***

The foreboding she felt came true that very evening.

It wasn’t a typical dinner dish, but Elsie was in the middle of eating the apple pie she and Nellie had made together.

Bang bang!

Someone pounded hard on the door.

“Nellie Fox! Open up!”

The husky woman’s voice was laced with anger.

Nellie recognized the voice and rose from her seat, her face set. Thomas started to say something, and she shook her head.

Elsie sat between them, reading the room in silence.

“……Miss Warwick. What brings you here at this hour?”

Nellie opened the door.

A woman with wavy hair down to her waist stepped into view, her bearing bold and unyielding.

It was Matilda Warwick, once a close friend, now estranged over something that had gone wrong between them.

“……It’s been a while.”

Nellie looked at Matilda, who made no effort to hide the hostility radiating off her, and let out a breath.

“Still as sly as ever. I hear you’re hiding a big name.”

“Big name, nothing. I took in a guest.”

“The problem is that guest isn’t just any guest. She’s inside, isn’t she?”

“Come back another time. It’s late.”

Nellie tried to turn her away, guessing what Matilda, president of the Earnest Merchants’ Association, had come to say.

“I’ve never apologized to you, have I. But this once, I will. I’m sorry. Let me in.”

“Matilda!”

Matilda pushed past Nellie and walked inside. Her steps didn’t falter.

Nellie limped in after her, but it was too late.

“Thomas, long time no see.”

“……My wife didn’t welcome you, and you barged in anyway.”

“Ah. Yeah. Sorry.”

Thomas’s eyes sharpened as Matilda walked in. It was the first time Elsie had seen him drop his usual warmth.

What on earth was happening.

Not knowing what to do, Elsie watched the two of them carefully.

Matilda, still seething, walked toward her.

Crack!

Matilda’s calloused hand struck Elsie across the cheek.

“Matilda!”

The blow was hard enough to draw blood inside her mouth. Thomas and Nellie rushed at Matilda, but neither could hold her back.

Elsie pressed her hand to her stinging cheek and looked up at Matilda.

……Why?

“Why is a filthy Resleth brat doing in the east?”

Ah.

Matilda was someone who had suffered under the nobility of old Midland.

Being here with Nellie and Thomas had made her forget, but since the fall of old Midland she had always been on the receiving end of people’s anger.

None of it had ever been this direct.

Elsie blinked, looking up at Matilda.

People really did hate me this much.

Through newspaper articles, through whispered gossip, through the things people did to make her life difficult.

And the emotion Matilda was pouring out now was as intense as all of those experiences compressed into one. It left Elsie without words.

Matilda’s blazing eyes were fierce. The full force of her rage, ready to close around Elsie’s throat at any moment, was unmistakable.

“Nellie, and Thomas. Have you both forgotten what happened because of the nobility?”

Her husky voice poured over them both.

“After everything that happened to you, you still haven’t come to your senses. After all that, this woman is a guest?”

“Matilda, stop. Elsie is our guest.”

“Unbelievable.”

Nellie grabbed Matilda by the arm.

“Leave. And as for the Association matter, I’ll talk it over with Thomas and get back to you.”

At the firm dismissal, Matilda’s lips twitched.

“You’re asking me to leave with my husband’s enemy right here?”

“Matilda!”

Thomas wheeled himself close and grabbed her other arm.

At the same moment, Matilda reached toward Elsie, but didn’t make contact.

Her fingertips trembled just in front of Elsie’s face.

Elsie bit down hard on her lower lip.

“……I’m sorry.”

There were words she had thought every time she absorbed someone’s hatred.

She hadn’t meant to say them to Matilda specifically. She had just wanted to say them to everyone who had lived through those hard years.

The words fell out of her.

“What?”

“I…… didn’t know. I didn’t know what my father was doing, and I didn’t know how hard everyone’s lives were.”

Elsie’s green eyes moved slowly upward, and Matilda’s twisted expression came into view.

“……Yes. It’s an excuse. It’s an excuse, but it’s the truth. I’ve been regretting, too late, how ignorant I was.”

Matilda opened her mouth to say something, then closed it without a word.

