1
Elin looked at the Duchess. The Duchess, who was reading her resume and letter of recommendation, was exceedingly glamorous and beautiful.
She was the grandmother of the young lady Elin was to teach. To be precise, her step-grandmother.
The agency had whispered that the elderly Duke of Repinado, who had needed a public partner, had taken her as his second wife two years ago after she had been divorced for being unable to conceive.
Befitting a public partner, the Duchess was a slender beauty with brown hair tinged with red. She was young enough to be the mother of the child Elin would teach.
‘If only a few drops of red had been mixed into my hair, it would have been such a luxurious color.’
Elin lamented.
Her light brown hair was all too ordinary.
A fragrant tea aroma rose from the teacup placed before her. She could tell how high-quality it was from the scent alone. It was the best tea she had ever had the chance to drink in her life.
She really wanted to taste it, but Elin only wriggled her fingers. Afraid it might slip and break in her hand, she couldn’t readily reach for it.
The delicate, beautiful teacup was close to a work of art. A single teacup likely approached one year’s worth of her salary.
The magnificent mansion, the beautiful Duchess, the lavish drawing room. The matching luxury was gradually becoming unbearable, and Elin was on the verge of cowering.
Hoo.
Elin took a deep breath internally and straightened her back. ‘If you lack skill, you must at least have bluster.’ That was a lesson in worldly wisdom she had learned in society.
“Twenty-eight, you say?”
The Duchess glanced at Elin with a solemn expression.
She was trying to put on airs to show her authority as the lady of the house, but unfortunately, the expression suited her poorly.
“Yes.”
“You look young. Is it because you’re small?”
“Ah, yes.”
In the Empire, twenty-eight was an age well past the prime marriageable years.
When she was younger, she had often been looked down upon by people younger than her because of her youthful face.
But as she aged, it had become helpful. For someone who taught young children like herself, looking young was advantageous.
“You were in a convent.”
The Duchess murmured.
“Yes. I entered at fifteen and completed the basic teacher training course.”
Being in a convent meant either growing up there as an orphan, or being sent by poor noble families who couldn’t afford the Academy’s expensive tuition.
Elin had appealed to her noble origins, but she had almost given up hope of working here.
It was called a basic teacher training course, but a convent wasn’t a professional teacher training institution. Rather than a teacher, one might say it was closer to a nanny.
A home tutor from a convent background was either hired because they were cheap, or when the child was an infant.
But this place was far too wealthy to hire her on the cheap, and the young lady was said to be nine—hardly an infant.
What on earth was the agency thinking, sending her here?
Elin was optimistic by nature and positive about everything, but she couldn’t shake the thought that such a household would never hire someone from a convent.
“You stayed at four places over the past six years. Seeing as you have recommendation letters from all four, you must have taught the children well.”
“I love children. Perhaps because of that, I had good relationships with them, and their families seemed to view that favorably.”
Elin couldn’t resist anything pretty, and squirming little children were all cute to her, no matter how mischievous. So much so that she could forgive them for being a handful and then some.
Perhaps that was why? When they parted, both she and the children always ended up in tears.
The knowledge she had learned at the convent was shallow. Elin’s skills were sorely lacking to fill the rapidly growing knowledge of children shooting up like weeds.
Not being able to stay with the children for long before quickly parting was her greatest regret.
“You seem quite cheerful.”
“I am a positive person.”
When Elin smiled brightly, her left cheek dimpled.
“Good. Our Amber is so gloomy and cynical that I hoped to meet someone bright.”
“I see.”
She nodded, but she was perplexed.
For a child to be gloomy and cynical in such a good environment.
Elin was the type to believe no child was born that way. Still, noble families often suffered from many problems unlike their outward appearances.
Was it the same here?
Even before seeing the child, Elin felt sympathy welling up.
“Would it be possible to reside here starting today? It’s been a while since the home tutor’s position was vacant.”
