An accomplice.
“Give up. If you cooperate with me, you will be considered my accomplice.”
“You say it quite happily, don’t you? Ligisia treats you as a traitor, you know? Are you okay with that? They might think you sold out the country.”
“I was prepared the moment I ran away with you.”
“You are a heartless person. Lady Yurika and Young Master Noah will be saddened.”
“That’s the same for you, no?”
“Anton.”
“You made me abandon my country.”
Anton was accused of being a schemer. He wanted to point out that she was a woman who used seduction to have her way, but he decided to leave it alone. He just didn’t feel like listening in silence.
“Isn’t that so, Anna? You have made me step off the right path. You are a bad woman. You made my heart jolt so much. Why did you not appear before me earlier? Ever since I met you again, I always felt like a day like this would come.”
“Would it be better if we didn’t come across each other?”
“I didn’t say that. This surely must be fate at play.”
“Fate?”
Anton couldn’t think otherwise. If he didn’t meet Anna, his sunny-like, warm way of life would continue. Noah and Yurika’s faces flashed past his mind.
On the other hand, he also thought that a home like that wasn’t suitable for him.
“Anna. Do you remember that day?”
“That day?”
“The day I met you for the first time.”
Anton recalled his distant past with Anna. He met Anna when she was ten years old. He went to the town, thinking of offering flowers to his late mother on the day of her death anniversary. He was warned not to leave the mansion on his own, but his father was absent on an expedition, so deceiving the wet nurse and the maids was a simple task for him. He quietly slipped out of the mansion.
There, he met a beautiful commoner girl. He only went to buy flowers yet he got fascinated by the flower-selling girl with bare feet who was shivering from cold, so he wanted the girl to keep the change.
His kind actions didn’t fly, though. The one gold coin he had left from buying the flowers has apparently rubbed the other party the wrong way.
“I’m not a beggar. I hate being pitied.” She pushed the gold coin back to him.
“Why?” Anton muttered. “That’s too much for the flowers.” the girl glared at him.
Witnessing his attitude, he wondered whether that girl wasn’t just a simple commoner. After looking carefully, he noticed that her wording and behavior were refined, even though she was wearing a town girl’s dress.
She might be a noble just like me, he thought. Was she disguised as a commoner for some reason, he wondered.
He felt like he could see his future in her. In the worst-case scenario, he could have died.