TMLWA 04

Chapter 04

“Young master. May I ask you for one favor?”

At this point, Anne and Grey were in a relationship where neither owed the other anything anymore, nor had anything left to owe. Affection had begun to accumulate through consistent goodwill and attention, but it still had time before turning into love.

Anne asked the thirteen-year-old Grey in a tone that was almost pure and unguarded.

“Yeah!”

The boy nodded energetically.

Seeing him, Anne relaxed her tense expression and smiled brightly. Grey, like a fledgling mimicking its mother bird, also opened his mouth in a wide grin.

Watching him, Anne thought.

Ever since she was seven, when her parents—who worked in a barn storage—died in a fire, her only family had been her younger brother.

But to survive, they needed money. Anne left her brother in her aunt’s care and entered the ducal household as a maid, swallowing her heartbreak.

At the time, she had thought that as long as she earned money, everything would be fine. But that alone had not been enough to protect her only sibling.

She could not even prevent her brother’s death, something she had never even witnessed directly.

This time, she wanted to prevent it.

She did not want to remember her brother’s face only as a faint childhood memory anymore.

According to her estimation, Jamie had died in the winter at age fifteen. That meant there was not much time left.

“I would like to recommend my younger brother as your servant.”

“I’d rather have you do it.”

Anne looked down, saddened by the immediate reply. Grey, noticing her mood, hesitated and bit lightly at his fingernail.

“Where is your brother now?”

“He’s staying at my aunt’s house, but if possible, I want him to stay by my side. He’s the same age as you, so he could make a good companion as a page.”

Unlike Anne, who had started working immediately after being sent to her aunt’s house to earn even her brother’s food expenses, Jamie had not been forced into labor despite being treated coldly.

But now he was thirteen. It was time for him to become independent, and being trained as a servant in the Benton ducal household would not be a bad opportunity.

If he came here, she could keep him close and teach him to read as well, helping prepare him for the future.

“Alright. I’ll talk to the Duchess about—”

“I will explain it myself. So if she asks you, please accept my request.”

Anne cut him off rudely before he could finish. If Grey stepped in unnecessarily, it might only worsen things.

Fortunately, Grey did not look offended.

“Alright. Instead—”

White sheets hanging in the backyard fluttered in the wind. Grey’s face, illuminated by the reflected light, looked almost radiant.

“I want you to eat meals with me from now on.”

Watching the young boy, she suddenly remembered the days they had once sat side by side on an old, worn-out sofa, chatting endlessly.

He used to tease her with a mischievous smile, then act like a puppy drooping his eyes if she looked like she might cry.

“Maid servants are not allowed to sit at the same table as their master.”

But that would no longer happen.

You will become the Duke of Benton, and I will remain a maid.

“It’s fine. I’ll eat in my room, and you can just bring your portion and eat with me.”

“But—”

“Until your brother comes here, just this much. This is my request.”

Few girls could resist the boy’s innocent beauty. How could seventeen-year-old Anne not have loved him?

But Anne Ferro forced herself to steady her thoughts.

Nothing has happened yet. And nothing will happen.

* * *

Duchess Elizabeth Benton had lost both her husband and her biological son in the war. In order to preserve the ducal title, she had been forced to bring Grey into the family in haste.

As if she had never hated him, she shamelessly accepted him as her own blood. Yet the woman Grey loved still seemed beneath contempt to her.

Even in front of servants, she did not hesitate to belittle Anne.

Despite this, Anne trusted and loved Grey.

Even when she was excluded at parties he summoned her to.

Even when she was monitored by the former Duchess, unable to touch a single coin from her allocated allowance.

Anne endured it all.

And what made it bearable—what allowed her to endure it—was Grey’s love.

A little over a year after becoming the official Duchess of Benton, Anne became pregnant.

As soon as she announced the news, Grey—who had been too busy after becoming Duke to meet her often—began visiting her every night.

Thanks to him coming to see her daily, the suffocating harassment from the former Duchess faded like melting snow.

She became more confident because she now carried the Duke’s child, the heir of the ducal house.

Perhaps that was the problem.

Or perhaps the former Duchess had never wanted Anne to bear Grey’s blood in the first place.

“Ugh, my stomach—my stomach hurts!”

A child. Their precious child.

“Help me—!!”

Thud.

A spoon fell from her hand, and Anne collapsed on the dining room floor, clutching her abdomen in agony. Darkness swallowed her consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, she was in a bed—and her body felt strangely light.

Had she eaten something wrong? She had no mental strength to analyze the situation.

“Your body was weak. It’s said first pregnancies have a high risk of miscarriage.”

Anne looked at her husband and cried.

“Anne, it’s alright. We can have another child later.”

Grey placed his hand on her forehead, comforting her.

But to Anne, this child was not merely bloodline or heir.

When she had lived in hiding, there had been no time to even think about children. But after coming to the ducal household, her days had become unbearable and empty.

She had always lived under the watchful eyes of the former Duchess, waiting only for her husband’s return.

Even then, Grey had often been dragged away by the former Duchess before he could stay with her.

So how relieved and happy she had been when she became pregnant.

This child was the symbol of her bond with Grey, the most certain proof that she belonged in the Benton family.

I can become part of the Benton house too.

But those hopes shattered the moment she lost the child.

At twenty-seven, after her miscarriage, Anne slowly withered alone in the ducal estate while Grey soared through aristocratic society and the royal court.

Banquets were filled with young, beautiful women. Noble ladies and young debutantes cheered at the Duke’s arrival, regardless of his marital status.

Behind the Duke, the former Duchess’s voice could always be heard lamenting at parties.

“A woman who cannot even bear an heir dares to be my daughter-in-law. If I could, I would divorce her immediately.”

Anne heard countless rumors circulating among servants and maids, eventually reaching her own ears—but Grey never asked her about them.

She trusted his love, so she never asked either.

She simply waited.

Waited, believing his love would return to her.

He was the one who had shared her long years of suffering, her companion through hardship and memory.

She believed that when Grey grew tired of noble life, he would return to her side.

One night, as she tucked away an old fountain pen into a drawer, Anne smiled faintly.

It was a pen she had saved up for.

A cheap one with poorly drawn gold trim, something never used in the Benton ducal household. Still, she treasured it because it had once been touched by Grey.

Even though it had never been used since being placed in the drawer, she would sometimes take it out and remember him.

Then she heard footsteps outside the corridor.

“The lady is asleep, my lord.”

It was a maid’s voice.

“Is that so?”

Grey Benton, the Duke, had apparently returned drunk from a party. The sound of the maid supporting his unsteady body echoed.

“My lord?”

The maid did not avoid the shadow approaching.

Soon, the sound of a door opening filled the corridor. Rough breathing and faint moans intertwined behind the closed door.

At that moment, the Duchess’s door opened in an empty corridor.

Anne was not asleep.

Standing before the door where those breaths leaked out, she trembled.

She wanted to open the door, to scream, to drag the woman who seduced her husband by the hair and throw her out of the estate like a madwoman.

Her fingers shaking on the doorknob—

Footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.

A low chuckle carried faint ridicule.

In the silent hallway, only the faint sounds of a man and woman remained.

And that small mocking sound stood out even more clearly.

Anne saw a silhouette at the end of the hall and parted her lips slightly.

“Mother…?”

She had never been able to call her that.

The former Duchess of Benton stood at the end of the corridor.

She looked over Anne’s pathetic, shabby figure by the door and curled one corner of her mouth upward.

“You’re finished.”