“Pardon?”
Unable to believe the Duchess’s words that she would be hired, Elin asked back.
“Is it too difficult right away?”
“No, no. It’s possible right away. I just need to fetch my luggage from the inn.”
Elin came to her senses and answered quickly.
Goodness, what a surprising turn of events.
To think that she, lacking in skill, would get hired by this magnificent ducal family in one go. She hadn’t expected it at all.
Elin tried very hard not to show her joy.
“Amber cannot read.”
“Didn’t you say she was nine?”
Elin tilted her head, wondering if she had misunderstood.
“That’s right, nine years old.”
Noble children learned letters as early as five, or six at the latest, and could read and write on their own by seven.
But if she couldn’t read at nine, it meant she didn’t have normal intelligence.
Was that why they had chosen her?
“She has dyslexia.”
“Dyslexia?”
She had heard of it in class.
She had wondered if there were really people with an illness that prevented them from reading, and apparently there were.
“This concerns the family’s honor, so please keep it secret.”
A crease formed between the Duchess’s fine brows.
“Of course. However, I fear I may not be the suitable teacher for this child.”
Elin spoke, carefully folding away her disappointment. The joy of getting the job quickly fell into despair.
“Why? Because the child has dyslexia?”
The Duchess’s voice was sharp.
“No, that’s not it.”
Elin quickly waved her hands before continuing hastily.
“With a skilled teacher, even dyslexics can learn to read. However, that is a special education field, and it is beyond my abilities.”
“Don’t worry about that. You don’t need to teach her letters. Many teachers have already tried, and Amber found it too difficult.”
So the dyslexia was severe, and they had failed to teach her.
“Then what would you like me to teach?”
“You need only read books to her to cultivate basic manners and enough erudition to hold conversation. We don’t want Amber to struggle with studying.”
Neither was a difficult task.
She was of noble birth, so she knew etiquette inside and out. Manners were a matter of habit, so she just had to repeat them until they stuck. She prided herself on having more perseverance and patience than anyone, even if her skills lacked.
“Both are my specialties. Especially reading books aloud—it’s my forte.”
Elin’s tightly tense, awkward lips loosened, and a natural smile emerged.
To earn money while reading books.
For Elin, who loved reading, this was truly a dream job.
“That’s a relief. To have found a teacher perfect for Amber.”
The Duchess also looked relieved.
“I’m very much looking forward to it. I can’t wait to meet Amber.”
“While your room is being prepared, you may greet Amber briefly.”
“Yes.”
Elin’s heart fluttered.
What kind of child would she be teaching this time?
Her heart pounded with excitement.
The Duchess observed her, pretending not to.
“Lisa.”
The Duchess called a young maid.
“Yes, Madam.”
“You will attend to the teacher from now on. Introduce her to Amber, then guide her to her room.”
“Yes, Madam.”
Lisa bowed politely before saying to Elin, “Please follow me, Teacher.”
To think she would even be assigned a maid—Elin was bewildered at what was happening.
As Elin followed Lisa out, the Duchess dropped her solemn expression.
“Ah, how annoying. How many more interviews do I have to do?”
A maid soon approached and poured tea into the empty cup. Thirsty, the Duchess downed it in one go.
“Still, it’s a relief that someone came for the interview. Rumors have spread so much that no one from other regions would come otherwise.”
“Please, this home tutor needs to last a while.”
The Duchess groaned.
Proud home tutors from the Academy quit in a huff, while kind home tutors quit in tears.
The shortest lasted only an hour after meeting her; the longest was two months.
“She seemed quite kind.”
“The type to quit crying?”
“They tend to last a bit longer than those who get angry before quitting.”
“Father and daughter are both equally peculiar. They should just send her to the Academy or a convent, tch.”
What’s the big deal about dyslexia?
With money, you could manage even if you couldn’t study. Wasn’t the world all the same?
