CH 30

Therese's family wasn't very wealthy.

When she got married, not only she was unable to prepare a dowry, but since she had two younger sisters, she had to find a marriage partner on the condition that there was almost no dowry.

So Therese had given up on her own marriage.

There were only a limited number of jobs available to nobles like her, either they became tutors or worked as maids for high-ranking aristocratic women.

Therese thought that either job would be fine, but the one that was found first was to be the maid of Count Fidelo's family.

When a noblewoman works as a maid, she is sometimes a candidate for marriage, if there is a boy of the right age in her family.

Basically, marriages between aristocrats are usually arranged through introductions from their parents or at balls. So if a maid is hired as a potential marriage partner, that means the man in question isn't popular among the women.

Daniel Fidelo was one of them.

As the heir to the Fidelo family, he would have been a popular choice, but Daniel was shy, had blushing problems, stuttered, and sweated profusely, so he was shunned by women of the right age.

Some women were fine with that, but he was not good with aggressive and calculating women.

Amid all these maids, Therese was working as a maid for the Fidelo family's collection of books.

Therese's family wasn't very wealthy and couldn't afford to buy many expensive books.

Having given up on her own marriage, Therese liked to read novels on romance, projecting herself as the protagonist of the stories.

She cried, laughed, and fell in love with the male protagonists of the novels and became emotionally involved with them.

In particular, in Viviana Rossa's books, the love partner was often a nice prince, a reliable knight, or a cool-headed prime minister. She enjoyed reading them, even though they weren't realistic.

The reason Therese became so close to Daniel was... well... books.

But there was no dramatic encounter.

It was well known Count Fidelo's family collected rare books, so naturally, the maids who wanted to become the Count's wife went to the library to get Daniel's attention.

At first, Daniel thought that Therese was also going to the library with that intention and paid no attention to her.

However, one day, he noticed that Therese checked out only classic romance books.

Moreover, she never paid attention to the expensive first editions of Jean Rod's books, but only borrowed ordinary books.

He wondered if she might really be a book lover, and began to pay attention to her; he started to follow her with his eyes all the time.

However, at that point, Daniel was not aware that he had taken a liking to Therese.

He just thought, How often do I see her in the library?

But women were sharper when it came to the subtleties of emotion.

Immediately, the harassment began from the maids who wanted to become Daniel's wife.

Finally, a book not as expensive as Jean-Rod's first edition was destroyed, and Therese was framed as the culprit.

"But then my husband told me that I was definitely not the culprit. He said that someone who loves books so much would never be so careless with them."

"So that's how you fell in love with him."

When Mariabelle was moved, Therese giggled and said, "No. At that time, I only thought that it was good that the master was a good person."

Therese, who was proud of her shiny black hair but not particularly beautiful, had never dreamed that Daniel would realize his love for her at that time.

And Daniel doesn't have the personality to aggressively approach someone he cared about.

He immediately had the harassing maid quit, but he didn't know how to approach Therese.

In the meantime, he tried to arrange new romance novels in the library because he thought Therese would enjoy them.

He also made sure to put a rose, which changed color from white to pink, on the desk where Therese always read her books.

The language of the rose meant 'first love.'

It was Daniel's best confession, but Therese was completely unaware of it.

On the day of the flower festival, Daniel proposed to Therese with a basket full of roses.

"At first, I didn't know what it meant. If it were a proposal, wouldn't it be a red rose flower? I wondered what the meaning of this white and pink rose was."

Therese laughed softly and looked at the roses which were blooming in the garden as if reminiscing about that time.

There were also red and purple roses blooming in the corner of the rose garden, but Therese still preferred the rose of her memory the best.

She said, "My husband at that time, you know, he was so red in the face and sweating so much that I really laughed... I thought he looked lovely."

"Adorable?" Mariabelle asked, feeling that a word like 'adorable' doesn't suit a man.

"Don't ask me why I think that. I don't know, either. But, I am sure I fell in love with him at that moment."

Saying this, Therese became shy like a young girl.