Charlotte hesitated to raise her pen tip, merely twirling the pen in her hand. She had spent so much time writing just one sentence in the letter to Baron Zimmerman, but could not continue.

She had already sent two letters, and even though this was the third, she still hadn’t gotten used to it.

Baron Zimmerman’s replies were generally full of joy. The more so, the heavier her heart became. She doubted whether she should become the wife of such a kind man while harboring a love that could never be fulfilled.

Half giving up, Charlotte put down her pen and turned her gaze to Vivian, who was staring blankly into empty space.

These days, Vivian’s mind was not quite right either. She seemed dazed, as if searching for someone sent far away beyond the universe. She looked deeply troubled, but Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to speak to her, suspecting it was because of Edwin.

“Miss Eveline.”

“Ye-yes?”

Vivian’s consciousness returned with a start. She looked at Charlotte in confusion, then her gaze settled on the empty letter with only one line written.

Then, with a low sigh, she read the single line that had been written.

「Hello, Baron.」

As Vivian raised her eyes reproachfully, Charlotte pouted her lips.

“I don’t know how to write it.”

She seemed to be giving up completely, lowering both hands under the table.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand. It must be an emotion that couldn’t be written. Having to whisper false love while harboring feelings for another.

But marriage rarely started with love. Vivian, who had learned that love naturally develops once you become a couple, wanted to comfort Charlotte, saying that this current pain would only be temporary. However, she didn’t have the courage to pour oil on the fire by mentioning the one Charlotte loved to the despairing Charlotte.

“You can’t keep writing down what I dictate forever. That would also be disrespectful to the Baron who says he loves you.”

Love.

As she spoke it, it seemed truly trivial and insignificant. It felt like it would easily crumble if held in hand, and disappear like mist if one looked away for just a moment.

Something so empty and vain was a luxury in this tragic reality.

Yet it was beautiful. The heart responded to what that brilliant and lively word gave, and the mind was comforted.

That man, that cruel and heartless man, did he know what love was?

The desire he had could not be love, and should not be love.

That man, who felt desire for someone who was not even his spouse, but an object of hatred, and was still shameless about it, would surely be insensitive to the noble emotion of love.

He desires but does not covet.

The moment she realized she had come too far to believe those words, Vivian despaired and felt frustrated. That Edwin would eventually covet her. That he would ultimately take her body. She had already lost trust in him enough to imagine the worst situations.

“But Miss Windler. There’s one thing I’m curious about – why hasn’t the Duke married?”

If that man who knew no love had known love. If he had someone he loved. If he had formed an ordinary family and become a loving father.

If so, would this path of revenge have been a little different?

Then why? Why hadn’t he married?

He was a healthy man, too focused on revenge to have run, and must have been surrounded by countless temptations. Just as he had made the mistake of feeling desire for her, he must have made other mistakes of not resisting other temptations.

“Marriage?”

“I thought there must have been many fine young ladies around the Duke. There must have been many matchmaking offers too, so I’m curious why he’s still single. I wondered if there was a separate reason.”

“Well… I’m not sure about that either. He must be too busy with company work. Certainly.”

Charlotte’s voice was stiff. As it didn’t seem to have resolved things satisfactorily, Vivian awkwardly nodded, ending the brief conversation about Edwin.

Then what caught the corner of her eye was the still empty letter paper. Vivian tapped the paper lightly with her fingertips.

“Now, let’s try writing quickly. How about writing about the recent storm? Start with the weather. Then the rest will flow smoothly.”

Under Vivian’s special tutoring, Charlotte glumly picked up her pen. She watched with her own eyes as it went down a few more lines, making scratching sounds.

Charlotte wrote in detail about the day the storm hit. She naturally continued the story, saying she was quite surprised and scared when she heard that the holly tree in the garden couldn’t withstand the wind and broke.

That day, Vivian too, right after arguing with Edwin, heard the story about the broken holly tree in the garden as soon as she arrived in her room.

While spending time touching that man’s body and having her cheek touched by him, the holly tree in the garden was mercilessly broken while fighting against the fierce rain and wind.

Vivian closed her eyes at the shallow imagination and chewed the inside of her mouth in displeasure.

She stroked her heated nape and then touched her cheeks. Realizing her face was flushed, she headed towards the window.

A fairly cold wind was blowing. The weather, having entered autumn, took away the heat.

***

After a long time, the mansion was bustling with Edwin’s guests.

It was said that in the club he was a member of, it had become a custom for members to take turns hosting parties at their villas or mansions once a season to maintain close relationships.

The parties were just hedonistic affairs – handling cards and money in the card room, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigars until it was hard to keep their eyes open.

Among those indulgences was also the act of viewing the fallen Vivian like a monkey in a zoo.

Vivian Eveline’s beauty, which had only been rumored, and a story that started from a dress shop in Perington, had spread publicly, adding to Vivian’s mystique.

Moreover, now that Vivian was volunteering for all sorts of Edwin’s errands for the purpose of receipts, their bewildered gazes upon actually encountering her shimmering golden hair and ash-gray eyes were fully understandable.

If Edwin thought that these series of gazes would embarrass Vivian, he was greatly mistaken. She couldn’t feel such shame from people she had shared a room with and worked with, people she thought she would never have any connection with.

She was used to being the subject of people’s gossip.

As Baron Zimmerman said, earning money was a dirty business. Because it was a world where countless contradictions occurred.

Although the sun had crossed the horizon and dyed Rodinia in darkness, the mansion was as bright as day. Those drunk on alcohol would surely collapse and sleep here and there, unable to resist the drowsiness, only after seeing the dawn’s light.