It wasn’t that she was bad. When the Duchess first saw Amber, who was like the incarnation of a fairy, she had resolved to be a good grandmother in her mother’s place.
It was Amber herself who had ruined that. Amber’s foul personality had already been established at age seven when the Duchess remarried the Duke, and it had worsened with age.
She had wanted to send such an unbearable Amber away somewhere, but her husband hadn’t permitted it.
“Exactly. Her father doesn’t look after her either.”
“Are the preparations for the capital complete?”
“Yes.”
“We must leave for the capital before the home tutor quits.”
Though the social season remained, the Duchess intended to depart for the capital early.
Being with her old, asexual husband—a handsome but useless man—wasn’t great, but being with her foul-tempered stepson and step-granddaughter was far more miserable.
She would soothe her heart with shopping and parties in the capital.
“Tell the butler to pay the home tutor one month’s salary in advance so she can’t quit right away.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, and tell her we’ll increase her salary by fifty percent after two months. Treat her meals and lodging befitting a visiting noble. We must keep her in the mansion at all costs.”
“I shall carry out your orders.”
The maid’s expression was no less resolute than the Duchess’s.
***
Gasp! Is that a doll or a fairy?
Elin was dumbstruck, opening her mouth without realizing it.
The girl sitting on the sofa in a light purple dress was not of human form.
Platinum blonde hair that seemed to glow on its own even without sunlight, violet eyes like violets, lips like they were carved from cherries, flawless white skin like porcelain.
A pretty child who might appear in a fairytale starring a princess—it was exactly Elin’s type.
What did it matter if she couldn’t read? She was this pretty.
Happiness flooded in. To think she would teach at a ducal household, and such a pretty child at that.
She couldn’t believe the luck that had rolled into her life.
“You’re drooling.”
A cynical voice flowed from the doll-like mouth.
Elin came to her senses and quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. An awkward smile hung on her lips to hide her embarrassment.
“Hello, Amber? Nice to meet you.”
Elin held out her right hand toward Amber, offering a handshake.
“Are you telling me to touch your dirty hand that wiped drool?”
Amber’s eyes were full of revulsion.
“Ah, sorry.”
Embarrassed, Elin quickly withdrew her hand.
So she was cynical and gloomy—this was no joke.
The happiness from moments before vanished in an instant, and cold sweat trickled down Elin’s spine.
The world was wide, and children were truly diverse.
Since becoming a home tutor, every child Elin had taken care of had been peculiar. In her sixth year, she had prided herself on having some inner strength.
Amber was a different type from the children who had been a handful until now.
If forced to compare, it was like a haughty young lady of a high noble family looking down on Elin at a party to crush her spirit.
Well, Amber would become the young lady of the ducal family once her father inherited the ducal title, so in a few years she would likely be just like that.
“I’m Elin Campbell, your new teacher. You can call me Elin. I’m truly happy to be teaching a child as pretty as you.”
Elin summoned her characteristic cheerfulness and spoke brightly.
“Everyone starts off looking at me that way, but they seem to see me differently when they leave. The last teacher called me the child of a witch.”
“Unbelievable. A teacher said that to a student?”
“I look forward to seeing when I’ll start looking terrible in your eyes.”
“That won’t happen.”
An ugly heart only shows on one’s face after forty, after all.
She wouldn’t be teaching Amber until then, so there was no chance of seeing a witch-like face.
“We’ll see. But one thing is certain. Among those who taught me, you’re the ugliest.”
At the unexpected words, Elin’s lips foolishly parted once more.
She was plain, but not ugly, surely?
“Especially the freckles on the bridge of your nose—they really look filthy.”
“The freckles are a bit much, aren’t they?”
Elin covered the bridge of her nose with her hand. The freckles looked messy even to her, so they were something of a complex.
“Are you married? Divorced? Widowed?”
It was a pressuring tone unbefitting a child.
“Ah, I’m still unmarried.”
