“What is this?”

“Easter’s coming up, isn’t it? The Brixton couple are having a hen race to celebrate.”

“Is it that time already?”

Regina remembered the dinner party she had attended at the Finleys’ early in her marriage – lively events, a garden scented with spring flowers, the cheerful chaos of clucking hens and the delightful laughter of children chasing after them. It was one of the few memories she had that was purely pleasant.

“It’s the most popular garden party in the south, so most of the local gentry will be there.”

“A party needs a hostess, though. Has Casey returned home?”

Casey was Finley’s wife. She was also one of Grey’s closest associates and, most importantly, the head of the Deville Credit and Loan Company.

Where there is light, there is shadow – and Grey Cabil’s banking business was no exception. Those who couldn’t borrow from the respectable Bank of Cabil, or who defaulted on their loans, ended up at the Deville Credit and Loan Company. It may have had a fancy name, but it was essentially a loan sharking operation. And Casey Will Brixton was the one who ran it.

She spent more than half the year away on business, tracking down debtors who had fled without repaying their loans.

“She’ll be back soon.”

“Of course – otherwise they wouldn’t be having a party, would they? I worried for nothing.”

Instead of answering, Grey turned his head slightly. His cool profile looked as calm as ever, but Regina sensed a strange unease.

Had there been a row with Casey?

While she was still guessing, he tapped his finger on the date on the invitation.

“It’s two weeks from now. Are you busy that day?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Then shall we come as a couple?”

Like in the early days of their marriage? Regina hesitated.

Once a door is unlocked, the key is no longer needed.

The same was true for Grey. He had used Regina to gain access to high society, and step by step he had built up his own influence.

Now he stood firmly on his own – so much so that Regina’s retreat into the background no longer mattered.

He simply didn’t need her anymore.

It was Regina who had become isolated.

The only events she could attend without her husband were the ladies’ teas – but unlike when she was unmarried, she no longer felt she belonged anywhere.

The old aristocratic families looked at her, the woman who had married Grey, as a traitor tainted by wealth and cast cold, silent glances of contempt at her.

She couldn’t help but sense more than a little jealousy behind those looks.

That was why she had tried to reach out to the wives of the newly rich bourgeoisie.

But making real connections there was just as difficult.

Their resentment of the so-called high and mighty old ladies ran deep, and Regina felt uncomfortable listening to people she had once known being so casually mocked and torn down, one by one.

In the end, she decided to retreat to her home and lock herself away.

“I really wish you’d come with me, Regina.”

The hand that had once held her back – the hand she had longed for – was now the one reaching out, asking her to return.

Regina looked at that hand. The one that had come too late.

And quietly, she shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m well enough to go to a party.”

Grey’s eyes darkened. Only then did Regina remember that he wasn’t a man used to being turned down.

She felt a pang of guilt, as if she had done something wrong – but she didn’t regret it.

‘You probably don’t know.’

‘I wasn’t a woman used to being ignored either.’

***

Grey was a man who never lost sight of his goals.

The occasions on which he took Regina were few and carefully chosen – always the most prestigious gatherings of the old nobility, who still refused to see Grey as one of their own.

They treated him like a gardener trimming hedges on the fringes of a grand garden party – present but invisible.

But with Regina at his side, everything changed.

“You’re like… that fairy hat, aren’t you?”

Grey would say it in a tone of amused disbelief.

There was a story from the neighbouring kingdom of Marika about a fairy called Browncap – invisible to the human eye.

But if someone left a brown hat out at night, the fairy couldn’t resist.

She’d put it on – and the moment she did, she became visible to humans.

“That’s how she gets caught.”

Grey would say, half laughing.

He used the story to mock the old nobles – how they ignored him until Regina stood beside him.

She was his magic brown hat – the thing that made the invisible visible.

“Fitting, since you have brown hair too, Regina.”

Regina offered a weak, awkward smile.

