Needless to say, he could never have said those words aloud.

Swallowing down a sigh, he began to eat the meat on his plate.

The warm pork was tender, but tasteless.

“My goodness, my lady? You’re awake early.”

Ena, who had just entered the room, spoke up in surprise.

After the evening banquet, it was common for people to sleep until lunchtime the next day.

Richel leaned back against the pillows.

Ena handed her a glass of water.

The cool water eased the sluggishness weighing down her body almost instantly.

“I’ll inform the kitchen to prepare some warm soup right away.”

“No, not soup. I want a proper meal. I barely ate anything during dinner last night.”

“Then would you like to have breakfast in the dining room? The head chef was rather disappointed, actually. He put a great deal of effort into preparing the presentation of the dishes to match the table setting.”

“Oh, really?”

Richel tried to remember what the food from the previous evening had looked like, but she could hardly recall any of it.

She had lost her appetite so completely that she had barely eaten anything, only drinking instead.

There was hardly any food left on her plate.

‘I only remember the pickled olives and cheese. I don’t even know what the alcohol tasted like.’

Thinking about how carefully the dishes had been prepared made her feel somewhat guilty.

Effort deserved proper respect when someone had done their best.

After a moment of consideration, she answered.

“Then I’ll wash up and head down to the dining room. Ah, have either Uncle James or Edwin woken up yet?”

Richel spoke with a faint furrow in her brows.

The last thing she wanted was to go downstairs only to run into the two of them.

Quickly reading her mood, Ena answered immediately.

“Neither of them has awakened yet, my lady. The Count drank quite heavily yesterday, and I heard his uncle remained awake until very late as well.”

“Then neither of them will be coming down to the dining room.”

“Of course not, my lady.”

Richel headed towards the bathroom, feeling much lighter than before.

Although the dining room looked exactly as it had during the banquet the previous night, the atmosphere was completely different.

The curtains had been opened, allowing warm sunlight to flood in and fill the room with brightness and calm.

As the servants prepared the table, they greeted her warmly.

The room had been aired out and now carried the cool scent of a winter morning mingled with the dry fragrance of wood.

The same stew as the night before was served once again.

It was the kind of warm, comforting meal that settled gently in the stomach.

The unpleasant combination of hunger and a lingering hangover disappeared almost immediately and a faint smile slowly appeared on Richel’s lips.

‘This is nice.’

Enjoying her meal, she gazed out the window.

Birds soared together above the neatly arranged garden outside.

The sky was an impossibly vivid blue.

‘Come to think of it… I really hated eating here alone.’

After Edwin disappeared, she never came down here to eat again.

She didn’t want to sit here alone anymore.

Countless times, Edwin would go out and never return, or simply abandon her again.

Each time, she would sit alone in this dining room to eat.

Meals eaten alone were filled with nothing but misery and loneliness.

That was why she stopped coming here altogether.

She never wanted to be trapped by those memories and emotions again.

“It’s not nearly as bad as I remembered. I should’ve come down here to eat more often.”

Without the weight of the past clinging to it, the dining room was simply quiet and cozy.

Nearly all the dishes from the previous evening appeared again.

A banquet prepared solely for her.

“My goodness, this is incredibly good.”

As she ate the braised pork, she marveled at it once more.

The meat melted at the slightest touch of her tongue, and the sauce, which had seeped into its fibres, was the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

It went well with everything: bread, mashed potatoes and so on.

Humming softly to herself, Richel polished off two whole plates of the meat.

‘A glass of alcohol with this would probably be perfect…’

Just as that thought crossed her mind, the butler hurried into the dining room.

“My lady, you have a visitor.”

“A visitor? Who would suddenly come here?”

Richel frowned as she asked the question.

Aside from Uncle James, no other noble had informed them of their intention to visit.

When visiting another noble family, it was considered the bare minimum of etiquette to give at least two weeks’ notice.

Anyone arriving without warning could hardly be considered a guest.

‘Don’t tell me…’

Several individuals who love gossip sprang to mind.

The kind of people who take delight in rummaging through others’ affairs and spreading rumors that suit their own agenda.

Dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin, she spoke.

“If they barged in without notice, then send them away. I’ll go deal with it myself—”

“My lady, the visitor is not an outsider.”

“Not an outsider?”

“It is Miss Cornelia, Lord James’s eldest daughter.”

Unable to hide her disbelief, Richel replied.

“Why is she here? What possible business could she have?”

Cornelia had interacted with the County just as little as James had.

The last time Richel had seen her was four years ago during the funeral of the former Count and Countess.

The butler answered.

“She says she has a request for the Count.”

