Chapter 4

“Pardon me”? Is that what he said? This scumbag?

My rage burned my pain away. I lifted my head and discovered that Iris had jumped up first.

“You!” Iris was unleashing her wrath for me. She ran over and stopped the man who had hit me in passing. “You should apologize when you have injured someone!”

“Hey, I apologized!”

“You call that an apology? Are you kidding me?”

Ha. I watched the scene in a daze. Iris was getting into a fight. That girl has a temper, huh?

I felt smug. Mildred would have probably scolded Iris and said it wasn’t ladylike to have a screaming match with a man on the streets, but I was different.

Good, good.

If some bastard ran off, ignoring all common courtesy, you should go after him and slap him in the face.

Seeing Iris seizing the man and giving it to him revived me. I tried to climb to my feet when a large hand suddenly came to my aid.

“I’m sorry about that.”

What in the world? The man’s tone offended me more than his apology. I turned quickly to see who was helping me up. He appeared to be in his late twenties.

“Are you all right? I can pay for a doctor.”

You could stand to call me “ma’am,” jerk. And “I can pay for a doctor”? He said it as if he didn’t have to but was doing it to be generous. I did not like his demeaning tone.

I made an effort to free myself from the man’s arms.

“Do you know me, sir?”

“What?” The man’s eyes widened.

I tried to shake him off again and repeated myself, “I asked if you knew me, sir. Didn’t your parents teach you how to speak to your elders?”

He was strong. I struggled as hard as I could, but his grasp was firm. He looked flustered, as if he hadn’t expected me to be angry.

He let go, then started to say something, but stopped. He stared at me.

Oh, fudge. I lifted my aching arms and dusted off my dress. My clothes were ruined. They were dirty and tattered. I must have fallen on a rock. Even my underclothes must be ripped, otherwise my knees wouldn’t sting like this.

“My apologies,” the man said. He glanced around. “Let’s go over there, away from the crowd.”

Though it was a suggestion, it felt like a command. I considered doing the same in return, but I sighed and followed his advice.

There was no need to yell in the middle of a crowded street, though I could still hear Iris shouting some distance away.

“Apologize! Properly!”

My daughter is a good girl.

The man beside me seemed to be of a different mind. His face was grim. I watched him, pretending not to notice how he was deciding whether to run damage control on Iris or stick with me.

I guess you’ll have to figure it out yourself, fool.

“If you don’t mind...” The man turned to me. His hair had been golden under the sun, but in the shadows, it returned to a natural light brown. His eyes were a dark chestnut.

Oh. He was so handsome that I almost gasped. Nevertheless, I was not young enough for a man’s pretty face to render me speechless.

I replied quickly, “I do mind.”

“Pardon?” The man was about to say something when he flinched and stopped.

I spoke with the dignity of a mature adult. “I mind. Leave her be.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

Iris can take care of herself. The man was loath to leave my side, yet stared at Iris and the young man.

Iris began dragging the young man over to me, his hand in hers, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Apologize! Apologize to my mother!”

“Your ‘mother’?”

The young man looked wary. I recognized the meaning of his gaze immediately. He probably thought Iris and I looked nothing alike.

The man beside me had a similar reaction.

“You’re not her older sister?”

“I’m flattered.”

I chuckled and lightly slapped the shoulder of the man beside me. Yes, this is how you get on someone’s good side. The two men, however, were flabbergasted.

Unfazed, I turned to the young man. He was truly young.

I hadn’t suddenly developed a taste for older men by ending up in the body of a thirty-seven-year-old woman, but this guy still looked like a child to me.

I guessed he was about twenty years old. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and an air similar to Ashley’s.

It wasn’t that he resembled her; they both just made me think of flowers. You know, like they had been raised by rich families.

In some ways, they reminded me of my old world’s K-pop stars. In short, to me, he was a good-looking boy.

“Do you have something to say to me, child?”

As I leaned toward him, the boy looked flummoxed, then turned to the man beside me. When the man said nothing, the boy turned back to me.

Your apology? I urged him on with my eyes only.

The man beside me cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

It was only then that the boy lowered his head and spoke quietly.

“I have wronged you terribly, my lady. I pray you forgive my rudeness with generosity as large as the rivers and seas.”

