1. Three People

“Lennox, you’ll stay for a few days, right?”

Marienne’s eyes sparkled as she suddenly leaned her head toward the man.

Lennox smiled faintly and gazed at Fiona intently before nodding his head slowly.

“If Fiona allows it, I’d like to stay for a few days.”

“If you say it like that, there’s no way I can refuse.”

Fiona answered with a short laugh.

“Sister, thank you!”

“It’s nothing.”

Marienne hugged her sister tightly. Fiona lightly embraced her younger sister’s thin back.

“Lennox, tomorrow morning……”

Marienne’s cheeks flushed red as she excitedly continued talking, thrilled that the man would be staying a few more days.

Her older sister watched her younger sister with a faint smile. Marienne looked more lively than ever.

Marienne. Fiona savored her younger sister’s name in her mind and lowered her eyes, taking a sip of tea.

Marienne was an irreplaceably precious existence to Fiona. Several years had already passed since their parents died, and now she was the only family Fiona had left. She was also a particularly painful thorn in her side.

She had been weak since birth, and Fiona had heard countless times that it would be difficult for her to grow up safely. But Marienne lived somehow. She was always precarious, but even so, it seemed she couldn’t let go of the thread of life.

She won’t make it past ten years old.

She won’t make it past fifteen years old.

She won’t become an adult…….

Despite the doctor’s countless warnings, Marienne safely became an adult.

The unfortunate thing was that their parents passed away before they could see Marienne become an adult.

‘Still, they were always worried that Marienne would die before them. I wonder if they felt a little relieved about that.’

Fiona swallowed a bitter smile.

When they lost their parents, she was afraid that something might happen to Marienne too. But even though her younger sister was bedridden for quite a long time, she eventually got up.

Perhaps she would continue to live on somehow in the future. That belief had grown strong enough.

“Sister, you’re coming too, right?”

Marienne tugged on Fiona’s sleeve as she asked.

“Huh? What?”

Fiona answered somewhat bewildered. She had let the conversation between Lennox and Marienne pass by, so she didn’t know what they had decided to do. She reflexively turned her gaze to Lennox, and their eyes met.

Lennox always looked at Fiona with those eyes.

“No, I’m sorry. I have things to do…… You two can go together and have a good time, right?”

Fiona smiled brightly as she tucked her younger sister’s wavy hair behind her ear. Marienne pouted her lips.

“You always have things to do. Sister, that’s too much.”

“You know I can’t help it.”

“That’s true, but……”

Marienne’s expression had deflated slightly, but she seemed to decide to think positively and started chattering excitedly to Lennox about the place they would go together.

Fiona watched her lively younger sister before quietly rising from her seat.

“I’ll be going now. Lennox, please take good care of my younger sister.”

“Fiona.”

“Marienne, don’t overdo it.”

“Do you have more work to do?”

“Yes. I always have plenty of work.”

Fiona smiled blandly and left her seat. Leaving Marienne’s chattering voice behind, she entered the house and quietly climbed the stairs.

She arrived at the study and hid behind the window curtains, staring intently at the two people still in the garden.

She couldn’t hear what they were talking about properly, but she could faintly distinguish her younger sister’s laughter.

‘This is fine as it is.’

She comforted herself that way.

This is the best.

It’s perfect.

Fiona gripped the curtain tightly. If she thought it was for Marienne’s sake, it wasn’t so unfair. Wasn’t she a younger sister she wanted to give everything to?

Since childhood, she had yielded everything and sacrificed for her younger sister with a weak body.

She had never hated it.

It was natural. Marienne was in a state where it wouldn’t be strange if she died at any time, so wasn’t it right for the healthy Fiona to step back a little?

She had become accustomed to putting ‘younger sister first’ over herself her entire life, so why was she feeling a little ‘hateful’ about it now?

Fiona inhaled as deeply as her chest hurt, then slowly exhaled.

‘A feeling of liking someone isn’t a big deal.’

That’s right. She liked Lennox.

She didn’t want to express it as love. If she called it love, she would hate yielding even more.

‘Actually, I met Lennox first.’

