IWAWMFTB 10

Chapter : 10

“The estate manager is still missing.”

Henry reported in a sad voice. Anna had already expected this, so she wasn’t very disappointed. She waited for Henry to go on, but he hesitated, looking uncomfortable.

“And your father…”

Henry bit his lips, unable to finish. Anna felt something snap inside her.

“He probably bragged that it’s a great marriage, right?”

She said this bitterly. Henry looked devastated.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Ha, my father is really…”

Anna let out a breath like air leaving a balloon. Her heart felt so full it might burst, but for some reason, she just kept laughing—it felt like she was going crazy.

“Miss, especially in times like this, you have to stay strong…”

Henry tried to calm her, but it was useless. Anna pulled her legs up onto the armchair and buried her face in her knees, refusing to talk. Henry looked at her with pity, then quietly left the room and closed the door.

‘How can everything be this messed up?’

Nothing worked out for her. How could things get this bad? She gave a short, empty laugh, then suddenly stopped. Her face twisted, and tears began to fall.

‘I want to die…’

It felt like walking on a dark, dangerous road, afraid of what might jump out. She was always nervous, always tired—she just wanted to let go of everything.

‘If I die now… maybe it will be easier?’

Anna stared at the letter opener on her desk. How long had she sat like that? Suddenly, she snapped back to her senses and pulled the bell cord.

“Miss!”

Lucy rushed in, as if she had been waiting. Anna quickly wiped the tears from her face and spoke with determination.

“I’m going to see Raiden. Get things ready right now.”

“…What?”

Lucy froze, then turned to look out the window. It was very dark outside. She looked back at Anna, who was already taking off her dress.

Lucy was surprised but spoke carefully.

“Miss, it’s the middle of the night.”

“I know.”

Anna quickly changed into her underclothes. Realizing Anna was serious, Lucy was shocked.

“Even so, are you really going? An unmarried young lady, alone, to see an unmarried man in the middle of the night?”

Anna stopped as if cold water had been poured over her head. She stood still for a moment, then dropped her shoulders and spoke in a trembling voice.

“Then… what should I do? There’s something I must say…”

“It’s better to write a letter.”

Lucy comforted her, putting a silk robe over Anna’s shoulders. Anna, eyes full of tears, looked at Lucy and nodded.

“That’s better. Will you get me some paper and ink?”

“Wait a moment. Not long ago, Henry the butler brought some high-quality paper.”

Lucy searched the desk drawer and brought out gold-trimmed paper and a pen. Anna sat at the table and quickly wrote a few lines. She sealed the letter well and handed it to Lucy.

“You have to send it right away. To the Marquis Marcus’s house. Make sure it’s marked personal.”

“Yes, miss.”

Lucy hurried out of the room with the letter. Anna sat weakly on her bed.

“I almost caused a scandal…”

There were already too many rumors about the Evercline family going bankrupt. She had nearly made things worse—with a scandal that would ruin any unmarried lady.

She gave a bitter laugh.

‘Who cares. Soon I’ll be sold to that cannibal marquis anyway.’

She muttered in exhaustion.

“Before that happens, I just wanted to say what I really feel…”

Suddenly her mouth went dry. No matter what she wrote, it probably had a lot of holes in it. Even her engagement was fake, agreed to by Edward to help her. Even if she chose her words carefully, it wouldn’t really explain how desperate she was back then.

‘Maybe Raiden thinks I left him for Edward.’

That’s why she felt uneasy about the fake engagement. But even if she could go back, she would have made the same choice—the situation was that desperate.

‘Marquis Nomen wasn’t the first husband my father chose.’

She let out a tired laugh. From the start, she had only wanted one man as her husband, but the newspapers always printed her name next to someone else’s.

‘It’s all because Raiden disappeared so suddenly.’

Old resentment bubbled up again. If he was misunderstanding her, she almost wanted to blame him for that, too.

Anna bit her thumb.

‘If he had just told me he had an emergency, or at least taken me with him…’

She knew it was childish, and that he must have had a good reason. Still, she was so tired she wanted to ignore all that.

‘Who could ever understand that I chose to break off the engagement even knowing what would happen?’

Only Raiden. He, at least, should understand her and feel sorry. After all, he was the one who proposed to her when she was young and asked her to wait until he was ready.

‘I kept my promise, so why does he look at me like that?’

When they met at Somerset House and at the opera hall, Raiden looked at her with an unreadable expression—as if he hated her or was blaming her.

‘Why!’

So angry she wanted to scream, Anna grabbed her pillow and hit it hard. The whole world was against her. Even Raiden, whom she loved most, and her father, whom she loved next, were both making her suffer.

‘Do you know what pain I’ve gone through to keep my promise and wait for you?’

Since the day she returned from Lily Street, she’d been afraid her father would come back and drag her to Marquis Nomen any day. She never slept well.

It was the same after Raiden disappeared—her father, desperate to marry her off, scared her to death. She made excuses, but her father, an old-fashioned man, believed a woman’s happiness was to marry and serve her husband. That’s why she used the fake engagement idea. Luckily, it worked and bought her time.

In the empire, a woman who breaks off her engagement usually can’t marry anyone else. If she’s lucky, her family gives her a little money and she lives in a small country house until she dies. Normally, she ends up in a convent, working for the rest of her life. If she’s unlucky, she gets abandoned and sent to Lily Street.

But noblemen rarely want to marry a woman who’s broken off an engagement—they think she’s already been spoiled.

She knew all this, but still made the fake engagement, because she believed Raiden would return.

‘I never believed those rumors that he only wanted my money.’

Her father John tried hard to convince her, but Anna never wavered. Their love wasn’t so small it could be measured by money. For that reason, she thought Raiden would understand her fake engagement too—at least, she believed so.

‘But is this all I get for that?’

She felt like a lonely king forced into checkmate for no reason.

‘If he had answered my waiting right away after coming back, I wouldn’t have been afraid of any scandal.’

More sadness welled up inside her. Crying, Anna reached for the silver ring on the gold thread around her neck. She remembered a happier time in the past.

As always, Anna was hiding in the attic of the holy supplies room—Raiden’s favorite place to avoid the older knights. Raiden came quickly after his training, his hair still wet, and sat on a box he didn’t use anymore. As he sat down, a small box fell out of his pocket. Anna picked it up without thinking and asked,

“What’s this, Raiden?”

“Ah…”

Raiden suddenly froze. Anna turned the box around in her hands and joked,

“It looks like a ring box. Raiden, are you going to propose to me?”

She thought it was a joke, so she expected him to laugh too. But his face turned so red it looked like it would bleed.

“…Huh?”

Anna finally realized something was wrong. Raiden hung his head. After a moment, clear drops fell and made round spots on the wooden floor.

At first, Anna thought it was just water from his wet hair, but then her heart dropped.

He was… crying!

“Wait, Raiden? Are you crying?”