“What?”

I was only looking for “I’m sorry” or “I shouldn’t have done that,” but this was extreme. My jaw dropped. Iris regarded him likewise.

Iris dropped the boy’s hand and crept over to me.

“If there is any remuneration I can provide for the wrongs done to you, I will do it. Even if that requires the heavens—agh!”

The heavens? The heavens what?

I looked up to the heavens, and the man’s hand shot toward the boy as quick as lightning. He grabbed the boy’s collar and smiled at me.

“I’m sorry. Seeing how repentant he is, I hope you would be so kind as to forgive him.”

Is this some sort of comedy skit? Iris and I looked at them icily. The man let go of the boy’s collar and straightened his clothes.

“I will remunerate you for your ruined clothes. If it were possible, I would invite you to my home to rest before you go, but...”

As he spoke, he took a ring off his finger. It was set with a rather large stone.

Is it a gem? It had a subtle gleam—it was clearly high quality.

He proffered me the ring.

“If you go to a restaurant called Fairy’s Spring on the next street over and show this to them, they will offer you anything you wish. Eat as much as you like.”

He’s giving this to me and telling me to eat on his account? I eyed the ring wordlessly. Wouldn’t it be better to sell it?

The man appeared to have read my mind. He was dragging the boy away by his elbow as he shouted back to me, “By the way, it is impossible to sell that.”

“Why? Is it magical or something?”

That had been sarcasm, but the man burst into laughter as if I had said something hilarious.

What? Why? What? I looked at the ring with confusion.

I saw a symbol engraved on it. It didn’t seem to be the crest of any particularly famous family, at least according to Mildred’s memories.

“What strange people,” Iris said to me. She eyed the ring in my hand, leaning over to see it better.

“Have you seen this crest before?”

“No.”

Mildred remembered most families’ crests, having grown up among the nobility. She had taught some to Iris and Lily as well, but she had never seen this one before. I took another look at the ring, then put it on my finger. I thought I would lose it if I carried it around.

“It looks large,” Iris noted.

It was big for my pointer finger and my middle finger too.

I wondered on which finger the man had been wearing it. I reluctantly put it on my thumb. Back in Korea, they would put rings on babies like this when they turned a year old. I didn’t like the feeling.

“Mother!”

Ashley and Lily had returned, looking for me. They were brimming with smiles.

Well, I’m glad you two are having a good time. I put my hands behind my back to hide my bloody palms.

“Did you find something amusing?”

“A shop up ahead is having a great sale on flour,” Ashley said in excitement.

Lily had been about to say something as well when she started in shock at the sight of my dress. “Mother, are you hurt?”

Goodness. Lily grabbed part of my dress. I followed her eyes and clicked my tongue.

Iris spoke from beside me. “Some idiot pushed her, so she fell.”

Ashley gasped. Shock flashed across her face. “Shall we just go home?”

Oh, right. We came here to buy fabric.

I scanned the crowd to see how many had the same objective. I turned to the side of the road and stepped forward a bit.

It’s fine. It hurts a bit, but I can walk.

Mildred’s memories told me unmarried women of her daughters’ ages go to plenty of parties. Ashley and the prince were going to fall for each other at first sight, so I didn’t need to worry about her, but Iris and Lily were different.

This was an opportunity for them. They had no chance of marrying a prince, but they could meet other decent men.

“Let’s go.”

With the children in tow, we turned onto the street of clothiers and drapery shops. Ashley and Lily stayed close to me this time.

“Welcome.”

This kind of clothing store was new to me. I was used to shops full of premade clothing, where the customers would have to find clothes suited to their taste and at prices they could afford. It wasn’t easy to find something that was both.

Here, there were no clothes for sale. At least, nothing premade.

“Huh?”

As the children and I entered, I stopped short. The cramped shop had walls covered in shelves stuffed with rolls of fabric. Is this a drapery shop, not a clothing shop?

“Are you looking for something?” After having greeted us so indifferently, the man looked us up and down and approached with irritation. Is he not interested in selling to us?

“We’ve come to see some clothes.”

The man scoffed. He leaned on a shelf and spoke sardonically. “We don’t sell such things.”