With rain pouring like this, the woman wasn’t using an umbrella.

The shawl that should have been wrapped around her had slipped down to her shoulders, revealing her face and hair beneath. That hair was a luscious red, strikingly visible even on the platform where only emergency lights remained on.

The shawl and thin coat were soaked with rain, dripping water onto her small feet below. The shawl fell to the ground as she took a few more steps, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her face, hidden behind loosely tied hair, was ghostly pale.

The bag in the woman’s hand swung limply, and her steps were even more unsteady.

Jeremy’s feet moved on their own.

“……Excuse me.”

From gatherings held in Whittingham to all sorts of social events, how many women had feigned anemia, dizziness, headaches, orthostatic hypotension, and vasovagal syncope just to lean on this young duke’s arm, even if only once? That’s why Seth, the Duke’s footman, carried all sorts of medications to clear ladies’ minds. Of course, those fake patients were as healthy as the three horses Maude had given her brother for his birthday.

Jeremy had never seen someone look as ill as the woman before him. Even his mother, who had passed away on her sickbed, had better color than this.

He asked.

“Are you alright?”

Feverish, deep olive eyes looked up at him.

She moved her lips.

He leaned in closer to hear what was coming from between them.

“……Please move aside.”

Instead of asking for help or for someone to be called, the woman who spat those words staggered.

The next moment, her slender body collapsed gently into the arms he had extended to catch her.

* * *

Emil Thornton, the butler of Crimsworth Court, had faithfully served the ducal family since the previous generation and still prided himself on having opened the door for the doctor who came to deliver Jeremy and Maude when they were born.

The young Duke of Crimsworth was an impeccably excellent young man, just like the previous duke. Though he was more cynical and had a somewhat crooked side compared to his father, that too was a privilege of youth. It was far better than being frivolous and undignified.

As an employer, ‘Lord Crimsworth’ was fair. He was generous to those who deserved such treatment and coldly indifferent to those who didn’t. His generosity manifested more in generous compensation than in warm words. That’s why everyone except those who had served the family for a long time like Emil respected but found the young duke difficult to approach.

Emil thought kindly that he had matured early because he had lost his parents early and was left alone with his young sister.

If Lady Devon Whitman became the mistress of Crimsworth next year or the year after at the latest…… Then Lord Crimsworth would become a more affectionate man than he was now. With that beauty stirring the hearts of countless Whittingham ladies yet never being involved in any serious scandal, he couldn’t be a better husband candidate.

So when that Lord Crimsworth returned home holding an unconscious, unidentified young lady tightly in his arms, Emil was so surprised that his hands trembled.

“Lo, Lord Crimsworth!”

“Don’t make a fuss.”

The hem of Jeremy’s coat was half-soaked with rainwater dripping from the body of the woman he was carrying.

“Guide me to a prepared room.”

Emil, though flustered, guided his master to a guest room that was always kept in perfect condition. He didn’t forget to exercise good sense by choosing the innermost room.

Jeremy gave another instruction.

“Mrs. Langley.”

Mrs. Langley was the housekeeper of the ducal residence, who had been there as long as Emil.

While the butler was handling matters, Jeremy finally had the leisure to examine the woman carefully.

Under the light, the woman looked quite young. She might not even be twenty years old. Her hair, tightly tied in a single bunch, was a burning red, and that color made her pale face look even paler. It also made the bruise mark on one of her cheeks clearly visible. He involuntarily drew in a breath when he saw the wound.

The woman’s attire was neat but modest at best, even viewed generously. Judging by how she had firmly clutched the hem of her coat with her small hands even while collapsing, she seemed quite proper.

‘No, that’s uncertain.’

The world is full of garbage-like men, but there are also plenty of clever women who take advantage of that fact. Stories of women who approach naive country gentlemen’s sons to extort considerable sums, or women who hide their past and commit marriage fraud only to be exposed, grace the corners of newspapers every day.

However, he made no assumptions. The woman looked too ill to be playing some shallow trick, and it was his duty to help someone who seemed like they would fall onto the tracks and die if left alone.

The summoned housekeeper appeared with an armful of linens.

“Lord Crimsworth. Should I call a doctor?”

Indeed, the housekeeper was more experienced than the butler who had remained single all his life. Seeing the housekeeper’s calm face, as if a young duke bringing home an unidentified woman on the verge of death in the middle of the night was not even worth calling an incident…….

Somehow, Jeremy felt offended.

He was a person whose every action was the focus of society’s attention. Naturally, he wasn’t frivolous enough to bring just any woman home. Nor was he that desperate for women. Moreover, that woman appeared to be only a couple of years older than Maude. What would make the Duke of Crimsworth do something so thuggish?

“I went to the station to meet Maude, and this young lady looked in such bad condition that I brought her here.”

He strung together words that sounded like an excuse.

