🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter : 5
“So, I’m not going to that luncheon?”
By the time they reached the mansion doors, Rose stopped walking and asked.
Becoming nothing more than a barking dog in her eyes was not a pleasant feeling, but Ray showed none of it. Lowering the arm he had used to escort her, he gave a faint smile.
“My wife is ill.”
“I am?”
Without answering further, Ray simply tilted his head slightly and turned away.
Then he began walking toward the carriage without hesitation.
Well, it was not exactly a lie.
By his standards—and by the standards of the world he belonged to—not properly understanding one’s own place was a fairly serious condition.
“I think I’ve moved back a century in time.”
“Why don’t you check the newspapers?”
As the memory of her soft voice and gentle tone resurfaced, Ray let out a quiet laugh.
The very first day he met Rose Davis—on that funeral day, when he saw her staggering to her feet beside the tree—Ray Crawford knew something immediately.
He was going to dislike this woman.
Her father, her origins, and all the unpleasant circumstances surrounding her had certainly been bothersome, but they had not made him hate her personally.
Yet the moment he met her face-to-face, Ray understood.
He would never be able to like this woman.
Her tiny body that looked as though a single touch could knock her over.
Her pale face that gave an impression of fragility.
Those powerless green eyes that looked as though they could fill with tears at any moment.
Everything about her gave the impression of weakness.
And those were exactly the kinds of things he hated.
Every part of her irritated him.
In the most unpleasant way possible.
Ray’s prediction had been correct.
However, what he had underestimated was the intensity of those feelings.
Ray Crawford genuinely disliked the woman who had become his wife.
Far more than he had ever expected.
What an annoying bastard.
As Rose chewed her food, she tried imagining she was chewing up her handsome-faced husband instead.
Even after casually calling a perfectly healthy person mentally ill, his expression had remained shamelessly calm.
When she asked, “I’m ill?” Ray Crawford had merely tilted his head slightly.
As though asking,
“What? Isn’t there something wrong with your head?”
If only she could smoke just one cigarette.
Because of Orthuran’s conservative culture, where people acted as though women who smoked were destined for hell, she had no choice but to quit.
And since her younger brother Ben was still attending boarding school in Orthuran, she also wanted to avoid causing noisy newspaper scandals.
If she could just smoke one cigarette after dealing with her irritating husband and the people of this country, she felt she could endure everything much more easily.
“I’m sure Rose will love Sophia too!”
The cheerful voice beside her belonged to Beth, her husband’s younger sister and perhaps the only truly likable person in this household.
Beth had already said that more than ten times.
“Who could possibly dislike Sophia? No such person exists.”
Rose, who had been forcing herself to eat a tasteless egg dish, looked up in surprise at Agatha’s comment.
A gentle warmth rested on the face of her mother-in-law, Agatha Crawford—a rare sight indeed.
Ever since hearing that the Count and Countess Greenwood would be visiting the Crawford estate today, Beth had been overflowing with excitement.
Since Rose married into the family, the Crawfords had stopped inviting guests to the mansion altogether.
Which meant the Greenwoods must be extremely close to them.
Close enough that they did not mind revealing the flaw named Rose.
“Sophia plays the piano too. She’s really good.”
Ever since discovering that Rose could play piano, fifteen-year-old Beth brought it up whenever she had the chance.
Perhaps because she herself had no talent for it, she seemed to greatly admire skilled pianists.
For an entire month, Rose had pretended not to notice the eager expression on Beth’s young face whenever she clearly wanted to hear her play.
“Sophia too? What do you mean by that?”
Agatha asked while dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
“Rose, can you play piano as well?”
“…I’m not particularly good.”
“Particularly.”
For some reason, Agatha repeated the exact word Rose had used.
“Yes?”
“Not ‘partic’ly.’ Properly pronounce it. You always shorten the word strangely. Pay attention to that.”
During conversations, Agatha often corrected Rose’s pronunciation or word choice like this.
She was especially sensitive about long and short vowel sounds and simply could not let them pass.
“Mother, Orthuran isn’t Rose’s native language.”
“And who doesn’t know that? I’m not scolding her, Rose. I’m teaching you.”
