Lennox was a noble. Even if he wasn’t a noble, he was certainly something similar. Otherwise, he couldn’t be so arrogant.

Ann didn’t know the meaning of the word “arrogant.” 

She’d never seen such a person before. 

Though Dora was rough, she wasn’t arrogant. Rather, the more violence she wielded, the more pitiful she seemed.

Rosie and Paula were the same. Both were lazy and cold-hearted, but not arrogant. Rosie’s cunning children were the same. By nature, they were all far from “arrogant.” But Lennox…

“What should I do? Should I just wait like this?”

She sighed. Johnny—the boy who’d believed her words and prepared the abandoned house—clearly believed Lennox’s parents would come here looking for him. Because Ann had said so. But the more she thought about it, the more difficult the problem became.

“They’ll definitely only save Lennox. Maybe they’ll even punish me.”

Though she didn’t understand the ways of nobles, nobles were different from her—they had blue blood flowing through their veins. So they might reach completely different conclusions from what she expected and act on them.

“But they’ll punish Oliver, right?”

Ann muttered and looked back at the door that wouldn’t close properly and creaked. Was his name Lennox? 

She recalled how he’d asked why she didn’t ask his name. Even with his face swollen from being upset that only she had asked for a name, he’d twisted his eyebrows. She raised her head. She thought carefully.

“Should I ask to be taken on as a maid?”

He’d been wearing a fancy ruffled shirt you’d only see in fairy tales. Though stained, the tight black pants also looked very high quality. 

The blue cloth tied at his waist and the voluminous sleeves. The outfit she’d never seen before was extraordinary. So he probably didn’t live around here.

“I should ask where he came from later.”

With that thought, Ann moved to find food.

* * *

While Ann was away, Lennox felt his face. Since there was no mirror, he couldn’t tell what he looked like, but seeing that blood no longer obscured his vision, Ann must have wiped his face. 

He turned his gaze to look at the stained rag the girl had left behind.

‘She wiped me with that?’

He thought while fingering the collar of his shirt that had become rags. Suddenly the royal palace came to mind. Everyone would be in a panic looking for him. 

The thought was quite satisfying, then became gloomy again. It must have reached Yvonne’s ears too. He didn’t want her to be sad.

His father didn’t matter. He was indifferent to everything. A father who always said “I love you” with his mouth. But Lennox instinctively knew he didn’t love him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t precious. He was the heir, after all. But loving and cherishing were different things.

You could cherish a golden porcelain gift from a foreign delegation, but you wouldn’t love it. To him, Lennox was worth exactly that much.

The heir to the Las Palmada royal family, where children were precious. The only child born with difficulty after losing two young sons first. Especially since he’d lost two sons in succession, he’d be even more careful.

If Lennox died, the throne would pass to a collateral line. Lennox was young, but he knew that wasn’t a good thing.

‘If I die, will Violeta become queen?’

He thought of his cousin, three years younger than him. A young child who resembled her aunt a little and her uncle a lot. He wasn’t sad. Rather, the fact that a queen would be born for the first time in nine generations was interesting. But…

‘Yvonne will be sad. Mother will be sad too. Because she can’t have children anymore.’

His mother was now forty-six. She’d already been thirty-eight when she was pregnant with him, so the possibility of getting pregnant again was very low. Moreover, her health had deteriorated considerably after losing her older sons in succession.

The physician always told her to abandon her desire for pregnancy. But that was probably a sense of duty rather than desire. To somehow continue the King’s line and carry on the royal family…

Her father, Duke Ellier, was the royal family’s most loyal subject and his father’s teacher. So it was obvious how much his mother, who grew up as a daughter of such a family, would blame herself. 

Though his father the King said to let go since he had a sister…

Lennox was a child born in such circumstances. No one knew he would be conceived, and no one thought he would grow up this healthy. But Lennox was now eight years old and had lived about three years longer than his brothers who’d left the world first.

Lennox thought of the gossips who’d babbled that he might follow his brothers and leave the world early. Then he slowly got angry.

‘Who says I’ll die? I’ll never die.’

Lennox gritted his teeth. He’d been trying to find Yvonne’s house. He was clever, so he’d memorized the way. Yvonne had taken him to the Altuart family villa several times. 

So entering this dirty, filthy neighborhood was purely out of curiosity. It definitely wasn’t because he’d taken the wrong way.

‘B*stard. I’ll kill him. I’ll definitely kill him and chew him up bones and all.’

It was a mistake to be captivated by the scenery he was seeing for the first time. Lennox, who’d briefly tried to look around the neighborhood before leaving, spotted a group leaning against a wall smoking cheap cigarettes. Lennox wasn’t interested in them. 

But they seemed different. One of the guys sending cold glances his way gestured with his chin.

That was probably Oliver. Lennox watched as several delinquents from their group approached him. He had an ominous feeling but never showed his back.

“What are you doing? Did you come from Roderville?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“I came to look around for a bit.”

“Look around? Ha! Really? Landlords have it good, so you came to see what this filthy neighborhood is like?”

“That’s not it, but…”

“Then?”

“It’s an interesting neighborhood.”

“What’s interesting? You think this is interesting?”

He burst out laughing. Lennox looked at the boys blocking him. 

The guy next to him asked, “David, what’s this guy doing?” 

The guy called David had a firmly hardened expression.

Lennox stared at the boys who were tall as beanpoles. Shirts with torn sleeves, stained vests, blue-green caps covering their heads… Their tilted heads were very delinquent.

“Did you just say it’s interesting?”

David grabbed his collar. Lennox stared at him without wavering. That seemed to displease him. David swung his fist.

“How’s that? Isn’t this interesting?”

Lennox, who’d fallen from the punch, spat out the blood pooled in his mouth with a “ptui.” 

Then he turned his head to look at David. 

David flinched for a moment. He twisted his thin lips.

“This really…”

“Better not do something you’ll regret.”

“What?”

“I warned you.”

“This b*stard really!”

“You won’t be able to handle it.”

David trembled. Oliver, who’d been watching them while leaning against the wall, leisurely approached and firmly stepped on Lennox’s hand on the ground. Lennox looked up at the boy looking down at him while swallowing his groan.

“Same goes for you. Kid.”

Oliver smiled disgustingly. Lennox stared at him, then suddenly his collar was grabbed. After that…

“Do you live here?”

About two hours later, Lennox asked the girl who’d returned. Her small hands held an old basket with torn seams.

Lennox looked at the hard bread inside the basket. Among the yellowed bread with a few browned apples, flies were flying around. While just looking at it killed his appetite, Ann held out bread to him.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“My jaw hurts…”

It wasn’t a lie. His jaw had hurt since being caught and beaten by those guys. Seeing Lennox hesitate at the bread, Ann cut off the end of the bread and held out a small piece.

Lennox had no choice but to put it in his mouth and chew. It tasted strange. Sometimes the palace cook would recommend bread that tasted like dirt. Saying it was healthier than white, soft bread.

Lennox didn’t particularly like it, but his father loved that bread. Saying it was similar to the bread he ate when he was on the battlefield. He thought it would taste similar to that bread, but it was a taste he couldn’t get used to at all.

“Do you eat this every day?”

Lennox, who’d been holding his hungry stomach and weakly dropping his head, looked at Ann and asked. Ann stared at him blankly, then answered “No.”

“Then?”

“Molly gave me this.”

“Molly? Who’s Molly?”

“She’s the owner of the shop where I get flowers to sell.”

“I see.”

Lennox had nothing to say. He was hungry. He wanted to eat something more proper… No, before that, returning to the palace was the priority. 

If he returned to the palace, he could eat as much food as he wanted.