“Cain ordered it.”

Jane sighed. She couldn’t treat the person Cain sent carelessly, but she didn’t want to be pushed around by a maid.

“C-C-Cai! If you casually call the master’s name like that…”

Jane raised her hand to cut off Michelle’s words.

“Michelle, I’m fine. As you know.”

The short sentence was loaded with meaning. Michelle’s face turned pale as she understood the implication.

As Jane had expected, Michelle was not being territorial, but jealous.

Cain was indeed a sinful man.

“What are you doing? Hurry up and come upstairs.”

Michelle turned around abruptly.

Jane let out a faint sigh.

Directly scolding Michelle was still beyond Jane’s authority. Michelle was Cain’s property.

For seven years, Jane’s pride had been chipped away and broken countless times. She had experienced such disrespect countless times.

Michelle was jealous of Jane, but until just a few hours ago, Jane had lived a life worse than Michelle’s.

So she wasn’t even angry. But now was the time to get angry.

Because the situation had changed. Jane is the prospective duchess. So advice should be fine.

Jane carefully considered how Mrs. Whitney had dealt with maids who misbehaved.

“Michelle.”

Jane wiped the smile off her face. Then she stepped up to the same step as Michelle. Jane, tall for a woman, naturally looked down at Michelle.

Her cold gaze was full of dignity.

Even though she was only looking down from a few centimeters above, Michelle’s shoulders were crushed.

“Your job is to help me live comfortably. So from now on.”

Jane grabbed Michelle’s chin and lowered it.

“Keep your eyes down.”

She tapped Michelle’s thigh.

“Walk lightly like a butterfly.”

Finally, Jane pointed to her lips.

“Watch your words.”

“Ah…”

“Keep your answers short and concise.”

Michelle, who couldn’t help but raise her head, bowed her waist the moment her eyes met Jane’s.

The Jane in front of Cain’s office and the Jane now were completely different people.

Back then, she had overflowed with fragility that seemed about to break if touched, but now she had taken on the attitude of a stern master.

‘Even fallen, a noble is still a noble, huh?’

Though her insides were twisted, Michelle softly replied, “I’ll be careful.”

She was light-hearted and frivolous by nature, but not stupid enough to ignore the knife right in front of her nose.

Jane looked at the subdued Michelle and climbed the stairs.

“I can go alone, so don’t follow me. This is an order.”

Jane quickly distanced herself from Michelle.

She had tried to imitate Mrs. Whitney, but would it be obvious that she was acting?

Her heart was pounding.

* * *

Upon reaching the bedroom, Jane slid down as soon as she closed the door. The contract she had been tightly holding fell to the floor.

When scolding Michelle, she had thought of Mrs. Whitney. She tried to imitate her, but thinking back on it now, it was extremely awkward.

Come to think of it, the former Mrs. Hastings also overflowed with dignity.

Jane was worried if she could even properly do half of what her mothers used to do.

If Cain knew her true feelings, what expression would he make?

Would he sneer as if he had known all along? Or would he get angry, saying she made him repeat the same words twice? Or would he feel relieved that they had parted ways seven years ago?

Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be a good reaction.

Jane let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh and fixed her disheveled hair.

Though it was midday, the room was dark without sunlight coming in. It was worlds apart from Cain’s office, which had been covered in brilliant light.

Naturally, Jane found herself thinking of Cain.

Remembering his eyebrows lowering as he inhaled his cigar, his hollowed cheeks, her face heated up.

When did he start smoking cigars?

Cain, who was two years older than Jane, was already an adult when they parted.

He didn’t smoke cigars back then. Come to think of it, he didn’t go to gentlemen’s clubs either at that time.

But now, smoking cigars and going to gentlemen’s clubs seemed to be part of his daily routine.

Jane’s solar plexus tingled. She rubbed it with the ball of her thumb.

Every time she discovered an aspect of him that was different from the past, a faint pain arose.

Feeling like she might completely ruin dinner if she thought any more, Jane lightly slapped her own cheeks.

Jane got up, walked purposefully with exaggerated vigor, and flung open the tightly closed window.

She was about to look for something to do right away.

However, contrary to her plan, she stopped with her hands on the window frame.

“Ah…”

An exclamation slipped from between Jane’s lips.

She was captivated by the scenery visible outside the window.

The greenery created by the large, majestic trees refreshed Jane’s heart.

The sound of leaves colliding with each other whenever the wind blew was like the song of nymphs, and the carpet-like lawn looked so soft that she wanted to roll around on it right away.

Under the shade of the trees was a white bench. Jane’s eyes filled with tears when she discovered it.

“They didn’t sell that.”

On that bench in the garden, a place rarely visited even in the backyard, Cain and Jane had shared their first kiss.