Just as the clock struck nine at night, Edwin instructed through Abernathy that Vivian should no longer enter the card room. It seemed fortunate, as the drunken gentlemen and ladies had been calling out to her so much.

With nothing left to do, she was about to wrap up the day and return to her room. Until Edwin came out of the card room looking for Vivian, her only desire had been to quickly wash up and lie down.

Unexpectedly encountering Edwin in the quiet tea room, Vivian glanced at the checkbook on the table, which would be used for receipts.

Thinking he had called her out briefly to write a receipt, her resentment at not being able to lie down quickly dissipated.

“Good work today.”

“I see even you get drunk sometimes, Duke.”

“Why. Can I only say ‘good work’ when I’m drunk?”

“…Did you enjoy the card games? Did you win a lot of money?”

It couldn’t be pleasant to feel like a dog drooling as mealtime approached. Her heart was pounding as she looked at the checkbook, and this feeling of having turned into a materialistic person wasn’t very appealing either.

So she wanted to quickly receive the receipt he would write and leave this place.

“I won so much money that I received complaints.”

“…You should have done it in moderation.”

“Don’t I need to win money to write receipts for Miss Eveline?”

Edwin laughed languidly. There was no sign of intoxication in his straight posture, voice, and blue eyes. But the laughter he let out somehow seemed loose, convincing her that this must be his drunken appearance.

‘How can our Duke’s smiling face be so seductive and beautiful? If I were still an unmarried virgin, I would throw my whole body at the Duke.’

She tried to banish the vulgar words she had heard in the card room from her mind.

Do the nobles of New Way know no shame? How could they utter such words with their husbands beside them? And how could the husbands burst into laughter at such words?

She had thought they must all be half-mad with alcohol, but now she seemed to understand what those words meant.

“…Then please write it quickly. I’m tired and want to sleep.”

Vivian straightened her neck. Always having to mention money was miserable. Even though it was money rightfully demanded for work done, that money shrank a person into a tiny human being.

Once again letting out a frivolous laugh, he took out his fountain pen and began writing the receipt.

It was then that she suddenly thought that her mother’s gaze in front of him would not have been different from hers now.

The mansion was about to be auctioned off, and they were almost out of money. In such a situation, how hopeful must Duke Baitness’s offer to lend money have been?

How despairing must it have been when that hope turned out to be the youngest son of Lavenga who had fled 14 years ago?

Her distant consciousness returned due to the sound of paper being torn. The receipt held between Edwin’s index and middle fingers was in front of her eyes.

“Um… Duke. There’s something I’m curious about, may I ask?”

Vivian, who had taken it, carefully opened her mouth.

“Anything.”

“How did you… come to be acquainted with my mother?”

Edwin looked into Vivian’s softened eyes. Vivian, who freely crossed lines, was fascinating. She seemed like she would crumble if touched lightly, yet she was strong enough not to fall even in a fierce wind.

“I approached first when I learned the mansion was about to be auctioned off.”

Her already large eyes grew even larger when surprised, making her ash-gray eyes sparkle more clearly. As if ash-colored gems that didn’t exist in the world were embedded in her eyes.

“Mrs. Eveline told me she needed 700,000 mori, and I promised to gladly lend it to her. She was delighted. She said she would surely repay this favor. But then.”

Only after recalling Mrs. Eveline’s expression that day did he realize who Vivian’s eyes resembled. And Mrs. Eveline, like Vivian, or rather, with eyes that Vivian had inherited exactly, collapsed quite sentimentally.

‘Y-you are a survivor of Lavenga… The youngest son of Lavenga who ran away… Sayer Laven?’

Mrs. Eveline, upon learning the truth, shed thick tears. He didn’t stop her. He let her cry and expected the words that would follow.

But Mrs. Eveline said nothing. She stopped crying and her tears dried up, but she didn’t try to initiate any conversation.

‘Will you still borrow money from me? If you ask to borrow, I’m willing to lend. So tell me. Do you want to borrow my money?’

Finally unable to bear it, he opened his mouth, and Mrs. Eveline, with her head deeply bowed, nodded hesitantly.

He wasn’t unaware of that miserable feeling. The agony and anguish of having to give up and let go of everything when faced with the crossroads of life and death, constantly clawing at the back of the head and biting the nape of the neck.

‘I have no other choice. The sin of that day… That day…’

Recalling the day Lavenga disappeared into the annals of history, Mrs. Eveline couldn’t finish her words.

As the prolonged tears became boring, he called Royce and handed over 700,000 mori. He held out a promissory note to Mrs. Eveline, who signed it immediately without properly reading it.

Mrs. Eveline didn’t doubt why he was willing to lend money, even though she clearly knew the identity of the debtor.

She must have thought she could repay it soon. That if she brought money from her parents’ home, she could cover the current spark.

Not knowing that she would never be able to set foot on New Way land again.

‘Actually, that day.’

And Mrs. Eveline turned back for the first time before leaving with the trunk containing 700,000 mori.

‘It wasn’t my husband who issued the statement of suppression operation to quell the rebellion. It was Meyer who forged our family’s crest and used our family to trample even the last seed.’

It was quite different from the tears she had shown just before signing the promissory note. The look in her eyes, overflowing with hatred and malice, explained the suffering she had endured.

‘We were also victims of Meyer!’

Along with Mrs. Eveline’s cry, Vivian’s eyes, with ash-gray gems so beautiful one might want to steal them, overlapped.

“She said she needed to borrow money even knowing I was Sayer, and after that, it was just lending money, signing, and that was all.”

“…”

“Don’t you believe me?”

Reading the not-so-trusting look in her eyes, he once again let out a languid laugh.

“Then ask. When your mother returns.”