Chapter.1

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Quite serious indeed.

At present, something monumental was happening in Jane Shirley’s life. If one were to compare her life to the earth itself, it was the kind of event that caused tectonic plates to shift.

“Ha ha ha, is that so, Miss Shirley? As expected… haa, haa, a beauty like a single rose in bloom never fades, it seems, heh.”

Jane lifted the corners of her lips while wearing the eyes of a fish left out for three days.

“Ah, yes.”

As if that much alone fulfilled her obligation to basic courtesy.

Astonishingly, the man before her was her fiancé. Ah—correction.

He was her fiancé-to-be, and furthermore, the prospective husband and lifelong partner she was meant to share her future with.

Since the engagement was practically decided, calling him her fiancé wouldn’t be inaccurate. And yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so.

“In truth, I felt it from the first moment I laid eyes on you, Miss Shirley. Those beautiful eyes, that shining hair, even your flawless skin…! Haa!”

Her fiancé—candidate—was distorting reality.

To begin with, Jane’s hair was not the gleaming gold so often described in society columns, and her skin was sprinkled with freckles. “Flawless” was hardly the word she would have chosen.

The one feature worth boasting about was her pink eyes—rare even in the Lochman Empire, a place teeming with people. And yet she herself had never considered them much of a prize.

The Shirley family was known for its hereditary violet eyes, passed down generation after generation. Jane, oddly enough, had been born without the family’s signature color.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—she was the sole remaining descendant, which meant she inherited an enormous fortune. Yes. The fortune was the problem.

Jane lifted her gaze slightly.

Why does he add an exhale to every sentence?

It sounded like moaning. It made her skin crawl. Did he not even realize?

Objectively speaking, her fiancé’s appearance wasn’t bad.

In fact, by ordinary standards, he would be considered quite handsome. He was tall, broad from years of horseback riding. His white teeth showed a bit too generously when he smiled, but he had the blond hair and blue eyes that women in the capital supposedly adored.

And yet not a single one of those traits stirred her heart. If she were honest, she didn’t particularly care for men overly bulky with muscle. Not that she preferred them thin, either—but if she had to choose…

Wider shoulders. A little taller. Longer legs, too.

Besides, having grown up surrounded by gold coins to the point of nausea, she felt no fondness for colors that gleamed like gold or shimmered too brightly.

Something subtler—yes, gray hair that would glow softly under moonlight.

And eyes… violet, the color she herself had not inherited.

“…Hm? Miss Shirley?”

And a voice—not that affected, artificially husky tone, but—

“So that’s why you came to see me?”

Yes. Like that. Low. Smooth. Resonant.

“Miss Shirley!”

“Ah.”

Jane looked up, her lips parting slightly in surprise.

Good heavens…

It wasn’t because she had just committed a discourtesy toward the mildly unpleasant face in front of her.

He had been the one rudely raking his eyes up and down her figure with undisguised enthusiasm since earlier.

Who did I just think of? Have I lost my mind, Jane Shirley?

The shock of it made her want to flee on the spot.

“Mr. Marcus.”

“Ah! Not Mr. Marcus—Sir Caroman!”

Sir, my foot. A knighthood was a single-generation title—it did not pass on.

And yet his family had received theirs not from his father, but from his grandfather. By sheer luck, they had managed to maintain local influence ever since—a native family that held some sway, at least within their provincial estate.

“Yes, Mr. Marcus. I’m afraid I’m quite fatigued today, so I’ll be taking my leave.”

“W-wait just a moment, Miss Shirley.”

An ordinary person might first ask whether she was unwell, or if something had happened. But—

“Then what of our… engagement ceremony? Carmel Hall! Yes, that’s where it will be held, correct?”

The man casually invoked the most luxurious private hall in the Empire, his eyes gleaming with naked greed. Jane raised a handkerchief to her lips, concealing the faint curl of her smile.

Mm… I did choose it, but still. It’s almost impressive, how piggish he looks.

No—that was unfair to pigs. Lowering her gaze with practiced elegance, she decided her optic nerves did not deserve to behold such unseemly avarice.

“We can discuss that next time.”

“Ah… ahem. Very well.”

The reason he dared not protest this abrupt dismissal was simple.

Jane—Miss Shirley—was covering every expense. He was the one merely showing up; naturally, all decisions rested with her.

“Ahem. Do take care on your way home.”

Marcus let his gaze fix somewhere specific and spoke in a suggestive tone.

“And Miss Shirley? Next time, perhaps we might attend Madame Yurla’s masquerade in the west together—”

Jane was dumbfounded. Go with him to that decadent masquerade? Was he out of his mind?

