About Your Pride and My Prejudice

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“So, have you read the novel again?”

Mr. Maurice sat in front of me with a polite and serious expression. Even today, he has a face that looks somewhat tired.

“Yes.”

“What did you think?”

He didn’t even look at the tea the maids had brought for him. His deep green gaze was chasing me the whole time.

“……Well, have some tea first. It’s going to get cold.”

“Please answer me.”

“…….”

I had a hunch that the painful conversation would finally begin.

“I’m convinced that I still have love for Alan Leopold.”

“That means…!”

“Don’t get me wrong. I mean, I’ve been reminded that the very thing that brought me here was that unauthorized feeling.”

The eyes of Mr. Maurice, whose eyes had been shining with earnest light at the hastily added words, sank deeply.

“I reflected on how much I loved him and how hard and painful it was for me.  I thought I shouldn’t have read this novel again.”

“…….”

Instead of answering, Mr. Maurice clenched his fists on the table. As a result, the teacup on the saucer shook finely and made a clattering sound.

I watched the blue veins appear on the back of his hand with puzzled eyes.

“Miss, I told you. This novel must be completed.”

For a moment I felt a strange threat. The ferocious energy he was giving out made my shoulders shrink.

I never thought it would be so comforting to have some unknown maids standing on one side of the room.

“…… Mr. Maurice, I understand that completing this novel helps you. But it’s painful to carry on a novel filled with him. Because I have to shake him off. Besides…….”

“…….”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the events in this novel are based on facts. Some are by coincidence, but mostly.”

In the novel, Troy and the heroine danced together at a ball, and it was my intention that the heroine suffered as a result of that dance and it was a coincidence that Troy saved the heroine who was buried in the snow and was dying.

And the last part, the scene where Troy locks her up, became a reality due to Alan Leopold’s intentions.

At this point, isn’t it natural to fear that Alan might recreate the backstory of my new novel in his own twisted way?  Because I’m already in his script.

I can no longer dismiss it as a ridiculous illusion.

“That’s all for me,”

“Why don’t we change the flow of the story?”

“……What?”

Mr. Maurice raised his glasses with a cold face. He seemed a little annoyed, too.

“You don’t have to insist on a sad love story, do you? Let’s break up the two. And if you finish the story with the heroine’s consideration and growth, this novel will not stimulate your subconscious mind.”

“I can’t do that.”

I replied emphatically. I decided not to continue writing “Paradise on the Moon” to completely erase Alan Leopold, but the idea that the novel must end happily remains unchanged.

It’s a story that started only for that.

“This novel has an ending only meant for this novel. So if I’m not going to use it as it is, I should stop here. If you’re a novelist, you know what I mean.”

“Ha, I don’t understand at all.”

My forehead was also wrinkled at the sight of Mr. Maurice sighed as if he was frustrated. I gulped down the tea in an elegant white porcelain cup in a fit of anger.

“……Miss.”

I opened my mouth without missing the moment when the man sitting opposite me faltered at my uneducated appearance.

“Is it funny that a woman who has never published a book under her name is a novelist? I thought you’d understand because you said you were writing, but I think I overestimated you.”

“……I didn’t mean to offend you. I just want you to grab your pen again soon”

“No, Mr. Maurice.”

The frustrating thing was, on the contrary, it was on my side.

“You’re in love, too. Don’t tell me you’ve never been sick and tired of love.”

It wasn’t difficult for me to know that the love he embraced must have been similar to my feelings for Alan because I was in the same place as him. For me, it was easy to read the unfulfilled love in Mr. Maurice’s eyes.

Isn’t that so? I just couldn’t stand him acting like he couldn’t understand me.

I raised my eyes rather aggressively.

“Even the love made people around me suffer. Don’t you think it’s deceitful of you to talk like that when you know how painful it is when love can’t be achieved?”

“Miss.”

But I had to swallow my words soon. Because his voice calling me was trembling in a form close to anger.

“Love is inherently painful.”

“Huh, what?”

“I can’t believe I’m losing my mind over something like this. Your heart for him may not have been love.”

“What…!”

