Chapter 3

Maxim pulled away from the window and let out a sigh.

Even in the way he swept back his hair, he could not hide his deep fatigue.

“I’m tired. I want to get back quickly.”

There was a faint edge in his urging voice.

Elena hesitated.

In truth, she had no idea how she had managed to walk this far.

She had walked without destination, and when she arrived, it was Kress Bridge.

It was the same pattern every time; today was merely a little different.

Because a man who looked noble had intervened.

The man let out another sigh and turned his head.

“I suppose I’ve meddled more than enough. I’ll be going now…”

“Please give me a ride. Once you go over that hill, it’s the first house you’ll see. I’d be grateful if you let me down somewhere far from it before we arrive.”

Elena spoke rapid-fire and turned back toward the carriage entrance.

The well-dressed coachman opened the door and escorted her.

The coachman’s smile gave Elena courage.

“Thank you.”

Whispering her thanks to the coachman in a small voice, Elena swallowed.

In truth, getting into this carriage was a kind of gamble.

If the man were a bad person and she died like this, that would be fine; if he were truly a good person, then she would have gotten a ride.

For Elena, it was a bargain with nothing to lose.

The interior of the carriage was larger than it appeared from outside, and the man riding in it was large enough to match.

Rather than strange, it felt like an elegant savagery.

‘Is “savagery” the right word?’

Elena whipped her head around.

She could not believe she was even thinking such a thing.

In her bewilderment, she bit her lip hard.

“Ah.”

Because of that, the corner of her mouth that had split hurt.

Elena pretended to rub her cheek and covered her face.

To show herself like this before someone so immaculate—a true noble, the first she had ever seen in her life.

Embarrassment rushed over her.

Her toes twitched before she knew it.

She felt the man’s gaze brush the tips of her toes.

After observing her for a moment, his gaze stopped near her face.

He was probably looking at the wounds on her face.

Wounds from being shoved this way and that, knocked into things, and struck by Cecile.

Elena closed her eyes and counted numbers, hoping this carriage would stop soon.

The carriage moved steadily, and the two of them retraced the road Elena had walked alone.

The carriage stopped.

Through the politely opened door, Elena fled like a startled rabbit.

Watching her back, Maxim let out a laugh.

There had been no thanks, no exchange of names.

She was as pitiful as a herbivore under attack.

Whether she was timid or rude, he did not know.

After the woman fled, the coachman’s face appeared beyond the door.

He looked somehow smug.

The servants of this household were generally all strange.

Maxim clicked his tongue.

He did not know how the head butler managed the staff.

Every one of them was a nag.

“Are we done now?”

“…Everyone in the capital will admire the grace Your Grace has shown.”

Maxim clicked his tongue and shut the door himself with a loud sound.

* * *

Every day in Rebunto was unbearably dull for Maxim.

His aunt was doing anything and everything to keep Maxim here.

She had refused to see him for a week, lying in bed under the pretext of being ill.

‘Grandfather doted on no one but my aunt.’

Maxim gritted his teeth.

No wonder she was so self-willed even at sixty.

His aunt absolutely needed to understand how great a loss this was to a businessman for whom every minute and second mattered.

Still, today his aunt would have no choice but to show herself.

Today was her sixtieth birthday banquet.

Once today passed, Maxim would also leave this dull Rebunto.

Of course, Maxim was not the only one summoned down to Rebunto.

Camellia was in Rebunto as well.

Camellia and Maxim had known each other for a long time, so they naturally ended up seated at the same table.

Knowing each other for a long time did not mean the two were on good terms.

Caeles approached them as they sat side by side, preserving silence without exchanging a single word.

“You two must be the only ones here wearing such bored faces. If others saw you, they’d think some great misfortune had befallen your families.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

Camellia answered flatly and turned her head.

Countess Presto seemed to have invited every noble residing in the vicinity.

Well, Count Presto was doing everything in his power to marry off his only son.

Though their intentions differed from Countess Presto’s, what the two wanted was the same: to gather as many nobles here as possible.

They said invitations had been scattered even in the capital, so anyone hoping to form a connection with the Presto family had likely come.

Camellia, who had been sitting with a listless expression, narrowed her eyes.

“…Still, that woman has gone too far.”

Camellia muttered.

At the end of her gaze stood Cecile Joseph, appearing dressed up like a peacock.

She was trying to hide it by tacking on this and that clumsily, but the hem of her dress was worn and frayed, and the jewels she wore were tacky.

Her attire did not match fashion in the slightest, and her makeup was thick.

Everything together made Cecile look like a clown.

“Do we have to invite even a woman like that? Maxim, what will you do if your aunt tries to marry you to a woman like her?”

Maxim, who had been raising his glass, turned his head slowly when his name was called.

Where Camellia jerked her chin, a woman who could not adapt to this place and was lingering on the outskirts stood hesitantly.

Pale and small, and somehow familiar.

She was that kind of woman.

Maxim blinked.

‘A familiar person I seem to have seen somewhere.’

Since even his own impression was like that, it seemed he had encountered her before.

With a short skirt that barely covered her ankles, a faded dress, and that dress—so large in the bust that it seemed about to slip off her as if it were not hers—the woman standing there was, despite her attire, pristine.

Her transparent blue eyes, which seemed to occupy half of her white face, glistened with moisture.

Her hair ornament, too, was already in such a mess—whoever had touched it last—that it was on the verge of falling.

People’s whispers converged on the woman.

She looked like a small animal searching for a place to flee.

The moment Maxim lowered his gaze again to the tips of her feet, he recalled the foot that had been revealed so white.

A foot that had been covered in filth, yet was only white.

“Ah.”

At the exclamation that escaped Maxim, Camellia followed the end of his gaze.

It was that woman from then.

A week ago, on Kress Bridge, he had thought he was saving her, but instead he had watched a rabbit flee with the feeling of having become a hunter.

Maxim let out a soft laugh.

He had not expected to run into her like this.

“Do you know that woman?”

It was Caeles who answered Camellia’s impatient question.

“I can roughly guess. That woman over there is called Cecile Joseph. Judging by the similar attire, she must have brought her daughter. How pitiful. What must it feel like to be born as that woman’s daughter? Like being a bird that is mocked?”

Maxim narrowed his eyes.

Joseph, Joseph.

…Elena Joseph.

Now he even knew her name.

Maxim smiled coldly.

That day, Maxim had taken Elena into the carriage because the coachman had strongly insisted.

The coachman had rattled on in a loud voice.

In that short time, he had imagined seven worst-case scenarios that could befall Elena if she wandered outside in such a state in this weather.

With that much imagination in such a short time, shouldn’t he become a writer?

When fatigue was compounded by nagging, Maxim could not stand it and turned the carriage around, and the coachman cried out in a voice full of rapture.

[As expected, our duke is a kind man! I believed it all along!!]

What exactly had he believed, and what… Ha.

He had thought countless times that he should have taken the train.

He had not wanted to mingle with others, and since he could not even obtain a train ticket, he had no choice but to take a carriage—and this was what happened.

At any rate, she was a woman he had met through such a connection.

He had never thought she would appear here looking like that.

Judging by the mother’s rough handling of her daughter, their intention was clear.

The woman was here to be sold at a high price in this marriage market.

Maxim narrowed his eyes.

It was not that her appearance was disheveled; she was even wearing shoes, yet the utterly ruined state she had been in at Kress Bridge looked better than today.

Camellia glanced at Maxim.

A intense emotion swirled in her eyes and then vanished.

Camellia turned her head away from Maxim again.

Surely not—Maxim taking an interest in a woman like that?