She offered a gentle smile, gathered her skirts, and executed a flawless curtsy—perfectly polite, and utterly final.

She could feel his stare burning into the back of her head as she turned away, as though it might bore a hole straight through her skull. She did not look back.

Truthfully, it hardly mattered what Marcus prattled on about after that. From the moment she had conjured up her ideal “type of man,” her mind had been completely occupied by a single person—one who left her horrified.

I must be insane. Truly insane. Who did I just picture?

Because she had imagined… the student she was sponsoring.

Her ward.

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For years, the wealthy and the noble of the Empire had claimed the finest land east of the capital, building lavish estates and townhouses along the lakeshore.

The Shirley family was among them.

Originally, the Shirleys had not been nobles. But with the establishment of the Imperial Assembly came an age of upheaval, when the gentry rose to the ranks once reserved for aristocracy. A single merchant, gifted beyond measure, amassed staggering wealth and influence. He later founded a trading company—Jane’s grandfather, Yulgen Shirley.

“My son, mark my words—soon enough, money will rule this world!”

Her father, who inherited his business acumen in full, married Jane’s mother, a mineralogist, and together they expanded the family fortune even further. From that point on, the Shirleys became a gentry household too significant for even the nobility to ignore—one that caught the eye of the imperial family itself.

But misfortune struck.

The Shirley bloodline was painfully thin. Jane’s grandfather had only one child—her father—and in the year Jane turned twenty, her grandfather died of illness. Not long after, her parents were killed in an accident.

[Breaking News] Shock: ‘The Shirley Couple’ Trapped and Killed in Collapsed Mine!

[Special Report] The Shirley Couple’s Only Daughter—Who Is the ‘Shirley Heiress’…?!

Jane became the sole heiress to a fortune built over two generations.

Her name was not publicly known; she was referred to simply as “the Shirley Heiress.”

From the moment she came of age, she drew relentless attention. She could have done nothing but breathe and lived not only her own lifetime, but three generations in comfort. And yet—perhaps because the family who had truly loved her left too soon—she threw herself into work from the age of twenty onward, for ten straight years.

The fortune she amassed during that decade was astronomical.

Now she might have rested, enjoyed herself—but the world refused to leave her be.

[Exclusive] For Ten Years, Shrouded in Mystery—Is the ‘Shirley Heiress’ Actually Dead…?!

[Scoop] ‘Shirley Heiress,’ Witness Testimonies Pour In: ‘Hideously Ugly!’ ‘A Woman with a Large Scar on Her Face…’

The Empire had advanced, grown progressive under the Assembly—but a wealthy, unmarried woman in her thirties still drew attention like a unicorn wandering into the city square.

In Jane’s case, the fact that she had not revealed her face once in ten years only intensified the scrutiny. The world speculated about her identity, spun gossip, tried to turn her existence into a scandal.

And then there was that damned law.

Yes. That damned law…

Among the Empire’s old inheritance statutes was a clause so outrageous it bordered on criminal: an unmarried noblewoman over the age of thirty-two could not inherit her family’s estate. It had originated in the days of the monarchy, meant to prevent daughters—unable to inherit titles—from aging unmarried and “useless,” siphoning off family wealth.

The law did not apply to the gentry.

The problem was that the Shirleys occupied an ambiguous position—neither fully noble nor purely gentry.

The single-generation title the Emperor arbitrarily bestowed upon Father.

That was the issue. The title’s validity lasted fifty years, but Jane’s father had died in an accident before that term expired. A single-generation title was not inheritable—it should have vanished upon his death. And yet the title’s effective period technically remained.

Thus, the Shirley family’s status—and Jane’s own—became subject to interpretation. Depending on who held it, the law could be twisted either way.

And there were those who coveted her wealth.

In the end, if Jane wished to preserve the Shirley fortune in its entirety, she needed a child.

That was why, after ten years, she had resolved to take on a fiancé—and future husband. Even a scarecrow of a man would be better than none at all, she had thought.

But—

Was this really the right choice…?

Even if circumstances forced her hand, every time she pictured the man she was to marry, she found herself wondering whether this was truly the best she could do. Did he have to be so completely not her type?

If I’m going to do this, shouldn’t it at least be someone who is…

Her thoughts halted as, once again, she conjured the image of a beautiful, elegant man with gray hair. She buried her face in her hands and kicked her feet in agitation, revealing silk stockings.

“Ugh—Jane Shirley, what on earth are you imagining…!”

But wasn’t it said that when one is told not to think of an elephant, that is precisely when the elephant appears?