The noble families Grey so often despised – those “penniless snobs clinging to nothing but their pride” – had been her world. They were her father’s old friends, the people she had grown up with.

Sometimes she wondered if Grey looked down on her too.

After all, she hadn’t brought a dowry into the marriage.

On the contrary, it was Grey’s quiet financial support that had saved her family’s ancestral home from being repossessed by the bank.

Even the vineyard they’ve just begun to restore on the estate would probably not have been possible without his help.

Without her husband’s money, the old house that had been handed down through the generations, and the land that had sustained her family’s legacy, would have been impossible to hold on to.

And yet… could these old families really claim to be more noble than Grey, just because they were old?

“Countess.”

A voice snapped Regina out of her thoughts.

It was a footman – a familiar-looking one.

Not one of Grey’s servants.

Where had she seen him before?

Her curious look made the young man’s ears turn red.

“Sorry to disturb you, but Mr Brixton asked me to give you this.”

“Mr Finley? For me?”

The letter he handed her contained a few short questions: Did she still prefer white, as before? What embellishments did she prefer – ruffles, lace or embroidery? Did she like hard textures or softer ones?

The message had come so abruptly and without context that Regina was stunned.

If Grey hadn’t mentioned something earlier, she had no idea what it was about.

“I’ll tell him about the new bed.”

Poor Mr Finley. Judging by his hurried handwriting, he seemed to have a lot on his plate – and now he had to worry about someone else’s bed on top of everything else.

“Ma’am. I’m sorry, but he asked me to bring a reply…”

“I’ll write it now.”

She spoke quickly, but when it came to actually writing the reply, she was at a loss. Had she ever paid attention to things like sheets or mattresses before?

After staring at the blank paper for a while, lost in thought, Regina looked up at the footman.

“When you have my answer, will you go straight to Mr Finley?”

“Ah, no, ma’am. He told me to deliver it directly to the furniture shop.”

“Where is this shop?”

“Near the east gate of Kapten Port…”

Regina put down her quill and rose from her seat.

“Could you take me there? I’d rather choose it myself.”

***

Unlike her previous visit, Regina was now accompanied by four knights.

It was an excessive entourage for a trip to a furniture shop, where the only real threats were small screws or roughly finished wooden stands – but there was nothing to be done.

There was no harm in being careful.

“Oh dear, my lady!”

The craftsman, who had recently opened a shop in Kapten Port, came running out barefoot as the countess arrived.

“Please, take a look at these. Even white sheets aren’t all the same. This one is more creamy, while this one is a pale greyish white. If you tone it down a bit, you get beige… Hmm, and if you’re planning to use oak for the frame, then a texture like this for the mattress or the sheets would complement it well…”.

Regina examined not only the sheets, but also the types of wood used for the bed frames, the mattresses and even the springs in them – countless samples, each one touched and inspected.

In the past, she would have thought about her husband, who would be sharing the bed with her, and what he might like.

But this time she didn’t.

Regina chose purely on the basis of what her own heart was drawn to.

Although she considered each decision carefully, not much time had passed.

“I will do my best to make the perfect bed! I’m simply honoured that you have entrusted me with this, Countess Cabil.”

The afternoon sun was still shining as she stepped out, having received a bow stiffer than a steel bed frame.

It seemed a shame to go straight back to the mansion after coming all this way.

‘But I have nowhere else to go.’

Yes – she had nowhere else to go.

Her body was free now, and she had more time than she knew what to do with.

Regina found herself thinking about Grey almost out of habit.

Surely he was busy by now.

Even if he wasn’t, she had no desire to see him.

The memory of being turned away at his door in the early days of their marriage still stung, sharp and fresh.

A house dog was expected to wait patiently for its master.

If it dared to follow them to work, it would be scolded.

And yet that dog wouldn’t consider itself unhappy.

Sitting at the front door, waiting for a master who might never return – for a dog, that was happiness.

Regina couldn’t see how she was any different from that dog.