The Maid and the Usurper

“It’s been a while, Layla, my maid.” You were always an insolent maid to me. You’re the wretched girl who gnaws at my memories and won’t let me go. Leopold, the king’s abandoned illegitimate son. With a desire for vengeance against the royal family, he assumed a false identity and returned as a war hero, in order to seize the throne. Yet, whether what he sought was the throne or the audacious maid who ran away from him… even he himself couldn’t tell. ‘I’m the biggest fool here. I was the one who loved you then, now, and in the future. I just couldn’t let you go.’ Layla, daughter of a brothel prostitute. To escape her miserable brothel life, she stole the identity of a noble lady. ‘Even if the love I sought with that stolen identity would consume me in flames, only God and I know that I could never let go until the end.’ *** “It’s been a while, Layla. My maid.” It was a name he hadn’t heard in nearly a decade. He had tried to forget it, tried to make it go away. “It’s been a while, Count.” Leopold Lear Edehardt, Count of Rhineland, illegitimate son of King Franz II, and Layla’s first love. It was a name she had never forgotten. “How have you been doing? No, you should have been doing well. For a child who used to romp around in the brothel and then put on the pretense of heir to a dukedom, of course, you should have been well. Isn’t that right?” It was a thin shell that could be peeled off at any moment. There was no Lady Hortensia of Orléans here. Standing before him was just Layla, the daughter of a brothel prostitute. “It’s the life you chose for yourself, so naturally, you should have no regrets.” Leopold released Layla’s chin and puffed on his cigar. Her mouth went dry from his blunt words. It was hard to discern whether the look in his eyes was contempt or resentment. “Yes… you were that kind of girl… daring and noble… Such a…” As he muttered those unintelligible words, Layla, without thinking, asked, “Have… you been well?” Like an eagle snatching up its prey, Leopold turned his head. But then, he let out a laugh, as if in a daze. The laughter which seemed a bit hysterical and nervous, seemed like a mockery directed at himself. “You were always like that, never even letting me hope. You always left me hanging, making me foolish and clingy.” The girl with an innocent face who didn’t smile. There was a time when he was desperate to catch even a trace of a smile on her face. And he was still stuck in those days.