The more she thought of him, the more the countless letters they had exchanged over the years surfaced helplessly in her mind.

As the memory of his neat handwriting and that deep, forest-like scent rising from the letters surfaced, Jane ended up covering her entire face.

She lay face-down, motionless, when—

Click.

The door opened with a knock. Someone entered without waiting for permission, their footsteps striding confidently across the room. Jane waited until the steps stopped in front of her before lifting her head.

Then she casually picked up the newspaper she’d been reading earlier and tossed aside.

“Bianca.”

It was Bianca—Jane’s friend and secretary, the only one who knew the true identity of Shirley’s heiress, a woman shrouded in mystique despite ten years of constant rumors.

“Want to see this? ‘The current scale of the Shirley family’s wealth may surpass even the imperial treasury—perhaps even including its secret accounts….’”

Holding up the paper, Jane read aloud in a steady voice.

“They’re saying I could buy a whole country with what I have.”

Her eyes rolled lazily.

Across from her stood her friend and secretary, dressed immaculately as always, her expression perfectly professional.

Pretty and elegant as ever. I could make her my stand-in if it came to it.

Jane smiled to herself at the idle thought.

“Think I should buy a country and rewrite the vagrancy laws while I’m at it?”

“Please don’t say frightening things like that.”

Since it was work hours, Bianca replied formally. Her tone was dry.

“You’re too lazy for politics, ma’am. You’d never manage governance. Absolutely not.”

“…That’s the problem?”

Jane looked genuinely taken aback.

Still—

…She’s not wrong. Hard to argue with that.

Jane had stopped pursuing money aggressively. Business was like an ecosystem—you couldn’t simply withdraw entirely—so she still oversaw things, but most of it had been entrusted to her proxy lawyer and to Max and Camilla, the sibling co-presidents of Shirley Trading Company.

Even back when she had been active, those two had attended most public events on her behalf, so nothing seemed unusual. People still knew little about her, and few even realized she had stepped back from the forefront.

The siblings owed their lives to her. Now they were heads of their own happy households.

And so her life had grown a little dull. Outside of work, she was awkward with people, largely indifferent to relationships, and burdened with a deep distrust of others.

She believed—firmly—that her parents had died because someone they trusted betrayed them.

There had always been too many suspicious elements surrounding the mine accident that killed them. And it remained unsolved.

“Did you go to see Sir Marcus Karoman?”

“Sir? Please don’t call him that in front of me. What kind of title is a one-generation knighthood he didn’t even personally receive?”

Jane replied sharply. At that, Bianca glanced sidelong at her friend—and employer.

Fine golden-brown hair that looked blond at first glance, rare pink eyes for this empire, freckles scattered across pale skin, rounded eyes. Jane herself didn’t think much of her appearance, but to Bianca, she was undeniably beautiful.

Of course, her true worth wasn’t in her looks. With her immense fortune, she could have lived like royalty among the imperial nobility, yet she insisted on remaining gentry. Outside, she used a thoroughly fabricated identity that omitted her surname entirely, and as Shirley’s heiress, she always insisted on acting through proxies.

Let people know her only as a rumor-ridden heiress.

“…Do you really have to get engaged to that man?”

The complaint burst out of Bianca. It wasn’t the first time she’d voiced it.

“Well, I do need him.”

If she wished, Jane could easily find and meet a man who matched her ideal type. Money had a way of accomplishing things that bordered on impossible. Maybe not a perfect ideal—but close enough.

Yet the reason she’d become engaged to a man who was nowhere near her type required going back to her grandfather’s generation.

In the territory where her grandfather had first begun his business, there had been a dear friend—closer than brothers. Her grandfather adored that kind-hearted man, who had stood by him in his hardest times. In their affection, the two had made a promise—without consulting their children or grandchildren—to bind their families together someday.

They had even exchanged tokens to seal it.

“Ah, so your name is Jane. I’ve heard so much about you from my grandfather!”

Jane hadn’t been particularly pleased that a man who knew her hidden identity—kept secret for ten years—had approached her so openly. Still, she’d reasoned that her fiancé ought to be someone who knew who she truly was. And due to imperial law, she needed a husband on paper.

So she’d agreed.

Which meant she felt neither enthusiasm nor passion. She didn’t dislike him, though she found him unpleasant. Lately, though… he’d begun to grate on her nerves.

“What could you possibly be lacking that you have to settle for someone like him? Honestly, I just don’t get it.”

“But I hate the idea of revealing my full identity and dating someone even more. It’s such a hassle.”

“There are limits to what counts as a hassle!”

