Beatrice was certain what she heard was a hallucination. Because there was no way Clyde would propose to her!
To snap out of it, she crunched on the ice in her iced tea and pressed her temples as she continued.
“Ah, sorry. I must be a bit tired. Could you say that again? What just now?”
“Marry me.”
“……Mar… riage? Are you saying we should get married right now?”
“Yeah.”
My goodness! It wasn’t a hallucination?
Beatrice suppressed the urge to jump up and down on the spot and tried her best to act nonchalant.
She didn’t know what was what, but for now, the flow of things itself was highly favorable to her.
Clearing her throat lightly and straightening her back, she looked at Clyde and spoke.
Even though she had done her best to suppress her emotions, a slight hint of willingness seeped into her cheeky voice.
“…You crazy b*stard, what kind of proposal is that? Any woman who actually liked you would run away. But, fine. Let’s do it, the marriage.”
“…What?”
A fine crack appeared in Clyde’s expression at her excessively fast acceptance. He too seemed to be doubting if what he heard was real.
Of course, Beatrice had no intention of waiting for him to regain his senses.
“I said let’s get married. Actually, I came here to propose to you, too.”
“…You did?”
“Mhm.”
Listening to Clyde’s somewhat dubious question, Beatrice pulled the crumpled proposal letter out of her pocket and showed it to him.
She didn’t forget the courtesy of smoothing out the wrinkles, just in case the letters weren’t clearly visible.
“….”
“Haa, you saved me by speaking first. I was wondering how on earth I was going to bring this up.”
Stretching her arms out wide as if she were finished, she popped a cookie that had been sitting next to the iced tea into her mouth. Since the tension had vanished, she felt somewhat peckish.
“…So, you were planning to propose to me, too? Today?”
“I’m telling you, yes.”
Beatrice, who was affirming Clyde’s words while crunching on the cookie, slightly arched one eyebrow.
“Come to think of it, this is suspicious. Why are you proposing to me?”
“Well, it’s about time people start nagging you to get married, so using each other as shields—”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“Then I—”
“Ah. For your information, ‘Because I’m handsome’ and ‘Let’s get married as if you’re saving a person’s life’ are also banned.”
“…What are you?”
Letting out a hollow laugh as if wondering how on earth she knew all that, he leaned back in his chair with both hands up.
Clyde stared into the air for a moment as if contemplating something, then pulled his upper body forward to face Beatrice again.
Those blue eyes that everyone praised as beautiful shone with determination.
“Bea, even if it sounds absurd, just listen for now.”
“Go ahead.”
“…I think I might have undergone something called a regression.”
Clyde’s gaze was dead serious.
Beatrice listened quietly to his low, sunken voice before letting out a casual hum and shrugging her shoulders.
“Oh, what a coincidence. Same here.”
“Bea, I’m not joking. I saw your house burning down with my own eyes.”
Her body, which had been nonchalantly reaching for a cookie, momentarily froze.
Hiding her trembling light-green eyes with a quick blink, she murmured unknowingly.
“…Oh, so it’s true.”
“What?”
“But I’m serious, too. Your family was framed as traitors and every last one of you was executed.”
Beatrice’s light-green eyes and Clyde’s blue eyes briefly locked in the air.
The two knew each other exceptionally well. Which meant, they knew right now that these words were the absolute truth without a single lie.
Beatrice, looking at Clyde with an unusually serious gaze, pressed her hand to her forehead and looked down.
Her tightly pursed lips and tensed jaw visible beneath her hand looked quite grave.
At least enough for Clyde to stand up and grab her by the shoulders.
“Hey…”
And the moment his warmth touched her shoulders, a short sigh escaped Beatrice’s mouth.
“Tsk…. Ha, what is this.”
“Ah?”
“No, normally when you find out a fact like this, shouldn’t you feel relieved that you’re not alone?”
Muttering in a voice of disbelief, Beatrice raised her head again. Then, looking Clyde up and down, she clicked her tongue once more.
“Damn it, why do I feel so zero sense of reassurance? Is it because he’s just a guy who’s nothing but a handsome shell?”
“What did you say, you brat?”
“No, I mean, thank goodness the proposal didn’t fall through because of this, which is a massive relief, a real massive relief… but if they were going to regress one more person, I’d rather it be anyone else but him…”
Seeing the look in Beatrice’s eyes, Clyde bristled and repeatedly poked the top of her head.
