Chapter 3
It wasn’t Anne’s true intention to stop in her tracks, even though she knew better.
Telling herself this was wrong, Anne forcefully turned her feet away from the corner of the hallway.
But Gray was still a nobleman’s illegitimate child, so he wouldn’t go hungry, and if he got sick, he would receive proper treatment, right?
He wouldn’t die alone in a cold room without a fireplace like Jamie did.
Thinking of the future Duke Gray Benton, Anne didn’t even want to look at the boy.
And yet.
“Second Young Master.”
Anne wanted to pull her hair out.
The boy sat in the hallway, looking up at her with tearful eyes. Seeing him like that made her think that the child was still innocent.
But you know what kind of pain he will cause you when he grows up, and you’re going to make the same mistake again, Anne Ferro?
“It’s late. You should go to your room and sleep.”
“I’m scared alone…”
The boy reached out and grabbed the hem of Anne’s skirt.
When Anne pulled her skirt away with an indifferent expression, the boy urgently grabbed her hand instead.
A small, soft child’s hand. Seventeen and thirteen were worlds apart.
Unlike Anne, who had already grown into a young woman, he would grow into an adult in the next three or four years.
“Go to sleep.”
After laying the boy on the bed, Anne checked the fireplace. She intended to ignore the gaze she felt on the back of her head as she left.
“Can’t you stay with me until I fall asleep? Please.”
Hearing the boy’s desperate plea, Anne reluctantly turned back.
He’s still just a child.
She placed the candlestick she was holding on the bedside table.
“…Alright.”
“Before bed, my mom used to tell me fairy tales. The Duke said he would call her here if she got better while I was staying here.”
After that, Anne never heard anything about the boy’s mother. The fate of most lower-class women who were sick and frail was usually the same.
She must have died while Gray was growing up. Just like her brother Jamie.
Letting go of the sudden sympathy that welled up within her, Anne slowly opened her mouth.
“Once upon a time—”
The fairy tales she had wanted to tell her own child, the ones she had told countless times to the child that had been in her womb.
There were so many stories to keep the night going.
After some time, Anne saw the boy’s eyes close. She softly recited the end of the fairy tale, then extinguished the candle and quietly left the room.
*
“And so, they lived happily ever after.”
Sitting side by side on the sofa, with Anne wrapped in his arms, Gray would often read novels to her.
Whenever Anne became too engrossed in a book that was originally meant to teach her how to read, she would urge Gray to just read the whole thing to her.
Even after she learned to read, Anne loved the stories Gray read to her, and she loved the sound of his voice.
Then, with a slight crinkle of his nose and a smile, Gray would pick up the book and pull Anne into his arms.
Like the melodramatic novels he would read to her all night, Anne and Gray whispered eternal love promises into each other’s ears.
Thus, they lived together, hidden away, enduring hardships for over three years.
They changed their names and ages to erase their identities and found some stability only after fleeing from place to place, eventually settling in a small rural village.
Gray became a writing tutor, while Anne helped out in the kitchen of a local restaurant.
A young couple wandering aimlessly wasn’t an unusual sight, and having both experienced poverty as commoners, their performance was natural.
Anne was immensely proud when a child’s parents, grateful for their child’s hard-won education, brought gifts for Gray.
She bought him a fine fountain pen with the money she saved from helping in the kitchen, and Gray, along with the children, made a bouquet of flowers to present to her at the restaurant where she worked.
Despite the many days when they were too exhausted to do more than hold hands and sleep, they were happy.
Until one day, when a knight from the Duke of Benton’s household arrived at their remote village and found Gray.
“The Lady of the Benton family requests your presence, Lord Gray Benton.”
It wasn’t poverty or hardship that began to break Anne and Gray’s happiness; it was the wealth and honorable life they were offered.
Leaving behind the envy and amazement of the villagers, Gray firmly held Anne’s hand and returned with her to the Benton Ducal estate.
“If it means we die as a consequence of running away, so be it. We’ll be together, Anne.”
Contrary to their expectations, what awaited them wasn’t sin and punishment.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Gray Benton.”
The Duchess herself came out to greet Gray at the front door, and as soon as he stepped out of the carriage, she embraced him.