Jane only grinned at Bianca’s scolding.

“Don’t be so harsh. He has his merits.”

“Merits? That man?”

Bianca knew Marcus Karoman well. After all, she had been the one to investigate him. He was exactly what he looked like—a man fully aware of his handsome face, flirting with this woman and that, notorious for frequenting indecent masquerade parties. He spent money lavishly as though backed by someone powerful, and the unclear source of his funds made him all the more suspicious.

“What merits could he possibly have? Sure, he’s fairly good-looking, but he’s not even your type.”

“He shows his greed plainly.”

Jane yawned.

When you make money, you see countless types of people. Even if she didn’t sit as the heiress, Jane had met business partners under many names. Some of them had treated her arrogantly and condescendingly when she appeared as a mere secretary—only to bow and scrape the moment her proxy lawyer entered. Some had even taken their frustrations out on her.

After years of experience, she had realized—

“It’s better when you can see someone’s desires clearly.”

Jane gave a faint, mocking smile as she remembered the distant relatives who had suddenly appeared the day her parents died.

“And who exactly am I supposed to meet at this point? Pick someone off the street?”

“Why so negative? You never know who you might meet—like fate just bam.”

“Hmm. Love that strikes out of nowhere like that… I can’t trust it. Does that even happen?”

Bianca rolled her eyes.

“Your parents had a love marriage, didn’t they? Why are you so unromantic?”

“True. Maybe I’d be different if they’d lived a little longer.”

Jane said it with a calm smile. Bianca fell silent, unable to respond. Instead, she took documents and a letter from her coat and placed them on the desk.

The moment Jane saw the letter, she sprang upright like a sloth jolted awake.

“Oh! It’s here. Ruelne’s reply! Honestly, you should’ve given me this first!”

Her pink eyes sparkled like stars.

“I knew you’d say that. I almost made you look at the paperwork first.”

“Do you want a pay cut?”

“…Yes, well, that’s why I gave it to you.”

Bianca shrugged.

“The tax processing is due this week. Please make sure to review it.”

“Mm. Mm-hmm.”

“Even if I tell you to read the letter later… you won’t listen, will you?”

Jane had already taken the letter out, turning it over in her hands. Then she smiled brightly.

“That’s right. I’m off to find my romance. Hurry along.”

Bianca clicked her tongue.

“Honestly, that letter again. Can I at least speak casually as your friend now? Just date him instead. Him. He’s an adult, isn’t he?”

“You! How could you even say that? Don’t say such terrifying things—get out!”

Bianca replied with a half-hearted, “Yes, yes,” as she left. Before closing the door, she shook her head at the sight of her employer—cheeks flushed red, looking her age only at times like this.

Well, what can you do? That’s her only joy in life.

Once the door closed, Jane hugged the letter to her chest and flopped back onto the bed. It was nothing like the way she had collapsed earlier after meeting her fiancé. Smiling, she lifted the letter.

‘It smells like grass.’

This one, too, carried a cool, refreshing scent.

What kind of cologne does he use? I want to ask him someday…

‘…Though I’ll probably never get the chance.’

After lowering her gaze for a moment, Jane focused on the letter.

As the letter continued, Jane’s expression gradually sank—

Until it hardened with melancholy.

The cause of her gloom was clear. Once again, she would have to refuse the earnest request of the young man she sponsored to meet in person. It wasn’t the first time. Jane traced the end of the letter with her fingers for a long while. The fresh scent of grass lingering at her nose only deepened her regret.

But it couldn’t be helped.

‘As long as Ruelne knows my face, I can’t go as myself.’

As the times changed, it became fashionable among the wealthy to sponsor talented but impoverished individuals. What began in the arts gradually spread, expanding into cultivating those with business acumen and hiring them later. A small number of patrons genuinely delighted in their protégés’ growth.

But the majority… found themselves entangled in scandal of a sexual nature.

Perhaps it was the thrill of moral, social, and economic superiority. Or perhaps it was simply a trend built for boasting and indulgence. Either way, it showed no signs of fading.

Jane had neither vanity nor impure intentions. She only wanted her good-hearted protégé to graduate properly, without ever being dragged into scandal.

If her identity were revealed, the scandal wouldn’t engulf her alone. The patron—far older than her ward—should remain unseen, now and forever.

That was the right thing to do.

But staring at those sweet words only made her chest ache. Jane turned away and collapsed back onto the bed.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Would it have been better never to meet in the first place?’

No.

That would have been impossible.

It had been inevitable.

And before her closed eyes, memories began to seep in like mist, slowly unfolding the past.