“W-wait!”
Anje, clutching the hem of her dress, hurried after Aiden. She didn’t like this house, or the fact that there were no servants, but she didn’t want to be left outside alone, especially as it was getting dark.
“It’s hard to walk like this, wait! Help me―.”
Bang, the door slammed shut, and Anje burst out in anger, but hurried on.
She stumbled once on a stone, but she moved as fast as she could.
It had been a long time since she had moved her body so quickly.
“Lord Aiden!”
She knocked on the door with her small fist.
“Lord! Lord Aiden Fitzroy! Look, what are you going to do if you leave me here alone?”
She was even more angry when she saw that the white gloves she had bitten earlier were stained red. It was all that man’s fault that she had to throw away her favorite gloves.
Bang bang―
After several persistent knocks, a reply finally came from inside the house.
“There’s plenty of room in the barn.”
“Stop talking nonsense and open this door quickly!”
Anje’s arms were starting to ache, but Aiden, in a leisurely manner, left her outside and carried the luggage upstairs.
Wild animals rarely appeared near the house, and the weather was not too cold, so he thought it would be fine to leave her alone for a while. However, Anje’s screams only grew louder.
“This, this, wicked! Leaving a lady outside, How are you still a knight when you do that? If you don’t open the door quickly, you’ll fall into hell, ugh!”
Anje almost lost her balance and fell forward when the door opened without warning.
Aiden lightly lifted her up like a kitten and put her back on her feet, warning her with a stern voice,
“If you ever speak ill of this house again, your quarters will be in the barn.”
“The barn, How dare you-.”
“The woods would be fine too. The bears are just waking up from their winter hibernation, so they’ll be good company for you.”
“…”
Anje gulped nervously as the man approached her.
His blood-red eyes were similar to those of his half-brother William, but different.
They were much more wild and rough, untamed.
“And I’ve done a lot of shitty things during the war, so a one-way ticket to hell is already confirmed. So the threat of going to hell doesn’t work on me.”
“…Hiccup.”
Anje covered her mouth with both hands, feeling like she was going to hiccup.
She knew he was saying this to scare her, but he was a strong man who could easily harm her if he wanted to.
“Your room is on this floor. Go and rest.”
Anje nodded, her mouth covered. If she couldn’t leave this place, she’d rather be inside the house than in the barn or the woods.
Besides, she was just as exhausted from the unfamiliar journey and the trials and tribulations that followed.
‘I just want to go to my room and rest.’
Although she was worried about what kind of room it would be.
“Then show me my room, aaah.”
Anje, who had tried hard to stop her hiccups and stepped inside the door, stopped in her tracks, embarrassed by the unexpected situation.
The front door of the modest house was much narrower than the diameter of the wide crinoline she wore under her dress.
“Why is the door so narrow?”
She exclaimed, waving her arms as her skirt caught on the door. She regretted ordering the large crinoline, which she had ordered to outdo all the other young ladies in society.
“Well, I don’t wear fancy dresses like this.”
“Just look, help me. Hiccup!”
Aiden clenched his jaw to keep from laughing. He had succeeded in scaring her, but if he burst out laughing, he would be in big trouble.
However, the princess, struggling to get through the doorway with her puffy clothes on, looked like a deer caught in the branches of a tree.
“Hiccup, p-please help me!”
The hiccups she had barely held back erupted again. Anje was ashamed that her beloved dress had become a laughingstock.
She was also angry at the unknown architect who had built the narrow door.
“Damn house, damn architect, damn Lord Aiden Fitzroy.”
Observing her with folded arms, Aiden calmly pointed out, “It seems like it’s that wire… It might be quicker to come in after taking off the dress.”
While he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what she wore underneath her skirt, to him, that seemed the most straightforward solution. Anje’s face turned red.
“I’m not a barbarian, and how can I undress outdoors?”
“Anyway, within several acres around here, it’s just you and me.”
“Then, you’re the problem. Huh, just help me!”
Growing tired of watching her struggles, he approached and grabbed her arms with force, pulling her effortlessly inside.
“Whoa!”
Due to the elasticity of the crinoline that folded and unfolded, Anje tumbled to the floor like a wine cork popping out of a bottle. Aiden quickly turned his head, covering his laughter with a fake cough.
