Belviana realized that the end had finally come to the end of the endless years of believing that love, built on faith and trust, was all there was to happiness. Finally, she’d made the transition from a child to girl, from girl to woman.

She was jerked out of her reverie by the sound of something falling with a thud. It sounded like a large wooden plank crashing to the floor. It was followed by the murmur of voices in the distance. It was still too dark outside the window to think that the servants were already up and about. She listened uneasily, then stood up.

“…… I’ve got to go, but I’ll talk to you later.”

“It’s just the occasional disturbance, nothing to worry about.”

“I think people are awake, maybe even my maid. I should go.”

“Stay a little longer.”

He grabbed her shoulder. Belviana twisted her shoulders to escape, but he was quicker to grab her wrists. Aiden tackled her to the bed. When she pushed back, he didn’t even flinch. Instead, her arms were pinned to her sides the next moment. As she slowly calmed down, Aiden loosened his grip. He gently touched the bridge of her nose to her forehead. For a moment, their breaths and gazes intertwined. Aiden’s eyes were still so naked that her cheeks flushed. Truthfully, those eyes had never been anything but steady from the first time she’d laid eyes on him as a child until now.

Not a woman, not a human, but Belviana. It was a gaze that longed only for her. As if all the righteousness in the world depended on her. Ah, now it was abandonment. The love she had just realized consumed her like a wildfire in a dry field. She stopped trying to resist. Belviana threw her arms around his neck.

He kissed her deeply, then untied the ribbon of her dress with his teeth. Her voluptuous breasts were on full display through the disheveled dress. She was no longer ashamed of her erect nipples; she was as beautiful as a lustful whore without a covering. Her softly parted lips were a temptation.

He buried his head in the scuff marks and kissed his way along her collarbone. Her voluptuous breasts squeezed easily in his hands. He bit down painfully on an erect nipple. She gasped at the throbbing pain. He swallowed, sucked, licked, and nibbled at the tender flesh, and she became easily wet from all the rough contact. A sigh-like moan escaped her parted lips. The hem of her snow-white dress curled up a little. She spread her legs without realizing it. Like flowers in full bloom, white and red velvet.

She could feel the tremor in his breath on her skin. Maybe, her trembling.

Maybe, for the first time, she wanted him first. It was like their first night together.

“Rather, Aiden, quickly…….”

Belviana spread her arms. Her voice was damp with moisture. He looked a little broken. It was a moment. At the end of summer, Aiden laughed like a season gone by. The laugh was a sigh. Like he was sorry he couldn’t, like he couldn’t help it.

“Just hang in there. This will pass.”

“…….”

“I’m sorry I left you behind.”

His voice was funny and pleading. She didn’t have time to ponder the meaning of those words. The clamorous footsteps in the distance grew closer. They seemed to have reached their floor. The door swung open, one by one, and there was a clatter of feet.

Belviana remained stiff as a startled deer in his grasp. It wasn’t long before the footsteps stopped outside their room. The sound of a door being ripped from its hinges was heard, and then it was flung open with violence. Aiden, who had by now smoothed out her clothes, pushed himself up on top of her with both hands raised.

“Oh, my God, Miss!”

The new scream was like a thunderbolt. The lanterns held by the men scrambled forward, illuminating the narrow room. The sudden onslaught of light blinded her. She scrambled out of bed. The floor was bitterly cold against her bare feet, and she nearly stumbled in her haste, but Aiden wasn’t there to catch her like he usually did. She forced her droopy eyelids open as her eyes adjusted to the light. Tears pooled in her vision.

The faces of the servants and maidservants, their faces etched with scorn, disbelief, and every other negative emotion; Lena, her cheeks puffed up red as if she had been struck; Liliette, unable to hide her disgust; and……. Belviana froze on the spot.

It was her father, the Count of Lester.

*

It was near the end of the summer when the news of the Lady Lester’s divorce spread through the social circles. The outward explanation was that her body had grown rapidly weaker over the summer, but no one really believed it, for everyone remembered Lady Lester at the banquet a few days before. The Belviana of that day was far too beautiful to be called sickly, and she was bewitching, and there was a definite vivacity about her; but it was not an event to be remembered for long, for by nature, agreements between noble families are often broken.

