A sudden aggressive voice rang out.

“Are you trying to meet another man again?”

Her gaze, which had been reaching past his shoulder, turned back to him. Ann narrowed her brow. The hand gripping her shoulder applied force. The touch that had only been rough now hurt.

“Do you like men that much?”

“…You’re going too far.”

Ann twisted her face. No matter how much she was nothing, she hadn’t conducted herself badly enough to deserve such words. She stared blankly at the man whose eyes were blazing. 

His expression was terribly fierce, seemingly horrified that he’d mentioned ‘men’ with his own mouth.

“That’s right. Like you’ve gone crazy, this man, that man…”

“What’s wrong with meeting marriage prospects? I’m old enough to get married.”

No, she wasn’t just old enough to get married. Not only Lennox, but especially Ann had long passed marriageable age. She was already twenty-six. Ordinary noble ladies married between seventeen and twenty. At the very latest, twenty-three.

But in those cases, there were special circumstances in the family. It wasn’t easy for a healthy maiden like Ann to remain unmarried and alone. Of course, being a maid to royalty made marriage difficult. Marriage matters for maids fell under their master’s jurisdiction.

However, Ingrid had consistently paid attention to Ann’s marriage.

‘The problem was Lennox.’

Ann bit her lip. Lennox, who had been asking if she liked men that much, slowly opened his lips.

“…What exactly is the problem?”

“What do you mean?”

Fatigue washed over her. At Ann’s question, Lennox’s eyelashes trembled finely. The strength left the hand gripping her shoulder. Ann stared at him blankly and tried to shake it off. Lennox grabbed her again. His net-like hands seized her and pushed her against the wall.

Ann screamed “Ah!” and closed her eyes. Fortunately, before the back of her head hit the wall, his hand wrapped around her head. Ann glared at him, trembling.

“You said you hated me.”

“I, I don’t know what you mean.”

Lennox was serious. Ann blinked in bewilderment. He was clearly talking about that incident. 

Ann was flustered by the man digging into something she didn’t want to recall. Her breathing grew ragged and her face burned. At that sight, Lennox twisted.

“You clearly said you hated it.”

“Your Majesty.”

“Was I that terrible?”

* * *

Despite Ann’s desperate prayers, Rianna couldn’t get up easily. Ann started selling flowers for her mother. It was work poor children often did. Boys sold newspapers and girls sold flowers.

When they got a bit older, boys worked in factories and girls did domestic work. Ann bought flowers from a flower shop and sold them bit by bit for her mother. One flower cost 1 dant, and she split the money with the shop owner based on what she sold.

At most ten flowers, at least three. If she sold all ten, she earned 4 dants. Even working a whole month like that, it was hard to earn enough for her mother’s medicine. 

When Ann left the house, Aunt Lila would sometimes come to look after her mother, but as time passed, even that began to fade.

Caring for her mother became entirely Ann’s responsibility. But it didn’t matter. As long as her mother was healthy… she could do anything. That winter was terribly grueling, but even so, her mother survived the season.

When spring came, her mother’s health returned a little. And that spring, her mother taught Ann how to embroider.

“That’s right, you’re doing well. My daughter has more talent than me, doesn’t she?”

Rianna, watching the small hands sewing, stroked her daughter’s head. Indeed, her fingertips were truly skillful. Rianna smiled contentedly and patted her daughter’s back. Ann smiled and replied that her mother was better.

At that sight, her eyes reddened.

‘I won’t live long. For Ann’s sake, it might be better to leave this world early.’

Rianna looked at her daughter’s fingertips. This young thing was going out to sell flowers for her mother. Her gaze reached the bundle of medicine on the table. 

Medicine costs, living expenses… she was dependent on Ann. Rianna thought it would be better to die than live like this.

“I’m sorry, Ann…”

“Don’t cry, Mom. Ann will work harder. I’ll work harder so Mom gets healthy.”

Ann swallowed her tears and spoke firmly. Rianna quietly shed tears. Ann nestled into her mother’s embrace. 

Years passed. God listened more to Rianna’s prayers than Ann’s. Rianna passed away the year Ann turned eight. She left for Pierre’s side, which she’d longed for.

