CH 349

Princess Mia’s Blissful Bath Time

“Phew!” The first thing Mia did when she got back to Saint-Noel was, of course, take a long bath.

For her sake, it should be noted that she hadn’t forgotten about Citrina. The boys took it upon themselves to put together a search party. When they saw how dirty she was, the three gentlemen told her to take a bath and rest.

Mia didn’t know much about military deployment and command, so she would just get in the way if she stayed. She would have been better off letting them do all the work. Which she was happy to do.

Before running straight to the bath, she had asked Bel to join her, but the younger girl was so worried about Citrina that she went with the boys instead.

They were probably in a room with Rafina by now, talking about all kinds of serious things. Which made Mia even happier to be somewhere else.

As she entered the bathing room, a cloud of steam surrounded her. “Aaah… Nothing calms a girl down like a warm bath—Huh?”

She frowned when she smelled something. It smelled good and came from the bath. “This…smells like princess roses? Mmm, it smells pleasant. But from where does it come? Did someone put bath salt in it?”

Mia’s mind was already done for the day at this point. After a long night of near-death experiences, she was fully in “epilogue mode,” which turned off all of her danger sensors.

Which was too bad, because if she had left even a small crew on the bridge, they would have reminded her where princess roses were grown in Saint-Noel and what it would mean for her to meet the caretaker of that secret garden alone right now.

She should have known these things, but her tired senses made her think about something else. “Bath salt… That reminds me, Rina gave me some once, didn’t she?”

The kind-hearted girl had given Mia a special blend of salts that helped with tiredness when she saw her tired after riding practise. Not too long ago, that girl got out of a bad situation by using the same herbs that make smoke.

Citrina had saved her life for sure. She owed her a lot.

“This means that Barbara is probably the main bad guy in this situation, and Rina was forced to do what she did. Then, right at the end, she turned on Barbara to save me. That must have what happened.”

In trying to figure out what happened, Mia came to the conclusion that Citrina, knowing what Barbara was trying to do, must have asked Chloe ahead of time to give her some smoke-making bath salt that she had kept for emergencies.

“I need to pay her back. And in order to do that, I must first save her. If not for me, then for Bel.” Citrina was the best friend of her beloved granddaughter. That was enough for Mia to want to save her.

“It won’t be easy,” she muttered as she started to clean up before her bath. Usually, Anne would be standing nearby, ready to help at any time. Right now, though, she went back to their room to get a change of clothes, leaving Mia alone in the bath room.

As she worked the soap into a good lather and started rubbing it all over her body, she suddenly noticed something. “…My, how strange. My arms seems a little jigglier than they should be.”

A quick review of recent events showed snapshots of the enemy rider easily catching up to her and Kuolan, followed by a montage of her “living in the moment” phase and the diet it had required.

“…I’m probably just imagining things. Me? Jiggly? Nonsense. I’m not jiggly. I can’t get jiggly because of my body.”

Her obsession with the word kept her from noticing something more important. How quickly her mind played back recent memories, starting with Citrina, then riding Kuolan, and then moving on to the decadent glory of her days of living in the moment…

It was scary, like how someone’s life would flash before their eyes when they were about to die.

Without this knowledge, she didn’t know that her subconscious was trying to tell her that she was in grave and immediate danger. Just as she finished rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and was enjoying the feeling of being clean, the door to the chamber opened suddenly.

She looked over when she heard a noise and thought Anne had come back.

She was not ready for what she saw because she was not on guard.

Anne wasn’t the one who walked in, but…

“Gosh, Mia. Nice to see you,” Rafina Orca Belluga said with a smile.

“Ah, it’s good to see you, too, Miss Rafina.”

In fact, Mia wasn’t ready for anything, so she didn’t do anything at all, whether it was fight or flight or something else. Even her instincts to stay alive had left her.

She must have been very busy with the ceremony and everything else. Then she probably had to deal with Abel and the others asking her to put together a search party… Being the daughter of Duke Belluga isn’t easy, is it?

Mia jumped into the pool as Rafina washed her hair. As she stepped into the water, a lovely scent filled her nose, which made the feeling even better.

“Ooof,” she groaned as she stretched out her arms and legs in her usual old man way.

“Aaaah,” she sighed.

It feels great. So good it’s hard to explain. I can feel the stiffness melting away in my joints… A good bath really is the best thing ever.

Rafina spoke as she took in the moment: “So? How do you like my unique blend of bath salts?”

“Oh, it is great. Did you make this?”

“I did,” Rafina said with a giggle. “It helps a lot with tiredness. Just takes the tiredness right out of you…”

For some reason, when she said this, Mia felt a chill go up her spine. It was an eerie experience. She was all wet from the bath. She felt the heat all over her body. Yet, she couldn’t help but shiver.

What on the moons was that?

Before she could come up with anything else, Rafina said, “After all, you look so tired today. So I put together this blend just for you.”

She turned around as soon as she was done washing her hair and looked right at Mia.

“I heard that your day off the island was very exciting. I think it had something to do with a death-defying adventure?”

A slow, humourless smile crept across her lips, making Mia shudder again.

W-Wait… I-Is she angry?

After a long time, she finally realised what her situation meant. She was alone in the bathhouse with Rafina, who for some reason was very angry.

So, she was in a lot of trouble.