Cain must have forgotten. That’s why he left that bench there.

To think that the backyard where Cain and Jane used to go when they wanted to hold hands, when they wanted to hug each other, was visible right from the room!

Although Cain had merely tucked Jane away in a corner, to her it felt like a gift.

She suppressed her desire to go down right away. It was like the psychology of saving a delicious candy for later.

Secretly promising herself that she would go there only when things got really tough, lest Cain find out and remove that bench too, Jane took out a pen and paper.

Jane soon began to write a letter.

* * *

“She asked to call a footman to send this letter.”

Nathan held out a light green envelope on Cain’s desk. Jane’s name was clearly written as the sender.

“Where is she sending it?”

Cain took the letter and opened it without hesitation. Nathan frowned.

‘If you tear it like that, it’ll be hard to restore…’

“To the Caden family. It’s a letter to Mrs. Merche.”

“Is that where Jane worked as a governess?”

Cain recalled the report he had heard from Nathan just before going to meet Jane.

“Yes, that’s right. Are you going to read it?”

“Why would I tear it open if I wasn’t going to read it?”

“Are you censoring it even though the recipient and purpose of sending are clear?”

“People are more thorough and vicious than you’d think.”

She didn’t seem that way.

The Jane that Nathan saw was pure and clear.

Her large eyes with strangely upturned corners did look somewhat dangerous. But that was the kind of danger that seduced the opposite sex, not the type to cause incidents.

Nathan had brought the letter because Cain had ordered him to monitor Jane’s every move, but he didn’t understand why Cain was surveilling her so thoroughly.

If he asked Cain, the answer would be predictable.

‘Is your head just a decoration to keep your shoulders from feeling lonely?’

To prove that it wasn’t just a decoration, Nathan racked his brains hard.

The reason Cain gave for marrying her, her family history, and this thorough surveillance…

“Your Excellency, could it be that Jane…”

“Shut your mouth.”

Nathan was unnecessarily quick-witted. Cain clicked his tongue.

Nathan’s brow furrowed immediately. His guess was correct.

Cain was trying to catch the tail of the Rose Faction remnants through Jane.

The Rose Faction.

Unlike their romantic name, they were traitors who denied the current system and even organized an army.

Helena called them terrorists, vermin, a plague on society.

‘So this is what that old raccoon asked of His Excellency.’

Did she tell him to choose between marrying the princess or wiping out the Rose Faction remnants?

Nathan’s mouth turned bitter. He seemed to have touched on something he shouldn’t have, but since the topic had come up, he wanted to know everything.

“Didn’t you clean everything up? You spent years suffering in foreign lands carrying out the order to root out the Rose Faction.”

“That’s right.”

Seven years ago, the Rose Faction, which raised an uprising with the slogan “A rose in the right hand, bread in the left,” calling for the dissolution of the royal family, organized an army and threatened the royal family.

Although they didn’t make it to the capital, they captured and tormented some of the royal family’s collateral bloodlines who were acting like kings in the provinces.

They advocated for an equal world. On a small scale, they called for freedom of occupation for women, and on a large scale, for the dissolution of the royal family.

Movements towards freedom and equality had existed before, but there was a direct reason why they ignited like a tinderbox seven years ago.

While the people of the kingdom were starving to death due to years of drought, the queen and nobles indulged in luxury.

Finally, when some farmers who couldn’t stand it anymore denounced the queen and nobles, they instead beheaded them and displayed their heads in the square.

That incident coalesced the anger that had been scattered in dots.

But their dream ended as a fleeting spring dream.

A week before the planned uprising, someone handed over the Rose Faction’s organizational chart and list of sponsors to the queen.

The queen carried out a bloody purge.

The Whitney family was ruined for allegedly providing military funds, powerful merchant guilds were dissolved just for associating with them, and those who led from the front were hanged.

Needless to say, their heads were displayed on the city walls.

For over a month, blood flowed in the square day after day.

People flinched at the mere mention of ‘rose’, and the Rose Faction completely collapsed. But Queen Helena didn’t stop.

She was thorough. She hoped to root out and completely erase even the remnants hiding everywhere.

Cain became the person in charge of this ruthless search operation because he had almost formed ties with the Whitney family.

At that time, Cain still loved Jane. He couldn’t save the Earl and Countess of Whitney, but he wanted to at least remove the label of rebel’s child that would be attached to her.

So he accepted Helena’s order.

For two years until he voluntarily left for the battlefield, Cain hunted for hidden moles.

He didn’t have to dirty his own hands directly, but he had to order many bitter tasks.

During that time, his parents died and his love ended.

That’s how Cain’s humanity was chipped away bit by bit.

“I thought everything had been cleaned up.”

“The old raccoon says smoke is rising.”

Translation complete. 100% of original text translated.