"I'll kill him! Bastard!" Charles's eyes were bloodshot as he twisted and struggled desperately. "Let me go!"
Count Bender asked in shock, "Who do you want to kill? What exactly happened?"
He was a French diplomat and one of the principal executors of this plan.
Charles's attendant quietly hid the pistol in his hand—if the prince had not brought a gun today, this pistol would have appeared on the card table. "Let go!" Charles pointed fiercely at Room 219 and roared, "He stole my woman! I want to duel him!"
"Unforgivable!" Count Bender showed an angry expression as well. "Which family's young lady have you fallen for?"
Charles blurted out, "She isn't some family's young lady..."
Bender immediately cut him off nervously. "Could it be that you've fallen for a married woman?"
Charles lifted his chin stubbornly. "So what if I have?"
"With all due respect, then you should not threaten her husband."
"No, he isn't her husband..."
In the hall downstairs, the commander of the Queen's Guard gestured to several people beside him. "Go confirm where the lady is."
Then he shouted at everyone, "Everyone, put down your weapons! Who was firing just now?"
A few minutes earlier, he had received a note saying someone intended to assassinate someone at the Masquerade Ball. He had rushed into the villa with his men in a frenzy, only to hear gunfire at that very moment.
Everyone in the hall turned their eyes toward Charles.
The Guard commander pointed viciously upstairs. "Bring him down!"
Louise Caroline, Princess of Hesse, recognized that troublesome "Stag" as Prince Charles, and panic seized her heart.
She hurriedly removed her mask and strode to the officer. "Sir, I can assure you that that gentleman is merely drunk. He would never harm anyone."
The Guard commander saluted her.