On the day his one and only sister died of childbed fever, Heliones paid an unannounced visit to the Fonta estate.

The news had not yet reached the outside world, but since his sister was the daughter-in-law of Marchioness Conte, a lady-in-waiting to the empress, word had apparently reached the imperial palace.

Heliones offered no words of comfort. With his usual blank expression, he held out a book by the author young Count Fonta, a viscount at the time, was fond of, then sat close by and quietly read.

The surface tension of a glass filled to the very brim, one breath away from spilling over. The boy Heliones offered comfort like a careful drop of water that no one would notice, so that the glass would not overflow, so that the young viscount’s pride would not crumple.

Count Fonta had pledged his lifelong service to Heliones because of exactly that. Not simply because he was the heir who carried the blood of the great Frianc imperial family.

“I have committed a sin worthy of death.”

What more could he say? He had failed as a retainer and as a friend. He had toppled the tower built painstakingly over all those years.

“You don’t have to agree with me at every turn. I wouldn’t want that from anyone, but especially not from you.”

Squeeze. At Heliones’s voice, calmer and quieter than expected, Count Fonta clenched both fists tight.

“One thing only. From now on, hide nothing from me. Never deceive me. Not ever.”

“Yes.”

His throat too tight to give a proper answer, Count Fonta pressed his lips firmly shut, as though swearing on his life to uphold the command, and bowed his head deeply.

Satisfied with the answer, Heliones rose with a lightness that was nothing like the way he had sunk to the floor, and gave an order.

“Sit down over there.”

At his lord’s command, Count Fonta took a seat across from the desk in the study.

“Answer me honestly.”

“Yes.”

Count Fonta nodded with a resolute look in his eyes, swearing to give nothing but the truth to whatever his lord asked.

“My lady doesn’t seem to have any feelings for me at all, does she?”

* * *

Late in the afternoon, the front door swung open with a sudden, sweeping force, like a light curtain being thrown aside.

Standing at the door, bold as ever, was the one person whose identity the very manner of that entrance made obvious. Hanna.

“Ma’am! Are you in there…”

Before she could finish, I ran to her at full speed and pulled her into my arms by the shoulders.

Hanna’s small, slight frame fit snugly against me.

Her deep golden hair, tied up firmly just like her personality, carried the familiar smell of linseed oil from the paints.

Thank goodness. I’m so relieved.

I knew Heliones was not that kind of person, but memories carved into you in childhood gnaw at you for the rest of your life.

I had been sick with worry that Hanna might end up like the cat with its neck broken, the bird with its wings torn off. Only when I saw that her limbs and neck were all intact did I finally breathe properly again, the tension draining out of me.

“You made it. Was the journey all right? Nothing unpleasant along the way?”

“Unpleasant? Thanks to all this, I got to ride a train and a grand carriage for the very first time in my life.”

Behind Hanna’s cheerful chatter, bags and cases began filing through the front door one by one.

Among them, one thing caught my eye in particular. The hydrangea from the flower bed.

Hanna noticed my gaze and broke into a proud smile, looking just a little pleased with herself, as she staggered in carrying the large pot with the lopsided hydrangea in it.

“They offered me two years’ worth of severance pay. That’s when I had a feeling you’d be staying in the capital for quite a while. You were so curious about what color the hydrangea would bloom, so I insisted on bringing it and here it is!”

In truth, it was mostly Hanna who had crouched in front of the hydrangea every day wondering what color it would be this year, but I had felt a small flutter of anticipation too, so I ran my hand gently over the pot and smiled.

“We’ll need to water it first.”

“Why is the garden here so small? I thought a townhouse in the capital would be enormous and grand. It is grand, but it’s so tiny.”

Still grumbling, Hanna somehow found the back door on her own without being told and headed toward it, hydrangea in hand.

“Houses near the imperial palace tend to run a bit small. Nobles from all over the country gather here during the social season, so it can’t be helped.”

“Well, it’s about the same size as our old house, so at least it won’t be hard to clean.”

Heliones had sent three servants. One for the kitchen, one for laundry and cleaning, and one to oversee the household as a butler, who also served as a watchman.

So there would be little for Hanna to do beyond attending to me personally, but for now I played along with what she said.

“True. If it had been a grand estate, the two of us would have had a hard time managing it.”

The pot looked quite heavy, and watching Hanna struggle with it alone made me feel bad, so I rolled up my sleeves as I usually would and reached out to help.