Intimidated, Elin found herself stammering without realizing it.
“I knew it. Since you’re so ugly, you can’t get married, and you wander around as a home tutor earning a paltry wage.”
Wow, her biting sarcasm chewing people up was already top-tier.
With that heavenly face and vicious tongue, she would completely sweep through high society and then some.
“Ohoho, ohohoho.”
An awkward laugh escaped Elin’s lips.
She had thought it easy money when told she only had to teach manners and read books, but as expected, making a living was hard.
“How are you so articulate? Ohoho. But you must not know because you’re young—looks and marriage don’t matter much. The dowry decides it.”
In the Empire, women needed a dowry to marry. When they couldn’t afford one, they were sent to convents—Elin had been such a case.
“Grandfather didn’t receive a dowry—he gave one to marry. A very pretty, young woman.”
“Haha, well, that’s true.”
For a man with both money and power, looks came before a woman’s dowry.
To grasp that at such a young age—how clever.
But how was she going to teach manners to this vitriolic child?
She completely understood why the Duchess had asked her to teach manners and erudition. Manners were essential for this budding prodigy who would sweep through society with her barbed tongue.
The problem was that she had no confidence to scold and teach this impudent child. This verbal abuser spewing sarcasm with an expressionless face was not just pretty.
She had the kind of looks that could only be created by picking only favorite elements from multiple romance novels. To think the Duchess, whom she had considered a great beauty, now felt ordinary said it all.
How could she scold something this pretty! Just looking at her made her happy.
Amber looked at Elin, who smiled limply despite her words, with contempt. Not an ounce of a teacher’s dignity could be found.
A foolish teacher had arrived. How long could a fool last?
***
After greeting Amber and meeting the butler, Elin was guided to the room where she would stay.
Upon entering the spacious room, the first thing to catch her eye was the large window where sunlight streamed through fluttering white lace curtains.
“Wow!”
Perhaps due to the optical illusion created by the bright sunlight, even the air in the room felt soft and fresh.
Her feet moved automatically toward the light-filled window. Opening it, she looked straight out onto the garden.
The garden was in full bloom with tulips. The sight of yellow, red, white, pink, and purple tulips lined up in rows was truly spectacular, drawing an exclamation from her.
“Amazing.”
Trees with pale pink blossoms lined the edge of the garden—she didn’t know what kind they were—and in the center was a small pond and even a fountain.
“Could that be a greenhouse?”
At the end of the garden, a glass greenhouse sparkled like a large jewel.
To think there was a glass greenhouse, the height of luxury.
It was truly immense wealth. It was unquestionably the most beautiful garden Elin had ever seen.
Elin took a breath. She thought she could smell the crisp scent of sunlight and the fragrance of spring.
She felt she would open the window every morning to see the beautiful garden. Thinking she must look around it tomorrow, she turned her body.
In the center of the room was a canopy bed with an ivory canopy. It was the bed Elin had always wanted since childhood.
Elin covered her mouth with her hand, suppressing a squeal.
“To give such a nice room to a home tutor.”
It was far better than the room in the decent mansion where she had lived before entering the convent, which had been a poor household. From the beautiful ivory vanity with intricate carved patterns and matching wardrobe to the wallpaper, everything was perfect.
Elin sat on the pretty chair that matched the vanity and looked in the mirror.
Was it because her eyes had been cleansed by Amber’s unearthly beauty until just now?
Looking at her braided brown hair, ordinary brown eyes, healthy honey-colored skin, and the freckles on the bridge of her nose, she looked even plainer than usual.
“You’re right. I’m so ugly that I can’t get married, and I wander around as a home tutor.”
Elin murmured, recalling Amber’s words.
There were ways to marry even without a dowry. A love marriage, or becoming a second wife.
But whatever the case, the prerequisite was having the beauty to captivate a man. In that sense, Elin was an exception.
“But my wage is better than a rat’s tail.”
