🌷 Chapter Seventeen –
Annette was confused about riding a horse for the first time.
The movement of the horse was unfamiliar, and quite different from the movement of a cart or a motorcycle.
She wasn't afraid, but the feeling of a foreign object touching her legs was unfamiliar.
She was puzzled and wanted to see Theodore's reaction, but she couldn't see his face above the galloping horse.
All she could see when she lifted her head was his beautiful silver hair.
The name Silver suited this man better than the black dog.
If he were as gentle as his soft hair, he would be a better person than he is now.
While admiring his silver hair, Annette suddenly had a strange thought.
She walked with Theodore, chattering endlessly until they were in front of the horse, but she was still breathing evenly and did not feel tired at all.
If Theodore had walked at his normal speed with his long legs, Annette would naturally not have been able to keep up with him and might have fainted midway while gasping for breath.
She thought it was impossible for what she was thinking to be true, but if it was, she would never be able to explain it.
“Stretch your back and hold the reins in your hands.”
“How can I straighten my back when the horse is floundering like this!”
Theodore slowed his pace and taught her the basics of horseback riding, but Annette was too busy trying to keep her legs in the air as much as possible in order to not slip and fall.
“We should include horse riding in the school curriculum.”
Theodore let out a short sigh and walked away from the villa.
Annette's pride was affected by the fact that horseback riding was added to the things she couldn't do, so she didn't ask him about the destination, just let Theodore take her wherever he wanted.
Then it was not long before they reached their destination.
The place where the horse stopped moving was the village.
Since it was an area where only grapes were grown and wine was made, the village center was also small.
Low-rise buildings were crowded together and narrow streets were scattered here and there.
It was an ugly village, but its appearance was very new from Annette's point of view, so she forgot that Theodore was beside her and continued to peek in curiously.
“So the villages looked like this in ancient times.”
Theodor heard her mysterious monologue in a voice like a whisper.
Annette briefly admired the scenery around her.
In her home world, Annette hated places where people gathered or made noise, so this village was an exception.
Calmness was the first energy she felt after coming into this world, so being in this world didn't bother her much.
It had been a long time since people waved their hands at each other and called out to their friends in loud voices, nor was it common in her world for customers and merchants to rush to lower the price of a coin, and restaurant owners to urge customers to eat early.
So Annette was disturbed but not confused.
Someone's scream in the stillness of the quiet village penetrated her ears, making her feel as if she was seeing a story very far away from her.
She could feel it but couldn't touch it no matter what she did.
While Annette was emotional, Theodore tied his horse nearby and returned to her side.
While Annette was busy keeping her eyes on the street scene, Theodore discovered something new about her.
She didn't seem interested in anything, but she seemed surprisingly curious.
Annette looked around and saw Theodore and then followed him.
After looking directly into her eyes and making sure that she was following him, Theodore headed to a nearby restaurant without waiting.
“Come with me.”
Then a grumbling sound followed.
Even without looking back, he could tell how close she was by the sound of her footsteps.
After taking a seat at an empty seat, Annette looked around the restaurant intently.
It was not a fancy restaurant because there were no fine restaurants in a village where there were absolutely no aristocrats.
However, Annette never complained about the cramped and worn-out table.
Instead, she stared at the surrounding landscape as if it were interesting.
“If I had known we were coming to a restaurant, I would have told Emma she didn't have to prepare the meal.”
“Who is Emma?”
“...Are you kidding me?
Don’t you know the name of the maid who works at Smoke Villa?
Have you forgotten the woman who brought us food last night?”
Annette saw Theodore's expression and opened her mouth wide in astonishment.
But no matter how surprised she was, it didn't change the fact that he didn't really remember the maid's name.
“It's really shocking.
How can you not know the name of the employee you hired yourself?
If you came to the villa often, you would run into Emma all the time, and you would even call her by her name as well.”
“I only have one maid, why should I know her name?”
"This is nonsense.
So you don't know Lisa too?"
Theodore looked at Annette's surprised expression and thought for a moment.
Annette must have met at least ten people in the villa, so this Lisa must be someone else living there.
“You mean the nurse?
You seem to have become friends with the servants, but it is a useless friendship.
They are just people who stay by your side because you need them and they need you.”
“I know that, but you should at least communicate with them.
Then I won’t have to eat with the Grand Duke alone.”
Theodore was speechless for a moment.
At first, he was puzzled whether he had been treated like a servant, then he wondered whether the table around which they gathered to eat had been treated as a useless nuisance.
However, thinking about it, from Annette's point of view, Theodore was inferior to the servants.
They have only met twice, and have never shared pleasant memories.
Instead, there was a lot of talk about threats and contracts.