At that moment, the elderly butler standing nearby stepped forward and politely but firmly blocked my hand with his own, then scolded Hanna in a strict voice.

“What are you doing, making Duchess Gertil carry things?”

The elderly butler Heliones had sent to the townhouse to keep watch over me was someone I knew well.

He was a butler employed exclusively by the imperial family, the heir to a baronial house that had managed the imperial household’s affairs for generations.

When the Frianc imperial family was destroyed by my homeland, the Kingdom of Rodencia, most of the servants had tendered their resignations and left, but the elderly butler Elren and a small number of others had stayed to the end and moved with the family.

Heliones, the sole surviving member of the imperial bloodline, had taken up residence at the Gertil ducal estate rather than the imperial palace.

The atmosphere at the estate was one of unrelenting gloom.

An imperial family that had once commanded the entire continent had been reduced to a mere ducal house, confined to an estate rather than a palace. That was only to be expected.

Those loyal to the old imperial family despised me as someone from the enemy nation. Mockery and contempt were my daily companions.

But it did not wound me deeply. I understood their feelings more than well enough, and besides, it was the same treatment I had always received back in my own homeland.

Even I thought of myself as someone who deserved to be treated that way, and there was only one person who had stepped forward to uphold my dignity. That person was Elren, the same man now standing between me and Hanna.

My mother-in-law had treated me as though I did not exist throughout the marriage. Under the late duchess’s cold neglect, the servants spoke ill of me loudly enough for me to hear and made no effort to hide their icy looks.

It was nothing compared to the beatings and t*rture I had endured in my homeland, of course, but something inside me was slowly sinking deeper and deeper beneath still water.

Through all of that, only the elderly butler Elren had treated me like a true duchess.

At every moment and in every place, with a courteous yet never cold touch, he extended a saving hand and pulled me back up to the surface.

Hanna, who had apparently been so shocked by what she heard on the train that she nearly fainted, glanced between Elren and me and gave a small, apologetic bow.

I felt a pang of guilt. It had not been Hanna’s idea at all. I had reached out on my own and gotten her scolded for it.

At the same time, I had no desire to blame Elren. Throughout the marriage, he had quietly looked out for me in ways I noticed and ways I didn’t, and I understood perfectly well why he reacted the way he did.

“Thank you, first of all. You always take my side.”

I meant it sincerely. Whether it reached him or not, a warmth stirred in the brown eyes of the middle-aged man behind his monocle.

“And I am not the duchess. We divorced over two years ago.”

“But the documents were forged, were they not?”

“They can’t be called forged when they carry the signature of the emperor’s legal representative. There may be a procedural issue, but even if that gets resolved, we’ll only be divorcing again anyway. Duchess is hardly the right word.”

I drew the line carefully, not wanting to hurt Elren’s feelings, but with a firm look in my eyes. Elren bit his upper lip a few times as though he had something to say, but then bowed his head politely and accepted my words.

“Then how shall I address you?”

“The same as before, Lady Bel…”

“That title will not do.”

Belzen was the surname of my first ex-husband, who had deceived me, so it wasn’t as though I had been using it out of fondness. But Elren’s refusal was so blunt and immediate that I felt a little embarrassed, and I turned to Hanna with an awkward smile. Hanna gave a helpless shrug and smiled back.

“Then please just call me Miss Lucian.”

A plain name really was the best option. I had always been called by one husband’s surname or another, so my own name was relatively unknown, and I had no desire to go on using someone else’s surname as my title.

“Yes. Of course.”

This time, thankfully, Elren accepted my wish without protest.

“And Hanna and I have leaned on each other all this time. We’ll continue to do so. She followed me all the way here to look after me, so I ask that you be patient with her even if she falls short in some ways.”

In short, the two of you are on the same side, so please get along without quarreling.

Whether he understood my meaning, Elren gave a quiet nod with a smile that looked slightly reluctant but willing enough.

That would have to be enough for now.

With the situation settled, I helped Hanna water the hydrangea. The pot, its blooms just on the verge of opening, found its place directly across from the front door, the first thing any visitor would see upon entering.

Elren helped move the pot and asked me to speak informally to him, but I was now a commoner with no title to my name. I had no wish to speak casually to a baron, and one considerably older than me at that, so I declined as gently as I could.

In the end, Elren and Hanna, a chef who cooked with flair and genuine care, and a shy-looking young maid became my housemates.