101

“Please sketch the children first. The coloring can come later. Just a light sketch for now.”

Lady Rekton finished speaking, and the painter spread out his supplies and set up a blank white canvas.

The lady took Vieta and Hesion and brought them to a small table.

She sat the two children side by side, pressed a book into Hesion‘s hand at random, then gave Vieta a pen and set paper and ink on the table.

“Now, just stay exactly like that for a little while.”

Hesion tried to protest to his mother, but every time he moved, the painter raised his eyebrows in warning, and there was nothing he could do.

Lady Rekton watched the brush sweeping across the canvas and turned to look at a servant who had come into the room looking for her.

“The ladies’ carriages are pulling in.”

“Already? I thought everyone would be a little late.”

Lady Rekton murmured with a surprised look, then turned to Hesion.

“I’ll go on ahead, so come with Vieta.”

She gave a bright smile and left with the servant.

The room fell quiet except for the sound of the brush moving.

Hesion thought of Vieta turning him down and let out a breath at the awkwardness of having nothing more to say.

The ending is already decided.

He did not agree with those words.

What he felt was not the pity she kept insisting it was.

Just acknowledging that much made Hesion‘s heart beat faster.

Flustered by his quickening pulse, he tried to redirect his thoughts and looked down at the book his mother had put in his hands.

He glanced at the cover without thinking and realized the book she had given him was My Daisy, the one he had secretly bought at the bookshop without Vieta knowing.

He had no interest in romance novels, but the fact that it was a book Vieta had chosen made him want to read it, so he had bought a copy for himself.

‘Of all things.’

Hesion crossed his legs and lowered the book slightly below the table so Vieta could not see it.

After sitting stiffly for a long while, he glanced over at Vieta.

He found her staring down at the paper with her pen in hand, rigid as a plaster statue, and a laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

The sight of her straining so hard not to move made him unable to stop laughing.

Hesion was glad for this situation, which gave him an excuse to look at Vieta openly.

Ignoring the painter’s watchful eye, he turned toward her and took his time looking.

※※※

Amy rose from her seat when Lady Winter returned to the drawing room alone.

Vilter, lying slumped against the sofa, glanced at her and closed his eyes again.

Winter looked at her children in the drawing room and her expression hardened.

She walked over to them and spoke.

“Sit up, Vilter. This is not your room.”

Vilter let out a long sigh at her words and sat up straight.

“Where did Hesion go? Why are you two here alone?”

Vilter answered with irritation.

“Young Duke Hesion told us to stay here.”

Winter’s brow furrowed.

“Hesion was the one who sent you here?”

“He also said not to go looking for Vieta. He said he knows we don’t get along, so we don’t need to bother pretending to be close.”

Amy had been waiting for the chance and rattled off her grievances to Winter like a complaint.

“It must have been Vieta who told him everything. She definitely painted us as the villains without saying a word about Susan’s faults!”

At those words, Winter looked ready to go find Vieta that very moment, but she spotted other ladies just entering the drawing room and smoothed out her expression.

“My, you arrived quickly, Lady Winter.”

“I had to come early. Vieta is staying here, you see.”

“Just Vieta?”

The other ladies’ eyes moved to Vilter and Amy.

Winter pulled her children, who had stood to greet them, close and spoke.

“Vilter needs to attend lessons on taking over the family, and Amy came with me to visit my family home. So only Vieta ended up staying here.”

She smiled at the ladies as though nothing had been the matter at all.

“Oh my, is that so? Then is Vieta going back with you today, Lady Winter?”

Lady Winter barely kept her lips from falling at one lady’s question.

“No. I had thought to take her, but Lady Rekton insisted against it. It seems she’s quite taken with Vieta.”

Even as she said the words, Winter felt she was going to lose her mind from the turmoil churning inside her.

Another lady beside her noticed Lady Winter’s lips trembling faintly and pulled the questioning lady away to sit on the sofa.

The awkward atmosphere lasted only a moment before the door opened right on cue and ladies in white dresses began appearing one by one.

Winter kept pace with the ladies chattering about the latest hairstyles, dresses, and jewels, hiding the irritation roiling inside her.

Vilter and Amy passed the dull waiting time talking with other young people who had come with the ladies.

“This is also a jewel I purchased in Gedmile.”

A ring holding a ten-carat diamond sat on one lady’s hand.

The ring, which shimmered in shifting colors depending on the light, brought a gleam to the ladies’ eyes.

“How can anything be so beautiful?”

“So you were the one who bought the White Royal ring!”

“I didn’t buy it. It was a gift. You know how warm Roland is. He said he thought of me and bought it.”

“That’s true. Watching the two of you together makes me green with envy. How many years has it been since you met?”

“Jade is seven, so it’s been eight years already.”

Winter bit the inside of her lip at Kayla’s proud words.

Roland Twiden.

He had been an unremarkable second son from an obscure baron family.

Roland had once confessed his feelings to Winter. But she had not liked that he was from a baron family she had never even heard of, and that as a second son he could not inherit the estate.

Winter had coldly ignored his feelings as though they were beneath her and promptly married Ross, Duke Lukbiche.

But Roland, who had disappeared amid rumors of becoming a clergyman, had returned after throwing himself into the wine trade and amassing enormous wealth. And he had married Kayla, a woman Winter had always looked down on.

Winter had no great interest in his success. She was not so short of money that she needed to envy his wealth.

What made her jealous of Kayla was Roland’s warmth.

Watching a man treasure the very woman she had dismissed as though she were the most precious person in the world left a foul taste in her mouth.

It felt as though she herself were somehow more worthless and lesser than Kayla.

‘How irritating. What do I possibly lack compared to a woman like her? She’s nowhere near Roland’s level. How could the woman he chose after me be Kayla?’

Sinking into her own inferiority, Winter barely heard the ladies talking around her.

Lost in her own thoughts, she felt someone tap her lightly on the shoulder.

“Lady Winter?”

The lady beside her was looking at her with a puzzled expression.

“I must have called your name more than five times.”

At the lady’s playful words, Winter smiled brightly again.

“Oh, goodness. Did you really? I must have been somewhere else.”

“Everyone was complimenting the Lukbiche family’s diamonds.”

“They’re saying the diamond Lady Kayla is wearing came from the Lukbiche family’s mine.”

“That’s right. The finest diamonds from the mine go to the Gedmile gem cutters first.”

The ladies’ admiration shifted from Kayla to her.

Lady Winter put on the expression of someone who could wear a ten-carat diamond on every finger if she wished and looked at Kayla with a haughty air.

At her pointed gaze, Kayla grew flustered and subtly covered the diamond ring on her hand.

Winter smiled at her leisure, certain she had won.

“There’s a rumor that the Duke is venturing into gold mining. Is it true?”

Lady Winter hesitated briefly at one lady’s question.

If Vieta and Hesion ended up together, the engagement with Count Dillent would fall through, and with it the investment funds for the gold mining venture would come to nothing.

The future of the gold mining business was that uncertain.

But Winter wanted to put Kayla’s nose firmly out of joint.

“My, has the rumor already gotten out?”