“Marvan. Since it’s no longer a matter of putting personal feelings first, consider it the duty of a family serving the grand ducal house. I intend to do so. I don’t want to throw away my responsibility to protect the family as Bellington’s mistress. So I will take charge of his education.”

Marvan was terribly angry at those words.

What was being a noble? What was Bellington?

What was so precious about this pathetic son who showed his mother his heart wounded by his father’s affair?

“Then I have nothing else to do. I should hope Father wakes up soon.”

It would have been good if he had resembled his mother, being strong and principled.

He resembled his father, being narrow-minded and petty. The hearts of people he cherished were more important than the family’s well-being.

He himself, who would laugh and cry together when they laughed and cried, was more important.

“I hope at least one person survives to pay the price for their sins.”

He left his seat just like that and went upstairs to where his wife who still knew nothing and his poor daughter who couldn’t enjoy things due to her inadequate father were.

Then suddenly, he looked up the stairs where he had never consciously cast a glance.

And he thought of the young boy living crouched like a mouse there.

Rian. My half-brother who would have been happier not being born.

When you grow a little more, and thus despise and resent the one who is your birth father and my birth father…… If we come to empathize with each other’s misfortune with malice.

You will understand.

Will there come a day when we regard each other as brothers someday……

***

That day, Rian was spending time looking out the window as usual. If there was something different from before, it was that the child looked neater than before and also seemed a little less lonely.

The boy didn’t refuse to wash, but until now he had always been crouched in corners where dust had been half-wiped, looking like a broom that had swept the floor and been brought up.

But for the past few days, he had been trying to wear his inherited old clothes as cleanly as possible.

Thanks to this, even though it was well past noon, Rian was maintaining fairly well the appearance the servants had washed him into that morning.

His clothes had almost no wrinkles, and because he sat avoiding dust, his white indoor clothes were as clean as if he had just changed into them.

What was he expecting?

The answer to that question was held in the child’s busy hands.

In one hand was yellow wrapping paper with creased parts carefully smoothed out, and in the other hand was a letter worn from being read many times.

— Rian. I prepared a gift that reminds me of you. I specially chose it, so I believe you’ll definitely like it.

And as if proving the girl’s confidence in the letter, beside Rian sat a deer doll that he had come to cherish enough to consider his first friend.

It was truly a peaceful time.

Until a large carriage appeared beyond the window.

‘Huh, that. That emblem surely……’

Rian felt a sense of déjà vu seeing the emblem attached to the side of the large carriage.

It didn’t take long for him to realize it was the same emblem he had seen in the girl’s letter that he had looked at so much it showed signs of wear.

‘Did Rania come?’

Rian had never imagined someone coming to see him, but since there’s such a thing as a first time for everything.

The familiar shape of the large carriage made Rian dream his first dream.

It made him have something called hope.

The child full of dreams acted like a child lost in fantasies of flying in the sky.

The child focused all his senses toward the outside, abandoning both the bright yellow wrapping paper he never let go of daily and the translation of the letter the butler had written for him.

He was too scared to go out for fear of being scolded, but instead pressed himself against the door leading to the corridor to eavesdrop on sounds.

Only belatedly did he realize he had dared to abandon all of Rania’s gifts by the window. But he couldn’t leave his spot.

Just in case, he might miss the sound of Rania while he was away.

Unfortunately, what responded to Rian’s expectations was not the girl’s voice.

“Young master. Madam is waiting for you in the study.”

Rian, who had flung open the door as soon as he heard footsteps, was disappointed by the butler’s appearance but still tried to gauge the situation while forcibly swallowing his disappointment.

“Um, in the study, by any chance……”

“Yes?”

“No. Nothing.”

“You don’t need to worry about being scolded. She said she has something to tell you.”

The butler comforted him kindly, but Rian’s face didn’t brighten. It was fortunate he wouldn’t be scolded, but…… that wasn’t what he really wanted to hear.

He wanted to hear news that she had come to see him.

In the end, it was just a vain dream that only visited briefly at night and disappeared when morning came.

Rian trudged after the butler toward the study. He wanted to bring his doll, but since the butler gave him a look, he instead covered it with a blanket on the bed before coming.

In front of the closed door of the study, he harbored a faint hope that Rania might be there, but as expected, the girl was nowhere to be found.

Then what was the carriage he had seen?

“Rian. Come here.”

“……”

“Rian.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Thinking about the carriage, Rian belatedly approached the viscountess.

‘Scary.’

Rian, who belatedly realized he was in front of the viscountess while thinking of Rania, trembled with fear.

She had been scary from the first moment he saw her. She had never hit him or shouted, but just from the way she looked at him, Rian could tell she found him disagreeable.

Of course, he didn’t know it was because of his birth, since no one had told him.

Moreover, today the atmosphere of the people here, including the viscountess, was heavier and sharper than usual.

‘The people here are going to hit me too.’

He thought it was rather good. It had been as natural as breathing in daily life before coming here.

Since he had always trembled in fear that they might suddenly call him for a beating, he was already prepared for it.

However, he was ashamed. Because he had mistakenly thought the girl had come to meet him. And he was scared that the scary lady in front of him might have noticed his foolish dream.

He wanted to run away. He wanted to be beaten quickly and return to his room. He wanted to embrace his precious treasure and dwell on the image of the girl that existed in his memory.

Ah, but then.

“Today the grand ducal house sent you an invitation.”

“…… Yes?”

“It seems Lady Rania wants to see you.”

Again, the girl’s kindness returned through another’s voice. Though it was merely curiosity and nothing but obsession.

“Me? Does Lady Rania really want to see me?”

It was a handful of sunlight for a child who had lived trapped in the depths of winter his entire life.

Even if it was light that foretold an even fiercer blizzard to come.

So Rian burst into tears again.

“I, I really want to go. I want to go……”

Just like when his birth mother was alive. Please don’t hurt him. Please treat him just a little warmly. Just like when he prostrated himself and begged then.

Rian buried his nose in the musty, dusty floor of the study and tears dripped down.

“Please. Just once is fine. Please help me meet Lady Rania. Just once more. I, I’ve met Lady Rania before, in the garden. This time I’ll go and greet her properly. I learned how to greet. She taught me, so now I can do it……”

That crying, the deeply carved loneliness. The pain tormented Lady Bellington.

The child didn’t need to have any rough edges. If he had shown the appearance of a child his age like her granddaughter.

Then she could have resented him.

She could have treated him coldly in place of the woman who had suddenly appeared in her life again and then disappeared leaving only the child, and at least vented her anger.

The wrinkled hands placed on her knees trembled. Trembling. Trembling.

Every time the child cried so hard he hiccupped and swallowed his sobs, she swallowed her tears in rhythm with him.

***

When Rian, who had been lying flat on the floor, finally stopped crying, Lady Bellington also barely managed to compose herself and act as usual.

“Rian. Get up.”

Instead of embracing the small body shaking with sobs and wiping his tear-soaked face with her sleeve, the viscountess raised the child with a stern tone.

Rian’s education had already begun.

“I’m, I’m sorry.”

Fortunately, Rian was accustomed to taking care of his neglected self. He stood up on his own, wiped his tear-stained face, and looked up at the viscountess while swallowing his sounds.

Well done. What a good child……

The praise the child should have received was not heard. Instead, the sound of a letter envelope sliding across the side table was heard.