She once had a lover to whom she gave her heart. Was he a pianist? Or maybe he was a painter. But that doesn’t matter. What mattered was that she abandoned the artist and chose the Duke of Schutzman instead.

“For you, my son, I gave up love, gave up the Ansonaisen name, my youth, my future—my entire life.”

After becoming pregnant by Robert, Josephina never slept with her husband again. She didn’t have a lover either, not even the man she had once loved deeply.

She did it all for the sake of Robert’s pure and impeccable bloodline. It was a bitter truth that he never knew, but one that she repeated endlessly.

She whispered it close to his ear in a voice that almost sounded tender.

“I lived with a man I didn’t love. All for you. You should understand better than anyone how I’ve lived.”

Of course, none of Josephina’s iron-willed decisions had ever considered Robert’s feelings. Yet her words, repeated like a song, had eventually become his own.

She had once wanted to become emperor herself, but she could not because she was a woman.

So instead, she married the most powerful man in the empire and bore his son.

The one thing she wanted from that choice was painfully simple:

“Are you now trying to trample all over the sacrifices your mother made over a lifetime to put you on the throne?”

Her blind obsession always led her to the same conclusion. Robert let out a hollow laugh. It was absurd yet undeniably true: his mother had dedicated her entire life to making him emperor.

“If that’s the case, then you’re truly a wicked child.”

“Let’s stay on topic. All I’m saying is that the Handegerd must be restored to the Schutzmann estate.”

When her usually obedient son refused to back down, Josephina’s grip on his cheek tightened.

Then—slap!—a sharp sound rang out as Robert’s head was forcibly turned to the side.

After striking her grown-up son across the face, she immediately took his face in both hands. Her piercing blue eyes—ruthlessly sharp—burned into him.

“Duke, do you truly not understand? Disobeying your mother is like denying her entire life.”

A life denied. His mother’s entire existence was rejected.

It had been around ten years ago. With a far more desperate expression than she had now, Josephina had said the same thing.

The very next day, she was found unconscious in the bathtub. She was supposed to be having tea with her son at that exact time.

The beautiful, silver-haired woman was submerged in blood-red water. That was how Robert remembered that day.

After seeing his mother pale and lifeless, as if she were already dead, Robert had a high fever for three days straight.

He feared that she had died because of him; however, the thought of facing her again after she had survived was even more terrifying.

He was horrified by his own thoughts. He wished he could die instead, but that peace never came easily.

Unable to watch any longer, his father took him by the hand and led him away.

On that dazzling spring day, they boarded a train running on newly laid tracks. They then travelled in a carriage along rough roads for hours, jolting and rattling the whole time.

And there, he met her: Henrietta — the illegitimate daughter who had barely inherited the Osborne name.

It was Robert’s first time riding a train, and he was also seeing a ‘bastard’ for the first time.

Until then, both had only ever existed in printed words for him.

There was a girl with deep red hair that cascaded down to her waist. She stood out brightly amid rows of freshly washed white laundry.

Despite her face being covered in bruises, Henrietta smiled. She flashed a full, clean set of teeth, as though she were genuinely happy.

Watching her, Robert let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. He didn’t know why.

Lost in those memories for a moment, he felt his mother’s damp breath against his cheek.

Then he felt her cheek press hard against his; her skin was sticky and cold. Her chilled lips touched the burning skin where she had hit him.

“Don’t disappoint your mother. Not if you remember the choice your disgraced father made.”

‘Ah, Father. Why is my mother so cruel?’

Robert could no longer bear it, so he closed his eyes. He couldn’t stop the bitter chuckle that escaped his lips.

Behind his closed eyelids, he saw a pair of chestnut-brown eyes, identical to his own. Empty and unreadable, they stared at him from beyond a door that she had flung open in desperation.

A wave of nausea hit him so suddenly and violently that he banged on the carriage wall twice.

From beyond the window, he heard the driver urge the horses on.

As the horses broke into a gallop, a sharp, chilly wind blew through the air.

Instead of heading for the Schutzman estate, the carriage was bound for Henrietta’s home near Haytesfield Station.

Once they had passed the town centre, a wide plain stretched out before them.

Water was still spraying endlessly from the Bouronieu Tower — the fruit trees had frozen over in the spring frost after blooming.

In the distance, orchard keepers could be seen lighting large paraffin candles at the edges of the apricot groves to prevent frost pockets from forming.