The money she had saved over the past six years was quite substantial.
Especially today’s salary, paid in advance by the butler, was four times what she had received at her highest-paying job before. It exceeded the wages of Academy graduate home tutors.
If they raised her salary after two months, staying here for one year would let her earn as much as she had in six.
“And such a nice room too. Elin, you absolutely have to endure it here. You can definitely endure the sarcasm of such a pretty child.”
Elin clenched her fist and burned with passion.
“Shall I unpack?”
Elin opened the bag next to the vanity.
The worn bag was extremely out of place in the perfect room, clashing with it. The old, dull-colored dresses inside didn’t suit the room at all either.
“I got a good salary, so why not splurge on a dress this time?”
Just thinking about wearing a new dress made her hum.
After hanging her few dresses in the wardrobe, several romance novels that Elin cherished appeared at the bottom of the bag.
They were masterpieces combining sentimentality that stimulated the heart warmly and erotic scenes that heated the body.
The covers were worn out from reading them so much.
A sigh escaped her. When she first read romance novels, she had thought such things happened in real life too.
For example, falling in love at first sight with the child’s uncle or a household knight at a home tutoring job, having a fiery romance, and getting married.
“Novels are just novels.”
Reality was different from novels.
Very much so.
It wasn’t that no man had ever glanced at Elin. They simply couldn’t stimulate her romantic sensibilities at all.
Elin was always fully prepared to fall in love, but her standards were too high in return. She looked too much at faces, especially. It was inevitably tragic.
So Elin’s ideal type was a man who looked exactly like Amber.
“There’s no way such a man exists in this world.”
Elin flung herself onto the bed and pounded it with her fists.
Even if there were, such a man would never fall in fated love with her.
She regretted not seizing opportunities, since she hadn’t known she would fail to marry until now.
If only her standards weren’t so high, she could have married.
No, no. Elin shook her head. She absolutely couldn’t give up on looks.
“Yes, I’ll earn lots of money. I’ll work like a dog and keep a pretty younger man as a lover, even if he has no money.”
Elin neatly clenched her small fist.
Why did it have to be a rich man and a pretty woman? It could be a rich woman and a pretty man.
She didn’t care if she was called a lookist. Elin liked pretty faces. Whether man or woman.
It bothered her slightly that buying a man with money rather than love wasn’t romantic, but wasn’t it possible that a man would approach for money at first, then fall in love with the woman’s kind heart?
Wow, so romantic.
A smile immersed in bliss bloomed on Elin’s face.
Just as she was lost in such delusions, a knocking sound was heard.
“It’s Lisa.”
“Come in.”
Elin quickly sat up on the bed and straightened her clothes.
“Please speak comfortably. You make me feel pressured.”
“Shall I?”
Elin smiled at Lisa, an affable young woman in her late teens.
“I’ve brought dinner. You’re to rest comfortably and dine in your room today, and from tomorrow you’ll eat together in the dining hall.”
“Thank you, Lisa.”
Lisa soon set appetizing food on the table.
An aperitif of kir, a salad topped generously with ricotta cheese, mushroom soup with warm white bread, spice-roasted lamb chops, and for dessert, a trifle with strawberries, blueberries, bananas, and castella.
“T-this is dinner?”
Elin’s eyes went wide.
“My apologies. It would be somewhat better if you dined in the dining hall.”
Lisa made an apologetic expression.
That’s not it. It was because it was too splendid a dinner.
“No, it’s plenty. Very, very much so.”
Just how much would they lay out in the dining hall?
If she stayed here a few months, she might gain a lot of weight. She was already short; she worried a bit about getting chubbier.
Oh well, so what? She had to eat well when given the chance.
Such treatment was rare for a home tutor. Perhaps now was the time she would eat the best food in her life.
Elin, you absolutely have to endure. For the pretty younger lover you’ll have in the future.
Once Lisa left, Elin devoured the food with battle-like fervor.