Tatiana picked up a scone from the silver tray and took a bite. With her stomach empty for days, there was no way the butter-rich bread that clogged her throat would go down easily—but she had to eat. Watching her with a tearful face, Anne pressed her lips together as if her own throat were tight.
“My Lady, please don’t do this. Talk with Madam. She’s too proud to bring it up herself, but I’m sure she’s waiting for you to approach her first.”
“Don’t you start. I’ve heard enough nonsense from my sisters.”
With a blank face, Tatiana took another bite of the scone. Eat and endure. She had to rally somehow. Thinking of her sisters still made her head ring and her ears thrum, but she couldn’t cling to that forever.
“My Lady. Please.”
“I’m not crazy. No—I can’t afford to be.”
“……”
“If I lose my mind now, I’ll only get eaten alive.”
Tatiana’s expression turned resolute, as if she could see straight through to the floor below. The cost of living at her mother’s side with her eyes shut couldn’t be called entirely bad. It meant that no one had watched her mother’s every move from as close as she had—not the ones who were too frightened or too appalled to see it through to the end.
“If I cry myself out and collapse like this, the next time I open my eyes I’ll be dragged to the ceremony.”
“S-so you really won’t get engaged to the Duke?”
“Do I have to?”
Having finished the scone, Tatiana lifted her teacup. There was a week until the imperial banquet where the engagement would be announced, and she had spent two of those days shut in this room—so from Anne’s perspective, it wasn’t unreasonable to think she had given up.
“Anne. Do I look like some childish girl throwing a tantrum just because I don’t want to follow my mother’s will?”
“That’s not what I meant. Madam said if you truly won’t get engaged, then—”
“She told me to leave.”
“……”
“With nothing but the clothes on my back.”
How could she ever forget those words.
Her lips curved with a bitter smile as they touched the golden butterfly on the rim of the cup. The tea had long since gone cold, yet a pale steam seemed to waver before her eyes.
“Think it over, Tatiana. Is your pride worth all of this?”
So it was sincere—this woman.
In the moment she faced her mother, who handed her the ring with eyes glittering like jewels, she could not help but understand. When Countess Argentina, who once suspected her late-born child’s paternity, was cast into ruin overnight; when the major newspaper that first exposed her second brother-in-law’s affair shattered without a trace; her mother had smiled as though nothing were amiss.
So there was nothing to be surprised about. Her mother had always been that kind of person.
She simply hadn’t known her mother could be that way with her, too.
“…If she says leave, then I’ll leave.”
“My Lady!”
“No matter how I think about it, I can’t.”
Setting down the teacup, Tatiana shook her head lightly and murmured. Precisely because her mother was who she was, rather than wasting time in shock and tears, she had asked herself over and over.
If I just close my eyes, can everything really stay the same?
Can we really go back to how we were?
“I can’t do it.”
“……”
“I’ve had enough of living with my eyes shut and ears closed.”
If she’d remained ignorant to the end, that would be one thing—but she couldn’t live as if what had already happened had not. She didn’t want to. She didn’t know if her pride was worth more than everything she had now, but at least one thing was certain.
Even if she could force down her first scone in days, she didn’t have the stomach to spend a lifetime with a man like that.
“There’s not much time. I need to prepare to go out.”
“Oh dear, where are you going in this condition? Instead, why not take this chance to stay with Lady Anessia… Ah—no.”
Anne snapped her mouth shut at the icy look in Tatiana’s eyes.
“Don’t bring up my sisters in front of me.”
She had expected as much from her mother, but when it came to her sisters, her chest burned as if sliced open. Who could have imagined it? Swallowing the surge of grief and betrayal rising to her throat, Tatiana untied the ribbon of her silver-gray gown.
“Then, where are you going? If you’re going to the bank to withdraw money—”
“You think Mother will sit idle while I go there?”
“Pardon?”
“She’s already frozen the accounts. Or closed them altogether.”
How could she still know so little.
It was the third day she had shut herself in. From her twenty-one years of experience watching from up close, her mother usually cut off every source of funds on the first day. By the second, she severed relationships. On the third…
She didn’t know.
She was the first to have endured this long.
“There was never any money in this house that was truly mine to begin with. And I never needed to spend any.”
“Still, you can’t go out with nothing. Unlike the younger ladies, you don’t have any keepsakes or dowry the late Viscount set aside for you.”
