Chapter 2

For a moment, Beatrice was convinced she had imagined it.

Because there was no way Clyde would propose to her!

To regain her composure, she crushed an ice cube from her iced tea between her teeth and pressed her fingers against her temples.

“Ah, sorry. I must be tired. Could you say that again? What did you just say?”

“Marry me.”

“…Marry? Did you just ask me to marry you?”

“Yeah.”

Good heavens!

It wasn’t a hallucination after all?

Suppressing the urge to jump up and down on the spot, Beatrice forced herself to remain calm.

She had no idea what was going on, but the direction of the conversation was extremely favorable for her.

After clearing her throat and straightening her back, she looked at Clyde.

Even though she tried to hide her feelings, a trace of delight slipped into her voice.

“…You lunatic. What kind of proposal is that? Any woman who liked you would’ve run away. But fine. Let’s do it. Let’s get married.”

“…What?”

A tiny crack appeared in Clyde’s expression at her immediate acceptance.

It seemed he was also questioning whether he had heard correctly.

Unfortunately for him, Beatrice had no intention of giving him time to recover.

“You asked me to marry you. Actually, I came here to propose to you too.”

“…You did?”

“Yep.”

Ignoring his doubtful tone, Beatrice pulled the wrinkled proposal letter from her pocket and showed it to him.

She even carefully smoothed out the creases so he could read it properly.

“…”

“Hah. You saved my life by speaking first. I was agonizing over how I was supposed to say it.”

Stretching her arms as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders, she grabbed a cookie beside her iced tea and popped it into her mouth.

Now that her tension was gone, she suddenly felt hungry.

“…So you’re saying you were planning to propose to me too? Today?”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

Crunching on the cookie, Beatrice raised an eyebrow.

“Now that I think about it, this is kind of suspicious. Why are you proposing to me?”

“Well, people will start telling both of us to get married soon so we can use each other as shields…”

“Not that nonsense.”

“Then it’s because I…”

“Ah. For the record, you’re not allowed to say, “Because I’m handsome,” or, “Let’s get married as a favor to save someone’s life.”

“…What are you?”

Clyde let out a disbelieving laugh as if asking how she knew exactly what he had been planning to say.

Leaning back in his chair, he stared into space for a moment as though organizing his thoughts.

Then he leaned forward again.

The blue eyes everyone praised as beautiful shone with determination.

“Bea, just hear me out, even if it sounds ridiculous.”

“Go ahead.”

“…I think I regressed.”

His gaze was completely serious.

Beatrice listened quietly before casually shrugging.

“Oh. What a coincidence. Me too.”

“Bea, I’m not joking. I saw your family’s mansion burn down with my own eyes.”

The hand she had been reaching toward the cookie froze.

She blinked rapidly, hiding the tremble in her light green eyes.

Without thinking, she muttered:

“…Oh. You’re serious.”

“Huh?”

“But I’m serious too. Your entire family was executed after being accused of treason.”

Beatrice’s green eyes met Clyde’s blue ones.

The two of them knew each other extremely well.

Which meant they both instantly recognized that neither was lying.

Staring at Clyde with unusual seriousness, Beatrice pressed a hand to her forehead and lowered her head.

The tightly pressed lips and tense jaw visible beneath her hand looked unexpectedly grim.

At least grim enough for Clyde to stand up and grab her shoulders.

“Hey…”

The moment his warmth reached her shoulders, a short sigh escaped her lips.

“Haa… what is this?”

“What?”

“No, usually when you find out something like this, you’re supposed to feel relieved that you’re not alone, right?”

She raised her head again and looked Clyde up and down.

Then she clicked her tongue.

“Damn. Why are you so unreliable? Is it because you’re nothing but a good-looking idiot?”

“What did you just call me?”

“I mean, thank goodness my proposal didn’t fail because of this. Seriously, that’s great, but… if they were going to send someone else back too, then instead of you, maybe…”

Seeing the look in her eyes, Clyde immediately pressed down on the top of her head.

It was a surprisingly rough action for a man known throughout high society and the Imperial Knights as the very definition of a gentleman.

