Chapter 4

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So here we are, the royal capital, Heart of Beltine.

It’s a large city located about four hours south of the duke’s territory. We arrived here after travelling by horse-drawn carriage through the sea road.

The capital is also known as the beautiful “water city”, because of the canals running all across the city, and connecting it with the Berthine Bay.

There are so many water canals because the city was built over a lagoon.

The great aristocratic Rosedale family has luxurious mansions in the royal capital, as expected for a large and antique family like ours.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a tea party (or birthday party) to attend.

Until then, I’ll stay in one of the Rosedale family residences.

However, after going to bed I couldn’t sleep at all.

This residence is the same one I used each time I went to visit the second prince.

I frequented this house so much that people started calling it ‘The private house of the lady that is always waiting”.

Now I can’t sleep because each time I close my eyes I recall my encounter with the second prince in my previous life!

“I’m pleased to meet you, Your Highness. I’m Chelsea, from the Rosedale family. It is a great pleasure to be invited to your birthday tea party.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Kyle Shelbrett. Thank you for coming.”

The look on the second prince’s face at that moment, was so dainty that I thought it was love at first sight, for ten years I believed so.

The boy called Kyle, replied frankly to my presentation, with a soft calming smile as I tried to act like a proper duchess.

Now I can understand that his smile was not an expression of goodwill towards me or anything else, it was just manners, but at the time, that smile captured my heart.

After that I became an unbearable little girl who showed extraordinary possessiveness and threatened all the other young ladies at the tea party if they get closer to him.

Not to mention my family and the Queen, who had thought of me as one of the candidates for the second prince’s fiancée, they all were very enthusiastic, and the engagement quickly and smoothly was decided.

Really, I think I was out of my mind. I don’t know what was so good about a man with just that kind of face, voice, style, ability, cleanliness, freshness, family background, and manners.

… Yeah, I guess everything was good about him.

Of course, right now I want to refuse to get engaged with the second prince at all costs.

No, it’s not a refusal, I mean it’s out of the question!

I’m not masochistic enough to get engaged to a man who is certain to cheat on me in the future and drive me to my ruin.

… Oh, of course, if Mason is actually the tamer and wants to train me as a slave, then I’ll gladl—.

Let’s get back to the subject!!

Finally, tomorrow is the tea party, I’m going to do the minimum amount of greetings and pass the time while practicing my magic control in a corner!

Good, but to be honest, there’s one thing I’m worried about.

That is that the moment I meet the second prince, my personality can fundamentally change.

It is… when I meet him again… At that moment… I don’t want to lose my ’18-year-old self’s person’ (personality, resolutions, feelings, ego, etc)

If it’s reduced to a mere ‘memory’ and I’m thrust into a blind love… I’ll become a puppet controlled by something else that is not me.

It would be the first step to my destruction… I’ll end up acting the same way I did in my previous life!

With those worries in my head, I had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

(I’m sure we’ll be fine, I’ll trust my love for Mason! I have to trust my love for Mason!)

I told myself that repeatedly, but in the end I didn’t fall asleep until after 2am.

I wasn’t being able to sleep, so I gave up trying and headed to the restaurant and bar on the first floor of the inn where I was staying.

There, I found someone sitting alone at the corner of the counter, drinking a drink forlornly.

“May I sit next to you?”

“…? Oh, miss. Of course. Go ahead.”

With that, he held out the chair next to his own, so I could sit comfortably.

After saying thanks, I sat down in the chair.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Okey, I’ll ask for the same you are drinking.”

“This one? It’s pretty high in alcohol, is that okay?”

“Yes, please.”

“…Okay. Waiter! An extra round of ‘Black Dragon’s Breath’, please.”

“Yes.”

The drink brought to me after a while was definitely high in alcohol.

It was not at all suitable for a lady like me, it was a drink for adult men.

But somehow it tasted really good.

“You can’t sleep?”

“No, not very much.”

“That’s true, isn’t it?”

“….”

He carried his cocktail to his mouth in silence.

He didn’t say anything more either, and a silence passed between us.

How much time had passed?

Besides us and the barman, the place was empty, and in the silence we tipped our glasses sometimes as we remembered.

“… You are…”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Don’t you despise me, Mr. Beckford?”

“I don’t.”

“… I see. … You know how I came to be like this, don’t you?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“… And yet you don’t despise me? Don’t you think I’m a foolish woman, mad with jealousy and now ruined?”

Maybe I was hoping for a good answer or that someone told me that it wasn’t entirely my fault.

“I don’t think so. Rather… I despise your former fiancé.”

When he gives me an answer that is just as I expected, or rather more than I expected.

He surprised me greatly.

“… That– statement is a bit dangerous, isn’t it? Ha ha.”

He is aware of it, because he continues to talk in a whisper.

“Actually, you see, I volunteered to be your escort.”

“?!”

“Yes. It’s just that… I don’t feel like the lady’s situation is strange to me… Oh, I’m not pitying you or anything! It’s more of a sympathy thing.”

Sympathy…

“You don’t even know what’s going on!! Don’t go around sympathizing with me–!! … I’m sorry.”

“No, there is no need to… But why did you feel that way?”

Then he told me about himself: how he had a girlfriend he loved with all his heart and spent more than four years with, how he was thinking of proposing to her soon, but that she had recently betrayed him, and how he couldn’t sleep without strong alcohol from that day on.

And then I told him about all my story, how I was engaged to the Prince, how he fell in love with someone else and the breaking off of the engagement.

“What the young lady is alleged to have done is not in itself something you can be proud of, that is true. But I can understand how you feel back then and the reasons why you reached those extremes.”

“I would! … Honestly— if I could, I would have killed that idiot!… No… if … if the chance had appeared…. I would have.”

“Yes…. You are betrayed by someone you love with all your heart and are told to stay acting composed.”

The table was wet with my tears as I listened to his comforting words, his words had definitely saved my heart and sanity at that moment.

And the distance between me and him rapidly shrank after that night.

When I woke up in the morning, my pillow was wet with tears.

However, I’m feeling better now.

There is no need to worry about meeting the Second Prince and loosing myself or anything.

Having remembered my beloved Mason, I’m feeling stronger.

And in the midst of sleep deprivation, I rode into the royal palace’s tea party, and I was able to practice my magic control in a corner, doing only the minimum amount of greetings (as planned). I was too sleepy to concentrate much, though.

Meeting Prince Kyle? It was nothing!

We just introduced ourselves briefly to each other and that was it.

He was still a beautiful looking boy, but I didn’t feel anything in particular about it, to the point of finding his appearance a little funny, like a doll.

In the first place, if an 18-year-old woman in the body of an 8 years old girl has a crush on an 8-year-old boy, that’s a crime!

So, even if I’m not discovered, I feel like being sent to a convent would become a deserved punishment.

And as I practiced my magic control, I thought that maybe Mason had shown me the dream I had yesterday because he was worried about me feeling weak.

‘Remember whose girl you are!’ Is that kind of message? Oh my God, that’s so cool! I love it!

And yes Queen, I am very sick! Cough! Cough!

Let’s go home and get some sleep, okey?

Translated by Djurasico (dot) home (dot) blog

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