A drunkard in the street said something strange. He said that he had been paid tens of thousands of sols by the Count of Lester to keep quiet. It was around this time that Lady Lester was rumored to be a scandalous person. At first, the rumors were spread secretly from salon to salon, due to their crude nature. A few days later, a body washed up in the Dexon River, and when specific stories began to circulate that the bloodied corpse belonged to a servant who had dared to flirt with Lady Lester, everyone now believed the rumors.

It seemed as if no time had passed since that day. Belviana sat up in her bed in the absence of light and tried to calculate the days, then gave up. She couldn’t even open the door with her own hands now. It was practically a waste. The Count of Lester could not hide the deep disgust beneath his cold eyes. Only then did she realize the depth of her sin. Never in her life had her father been so cold to her. The Count would not even listen to her excuses.

A letter in her handwriting had been found. It was written in her handwriting, and it was filled with love for Aiden. She protested that she couldn’t have written it, but stopped when she was told that it was Liliette who had first delivered it to the Count.

Aiden is dead. A body washed up in the river of Dexen, and one of her maids told her that it belonged to Aiden. At first, she didn’t believe her, but then she heard the same muffled reply she gave to the maids who came in twice a day to tend her meals: He’s dead. No tears came to her eyes, but several times a day, a sinking feeling came over her.

The Duke of Heidelberg asked the Count to confirm the rumors in writing. In all the centuries of the empire, the only written proof of infidelity was the mythical prodigal daughter Lizette, who was said to have had twelve mistresses after marriage. It was a stigma, a lifelong label. The Duke had no intention of forgiving his fiancée for her infidelity. The Countess pleaded with her husband in vain for some hope, but when she learned that the Count of Lester had already confessed his daughter’s infidelity in full by morning mail, she gave up.

Her blood-curdling cries, “What is your modest conviction, that you should tear my daughter to pieces?” did not even reach the Count’s ears. When the last appeal failed, the Countess would not even look Belviana in the face; her daughter was as good as dead to society. With a few tears, the Countess, who had never been free from the gaze of others, let go of Belviana completely. Rather than embrace her unclean daughter and become unclean with her, she would rather claim her innocence and commit suicide. Now Belviana was such a child to the counts.

She would be sent to a convent tomorrow, according to their wishes. Her loud-mouthed maid, Duot, the Countess’s longtime favorite, packed her things with great stealth. The contents of her crude leather bag were very simple. Plain underwear, two short gray dresses, a lace collar to wear around her neck on special occasions, and a quill and ink. Everything was as simple as a nun’s.

In her visions, the dead Aiden laughed at her. Did you not know that what you did would come back to haunt you? Was your love for the cobbler so great that you would endure all this? It was terrible. Remorse was slow to come. At the foot of her bed, under the loose wooden planks, she still had the bag she’d hidden only days before. She’d packed it like a child.

The first thing she’d reached for, even after she’d run away with Liam and decided to stay a commoner for the rest of her life, had been all the dresses and jewelry she could find, a luxury she’d taken for granted. When she was finally stripped of it all, she saw clearly what she had given away. A single tear slid down her parched cheek. Aiden was right. She had been a snobbish bitch all along.

She suddenly realized she should write a letter to Liam.

*

The breakup of the Lady Lester’s marriage was the end of the titillating gossip, but it was mentioned less and less as the season wore on.

Southern social circles were too busy to keep up with the daily gossip, and by winter many of the nobles were away at war. The event was only occasionally mentioned in gossip and gossiping circles, and eventually faded from the public consciousness.

Those who remembered the southern flower believed that she would soon reappear in society. The Count of Lester was not a great man to turn his back on his daughter forever.

But when Belviana did not reappear in society at the turn of the year, the rumors took an irritating turn.

That she had already committed suicide by following that servant.

*

The train, which had been traveling since dawn, reached its terminus in a puff of smoke just as the sun was setting. Belviana stepped off the train, clutching her heavy leather bag. The wind had picked up a bit to the north and was chilly, and the sky was heavy with the threat of rain. Her nanny, who had been nagging her nonstop since the moment she stepped off the train, looked at her suspiciously.

“Miss. Are you sure you’re listening to me?”

Belviana lowered her faraway gaze slightly. At the stern look on t