The Prince’s Taste - Chapter 7.3

“I wasn’t following, by the way—we were walking while having a conversation.”

“Same difference. Either way, clingy guys aren’t hot.”

“Got it. I’ll see you at the banquet. Try to survive until then.”

Still laughing, red in the face, he waved her off like he was sending a guest off from his own estate.

“Let’s go home.”

“My lady, you’re finally returning home?”

Calling it a ‘return’ made it sound like she was returning victorious from a battlefield. Though, she supposed, with a tiara on her head, maybe it was a return indeed. She tried to take it off, but it was fastened so tightly she didn’t dare mess up her hair. Too mortified to deal with it, she simply ducked her head.

Despite the looming scolding, the road home felt strangely heartwarming. The steady clip-clop of hooves was almost nostalgic. As she looked out the window, she murmured to herself,

“Over there’s about where I first saw Ella…”

In an instant, Judy Esther rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it— but there, standing by the roadside, was Ella. So this was what they called an inescapable fate? Should she just pretend not to see? If she just kept her eyes shut, maybe this would all pass. But then she remembered the original plot. In the novel, Judy Esther and Richard had been engaged. And that engagement had ended brutally because Richard had a change of heart. Maybe everything was still moving along the original rails. She asked the coachman to stop. He looked at her with worry. When the carriage halted, she stepped down and walked straight toward Ella. Ella didn’t run. She stared back with her expression hollowed out, like someone whose soul had been carved out and misplaced.

“…Judy Esther…?”

“Ella.”

“…You know me?”

Ella mumbled the words as she looked at her. In a rigid society like this one, a baron’s daughter speaking to a marquis’s daughter this casually wasn’t proper etiquette.

Judy Esther recalled the novel again. Ella, as written, had never learned proper manners. She’d grown timid under the harsh rule of her stepmother and stepsisters.

But wait. That look in her eyes just now wasn’t timidity. It was sharp. Calculated. Something was different. The Ella standing before her was not the same girl Judy had read about. There was steel in her gaze. Seeing Ella’s wary eyes confused Judy Esther. Had Judy’s interference in the story changed Ella too? To tell the truth, she wasn’t sure anymore. It had been fifteen years since she landed in this world. And technically, the novel hadn’t even begun back then. The original story’s first scene opened with the Founding Day Ball.

“How do you know me?”

Ella asked. Judy Esther just looked at her in silence for a long moment..

“By chance.”

Because her face was exactly the same as the one described in the novel.

How Ella knew Judy Esther didn’t really matter. Judy’s own recent public outings had attracted so much attention that were enough to make her face familiar. But the odds of Judy Esther knowing Ella were slim. Was that what she was asking?

Or was there another completely different possibility to consider? Something stranger. Could it be that Ella, like her, was also from somewhere else? Also reincarnated?

“Do you know… South Korea?”

She asked her directly, without warning, thinking she could get a rough idea of what Ella’s reaction would be if asked an unguarded question.

“……..?”

“What’s the story behind Cinderella?”

“What?”

Ella’s face twisted like she’d just heard something crazy.

“You know Richard, right?”

“…There’s no citizen in Adrian who doesn’t know the Crown Prince.”

“True enough.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Hmm. I wonder.”

‘Because in this world, you’re the heroine. I’m the villain who’s meant to torment you, but thanks to the changes I’ve made, I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen to you.’

“Are you attending the Founding Day ball?”

“…Is that important?”

“Yeah.” fes

Ella’s gaze slid over Judy Esther carefully, then let out a sharp, bitter laugh.

“As you can see, I can’t exactly show up like this, can I?”

She gestured to her threadbare dress. Even in rags, Ella was beautiful. Radiantly so.

“Do you want to go?”

“Isn’t that an obvious question?”

Judy Esther hesitated. What should she do about this girl? She didn’t waver long. She’d make a gamble.

“I’ll help you.”

If the fairy godmother wasn’t going to show up and turn Ella into Cinderella, then she had no choice but to do it herself

“You will?”

“For one day, I’ll be your fairy.”

She might regret this day for a long time. But if those two were fated to meet, there was no stopping it. Whether she intervened or not, fate would find a way. If so, it was better for it to happen right before her eyes.

She had no interest in getting blindsided.