About Your Pride and My Prejudice

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Sad tears burst out again and I buried my head.

“Hik……uhhh…..”

At that moment, I heard Alan putting down the tableware roughly. My shoulders flinched in response.

He’s angry. Of course he would be. He must have come back from a hard day. I don’t think he’ll like to see a woman who cries so loudly during the precious mealtime.

But when I raised my head, I saw Alan, who was looking at me with a serious face covering his mouth. I thought he was so angry that he put the tableware down hard…… Did he drop it?

I forgot to sniffle and looked him in the eye, and he whispered.

“You made an excuse, didn’t you?”

“…….”

“Is it because of me?”

I tried to answer that it was true that I was crying for a book, but then I shut up again. Because ultimately it’s Alan Leopold. After all, it’s true that all this sadness is because of him.

Then Alan continued,

“I’m not good at comforting.”

“…….”

I had no particular expectation that he would comfort me. So I can’t help but stare at Alan silently.

His dark hair, blue-gray eyes as if melting a distant winter night, and picturesque lips. Even if I close my eyes, his face never leaves my head as if an afterimage had been engraved on my eyelids.

Then Alan whispered quietly.

“I’m sorry, but no matter how much you cry, I have no intention of letting you go, Melissa.”

His whisper was as faint as mist, but it sounded clearer than anything else. Is it because it’s so quiet that I can even hear the candle burning? Even Alan’s breath seemed to be heard.

I opened my mouth with a deep voice.

“I… for you…… Because you have to complete the ?”

“Yes.”

When I managed to ask, he answered without a moment’s hesitation and smiled. The smile was so noble and wicked that it was impossible to tell whether he was the devil in the face of an angel or vice versa.

I hate Alan so much that I want to inflict hellish pain on him but at the same time I wanted to confess my love right away like lava. Feeling the sudden heat in my cheeks, I hurriedly lowered my gaze.

But his next words made my head rise again.

“I’ll do you a favour.”

“…do me a favour?”

“Yes, because I don’t want you to cry.”

Alan had an absolutely pleasing voice. It’s so nice that I want to just listen without answering. I have no choice but to cry when he whispers sweet words in a low voice.

But if I ask him to let me send a letter to my family or let me out of here, or let me hate him, he’ll laugh. As if he is teasing me, or as if he is seducing me…….

Despite it feeling a bit absurd, even for myself, I asked him for a favour. 

“……I wish we could have dinner together every day.”

He was silent for a moment. I was afraid to see what kind of expression he was making, so I stared at the transparent water droplets on the surface of the glass.

It would be absurd. I felt the same way. I was envious of the lovers in the , and the separation between them and me was so sad that I cried like a child, but I can’t believe I’m asking Alan Leopold to do this. I couldn’t believe it myself. Did I want to whine?

Then, I heard a sweet, low tone.

“That sounds difficult.”

“…….”

I thought the answer would come back, but his tone was more serious than I thought, so I opened my eyes wide. Is he kidding? He’s making fun of me, right? I was going to think so, but Alan continued,

“It’s hard to come back every day right now, and it’s hard to come on time. But I’ll try.”

“Try…”

He won’t know how much comfort those trivial and common words brought to me.

“Anything else?”

“The other thing is…”

I was repeating his words like a fool. When I stared at him, he was still looking at me. A faint golden glow rose over the candlestick between us.

Thinking that this moment was somehow magical, I suddenly realized that my tears had stopped.

Alan may actually have a knack for soothing people who cry.

“Buy me some flowers.”

“…….”

“Every time you come home.”

Then he smiled instead of answering, with a very gentle and graceful smile.

The meaning of the smile was unknown, but the appearance of the thin candlelight coloring a cold winter-like face with a gentle color was sublime enough to hold my breath. No religious artwork in the world would be as sacred as this.

I whispered with the last remaining reason.

“Don’t buy roses…….”

* * *

<img src="https://fourseasonsforest.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/image.png">

Alan, though busy working at home, always allowed me to borrow his short and distant time. But after meeting with him, it has definitely been easier to write Troy. It is just amazing that the nib, which never moved forward, draws a vivid picture of Troy as if it is alive.

“……… That’s because I can write it while thinking of Alan.”

I smiled quietly in a sense of embarrassment. Even as a writer, there is no change in the fact that he is a character that even I cannot understand, but that’s the point of Troy in the first place, so it doesn’t matter. Like the moon that shines even though it hides behind the dark side.

The only important thing is to finish this as soon as possible. The only thing that can be exchanged for my freedom is the completed

.

Of course it won’t be easy, but I will try my best to come up with a satisfactory ending. Write it as if this is the last work of my life. 

It was when I held the pen again with that thought.

“Miss.”

I hurriedly looked towards the door at the sudden unfamiliar voice and saw a tall maid standing there.  I suddenly thought that it had been a long time since I had called a maid. After Sandra came as a maid, I never talked to the maids.

The servants here are all expressionless. So it was disturbing that the maid’s face was strangely frightened. Sandra went to find a vase for my room. Why is she so late….

“Someone is looking for you, milady.”

“What? Alan is here?”

I’m sure we ate together yesterday, but he came back again today?

‘I’ll try.’

Only then did I recall his answer. I can count on one hand the number of his visits because the days he comes home is very rare; even the hours of his sleep are fewer because he is busy with his work. I can’t believe he made such an immediate effort at every word I said. Somehow, I felt as if there was a wave in my heart.

“It’s not the young master.”

Until I heard the maid’s answer.

“Then who….”

“I shouldn’t let them wait, so please follow me.”

“…….”

It was a very solemn voice. Without asking any more questions, I got up, tidying up my lightweight dress.

I walked cautiously up the hallway, staring blankly at the fluttering lace hem under the maid’s black, voluminous skirt. My mind was full of belated questions.

Who on earth can call me out here except the owner of the mansion? A person of such dignity as to make the maid so rigid…….

Did Ian Leopold find out that Alan had hidden a woman here? I’m sure he’d want to know the truth first. All the employees here are his people, so it is fully explained that the maid looked scared.

Ian Leopold is a prominent businessman and one of the economic and social leaders of the kingdom. He could certainly give his young, twisted son a hard scolding for locking up an innocent woman.

However, I was very puzzled by the intention of her maid, who did not reveal that this unexpected guest was Mr. Leopold. Why did she look so cautious when he is her master….

At that moment, I stopped thinking that it might be Prince Bentley who was looking for me.

“There is no time to delay. Come quickly.”

“Oh……yes.”

The prince said he was a close friend of Alan Leopold but Alan had firmly denied it, and I can’t believe Alan and that eerie prince are best friends.

But even if that’s a lie, he’s a member of Sourne’s royal family. It would be easy for him to come to the people’s house and call someone out.

Besides, the prince knows me. It would have been very easy for him, who already knows my name and my house, to find out that I’m here. I sighed automatically when I thought that far.

“Haa….”

In the grand hallway leading to the main building, there were endless windows, but the clear sunlight could not be seen at all because of the heavy rain that started pouring in from morning.

The sky beyond the window, which is gray, incites melancholy.  As I smelled the damp moisture and rain floating in the air, I stepped forward helplessly.

Eventually, the maid and I arrived at the heavy dark-red door. It wasn’t the dining hall I met with Alan recently, nor was it his office.

Then the maid knocked nervously on the door.

“I brought her, milady.”