“And who exactly is saying such adorable things, huh? ‘Nothing but a good-looking idiot’? Ha! Want me to show you how amazing I am?”

“Aaah! I don’t care, you idiot! You’re the one who failed to prepare a proper proposal and ended up blurting out your secret! What exactly are you going to show me—ah! Take your hand off!”

“No.”

“Oh, so that’s how you’re going to be?”

Beatrice stopped flailing her arms.

Instead, she clenched her fist and drove it straight forward.

Directly into his solar plexus.

“Urgh!”

“What a baby.”

Snorting as Clyde bent over pretending to be hurt, she fixed her messy hair and stuck out her tongue.

“Then don’t do things that deserve getting hit.”

“…You…”

“Ah, enough! Nobody’s watching anyway. Stop wasting time and sit down. Since it’s come to this, let’s focus on preventing our families from being destroyed.”

She tapped the table impatiently.

The Clyde, who had been clutching his stomach moments earlier, immediately sat up perfectly fine.

As though deciding to let her off this once because of the seriousness of the situation, he settled back into his chair and spoke calmly.

“Fine. Let’s get straight to the point. You know too, right? There’s a force that drove a wedge between our families. And that ‘person’ was at the center of it.”

“Yeah.”

Of course she knew.

After everything had already fallen apart beyond repair, learning about that hidden force had driven her into despair.

It’s fine. This time will be different.

Beatrice pushed the memories aside.

The past wasn’t what mattered right now.

“It won’t work this time. So if we…”

“If we get married and make our two families effectively one family.”

“Exactly.”

The two met each other’s eyes again and simultaneously extended their hands.

They shook.

Though only briefly.

After all, there was no reason to hold Clyde Dalton’s hand any longer than necessary.

Having confirmed their alliance, Clyde calmly pulled out a piece of paper from his coat.

“As you’ve probably guessed, there’s one major obstacle we need to overcome if we’re going to get married.”

“Right. Both of us have older brothers.”

“I came up with an idea in case convincing everyone takes too long.”

“That paper is… no way!”

“Yep. Exactly what you’re thinking.”

Next to Beatrice’s wrinkled proposal letter, he placed a perfectly crisp marriage registration form.

“If things start dragging out, let’s just submit it first.”

Beatrice immediately gave him a standing ovation.

Then she added in complete seriousness:

“Let’s fill it out now. Do you have another copy?”

“I do.”

“Each of us should carry one. If either of us senses something suspicious, we submit it immediately.”

“Deal.”

Nodding in satisfaction, the two picked up pens and began filling out the forms.

“Wow. Writing my name next to yours is genuinely giving me chills. See? The hairs on my arm are standing up.”

“Look who’s talking. How am I supposed to live with someone like this?”

“Live with? Please. My mother said divorce isn’t even scandalous these days. Once everything’s over, let’s split up cleanly. My family is rich, so you don’t even have to pay alimony.”

“You’re probably the only person in the world talking about divorce while accepting a proposal.”

“You should be grateful I accepted something that pathetic and called it a proposal.”

The marriage registration forms they completed while bickering like that ended up becoming extremely useful.

***

“Come on! What’s the difference between getting married three years from now and getting married now?! I want to marry Clyde! Let me marry him! Pleeease!”

The only difference was that they ended up being used in a far more humiliating way than originally intended.

“Y-You…! My goodness! I heard you ran off to the Duke’s estate to see Clyde without even making an appointment, so I rushed over thinking, ‘What is a grown lady doing?’ And now this? How embarrassing! Is this really how your mother raised you?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care! If you don’t give permission, I might just go and do it anyway!”

Not only had they been forced to use the forms much sooner than expected…

Beatrice, lying dramatically on the floor in front of her mother, secretly glanced toward Clyde.

At least one thing was comforting.

She wasn’t the only one humiliating herself.

“Forgive me for saying this,” Clyde said politely, “but wouldn’t it be better for both families to celebrate our wedding in person rather than learning about our marriage through paperwork and the Imperial newspapers?”

Well…

That was hardly a respectable argument either.