‘There was frost last night.’

Had Henrietta slipped away from him into the frost, too?

“Really now, if only your eyes had at least taken after mine…”

Even with his ears covered, the voice pierced through, the cruel weight of it making Robert’s eyes narrow in pain.

Sitting opposite him, Pierre watched nervously, casting uncertain glances in Robert’s direction.

Josephina had probably been given a royal jewel in exchange for handing Hangderhood over to the royal family.

The heirlooms passed down to every empress belonged to the late empress, and Josephina was obsessed with anything that had belonged to her.

This meant that there was no way to return Hangderhood to Robert now.

A deep sense of defeat settled over Robert at this realisation.

Before long, the carriage reached Henrietta’s house, but he didn’t immediately step down.

Instead, he sat and stared at the small, cosy house bathed in the colours of the setting sun for a while.

Having just passed fields consumed by frost, the tranquil scene surrounding the house stood out all the more.

Then, the small door of the house opened and a woman stepped outside.

“Rie… tta?”

No, it wasn’t Henrietta. She clearly wasn’t, but for a moment, he was deceived by the resemblance.

It was in the way she gently reached out her hand; the slight tilt of her shoulder as she took her first step; and the soft curve of her neck as she peered out into the open.

All of it resembled Henrietta.

What he had taken to be her long, rich red hair was, in fact, pale blonde, illuminated by the setting sun. On closer inspection, her features were entirely different from Henrietta’s.

But her face bore visible marks of violence. Just as Henrietta’s had once been.

The young woman, teetering on the boundary between girlhood and adulthood, smiled brightly as she looked down at a pitch-black kitten curled up in the yard.

And that smile tore at Robert’s heart.

It carried a purity that no longer shone on Henrietta’s face. It was reminiscent of the childlike innocence he had once seen in Henrietta.

A rush of emotion surged inside him at the sight, but he let out a long breath and forced himself to erase it.

“She must be the woman that Prince William brought to the estate last night.”

Pierre said quietly, having noticed that Robert was staring at her.

“…”

“She’s probably the one who brought news about Hangderhood.”

‘Yes, that made sense. So you drifted away from me into the frost with her. Like prey fleeing from a wild beast, holding your breath and hiding in fear.’

“I’ll escort you.”

As Pierre moved to step out of the carriage, Robert reached out to stop him. When he answered, his voice was as cold as the spring frost settling over the ground.

“No. Let’s just go.”

***

Henrietta paused when she saw the black carriage bearing the sigil of a beast disappear from view.

She remained hidden until it had shrunk to nothing but a dot on the horizon, before hurriedly continuing on her way.

The muddy road, still damp from last night’s frost, was covered in deep wheel marks, long and wide, from the duke’s carriage.

An uneasy feeling rose in her chest at the sharp clarity of the tracks, and she broke into a near-run.

By the time she reached the front yard, she was gasping for breath. She spotted Evelyn crouched down playing with the little black kitten.

No… of course not.’

Relief drained all the tension from Henrietta’s body, and her breath escaped in ragged gasps that reached her throat.

How had things come to this?

As far as Henrietta knew, Robert Ian Schutzman was the most refined gentleman in the Empire. She knew he would never resort to such lowly, underhanded cruelty—but her racing heart refused to calm.

She had known him for ten years, and yet these days, he felt like a complete stranger.

“When a woman tries to run, a man becomes a hunter.”

Hendrik’s words—ones she didn’t want to admit—echoed in her mind.

“Henri!”

Evelyn, who had been quietly stroking the kitten, spotted Henrietta and lit up with a smile. Then she winced slightly, as if the cut on her lip had opened up again.

The kitten that had been curled up near Evelyn flicked its ears and rolled onto its side when Evelyn suddenly stood up and swiped at it playfully with a tiny paw.

The two of them together looked heartbreakingly fragile — and somehow endearingly sweet.

Last night, after William had left, Evelyn had calmly begun to speak.

Although she had done nothing wrong, she kept glancing at Henrietta for approval. That alone made Henrietta’s chest ache.

“I’m sorry for disappointing you.”

Unable to find the words, Henrietta simply pulled Evelyn into a hug. Unable to decide who was to blame, the two of them leaned into each other’s warmth and breathed heavily.

“No, Evelyn. You haven’t disappointed me at all. What we have to do now is simple. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. We just need to remove the baron’s guardianship from you. Then we can live together.”