It was a violent movement, unlike someone known as the epitome of a gentleman in social circles and the Imperial Knights.
“Which mouth is spouting such adorable words? Huh? Nothing but a handsome shell? Ha! Hey, should I show you just how incredible I am?”
“Aagh! I’m not curious, you idiot! What could you possibly show me when you blabbed your secret just because you couldn’t even prepare a proper reason for a proposal… Ack! Won’t you move your hand?”
“No, I won’t.”
“So that’s how you’re going to play it, huh?”
Beatrice stopped flailing her arms to push him off. Instead, she threw a clenched fist straight forward. It was a strike aimed accurately at his solar plexus.
“Ugh!”
“Stop exaggerating.”
Snorting at Clyde as he hunched over, pretending to be in pain, she smoothed back her disheveled hair and slightly stuck out her tongue.
“That’s what you get for asking for it.”
“…You……”
“Oh, forget it! There’s no one watching, so stop wasting time and sit back down quickly. Now that things have turned out like this, let’s prevent the family’s downfall as fast as possible.”
When she tapped the table with her palm as if urging him, Clyde, who had been clutching his stomach until just now, stood up perfectly straight.
Since the matter was what it was, he sat back down as if letting it slide just this once, and spoke with a much calmer expression.
“Fine. Then let’s point out the core issue. You know it too, right? That there’s a faction that turned our families against each other. And that the core figure behind it is ‘that person.’”
“Yeah.”
How could she not know? After everything had collapsed beyond repair, she had felt so much despair upon discovering the existence of that faction too late.
‘It’s fine. It won’t be like that this time.’
Beatrice roughly brushed the memories of the past aside. What mattered now wasn’t the past.
“It won’t work this time. So we…”
“If we get married and turn our two houses into a sort of family, that is.”
“Mhm.”
Meeting each other’s eyes again, the two simultaneously reached out and shook hands. Of course, the moment their hands touched was extremely brief.
There was absolutely no need to linger and hold the hand of Clyde Dalton, of all people, with any sort of affection.
After confirming they had formed a united front, Clyde calmly pulled a sheet of paper from his vest.
“As you might guess, we have a big mountain to climb in order to get married, don’t we?”
“Right. Since both you and I have older brothers above us.”
“In case persuasion takes too long, there’s something I thought of.”
“That paper…. No way!”
“Yeah, exactly that.”
Beside Beatrice’s crumpled proposal letter, a crisp marriage registration form was placed.
“If it seems like time is really going to be delayed, let’s just submit the registration first.”
Beatrice gave a standing ovation to Clyde’s bold plan of ‘causing trouble first and dealing with it later.’ Then she added seriously:
“Let’s write it now. Do you have another copy?”
“I do.”
“Each of us will hold one, and if things look strange for either of us, just submit it.”
“Okay.”
Nodding in satisfaction, the two immediately picked up their pens and began to fill out the marriage registration forms.
“Wow, seeing my name written right next to yours genuinely gives me goosebumps. Can you see? The hair standing up on my arms?”
“Look who’s talking. How am I supposed to live with something like this?”
“Who says we’re living together? My mom said divorce isn’t even a flaw these days. Let’s break up cleanly as soon as the job is done. My family is rich, so you don’t even have to pay alimony.”
“You’re probably the only person who’d mention divorce while accepting a proposal.”
“Be grateful I accepted that piece of garbage as a proposal.”
The marriage registration forms they filled out while bickering like that turned out to be very useful.
“Ah, whhyy, what’s the difference between doing it three years from now or doing it now? I’m going to marry Clydeee, ah, let me get marrieed!”
It’s just that the form of it became extremely shameful, unlike what she had imagined when filling out the marriage registration.
“This… this girl right now……. My goodness! I heard you went to the Duke’s residence to meet Clyde without an appointment, so I came running wondering what a grown lady was doing, only to find this embarrassment! Is this how Mother raised you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know! If you don’t give permission, I might just go and cause an incident!”
And it also ended up being pulled out at a much earlier timing than anticipated.
Squeezing her eyes shut and throwing a tantrum on the floor in front of her mother, who was clutching the back of her neck, Beatrice slily glanced sideways to check on Clyde.
At least the silver lining was that she wasn’t doing this embarrassing thing alone.
“Forgive me for saying this, but wouldn’t it be better to receive blessings at a wedding than to find out about the news of our marriage through paperwork and the Imperial Newspaper?”
Well, his side was being just as much of an unfilial rebel.
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