However, it did not make sense for her to treat him like a deaf maid or a nurse who caused a medical error.
“You have no respect for your husband at all.”
“This is because my husband does not respect his wife.”
Annette shrugged her shoulders without further ado.
She didn't look particularly upset or angry, so Theodore felt very strange because of that.
Why did Annette quietly hide her claws instead of showing hostility towards him?
“Have you forgotten your anger towards me?
You followed me before while complaining so well.”
"Remember the point.
I still hate you, but I need what you know."
Annette gave him an elegant answer to his question.
It meant that she had never forgotten what Theodore had done, and that she was never going to forgive him.
It only meant that she felt needed by him, so she would bear to see his face and deal with him.
Knowing how to hide your anger is an advanced skill that requires more practice than one might think.
This skill is in great demand in many places, from small bets to huge transactions.
Theodore realized again that she was good at negotiating, even though he didn't know where she learned it from.
Then the food they ordered came at the right time.
A piece of grilled meat and a few slices of crispy potatoes were brought to the table.
The two started their meal with the normal food that common people eat.
“In fact, I am really surprised.
I did not expect His Highness the Grand Duke to come to such a shabby restaurant.
If you had eaten at the villa, you would have drunk fine wine after the meal, but the food here is different.”
Annette put a piece of potato in her mouth.
The way her mouth chewed food was spontaneous, relaxed, and never hesitant.
Annette had said she was amazed by Theodore, but from Theodore's point of view, Annette was a miracle.
Perhaps she simply ate here because she did not know how pampered and delicate aristocratic ladies like the real Annette were.
One of the reasons Theodore had come to this dilapidated restaurant in town was because he wanted to double-check whether or not fake Annette could eat in a place like this.
Of course, there was plenty of evidence that she was indeed from another world, even without the comfort of eating those crispy fries.
However, no matter how much he checked, his doubts never ended because it was still something that was difficult for reason and logic to accept.
“The reason tables are arranged for nobles or commoners is to fill the stomach.
I am not so stupid as to wander around looking for a candlelit table with a hungry stomach.”
“I'm so confused.
It's so difficult and I don't know how to judge you.”
"What?"
“I don’t know whether Your Highness has a bias or not.
A deaf maid, a lame dog, a nurse who caused a medical error, and me too… I’m also not a person of this world.
There are many people whom the blind people don’t like to keep around because they are flawed people, but the Grand Duke keeps them all on his side.”
With words, Theodore was not pointing out the faults of the people around him or how they differed from others, nor did he have any intention of despising them or treating them poorly.
Rather, he treated them as if he thought their disability was normal, so he did not differentiate between those who had problems and those who did not.
“They are all below me anyway, so is there a need to establish a rank among them?”
His idea was terribly arrogant.
He treated everyone equally.
“Besides, if you're talking about flaws, then I'm the most flawed person out of them since I'm the son of a concubine.”
"I don't see it as a fault.
Rather, it's the fault of the man who left his wife and met another woman."
“Do you know that you have just committed a crime against the imperial family?”
“No one heard me anyway, so so what?
Besides, there’s only someone with half-blood of the imperial family here, so my words won’t be a problem.”
Annette was carelessly insulting the Emperor and Theodore, but Theodore did not feel bad because she was so confident in her words.
She had a strange talent for telling jokes.
She was a stranger herself.
Theodore heard insults throughout his life, most of them words that mocked his despicable status as the illegitimate son of a lowly concubine.
However, not many were brave enough to publicly humiliate the Emperor's favorite son in front of his face.
He was accustomed to being disdained from time to time behind his back or speaking obscenities in secret from him, and he still felt upset whenever this happened, even though they were flattering him in front of his face and showering him with compliments and sweet words.
But the strange thing is that Annette's direct insult to his face did not seem like an insult at all.
Maybe this is because her words contain no malice or malice?
no.
Even a stone thrown into a river as a means of playing can kill a frog if it accidentally hits it.
Annette was unaffected by Theodore's incomplete identity because she was the only one who believed in his innocence.
She did not dwell on Theodore's royal family, although she mocked him by saying that he was half-blooded imperial, she did not honestly ignore his being.
And she wasn't just criticizing him, she was fairly criticizing all the other things she didn't like here.
She mocked the caste system and treated the emperor's noble son as an equal to the deaf maid in the villa.
The fact that Theodore was the son of a concubine did not matter to her.
The beliefs that had bound him his whole life seemed invisible in her eyes.
Didn't you really hate that he was such a lowly person who didn't properly inherit his father's noble blood?
Is she so good at hiding her feelings that she also hides her disdain for him?
Theodore grabbed the knife and easily cut through the slightly tough piece of meat.
He could say nothing and there was no further conversation during the meal.