Chapter 6

The dance ended, drinks were exchanged, and Elena learned many things about the man.

The man’s name was Maxim. Maxim Adeloff.

He said it was the first time in nearly five years that he had come to Rebunto.

Elena wondered why Maxim—why someone like Maxim—had spoken to her.

Maxim was a person with luxurious clothes and elegant bearing.

No, he was someone who looked elegant even without doing anything in particular.

In other words, he was on a different level from those who acted vulgarly toward Elena, asking her to bear them a child or raise their children.

[I still haven’t received your thanks.]

[Ah, that day… I was truly grateful that day.]

When Elena offered an awkward greeting, the man told her his name.

[Why are you having this kind of conversation with me?]

[‘There’s no reason I shouldn’t.’]

[But I… I am wearing nothing but clothes like these…]

Elena protested with a flushed face.

If she could, she wanted to take even the banquet hall’s tablecloth and cover herself.

If it had not been for Cecile, who kept bringing up Leana and pinching her arm, she would never have gone out of the house looking like this.

[‘You disparage your own worth too much. Do you think your value can be determined by your clothes?’]

[‘Then what?’]

For some reason, she felt like crying.

The men who had danced with Elena had all looked her over with the same gaze, sweeping over her exposed chest.

[One’s value is not determined by such things. I think you know that better than I do.]

His indifferent tone and nonchalant face struck Elena’s heart with a thump.

My value is something I decide myself.

I, Elena Joseph.

It was not wrong.

Elena clenched her fist.

It was just that no one had ever said such a thing to her before.

Cecile was a person who judged value by outward appearances.

And Cecile’s standard was always money.

To the point of assigning a price even to her own daughters.

It was still a mystery how a person like her father had married a person like her mother.

Paito Joseph was a dignified and honorable man.

Even his death was honorable.

All the values and sense of responsibility that made up Elena were inherited from Paito.

Until the very moment he closed his eyes, Paito had asked her to look after Leana.

Most of her memories of the banquet had faded, but the conversation she had shared with Maxim remained vividly in her mind.

[Why are you being kind to me?]

[Who knows. It seems I am to be the lady’s savior. Seeing as I keep saving you like this. With this, the lady’s value will rise another level.]

And it was as Maxim said.

After dancing with Maxim, no man approached Elena.

[Males instinctively recognize the strong. And they never touch a woman claimed by a strong one.]

She thought she understood what he meant, and yet she also thought she did not.

As Elena was mulling over that day’s conversation, her door opened.

“Elena!”

Elena let out a deep sigh and returned to reality.

Cecile, her face flushed red as if she had been drinking, staggered toward her.

Reeking of alcohol, Cecile sat down beside Elena.

“No one will open their mouth about who that man is. Are you sure he didn’t say anything to you?”

“No.”

“You stupid thing. Wasn’t he the most expensive-looking among the men you danced with? Then you should have caught him, even if it meant throwing him onto a bed—why did you let him go?”

Cecile smacked the back of Elena’s head.

Elena bowed her head deeply and let out a sigh.

She spat vulgar words at her daughter without a care.

“Hmph, those high-and-mighty women won’t open their mouths either.”

She had not been seen all day, so it seemed she had gone to the salon and been snooping around.

She must have wedged herself among the idle noblewomen playing poker.

Only after squandering all her meager fortune did she crawl back in.

Elena clenched her fist.

“But seeing as those women let me join them, that man must be quite impressive. They asked what the relationship between you and that man is.”

“I told you, there is no relationship.”

“But he danced with you and talked with you so long? You stupid thing! Men do not show kindness to women who are not in their eyes!”

Thwack.

Elena’s hair spilled forward again.

Perhaps annoyed, Cecile staggered up from her seat.

“Hmph, if it really comes to that, do you think there are no other matches? A few of the men who danced with you slyly brought up marriage. If you act like such a stupid thing, it can’t be helped.”

Elena stared at Cecile with empty eyes.

Cecile already wore the face of someone who had tasted money.

Come to think of it, the dress Cecile was wearing and the shoes she had on were new.

Surely someone had brought up marriage and slipped money to Cecile.

Cecile had already sold Elena.

Cecile slipped out of Elena’s room.

Elena buried her face in her hands.

Her delicate shoulders trembled.

No matter what, Elena did not want to sell her life into such a mire.

[Our Elena. Since you are this father’s daughter, you will be happy. This father promises you.]

The moment she recalled her father’s words, Maxim’s face rose with them.

A person whom the nobles kept their mouths shut about and protected.

It was not desirable to hope that someone would rescue her from this hell.

Elena blinked slowly.

Elena drew a breath and whispered.

“The one who saves my life is me.”

* * *

Elena took a deep breath and looked up at the huge mansion.

It was Countess Presto’s mansion.

No one had opened their mouth about that man, but even Elena knew where he was staying.

Maxim himself had told her.

Elena pressed the doorbell with trembling hands.

Flutter.

At the small ripple made in the huge mansion, the little birds in the garden flew up into the sky all at once.

Elena clutched at the hem of her dress.

The kind head butler guided her straight to the reception room.

For some reason, Elena felt as embarrassed as she had when she stood barefoot on Kress Bridge, and her feet shuffled.

The carpet spread on the floor, the table placed before her, the chair she sat in—every element that made up this room suffocated Elena.

Even when her father was alive, she had never seen such precious things.

Feeling somehow as if she had become a stain on this room, Elena’s white cheeks flushed peach.

Meanwhile, a small commotion arose outside the reception room.

“Who is in the reception room right now, who has come?”

Countess Presto, who had been lying languidly reading a romance novel, shot to her feet.

The sofa bed shook with the movement.

“A lady named Elena Joseph has come to see young master Maxim, madam!”

The head maid repeated the same words with a slightly flushed face.

Noble figures, including Countess Presto, had a deep interest in Maxim’s marriage.

Among them, Countess Presto was the most passionate.

“Good heavens! You mean that child who was the only one to dance with Maxim?”

“Yes!”

“Good heavens!”

Countess Presto hurriedly straightened her clothes.

Her heart was fluttering.

Since that incident, Maxim had not gotten involved with women at all.

He did not often go to places with many women, and he loathed women who approached him.

There were only crowds of women who had been wounded by Maxim’s thorny words and fallen away.

Thanks to that, not a single young lady approached Maxim at the banquet that day.

And yet Maxim himself had asked her to dance, and danced.

‘As expected, was that fortune-teller right?’

A glow of delight came over Countess Presto’s face.

Slipping on the slippers she had kicked off, the countess opened the door.

“Where is she now? Did you tell Maxim? She came to see him, so he must receive her personally!”

She did not know what kind of child she was, but Maxim was a boy with a high aesthetic sense.

Surely he would not have chosen just anyone.

Countess Presto, walking quickly, halted.

‘If that child could forget that matter and be happy.’

It did not matter if the woman who had come was a beggar.

Truly!

That would be the same opinion of anyone in the family.

Countess Presto threw open the reception room door with a forceful hand.

There stood a woman with neatly combed, pale golden hair and, in contrast, blue eyes like a temptress.

With a face like a frightened deer.

“Oh my.”