Chapter 144. A Rare Comfortable Time
“Are you… talking about Lea?”
Jade’s hand, which had been removing his coat, suddenly froze in midair.
Butler Kyle naturally took what was in his hand and nodded.
“Yes, she stopped by earlier today.”
Lea Parker.
Since they had spent such a long time as close acquaintances, it wasn’t particularly surprising that she had visited while he was away.
She had been coming and going frequently since before, to the point that even the servants felt at ease with her as if she were almost a member of this household.
Nevertheless, the reason Jade was this surprised was because of the person she had met here at the mansion during the day.
“Did Deborah… perhaps feel uncomfortable?”
At the cautious question, Kyle, who seemed to recall something for a moment, soon shook his head.
“No, from what I saw, she seemed to be listening with quite a bit of interest.”
“…I see.”
Well, Lea was the type who could quickly become close even with someone she had just met for the first time, as she was quite sociable.
The problem was Deborah, the one on the receiving end.
Deborah, who had such a quiet personality that he had never even seen her raise her voice, and who did not easily reveal her inner thoughts.
Moreover, considering her recent condition, it was only natural to worry even more.
After thinking for a moment, Jade finally stepped forward.
“I’ll eat later, Kyle.”
Watching his master quickly cross the bedroom and leave, Butler Kyle let out a long sigh.
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Knock knock.
At the sound of knocking, Deborah slowly rose from her seat and opened the door.
As if he hadn’t expected Deborah to open the door herself, Jade blinked in surprise.
“Ah… you’re not asleep yet, right?”
The same line every time, and with that absent-minded expression added on top, a small laugh slipped out without me realizing it.
It was only a slight movement at the corner of her lips, but since it was the first time seeing such an expression after coming here, Jade stared at her face as if bewitched.
“Do you… have something to say?”
Perhaps embarrassed by that gaze, Deborah’s expression quickly returned to its usual state.
He must already know from the report, but today she had consumed a meal amount that almost met the standard he had set.
It was partly because her stomach, which had felt uncomfortable all morning, had fortunately calmed down, but also because she had been held for several hours by the unexpected guest who had suddenly arrived, making her feel hungry all at once.
That was why she asked in confusion.
Perhaps he had something else to say to her.
Now that she thought about it, it also felt somewhat strange that the tray he always held in his hand was nowhere to be seen.
At her questioning gaze, Jade finally cleared his throat and opened his mouth.
“Well, today… I heard Lea came by.”
Ah, Deborah then gave a short nod as if she finally understood the reason.
“Were you perhaps tired? She’s nice and all, but she has so much energy…”
Haha, haha. Watching him laugh awkwardly, Deborah slightly shook her head.
“No, she was a good person. Thanks to her, I also heard about Teacher Helena… it was a comfortable time for the first time in a while.”
“….”
‘A comfortable time.’
Not that it was fun, but that it was a comfortable time after a long while—Jade felt like he vaguely understood what that meant.
In other words, that meant that the past month had been like hell…
“Um… she is a good person. She has a good personality, she’s smart, and there’s a lot to learn from her.”
Jade answered in an intentionally bright tone.
“I didn’t know. That Teacher writes.”
When she brought up what she had heard earlier today, Jade let out a short groan.
“I heard she has already published several books… but she never once showed that in front of me, so I had no idea at all.”
Deborah’s expression as she said that seemed somewhat downcast.
Well, she must have thought they were closer than anyone else, so it would naturally feel upsetting to realize that something both Jade and Lea knew was something only she didn’t.
“That is…”
Jade, who had opened his mouth with a troubled expression, soon closed his lips again.
He seemed to hesitate for a moment whether it was something he could say himself, but he also couldn’t just let her misunderstand for no reason.
Moreover, even if only for a brief moment, hadn’t she finally shown a smile just now?
Since it wasn’t something intentionally hidden, he thought Teacher Helena would understand, and Jade eventually opened his mouth again.
“Teacher Helena didn’t hide it on purpose, she had her reasons.”
“…Reasons?”
“Deborah, you know too, right? How difficult it is for a commoner… especially a commoner woman, to publish a book.”
“….”
Jade smiled bitterly, slightly furrowing his brows.
He knew.
That in Ruvake, for a woman—especially a commoner woman—to publish a book was something close to impossible.
Publishing itself was not forbidden.
However, since publishing was considered almost exclusively a domain of men, writings by women were dismissed and belittled outright.
Because of that, the very few female writers had no choice but to publish anonymously as ‘written by a certain lady,’ or use a male name as a pseudonym.
Moreover, the bigger problem was that the cost of publishing was considerable.
From what he had heard, the cost required to publish a single book was an amount that a common laborer would have to save without spending a single coin for four or five years, making it realistically something only the wealthy class could even dare to attempt.
“Teacher Helena… felt ashamed of that every time. That she had to hide being a woman and stand behind a man’s name.”
“….”
“Lea and I had no choice but to know since we’re involved… but perhaps she wanted to hide it from Deborah.”
“….”
Because she thought it wasn’t something to be proud of… As he said that with a bitter smile, Deborah’s expression darkened.
Realizing the atmosphere had suddenly become heavy, Jade quickly changed the topic.
“R-right. What did you talk about with Lea?”
After a brief silence, Deborah opened her mouth again.
“Just… she told me many different things. Mostly about Teacher Helena and you, Jade.”
At the slightly raised corner of her lips at the end, Jade felt something strange.
In truth, he and Lea had known each other since childhood, so there was almost nothing they didn’t know about each other.
As he gradually felt uneasy about what on earth had been said in his absence, Deborah’s lips suddenly trembled slightly at the perfect timing.
She quickly covered her mouth as if nothing had happened, but he had already caught that suspicious behavior.
“…What is it?”
“…Pardon?”
Ahem, seeing her pretend to be calm while clearing her throat only made it more suspicious.
The thought that something strange had definitely been said quickly crossed Jade’s mind.
“What exactly did Lea… say?”
“What do you mean, she didn’t say anything— Pfft!”
At the sudden sound escaping as she lowered her head, Jade’s brows furrowed sharply.
Then at some point, his eyes slowly widened.
No way…
“Could it be, the story about the Rams… River—”
The words he cautiously brought up could not be finished in the end.
Because the moment the word ‘Rams’ came out, an even bigger burst of laughter erupted from Deborah’s mouth.
There was no need to ask any further.
Heat instantly spread all the way to the back of Jade’s neck, turning red.
‘Lea Parker!’
Shouting that name inwardly, though she wasn’t even here, Jade bit down hard on his lips.
Of all things, that story.
Back in childhood, when he knew nothing and was only innocent.
Jade had been an ordinary boy who loved playing in the Rams River with nearby children every single day.
One day, his mother came looking for him while he was playing naked in the river and told him to come out, but that day, just as the fun had reached its peak, Jade stubbornly refused.
Angered by him, his mother eventually took the clothes Jade had left by the riverside and went back home.
By the time he realized it, it was already too late, and there was nothing he could do.
Covering only below with his hands, he ran home crying in that unsightly state, and unfortunately, at that exact moment, Lea, who had come to visit the mansion, saw him.
Even as a child, he cried loudly at the fact that a girl had seen him like that, but to make matters worse, his mother burst into laughter and teased him, saying that now he absolutely had to marry Lea, which only made him cry even louder in sorrow.
Thinking that such a disgraceful fragment of a memory he never wanted to recall had been revealed—not to anyone else, but to Deborah—Jade’s face burned red with shame.
Although Deborah told him it was okay and that she would erase it from her memory as if she had never heard it, the heat that had risen to Jade’s face did not subside for quite some time afterward.
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