“Exactly. It would’ve been nice if he’d at least known of my existence before he died.”
She hadn’t expected to feel her father’s absence like this.
As Anne said, in noble houses it was customary to prepare a dowry when a daughter was born. Though her father met a miserable end after bankruptcy, at least when her sisters were born, a sliver of dowry had been placed in trust.
But as for her, born posthumously—there was no chance such fortune remained. She’d heard her paternal grandmother was alive somewhere in the east, but since they refused to acknowledge her existence, there was no chance of a tearful family reunion now.
“My Lady. Here, a necklace—”
“No. Leave it.”
Tatiana refused every piece of jewelry Anne offered. She didn’t want to give her mother any pretext over something trivial. Sweeping all the letters on the desk into a bundle, she slowly stood before the bronze-framed mirror.
“…In this house, the only thing that belongs wholly to me is my body.”
“My Lady.”
“To realize that only now.”
In the mirror, Tatiana stood in her chemise, facing herself with an unfamiliar smile. So this is what I am. The original me without jewels or a dazzling dress. Strange, but I must grow used to it.
“……”
The clear violet eyes in the mirror blinked slowly. A straight nose and soft lips. An elegant jawline and flawless white skin. Lean yet full, the gentle lines flowed from her shoulders down through her chest and legs.
Though her face had grown a touch gaunt over the past few days, her eyes, fixed on reality, were as clear as her mother’s.
“I’m richer than I thought, aren’t I.”
△▲△▲△
“L-Lady Cartien. You are truly beautiful today as well.”
Marquis Everton couldn’t take his eyes off Tatiana. Though he was known for his deep appreciation of the arts and his inability to resist fine works, today was different. The profile of the lady beside him, chin lifted with quiet grace, seemed far more like a work of art than the grand coronation painting that filled an entire wall of the gallery.
“I hadn’t realized Lady Tatiana was interested in paintings.”
“I’m very interested.”
“Ah…”
The moment her indifferent gaze, fixed on the painting, turned toward him, the Marquis clutched his chest before he knew it.
‘What kind of luck is this?’
He could hardly believe it no matter how he tried. For someone as reserved as himself, it was astonishing that the princess of the Cartien Viscounty—who was always surrounded by people and nearly impossible to glimpse even from afar—was standing right beside him now.
And in a quiet museum where one would be lucky to see more than a handful of visitors in a day, by chance.
Gulp.
The Marquis swallowed dryly. Wondering if she had a companion he’d somehow missed, he glanced around, but the only other person in sight was a maid standing by the entrance.
“Is something the matter, my Lord?”
“N-no. I was simply… appreciating the painting.”
When he met Tatiana’s eyes head-on, the nape of his neck flushed conspicuously red. Feeling as if the goddess in the masterpiece had come to life, the Marquis hurried to change the subject.
“It is the coronation of Fermina III, painted in Imperial Year 753. Leonia, the most renowned painter of the time, is said to have worked on it for over a year—”
“Given the prevailing style of the period, it couldn’t be helped.”
“…Pardon?”
“From around 730, there was a trend of assigning meaning to even the smallest objects. These books represent respect, and the hyacinth on Her Majesty the Empress’s hand… was it an unexpected bond?”
“Ah!”
No sooner had Tatiana’s gentle words ended than the Marquis forgot to breathe. Uncertain how to accept this fateful-seeming encounter, his trembling lips slipped beyond his control from that moment on.
“I-I hadn’t realized you were this well-versed in art, my Lady. Then perhaps you’re also interested in Beln?”
“Of course. It was a period when subjects and themes diversified as the empire embarked on full-fledged wars of conquest.”
“Ah.”
“Though in Lebron, there are very few places where one can actually see it.”
“I will guide you!”
“…My Lord.”
Startled by his suddenly raised voice, Tatiana looked up at him. Face blazing, he began to babble, tripping over his words.
“A-as it happens, our family has a fair number of works from the Beln period. I thought, perhaps, if the Lady might be interested…”
“Well. I am very interested, but it is a bit sudden.”
“It’s not sudden at all. My feelings for you have always… No, that’s not what I meant! Whew. It’s just that… ah, it won’t do, after all.”
Overwhelmed and rambling without knowing what he was even saying, Marquis Everton suddenly deflated. Intoxicated by his unprecedented good fortune, he had momentarily forgotten who the young lady before him truly was.
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