The housekeeper calmly responded.

“I see. Where is Miss Maude?”

“……She must be at the townhouse in Whittingham.”

Mrs. Langley approached the bed and looked at the woman.

“I’ll call a doctor and take care of her, so Lord Crimsworth, please go up to your room and rest. ……Oh my.”

The housekeeper clicked her tongue softly as if finding the situation pitiful. Jeremy’s steps halted momentarily. The housekeeper turned to look at him.

“Please go upstairs.”

When he still didn’t move, the housekeeper tactfully added.

“I will inform you of the doctor’s diagnosis through Mr. Thornton.”

* * *

While society held the notion that orphans were ignorant and violent, in Bronwynner’s experience, Perth Orphanage had many clever and shrewd children. It was an environment where one couldn’t survive otherwise.

Especially the girls, while fearing the time when they would have to leave the orphanage at sixteen, also looked forward to it. They had heard preposterous stories from somewhere about kind gentlemen sponsoring orphan girls and eventually falling in love with them, and they dreamed of such things happening to them too.

Girls of a more realistic bent clearly knew the limitations of their origins.

⌜Bronwynner. You’re lucky to be pretty. They say if you become a nobleman’s mistress, you won’t have to worry about making a living.⌟

⌜What’s a mistress?⌟

⌜A woman who pleases a man in bed. And bears his children if they come.⌟

⌜Children are supposed to be born after marriage.⌟

⌜Are you stupid? Why do you think women keep abandoning babies at the orphanage? Because they had babies without being married.⌟

The girl who told her that was probably an illegitimate child of a nobleman.

She came to fully understand the meaning of that conversation after her fourteenth birthday. By then, Bronwynner had developed her own set of values. Her decision not to become someone’s mistress wasn’t because she was particularly moral. Rather, it was because that life didn’t seem very stable to her. After all, a woman who carried herself loosely wasn’t welcomed anywhere.

But she might still have been foolish to believe that choice was entirely hers.

⌜Listen. You have two choices.⌟

As Alec had said, that might ultimately be the only path available to her.

Dreams of entering a teacher training school to help children like herself…

⌜When I grow up, I want to be a lady like Bronwynner.⌟

The warmth of the child who came into the nanny’s arms saying that. The sweet smell of milk. The playful glances exchanged behind the governess’s back. The drawings the children made for her. Though the work was plentiful and the pay meager, Bronwynner was compensated with such things.

‘But I’ll never see Elise or Kaylee again.’

She had killed the children’s brother. The baroness had said she would tell them that Bronwynner had left them very coldly. Thinking about how sad the two children would be upon hearing that broke her heart.

The baroness had said she was irresponsible because she was an orphan, but when it came to the feeling of loss, Bronwynner knew much more than the baroness. About piercing loneliness too. About the overwhelming uncertainty of not seeing what lies ahead.

Now anxiety and guilt had been added to that.

‘Somewhere, somewhere where no one knows me……’

Since she had no relatives or friends, anywhere but Perth or Bathgate would do.

But what would she do once she found such a place, a new start……?

The job that a twenty-year-old nanny without a single letter of recommendation could find would pay less and be more arduous than her work at Baron Bingham’s household.

‘First, I need to find a place to stay tonight……’

She was so cold. An endless chill seeped from inside her body. The places she had bumped during the struggle with Alec began to ache belatedly, and she was terribly hungry. The Bingham household wasn’t stingy with food provided to the staff, but she often missed meals due to work. Yet she could never get used to hunger.

Bronwynner curled up, pulling the fluffy blanket around her more tightly.

‘Fluffy blanket……?’

Suddenly, she became wide awake.

The moment she felt the touch of linen, she sat bolt upright.

And was astonished at the scene before her.

“What…… what is this?”

She closed and opened her eyes a couple of times. It wasn’t a dream. She wasn’t imaginative enough to dream something so specific that she had never seen before.

She was buried in a snow-white bed with a handsome canopy, wearing an equally snow-white nightgown. The walls and ceiling were emerald, and furniture matching that color was placed here and there.

The source of the fragrance tickling her nose was a vase full of white roses on the console. Beyond that, the window outside was bright.

However, no matter how much she looked around, she couldn’t see the clothes she had been wearing.

‘I definitely…… got off the train……’

Her memory cut off after getting off the train and following the crowd that wouldn’t diminish.

Had she collapsed and been moved to a hospital? As far as she knew, no hospital this luxurious existed.

Bronwynner first got out of bed. She felt dizzy when her feet touched the ground, but it was fine after staying still for a moment. The nightgown through which her skin faintly showed was muslin. While she was hesitating whether she should leave the bed in such attire, the door suddenly opened a crack.

A blonde girl peeked her face through the gap.

Naturally, Bronwynner was startled.

But the more surprised one was the girl.

“Gasp! You’re awake!”

“Um……”