It reminded him of the scene when a giant pudding bounced out of his grandfather’s plate during Christmas.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t wear such clothes in this place.”
His advice, trying to remain serious, had a subtle quiver.
With the inflated hem of the dress, it seemed like it would often catch on things near the door or in the hallway, knocking down miscellaneous items.
“It’s none of your business what other people wear!”
Anje shouted, now lying on the floor.
“I married you, but I am, I am… the Glasster’s Princess!”
Aiden glared at the cuckoo clock and bit the inside of his cheek.
Here she was, arrogantly declaring herself a princess while unable to get up from the floor, wriggling like a worm. It was a scene worth painting.
The biggest disadvantage of a crinoline skirt was that it was difficult to get up on your own once you fell over. Anje shook her body from side to side, struggling to get up from her seat.
“Aren’t you Mrs. Fitzroy now, madam?”
She could find no words to refute him as he hit the nail on the head. According to the laws of the empire, a woman takes her husband’s status after marriage, so now they were both of the same status.
A very slightly higher rank than a commoner, but the lowest class among the nobles, the knight class. And she was not a person who would be content to remain in such a class.
“No matter what anyone says, I was born a princess and—I will die a princess!”
“If you keep lying there, you will soon fulfill that wish.”
He openly laughed at the princess who was struggling like an overturned bug.
Anje’s face flushed redder than it could ever be. She growled and gave an order.
“Get me up, now.”
“I don’t think the princess needs the help of a lowly person like me.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
“A lowly illegitimate son like me can’t dare to talk to the princess.”
Ignoring Anje, who was calling him desperately, Aiden quickly ran inside.
He didn’t have any intention of bullying her, but her haughty attitude made him want to teach her a lesson.
“Is she possessed by the spirit of arrogance of the capital?”
He muttered and turned around, then flinched. The portrait of his grandfather hanging on the wall felt like it was reprimanding him.
‘You should always be kind to ladies and children, Aiden.’
A deep crease formed on Aiden’s forehead.
“But she’s the one who started it, grandfather.”
Despite his valid excuse, his grandfather still looked at him with a stern expression.
“Hey! Aiden Fitzroy, hurry up!”
Using Anje’s scream as background music, Aiden, who had been having a staring contest with the portrait for a while, sighed deeply and finally surrendered.
“Alright, I’ll go help her.”
Aiden came out to the hallway again with an unwilling expression. Anje, who was crouching on the floor and wiggling her feet, stood up like a grasshopper as soon as he grabbed her with a little force. As he had felt before, she was surprisingly light.
‘Seems like she doesn’t eat much.’
Still, he thought he should go to town and buy plenty of supplies, including flour. After all, the number of people living in his house had doubled.
‘Sigh, I should have asked the emperor to give me some travel expenses. If I have to take care of this good-for-nothing anyway, I might as well get some money out of him.’
“You’ve worked hard… uh…”
This was the best greeting she could come up with, since she wasn’t used to saying such things. She quickly brought up another topic to avoid the awkwardness.
“Where is my room, sir?”
“It’s the yellow door on the left as soon as you go up this floor, Princess.”
The room that Aiden’s mother used to live in was one of the larger rooms in this house. Since it had been cleaned for the spring cleaning not long ago, it would be fine to use it as is.
Now, she pouted, avoiding his eyes and brushing off her dirty clothes.
She wanted to protest why he had left her lying there, but if she did, he would push her away again and she would be back in the same situation as before.
She was angry, but now was the time to put aside her pride and be polite.
She sensed a strangely sarcastic nuance in the word “princess,” but Anje just bit her lip and headed straight for the stairs. Getting out of this wedding dress was more urgent right now.
As Aiden expected, her wide dress almost knocked over several pieces of furniture and decorations in the hallway. Aiden watched her clumsy movements with sharp eyes.
‘Thanks to that skirt, I won’t have to clean the floor.’
The long, flowing hem of the dress must be full of dust. Aiden thought about this and asked Anje’s back as she walked away.
“What about… dinner”
“I don’t want it.”
She wanted to hurry to bed and lament her pessimistic situation.
The numerous tragedies she had seen in the operas she had watched at the theater were romantic, in a way. More so than her own situation of rotting away in this country house.
