I Don't Want to Be Loved

“You lost her?” Igor asked, his voice full of reproach.

Basil lowered his head. “My apologies, Your Majesty. They said she escaped while she was being transported”.

“Excuse me, Basil, but are you saying you allowed a woman surrounded by soldiers to escape?”

Basil knew he’d made a grave mistake. “She didn’t escape on her own. Someone was helping her”.

Igor frowned. “Someone sent by Count Clovis, or her current husband?”

“We aren’t sure yet, Your Majesty. But both cases aren’t possible. Those two are under heavy surveillance, after all. Since they are being investigated, we’ll apprehend them soon”.

Igor rubbed his forehead and sighed miserably. His mind wandered to memories from his past, remembering every small detail. Who could have helped her escape? It didn’t matter how much he squeezed his brain, he couldn’t think of anyone in particular.

“No matter what, find her. We don’t know what she’s capable of doing”.

Straightening his back, Basil declared “Yes, sir! We’ll make sure she is captured!”

Once Basil left, Igor heavily dropped himself on his seat. He rubbed his face with both hands. His eyes were red, tired due to severe lack of sleep. But, he didn’t care. He would not be able to rest properly before making sure that that woman was captured and thrown in jail.

That evil woman had ruined all he’d been carefully working on, all his efforts. Back then, he had thought that he could live happily ever after with Rihannan, but Leticia coiled her tail around her like poison, taking down all he’d worked so hard on.

Back then…

“Count Clovis and Count Alessin have been meeting up in secret, Your Majesty!”

After sending off Rihannan to the villa, Igor spent his days neck-deep in his work. He kept a close eye on his mother and the problems she’d caused in Chrichton while simultaneously putting all his efforts into suppressing her authority.

At that time, Count Alessin was eerily calm. Before the Count had revealed his true colors, he had been treated as one of the King’s closes aids. Now that he’d been vanished alongside his daughter, Igor thought he’d come seeking revenge for his downfall.

“It seems like there’s been some sort of dispute between them” said Basil.

After reading Basil’s reports on the matter, Igor realized the reason why Count Clovis had behaved so calmly for the past years. The past ten years, the Count had remained quiet like a mouse, hiding his ambition and greed for the throne in the shadows. He’d planted a spy within the Palace who would regularly give him reports regarding the Royal Family. Count Clovis had been using this information to his advantage.

As he investigated deeper and deeper into all issues regarding Count Clovis, he found out something terrible. All this time, ever since Rihannan first entered the Palace, Count Clovis had been poisoning the Queen’s food with anti-conceptive pills. If she couldn’t produce and heir, the Count and his bloodline would naturally inherit the throne. That had been his plan all along.

Once the Count had found out about the deteriorated relationship between the King and the Queen, he’d ordered his spies to cease putting pills into the Queen’s food. He’d thought there would be no way of them conceiving a child, given their ruined relationship.

Igor struck the wall and clenched his teeth. He felt the strong urge to strangle and murder Count Clovis. The King and Queen had been incapable of producing an heir. Everyone thought Rihannan was sterile and badmouthed her.

Rumors within the Palace walls blamed her for her weak constitution.

If Rihannan had not taken those anti conceptive pills, she would have born an heir long ago, and their relationship would not have turned sour. Their relationship was noticeably better ever since she’d became pregnant with his child.

When he heard news of Rihannan’s pregnancy, Count Clovis’ meticulous plans were thrown to the trash. He was at the edge of reason, so he approached Count Alessin. He wanted to take advantage of Count Alessin’s hatred towards the King.

The best Count Clovis could do was use Count Alessin and Leticia to put an end to the life within Rihannan’s womb, while also plundering Count Alessin’s vast fortune.

That’s why Igor made up his mind of using Leticia.

Igor knew very well her vanity, her desires and her ambition for the throne. She feverishly wished for her sister’s position. She wanted to become the Queen of Arundell. And she actually believed she had a chance to achieve that. Of course, she informed her father and Count Clovis about it.

At that time, all that had happened around him could be used in Igor’s favor. He successfully hid the fact that it was her mother who’d poisoned Chrichton’s Royal Family, and pressured her with the letters she’d exchanged with Chrichton’s nobility, His plans wouldn’t have worked had she not paid for sensitive information about Chrichton and masked the Royal Family’s poisoning as an infectious disease.

Igor threatened his mother. He told her he’d publicly announce the terrible crimes she’d committed against Chrichton. She immediately quieted down. Many hands that had formerly supported her stopped doing so. She was being pushed to the edge till she finally gave up and decided to relent, rather than directly opposing her son.

This sequent of events made him let down his guard. The years he’d spent silently preparing his revenge dissipated. The obstacles he’d once had had been surpassed. His conviction reached new heights. He thought everything would go as he’d imagined.

But he never thought that one small mistake would cost him everything.

***

Leticia calmly looked at the man sitting in front of her with his legs crossed. This man had brought her to some unknown place without revealing his identity, nor why he’d brought her here, nor what he was planning on doing to her. He simply left her there, locked up inside some sort of cabin, without telling her their location.

She could only see dense trees from her window, which didn’t let through even a ray of sunlight. The cabin she slept in didn’t have any electricity and was also quite damp.

And just like that, days went by. Leticia caused a ruckus, screaming to the top of her lungs and demanding the presence of that man. But it was all useless. That man came and went as he pleased, always covered from head to toe with that black robe.

“Who are you?” Leticia asked, cautiously.

“Shouldn’t you thank me first?” the man replied calmly.

“Why should I thank you?”

“If not for me, Viscountess, you’d be spending your life in a cold, dark prison. Your mind would be under constant torture. You are guilty of murder, of killing your own biological father and the Lady you once served. You even conspired to kill the Queen of Arundell. It’s highly likely that they’d torture you. Death will not come easily to you”.

Leticia’s jaw dropped. “How did you kn-…?”

“The whole world is upside-down right now, Viscountess. You’ve become a highly wanted criminal”.