Ann buried her mother in the cemetery where her father was buried. She was wearing black mourning clothes and staring at the frozen earth when someone tapped her shoulder. 

Ann raised her head and looked at the woman. A woman with a harsh face without a trace of kindness asked.

“Are you Anna?”

* * *

Pierre had three half-sisters. The eldest was Rosie, the second was Dora, and the third was Paula. As the word ‘half’ implied, the sisters’ mother was a different woman from Pierre’s mother. 

When the sisters’ mother passed away early, their father George remarried, and the woman he took as his second wife was Pierre’s mother.

Pierre’s mother was a woman not much older than the sisters. Three years older than the eldest, Rosie? 

The woman, the eldest daughter of a poor family, had married a man around her father’s age for a few coins.

Still, she must have had a strong personality because she didn’t yield to the tough sisters. Their relationship was bound to be bad. And their father resolved the family discord by marrying off the sisters one by one.

By the time Pierre turned seven, even the youngest Paula had married, and the house became quiet. But relations with his half-sisters never recovered.

“It’s not Anna, it’s Ann.”

“Really?”

Dora corrected Paula, who had called Ann ‘Anna.’ She added that ‘Anna’ was Sister Rosie’s eldest daughter. Ann looked up at them, intimidated. Dora spoke bluntly.

“She doesn’t look like Pierre.”

“Do you remember him, Sister?”

“Of course. We saw him when Father passed away.”

“When was that exactly?”

Paula muttered while tapping her cigarette ash. Not long after Paula married, Ann’s grandfather and the sisters’ father passed away. 

Ann’s grandmother cried sadly for a while, then married a man her own age, and by the time Pierre married, she too had passed away from lung disease.

Ann looked at her aunts murmuring about her. Only the second sister, Dora, seemed to remember their father Pierre’s recent face. When George died, only Dora among the sisters had attended the funeral.

But that wasn’t due to special feelings—she’d needed to meet with the lawyer as the sisters’ representative to discuss inheritance. Though it wasn’t a grand estate, the field and house inherited from their father were quite meaningful assets.

Dora had resolved it by selling that small field and house and dividing the remaining money equally among the three sisters and Pierre. And Ann…

“What should we do with her?”

A low voice, deep for a woman, echoed inside the black hired carriage. Since all the sisters were fleshy and quite large in build, the cramped carriage seemed ready to burst. Because of this, Ann had to travel crumpled up like discarded goods.

The eldest, Rosie, seemed indifferent like at their grandfather’s funeral, and Paula looked worried that this burden might roll into her lap.

“Don’t think about dumping her on me.”

Paula suddenly spoke up. She glared at her sister after irritably tapping her cigarette ash. Dora shrugged. She muttered, “Can’t be helped.” Ann ended up living at Dora’s house.

* * *

Aunt Dora was a woman who worked as a maid in a well-off household in Roderville. True to her plump build, she had iron-like arms and pot-lid-like hands. Not only that, her chest and waist were large like jars, and her two legs were thick and sturdy like radishes.

She was a woman with a completely different impression from her father, who was said to have been a handsome blonde man. Ann lived under this woman.

Her job was to feed and clothe her five young children until Aunt Dora returned home. In short, she lived as a maid in her aunt’s house. The work was extremely hard. But what was harder to endure than that was Dora herself.

“Ann! Ann Rosenthal!”

It was dawn. An irritable voice reached Ann’s ears just as she’d finally closed her eyes after looking after her younger cousins all day. 

Ann jumped up like she’d been doused with cold water and opened the attic door. Her aunt, who’d come stomping up the stairs loud enough to break them, suddenly slapped her cheek.

“What is this?”

“What?”

“Can’t you even wash dishes properly?”

“That’s…”

“And what’s this?”

Her hair was grabbed. The strong hand threw her against the wall. Ann looked up at her in fear. 

The object thrown in front of her was women’s underwear. A provocative negligee Ann would never wear… 

The negligee was so small and thin it looked like it would tear before fitting on Dora’s body.

She bit her lip tightly. This must be why Aunt Dora was angry. She blinked her wet eyes. The cheek that had been slapped stung.