“A request? What kind of request requires barging in here without warning?”

Even bearing in mind that Cornelia was family and still in her early twenties, this was extremely rude.

James had been stubborn enough already, was his daughter the same?

As Richel recalled Cornelia as she had been four years ago, she sighed.

Cornelia had also inherited the striking appearance and golden hair for which the Isle family was known.

‘Does being born with faces like that automatically make people live however they please…?’

Having one troublesome member of the Isle family was bad enough, but now she had three to deal with.

Feeling her appetite vanish instantly, she stopped eating.

At least she had already finished two plates of meat.

Richel rose from her seat.

“Where is Cornelia right now? In the drawing room?”

“She’s waiting in the drawing room on the second floor.”

“I should go. I need to hear what kind of request she came here to make.”

Ordinarily, Edwin should have been the one receiving guests.

But there were too many things they needed to hide right now.

And in a situation like this, guests suddenly multiplying was the last thing she needed.

“If she was going to come, she should’ve just come together with her father. What kind of situation is this, showing up separately like this?”

“Well… it seems she didn’t know Lord James was here.”

“She didn’t know?”

Sneaking away to visit relatives she was not even particularly close to, all without her father’s knowledge, just to make some kind of request—Richel could not even begin to imagine what Cornelia wanted.

‘Please let it be something insignificant…’

She let out a long sigh.

“You told her Uncle James is here, right? What did she say? She didn’t get startled and decide to leave immediately?”

The last question carried obvious hope.

Though judging by the fact that the butler had come all the way here to inform her, that clearly had not happened.

“She was surprised, but that was all. It doesn’t seem she intends to leave. Especially since she didn’t come alone…”

“She brought someone with her? She didn’t come alone?”

“Yes. She arrived with a gentleman. They said he is the eldest son of the Nathan Viscount family.”

Richel was about to explode with irritation at the thought of more people following her inside, when she suddenly paused.

The Nathan Viscount family.

That was a familiar name.

Searching quickly through her memory, she found a name.

“The man’s name isn’t David… David Nathan, is it?”

“That’s correct. So you do know him?”

“We knew each other when we were young. Our territories were close.”

Her father often invited neighboring lords to his home to foster good relations.

These gatherings usually included the lords’ young children, too.

Consequently, Richel was often forced to spend time with children who were four or five years younger than her.

David was one of those children.

He was a little boy who was five years younger than her.

‘I wonder how he grew up. He once cried in front of me because he thought his hairstyle looked strange…’

The amusing memory softened her irritation slightly.

In a much better mood, she headed towards the drawing room.

It was located in the innermost part of the second floor.

Due to the angled layout, those inside were not immediately visible, although they could faintly be heard.

A calm female voice continued speaking.

“I’ll go see Father alone. You can stay here— Ah, my lady.”

Cornelia hurriedly rose from her seat.

The man sitting beside her stood as well.

Soon, Cornelia stepped forward and spoke first.

“First, I’d like to apologize for visiting so suddenly without prior notice. I’m truly sorry.”

Her manner was neat, polite, and perfectly proper.

The situation was so completely different from what Richel had expected that she found herself slightly caught off guard.

‘Her appearance really is pure Isle blood, though…’

From her dazzling golden hair and jewel-like blue eyes to her sharply defined jawline and perfectly balanced features, Cornelia’s beauty was unmistakably Isle.

Nevertheless, it seemed that there were actually polite people among them.

Quietly revising her prejudices, Richel gestured for the two of them to sit down.

“Let’s sit down first. Cornelia, and… David Nathan, correct?”

Richel’s voice trailed off uncertainly at the end of her sentence.

She could not be sure that the man standing before her was really David Nathan.

The David she remembered had been a gentle-looking boy with soft, round eyes.

But the man before her now was tall and broad-shouldered, and those innocent, round eyes were nowhere to be found.

As Richel continued to stare at him uncertainly for quite some time, Cornelia let out a quiet laugh beside him.

With the faintest hint of color in his cheeks, the man greeted her politely.

“I’m David Nathan. You may not remember me, but I visited the Rainer County several times when we were children.”

Only after hearing those words did Richel finally confirm that her memory had been correct.

She had come here warmed by old memories, yet her body instinctively froze for a moment.

The difference between the boy in her memories and the man before her was simply too great.

“You’ve really… really changed a lot since you were young.”

At those words, Cornelia burst into laughter.

David quietly scolded her, saying her laughter was too loud.

Only after laughing for quite some time did Cornelia finally speak again.

“Allow me to formally introduce him to you, my lady. This is David Nathan—my fiancé.”