“I should have changed as much as I regretted, but I didn’t. And I was struggling personally…… recently I tried to die because things were so hard. But even that was just, I was struggling to live. That’s all it was.”

The confession came out flat.

Perhaps it was that very flatness that made it feel serious. The rage on Matilda’s face slowly unwound.

“Looking back, it was a very selfish choice. Wanting to die because things were hard. I was only thinking of myself again.”

What had it been like for everyone else?

The kind of pain might be different, but they had all pushed through days like these, one after another.

Thinking about it that way, she had been so selfish.

“I’m sorry. I know a simple apology from me can’t ask forgiveness for what my father…… for what our family did. But this is all I’m able to do. I’m sorry.”

The trembling of Matilda’s fingertips, hovering just short of Elsie, went still.

“I was happy when I shouldn’t have been. I’m not anymore, but thanks to Miss Fox and Mr. Reed, I’m managing. And even that, I know, is something to feel sorry and grateful for.”

Words she had kept locked inside came spilling out.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry. I know it’s a strange thing to say…… I don’t know how else to put it. I’m sorry.”

She forced back the sob trying to break into her voice. She couldn’t apologize while crying.

Elsie lowered her head. Matilda’s arm finally drew back.

An awkward silence settled over the room.

A woman who looked like she was only alive because she couldn’t manage to die kept apologizing.

What good would those apologies do. How much could they soothe a wound that had festered so long.

Matilda couldn’t say another word.

It was because the daughter of Resleth looked, just slightly, pitiable.

“……Is this some strategy to make me lose the will to fight.”

Matilda muttered under her breath and let out a long sigh.

She couldn’t bring herself to torment someone who looked ready to fall apart at any moment.

The fight seemed to drain out of her, and Nellie and Thomas let her go.

“Nellie, I’ll see you at the office. I know this puts you in a difficult spot, but I genuinely want things to get complicated for both sides.”

Matilda turned away from Elsie. She said something cryptic, then walked toward the door, paused, and left.

Not long after, Nellie turned to Elsie with an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, Elsie. I should have been more careful……”

There was nothing for Nellie to apologize for, and Elsie shook her head.

“If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry. But the two of you……”

Had something terrible happened to them because of the nobility.

Did they secretly resent her.

Was the truth…

Questions churned inside her. But she was afraid of what the truth might be, and the words wouldn’t come.

How had she grown so attached in such a short time.

Even if this warm place was built on something false, she didn’t want to be the one to shatter it.

“Elsie, I hope you’re not thinking strange things. Tom and I welcomed you as a guest, and we’re happy right now. Happy to have the empty room filled, and happy to have you helping us.”

Nellie seemed to sense what she was feeling and took her hand firmly.

“Later, let’s have a drink together. I’ll tell you what happened then.”

The joined hands were warm.

“But the past is the past, and it’s nothing more or less than a bitter story to go with the drinks.”

Nellie added the words while looking into Elsie’s still-wet eyes.

“Everyone has their own story, don’t they. You, and me too. Whatever it is, we’re friends now. And I want my friend Elsie to rest easy here.”

Thomas nodded in agreement.

Her throat tightened. The words reached her as something real.

And so Elsie leaned into that warmth and gave a small nod.

***

Kaiden stared down Eleanor, who had shown up at the estate at an unreasonable hour.

“Colonel, I brought you the information you wanted, and this is the welcome I get?”

“Miss Underwood. Didn’t I tell you to send requests like this by letter?”

Kaiden’s brow furrowed, and in contrast, Eleanor bloomed into a smile for reasons only she knew.

“Father said a personal visit is better.”

“Father?”

“Yes, Minister Grey.”

“So our esteemed Minister is paying closer attention to what’s happening in the east than I gave him credit for.”

“Of course. The sharpshooter platoon is already scheduled to deploy, isn’t it?”

“……The Minister really does speak too freely for a man of his position.”

She knew military intelligence as well.

The nerve of it.

“It took far too long just to decide on a divorce…… and the engagement hasn’t moved forward either. Could it be because the Colonel is being so indecisive? I imagine Father has concluded I’m the better option.”