A few years ago, she went to a party held by a friend and met Lennox for the first time.

It was two years before she became an adult. Their parents were alive, Marienne was even younger, and as always, her younger sister was weak.

How should she put it? Lennox just caught her eye.

She wasn’t an adult yet, but she had attended quite a few parties that friends held casually, so she had met quite a few men from other noble families. But no one stuck in her mind like that. That man was engraved in Fiona’s mind so simply.

Because he was handsome? Of course, that was definitely one of the reasons.

Lennox’s bronze eyes caught her attention even from afar. His eyes with a tinge of green also felt slightly, slightly rough. Like an ancient relic.

His brown hair, catching the light breaking from the sparkling chandelier, gave off a metallic feeling like his eyes. It was copper-colored.

So sometimes Lennox seemed as if he were made of metal. As if he were an existence delicately crafted by a legendary artisan. Should she say it felt like he became a human living on this earth through the kiss of someone who loved him so much?

His height that towered over others, his firmly set shoulders, his long legs and large hands. He was perfect in every way.

But that wasn’t all. Conversations with Lennox were enjoyable, and unlike his appearance that could seem cold, he naturally accepted Fiona.

He was a kind person. Even Fiona noticed that every time Lennox showed his face at a party, the number of women who secretly admired him increased.

Thinking up to that point, Fiona chuckled.

Whatever reason she attached, there was no way to express it other than ‘she fell for him at first sight.’

A year passed like that. She had no way of knowing what feelings Lennox had for Fiona, but it was clear that they had at least become close. They exchanged letters personally.

‘When did it start?’

She didn’t want to call it a mistake. Fiona had no reason to resent her younger sister.

Like an older sister who brought countless stories for her younger sister with a weak body, Fiona readily confessed that she had met a man named Lennox at a party. Every time Lennox sent a letter, Fiona willingly shared its contents with her younger sister.

Marienne became completely absorbed in the story of the charming man. She begged several times, saying she wanted to meet him too.

When she thought they had built up quite a friendship, Fiona carefully invited Lennox to the estate. It was also a desire to spend several days together rather than seeing him for a few hours at a party. Thanks to Marienne begging several times to see Lennox, their parents readily gave permission despite it being an invitation to a strange man.

Lennox readily agreed and came not long after.

‘In a way, it was inevitable.’

Marienne fell completely for the charming him.

It was a fact she realized belatedly, but it was a ‘natural’ thing. Wasn’t she a child who had been confined to the castle her whole life and hadn’t met many people who could be called the opposite s*x?

There were sons of employees or fairly young servants, but the appearance of an outstanding man incomparable to any of them was enough to shake her younger sister’s tender heart.

Marienne stuck close to Lennox the entire time. The innocent child who didn’t even know how to hide her favor blatantly revealed her feelings of liking and looked at him with sparkling eyes.

Seeing that scene, what could she do?

All Fiona had to do was help the two of them get closer.

After that, Marienne lived with Lennox’s name on her lips. She sent him countless letters and begged several times asking if she could invite him. It was so blatant that anyone could tell Marienne loved Lennox.

The more her younger sister fell for him, the more Fiona had no choice but to silently hide her own feelings.

‘No one forced me to yield.’

But in this situation, she couldn’t suddenly step forward and say, ‘Actually, I like Lennox. Longer than you have, Marienne.’

She didn’t want to hurt her younger sister’s heart. Wasn’t she a child who was already in a lot of pain?

It wouldn’t be something an older sister should do to add a burden to her heart on top of that.

How nice it would have been if she could kill her emotions so nonchalantly.

But the more she tried to forget about Lennox, the more that man dominated everything about Fiona so casually.

For the first time, Fiona thought that yielding to Marienne, enduring for her younger sister’s sake, was painful.

Even though it wasn’t anyone’s coercion, she found herself pathetic for putting aside even her feelings of liking, then resented Marienne, then hated herself for that.

“Haah……”

Fiona let out a small sigh and shook her head.

She looked once more at where her younger sister and Lennox were sitting. It seemed their eyes met. Lennox’s bronze eyes stabbed Fiona like a dull blade.