“Yes, I know.”
Rose understood perfectly well that Agatha held no particular malice.
She was simply fulfilling what she believed was her duty:
Refining a daughter-in-law unworthy of this family as much as possible.
“Anyway, you don’t need to be especially good. Just knowing how to play is enough. That’s wonderful. You and Beth should play together sometime.”
“Oh, come on. Rose, you’re lying, right? If you’re not very good, how could you teach children?”
The relatively peaceful atmosphere at the breakfast table instantly changed because of Beth’s last remark.
Agatha stared at Rose with visible shock.
“…What?”
“Hm?”
Rose herself looked startled by the intense reaction.
“You taught piano to someone?”
“I mostly taught young girls.”
It seemed like such an ordinary and simple situation, yet her mother-in-law looked increasingly confused.
“…Why? Was it charity work? Did the late Mrs. Davis make you do it?”
“What? No, I did it to earn money.”
The moment Rose finished answering, the napkin in Agatha’s hand fell to the floor.
“I mean…”
Agatha looked so shocked she did not even notice the carefully held napkin lying crumpled on the ground.
“So you’re saying…”
She looked utterly stunned.
“You worked like Miss Gordon? In Bolton?”
Miss Gordon was Beth’s governess.
“You mean you worked like the woman teaching our Beth?”
Rose could not understand why this was such a shocking revelation.
Then again, remembering what happened on the first day she arrived here, perhaps it was not surprising after all.
On that first day, when Rose tried dressing herself, Agatha had clutched her chest and cried out:
“Good heavens, you are not a maid!”
After that, whenever Rose tried doing anything herself, her mother-in-law always repeated the same thing.
You are not a maid.
Even now, Agatha wore the exact same expression.
Not the expression of a mother-in-law discovering something shocking about her daughter-in-law—
—but the expression of a noblewoman horrified to discover a maid sitting at the same table.
“And what was your father doing?”
“There were times when his business struggled.”
It was true that there had been periods when her father’s business struggled so badly he could not even pay child support.
But later, he simply stopped giving money because he was maintaining two separate households.
He had even threatened her mother, saying he would only provide money if she agreed to a divorce.
Still, if Rose continued that story, her refined mother-in-law looked as though she might faint on the spot.
“Is earning money through piano really so terrible? I heard the Countess Greenwood also plays piano.”
Rose had never once considered earning money as a piano teacher shameful.
If anything, at the time it had been the only thing keeping her alive.
The only escape preventing her from drowning in self-hatred.
“Good heavens, how are those the same thing? Sophia—the Countess Greenwood—plays as a hobby! That belongs to the realm of refinement. It’s basic cultivation.”
“So are you saying women shouldn’t work or earn money?”
At Rose’s question, Agatha stiffened and answered sharply.
“If you are a lady, then naturally you should not! Never ask such a question elsewhere again.”
“Mother, people aren’t like that anymore these days. Mrs. Sullivan writes for newspapers too.”
“How is that the same thing? Does she even receive payment for that? And this is not your place to interrupt, Beth.”
“So what if she gets paid? If you work, you should be paid for it. Should I write Mrs. Sullivan tomorrow and ask whether she gets paid or not?”
“Elizabeth Mary Crawford. That is enough. You clearly need to stop reading so many novels.”
Even under Agatha’s cold stare, Beth looked ready to argue further, but she finally fell silent after Rose quietly signaled her with her eyes.
Rose did not want Beth stepping in to defend her.
Agatha would only conclude that Rose had been filling Beth’s head with bad ideas.
“In Bolton, I wasn’t a lady. Didn’t you know that?”
“But your mother, Mrs. Davis—”
“There are no nobles in Bolton. Even if someone has titles from Antaka or Orthuran, they mean nothing there.”
Of course, like anywhere else, there were still many people in Bolton who admired such things.
“I know perfectly well that neither your mother nor grandfather held titles. But that doesn’t change the fact that your family came from noble blood. I heard your late mother received a great deal of education and even had servants.”
“My mother did have one maid, but that was all. I handled my own affairs myself.”
Judging by Agatha’s deeply shocked expression, it seemed she had never truly heard about Rose’s previous life.
