake of Lucian: she had to speak with the queen mother, the birth mother of the king of Chen kingdom, an elder woman she had heard was ancient and held on to their kingdom’s tradition of creating recipes. If she could convince her to give her a chance in exchange for something, that would be enough.

Ave decided and was about to make her way toward the bathing room when her eyes fell on a brown coat resting on the back of the chair in front of the desk. She picked up the coat, recalling seeing Lucian wearing it last night when he came into her room and had taken it off before climbing into her bed.

The jerk had forgotten his coat. Ave thought with a smile as she held the coat to her nose, inhaling his intoxicating scent. She closed her eyes as the scent reminded her of the feel of his lips on hers and the feel of his arms around her last night; his strong leg draped over hers and his warm breath falling on her skin, causing her toes to involuntarily curl as a thread of heat began to slowly settled at the pit of her stomach.

Her body burned in places she could never imagine she could feel at the thought of Lucian and the scent on his coat.

Belatedly realizing what she was doing, she quickly flung the coat away onto the bed and wiped her nose and hands to rid herself of his scent. "What the hell is wrong with me?" she thought with a displeased frown. This wasn’t her doing, she was certain. It couldn’t be her. She would never be caught dead sniffing a man’s coat!

Clenching her fists, she closed her eyes and began to slam them against her chest while chanting and moving around the room, "Get out of my body by the commands of Heaven! Selene, if you are in this body with me and are feeling this way toward your divorced husband, return my soul back to my body and take back yours!" She slammed her chest so hard she felt the pain of it but didn’t stop until a knock sounded on the door.

Ave stopped mid-action of hitting herself and glanced at the door with a small frown before calling out, "Who is there?"

"It’s me, Milady," came a voice she recognized as Lydia, and her eyes brightened at the thought that she would finally be seeing the girl after a while.

"Come in, my darling Lydia!" she exclaimed as she trotted toward the door and flung it open. The moment Lydia entered, Ave pulled her into her embrace and cried out in relief, "I was worried sick about you after I heard you are no longer my girl. Where have you been and why didn’t you come to look for me?" Ave questioned as she pulled the girl inside and closed the door behind them, looking at her face, which for some reason, looked sickly pale, and her green eyes were filled with tears.

Had they been mistreating her in the palace because she was no longer her maid? Ave thought with a worried look. She was going to ask the girl who had mistreated her, but stopped when Lydia held something out to her.

"I...I came to give you this. You forgot it in the other room that day." Lydia held out the blue magical dress—the same dress Lydia had given to Catherine but had sneaked back to take while switching it with another similar one in the middle of the night in the head maid’s quarters, which was a room away from where she had spent the night.

Ave looked at the dress Lydia held out for her with a smile. She had been thinking of going and bringing it back. "Thank you," she said as she took it back but immediately dropped it on her bed to focus on the girl. "Why do you look sick? Have they been mistreating you in the palace?" she asked, grabbing both her shoulders like a big sister worried for her younger one.

Lydia shook her head. She could feel her throat burning so badly she could barely form words as tears began to stream down her cheeks. She looked down to avoid Ave’s eyes, her shoulders slightly trembling. "It’s nothing, I just... I just missed you," she said, half-truth, her fingers clenching around the fabric of her dress.

"Oh, dear. Come here." Ave pulled her into a hug and began to pat her back in a coaxing motion. She felt the girl break down completely as she hugged her back, her shoulders trembling uncontrollably as she cried. "I...I am so sorry, Milady..."

Ave, who thought Lydia was crying because she had indeed missed her mistress, smiled. "You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not your fault that we were separated and you won’t get to serve me again. Don’t worry, I will talk to Lucian about you and find a way to bring you back to my side so—"

"No!" she exclaimed quickly, moving away from the hug. "Don’t allow me to return to your side. I don’t deserve it. I will only bring you trouble. Please let me stay away from you," she said, her lips trembling. She wouldn’t be able to stay by her mistress’s side without being forced to betray her all the time. The best solution was to stay far away until the day she would finally meet her end for daring to go against her masters.

If Catherine found out she had switched the dress in the middle of the night and had not been reporting everything she’d noticed in her mistress or the second prince’s palace accurately, she would be deprived of the thing that had kept her alive until now.

Ave frowned upon hearing Lydia’s words. Though she could see the girl looked guilty about something as she kept averting her eyes, she didn’t know what she’d done to feel guilty. She had come to like Lydia, as she was the first person she’d met the day she first found herself here, and she wouldn’t want the girl to be at the mercy of that witch Catherine in the main palace.

"Why would you bring me trouble? This palace is not safe for you without a mistress. I can talk to Lucian about doing something for you." Ave said as she reached out to hold her shoulders, but this time Lydia stepped back, away from her. She then bowed her head. "I...I have to return to the kitchen, Milady. I need to go and help the kitchen staff prepare for breakfast. I just came to give you the dress you forgot." Saying that, she didn’t wait for Ave to say anything and hurriedly left the room.

Once she was outside and walking quickly down the corridor, she couldn’t hold back her cough, which had been threatening to burst out while she was in the room. She stopped, covering her mouth with her palm to muffle the sound, but when she brought her hand down, she looked at it to find a little red spot.

A bitter smile graced her pale lips, which also had a hint of red at the corner. "It seems I need to report something worthwhile to Her Majesty to receive the antidote, but...I don’t have anything to report," she muttered to herself, knowing deep down that her days were now numbered without the report that came with the price of an antidote to the poison she had been fed to keep her loyal.

A tear rolled down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away and walked away quickly before anyone—especially Catherine—could notice she had come here to visit her mistress. She couldn’t afford to be seen anywhere around here.

Back in Ave’s room, despite what Lydia had said, Ave still made a mental note to talk to Lucian about getting the girl back to her side, even though not as a servant. With that thought, she hurriedly prepared for the morning by bathing and putting on the magical dress and thinking about a beautiful dress from this era. It changed into a magnificent gold-colored gown that hugged her waist and was full from the waist to the down.

However, it emphasized her womanly upper figure, exposing the swells of her rounded breast. Not liking the expanse of exposed flesh, she did a hairstyle that fell from her shoulders to cover her chest.

Since she had no servants to help her with the complicated strings of a corset, she was grateful for this magical dress. Once she was done, she briefly glanced at the desk where the papers Lucian had brought for her last night were and smiled. If she had nothing else to do, she would come back and work on her drawings.

After walking for some time, Ave reached the inner palace where the guests were already heading toward the dining hall. As usual, they walked in pairs or in groups, and when they passed her, they turned to look at her dress with admiration, envy, or scorn.

For some reason, the atmosphere in the palace seemed a little strange this morning, but she didn’t think too much about it and headed toward the hall like everyone else. Before she could enter, though, she heard the young princesses around her gasp in horror, some looking pale as they glanced behind her as if they had seen a ghost. Ave frowned and turned around only to be met with none other than Lucian. His expression looked nothing like the one he had last night.

His eyes had turned to their usual stone-cold state, with a dead look in them. Detached was the right word to describe his demeanor at this moment. However, Ave offered him a small smile, as they had parted on good terms last night.

He didn’t smile back and only stared at her with an aloof look like he didn’t know her and he hadn’t slept in her bed holding her to sleep. Ave felt her heart knot in her chest. Perhaps she had imagined it, but she saw his eyes roam around her body for a fleeting moment before he walked past her, like he hadn’t even noticed her there.

"What the..." Ave muttered in disbelief as she turned and stared at his broad back and figure that soon disappeared into the dining hall.