I felt like my blood was flowing back. If I hadn’t bitten my lip right away, I would have explained how much I loved Alan and how vividly the times I loved him still lives and breathes inside me.

I caught my breath by clenching my hem until my fingertips turned white. blaming myself for being so agitated by Mr. Maurice’s words

“I…”

Then, he added in a low voice.

“Could die for that love.”

* * *

It was the maid who ended my emotional and sluggish conversation with Mr. Maurice. While I was in the middle of the heated argument, the head maid came to my room and announced that lunch was ready.

It was already quite past lunch time, but as he and I showed no sign of ending our conversation, she seemed to have taken her own measures as the head maid. If I don’t eat on time, the master will scold her, right?

Anyway, I was just glad I could end the tough conversation with him.

Mr. Maurice handed me another word before he stepped back. I was polite, but I didn’t answer much because I felt nothing but a conciliation to decide to write a novel again.

‘One day you’ll understand.’

When I remembered his last words after he left, I recalled whether it was a line from Troy in the novel. I had no desire to play a mournful love affair with Maurice, who mimics Troy. To the point where I get goosebumps on the back of my neck just imagining it…….

I don’t know if it will be two days or three days later when he comes back, but the thought of facing those strangely blurry and muddy green eyes again already made me feel drained.

“Strange Man…….”

As I followed the maid to the dining hall, I threw a blank look out the window. A dazzling season of green was beckoning to me. When I imagined the ecstatic moment when the soft green grass tickled my ankles, I felt helpless.

“……huh?”

At that time, two figures across the far-reaching garden came into view. It was too small to be seen clearly, but it was definitely like people from the main building. When I stopped to get a closer look, they had already left the front door and disappeared from view.

When I stopped with a stunned face, the maid asked me as if wondering.

“Is there a problem?”

“Oh, I thought people were just coming out of the main building…….”

“They are probably students.”

“Students?”

When asked back in a daze, the maid replied calmly.

“Yes. Leopold scholarship students who help the master with his business.”

“They are the students from the Royal Academy in Sourne?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh….”

It was inevitable that the words reminded me of Tobias.

However, my heart, which was about to become infinitely fonder, froze white at the words of her that followed.

“I guess the master will be back tonight after a long time.”

“…Is Sir Alan coming back?”

“On the day he comes back home, people from the office always stop by to deliver the documents. The master has the habit of looking through documents before going to sleep.”

“…….”

I’ve never seen a maid talk so much. She seemed very pleased to praise her master, and there was a hint of contentment above her cheek, which had always been rigid.

I don’t think there’s a Sournean who doesn’t know that Alan Leopold is a great man without having to explain. Because I know it very well, too.

But even when I was in love with Alan, I never really thought deeply about how hard he was at work. It’s like I’m completely ignorant of business.

Perhaps she read my mind, the maid quietly added more words.

“No one is born perfect.”

There was a shimmering glow over her face. The thin smile seemed milder, perhaps thanks to the summer pouring in from the window.

But the maid’s rare kindness did not ease my mind.

Perhaps because of the wasteful conversation with Mr. Maurice, or because of the sudden news that I might have to face Alan this evening, I had no appetite. Even today, I had to eat splendid and rare dishes that cannot be compared to the foods I have ever eaten with an expressionless face.

Then I went straight back to my room and sat at the elegant reading table that had been waiting for me. On the desk were manuscripts of

and all kinds of romance novels.

“Ha….”

Somehow, I was not happy with the tea and cookies brought by the maids. In the meantime, Alan seldom returned to the mansion, so it was absurd and even a little irritating, but when I heard that he was coming back, something like an unknown fear arose.

In the end, I concluded that I can’t wait until bedtime, the time when I always take a bath. When I asked for an early bath, refusing to eat or drink, the maids quietly prepared bath water.

How long was I soaking myself in the bathtub? Suddenly, from outside the bathroom, where all the maids were waiting, a fussy voice was heard.

In fact, I just wanted to be submerged in warm water until I fell asleep. It was a day that was already terribly tormented because of Alan Leopold, whom I didn’t even meet.

“The young master is waiting for you.”

“Haaa…”

I buried my face on the surface of the water.

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