“My son.”
The Duchess, who had once been so disapproving of him, now acknowledged him as her son and simultaneously appointed him as the official heir to the Dukedom.
Not long after, Gray Benton became the new Duke.
“Anne, from today, you are the Duchess of Benton.”
When Gray kissed the back of her hand and looked at her with the same loving eyes, Anne dreamt of their future together.
She thought the days of hardship were finally over, and now she would live in paradise with the man she loved.
She imagined herself as the Duchess, with her Duke, and painted a picture of perfect, complete happiness.
But the years she sustained on fantasies and delusions didn’t last even a year.
They say a position makes a person, but that wasn’t the case. A person must be worthy of the position first.
Anne wasn’t someone who could sit in the same place as Gray.
***
“Anne.”
Though Anne had granted him kindness just once, she diligently avoided the boy afterward. But whenever he appeared, she couldn’t help but respond to his call.
“Yes, Young Master.”
Even if he was an illegitimate child, he was still the Duke’s son, and she was just a maid.
“Here. Take it.”
Gray, with a bright face and a smile, handed her a flower he had picked from the garden.
He had always been a kind and gentle man, the sort who knew to offer something beautiful and lovely to the one he cared for.
Unable to find the words to refuse, Anne accepted the flower.
“Thank you.”
As she returned to the servant’s hall holding the flower, the maids glanced at her.
Casey approached and nudged her arm.
“Anne, don’t you think the Young Master likes you?”
“He’s just a child.”
“He’s a kid now, sure. But wait a few years. If you don’t get your head on straight now—”
“Enough. He’s just a child.”
But six years later, Anne ended up falling in love with Gray.
She had dismissed Gray’s constant affection as nothing more than a boy’s longing for a parental figure. However, after Jamie’s death, Anne’s heart crumbled, and Gray seized that moment to capture her.
As soon as Gray heard about Anne’s impending marriage when he turned nineteen, he dropped everything and rushed to her.
The once young and soft hand that used to hold a single flower had transformed into a strong, muscular one after four years at the knight academy.
He had outgrown Anne’s height around the age of fifteen, and by the time he was seventeen, he towered over her.
By the time he turned nineteen, a fully grown man, she could see him only as a man.
“Anne.”
As she was laying out the laundry in the yard, a small hand waved in front of her.
It wasn’t until then that she snapped out of her daze and lowered her gaze to the boy whose crown was visible.
“Young Master?”
The other maids, having finished their tasks, had disappeared from the yard where white sheets fluttered, leaving only Anne and Gray.
“Is something bothering you?”
The boy frowned as he tried to read Anne’s expression.
Seeing his youthful face, so similar to her brother’s age, Anne forced her softening expression to harden.
“No, nothing.”
But there is, in fact. I wish the person standing in front of me were my younger brother instead of you.
Anne averted her gaze, pretending not to notice, because Gray wasn’t the one who should be on the receiving end of her sorrowful, empty stare.
“Is there nothing I can do to help? I know I’m still young and weak, but…”
Young Gray, with wide, earnest eyes, showed Anne his unhidden goodwill.
If Anne were still as naïve as she had been before, she might have patted his head or smiled warmly at him.
But now, hoping she no longer had any place in Gray’s future, Anne tried to step back, only to recall the conversation they had had around that time.
“It would be nice if you became my personal attendant.”
Neither the Duchess nor Anne could have anticipated the consequences of Gray’s request, so she had readily agreed.
At that time, Gray wasn’t in a position to express his wishes directly to the Duchess, but Anne was diligent and good at her work, earning favor from both the mistress and the head maid.
So, when he expressed his wish to have her as his personal attendant, the Duchess easily granted his request.
No one else was eager to serve Gray Benton, which made it possible.
But now, it was no longer something Anne wanted to do.
She wouldn’t brush the corners of his eyes when they drooped, nor would she run to meet him with a smile when he walked away looking lonely.
Her heart wouldn’t flutter, nor would her cheeks flush from helping the young master carry a load of laundry back and forth.
So…
Jamie! Anne suddenly thought of her brother, who could take her place.
