Ch9. Growing Accustomed to Pain

“The wound...?” She was surprised. She had not expected him to still be worried about an injury that even her own father had ignored.

She was silent for a moment. Then she let slip something she herself felt she should not say, something she should have been stronger than. “It still hurts... very much.”

As she spoke, her fingers gently closed around the skirt in her lap. “It could never heal this quickly, and I am used to it anyway.” She made it sound like nothing. Yet to any man’s ears, the words “it still hurts very much” would have sounded like a plea for tenderness.

To any man except her father.

When Jeffery heard her say that it still hurt, he felt something press against a place inside his chest—not too hard, not too lightly. Then she said she was used to it. He repeated those words in his mind before forcing them down into the place where so many other things had already been laid.

The night her father had refused to open the door. The whip at the banquet. The look in Geelong’s eyes as he watched. And a young woman who had taught herself, alone, to cover every pain with the words, “I am used to it.”

His fingers tightened slightly against his knee, then loosened again. He remained silent for so long that Anna began to think he would not respond. At last, he spoke. His voice was lower than before, as though it had risen from somewhere deep within him.

“Pain is still pain,” he said. His tone was even, but certain, as though correcting something that had been wrongly repeated for far too long. “Being used to it does not make it hurt less.” He did not lean closer or disturb the distance she had chosen. He simply remained where he was, watching her hands clutch her skirt, and lowered his voice a little further.

“You do not have to pretend to be strong in front of me.” As he said it, his gaze lifted from her hands to her face. Deep in his amber eyes, embers smoldered under heavy restraint. Even so, they were fiercely hot.

At least in front of him, she did not have to grow accustomed to pain.

She seemed to understand something in his gaze. Lowering her head, she refused to meet his eyes again. She was avoiding them. The words “you do not have to pretend to be strong in front of me” stirred a flash of irritation in someone who had always done exactly that. There was no clear reason for it. It was merely the instinctive defense of a person who had been seen through.

Even so, she chose not to attack him with words. She chose silence instead.

Jeffery watched her lower her head. He said nothing, only taking in the curve of her neck and the way her fingers tightened slightly in her skirt. He accepted the silence and recognized what kind of silence it was.

It was neither grief nor resentment. It was the panic that rose instinctively when someone discovered you—the immediate urge to hide yourself again.

He understood.

Someone accustomed to enduring everything alone often became angry first when another person quietly offered support.

They had spent too long holding themselves up. When someone suddenly told them they no longer had to endure, they did not know where to put their hands.

He did not press her. He said nothing else that might make her uncomfortable. He simply allowed the silence to remain, gentle and unhurried, like a place where she could rest. Then he took the slim letter opener from the inner pocket at his chest and placed it on the table between them. The movement was light and soundless.

He offered no explanation. He did not say he was returning it, nor did he add anything unnecessary. He merely set it there and allowed her to notice it herself.

The letter opener lay quietly on the table, its worn handle turned toward her.

He rested his elbows on his knees again, lowered his head, and waited for her to look up.

When Anna saw the familiar letter opener on the table, she reached for it as if confirming the touch of an old friend. As her arm extended, the sleeve slipped back from her pale skin and revealed several even paler lines. They were scars from a blade. They looked self-inflicted—and as though this very letter opener had made them.

“The new one never felt right in my hand,” she said casually. She meant nothing particular by it; she was only describing what it had been like to use. Yet her attachment to the object revealed how faithful she was to everything she cared for. Even when something new was more beautiful, she was not a person who easily discarded the old.

That was exceedingly rare for a daughter born into nobility.

There were two possible reasons. The first was that her parents had raised and instructed her well. The second was that she had never been allowed the privilege of being willful. A person with nothing to support her could not afford to behave however she pleased.

Jeffery’s gaze fell to the pale lines exposed beneath her sleeve. Only for an instant.

He said nothing and did not stare. He merely took in the detail and placed it inside himself, in the same place where so many other things already rested, then pressed it down and let it sink.

He knew the shape of those marks. They had not been caused by an accident.

His fingers curled slightly against his knee. Nothing showed on his face. He only forced something that had long been burning even deeper inside himself. As he watched her close her hand around the letter opener like an old friend, something in his chest sank a little further.

“Things you have grown accustomed to using,” he said quietly, his voice level, “will always feel different when they are replaced.” He paused. Without saying anything more about the letter opener, he placed his next words in a different direction. “That does not mean the new one is bad.” His gaze rose from the blade to her face. “This one has simply been with you for too long.”

He did not ask about the pale lines. He only sat there, quietly watching her profile as she held the letter opener, watching the dependence on that old object that perhaps even she did not recognize.

And he wondered how many nights of her life this blade had shared. That thought sank more slowly than any thought before it.

She held the letter opener tightly and, at last, answered with a single calm word. “Yes.”

Perhaps she was acknowledging what he had said. The blade had remained at her side for far too long and shared far too much with her. It had left many marks on her body as well—marks made through pain, so that she could at least feel she was still alive.

Jeffery watched her in silence.

He watched the hand holding the blade, and the deep quiet that remained in the room after her “yes” had fallen.

He said nothing. Within that silence, he traced everything again: the pale lines beneath her sleeve, the worn place on the handle, the way she said she was used to it, the way she had hurried to add that such a wound could not heal so quickly after admitting it still hurt, and the fact that she had chosen the seat diagonally across from him.

The letter opener had been with her for far too long.

Long enough to carve marks into her body. Long enough that a new blade felt wrong in her hand. Long enough that her fingers had not trembled when she gave it to him.

She had not abandoned it. She had known she was merely entrusting it to him for a while.

Jeffery lowered his head and stared at his own palm for a long time. Then he looked up and met her eyes directly. His voice was quieter than anything else he had said that morning, as though he feared startling something fragile.

“Those marks...” He did not point or look toward her sleeve. He simply spoke. “Please do not add any more.” It was neither an order nor a plea, only a sentence placed between them. Light, yet carrying a definite weight, it sank like a stone that steadied a ship, holding down something heavy that even he could not explain.

His gaze never left her face.

Realizing that he had noticed the scars on her arm, she caught hold of her sleeve as if to hide them. Irritation seemed to rise in her again, but still she chose not to strike at him with words. “I do not know what you mean, but thank you for your concern.” She moved a little farther away and pretended it was nothing.

Jeffery watched her seize her sleeve. He watched the words “I do not know what you mean” leave her lips. Still, he made no attempt to expose her.

After a brief silence, he let the subject go. Very lightly, as if setting it on a shelf for the time being. He had not thrown it away. He simply would not take it down again now.

She had said, “Thank you for your concern.”

There it was again—that formal manner of speaking. He lowered his eyes to the grain of the table. After several seconds, he said, “You may call me Jeffery. Or Grant.”

He paused, turning toward the light coming through the window. His voice softened until it was almost a murmur to himself. “I am not accustomed to being addressed so formally.”

It was true. In seven years of wandering, very few people had ever spoken to him with such deference. Usually it was an innkeeper, or a merchant trying to ingratiate himself upon their first meeting. But from her lips, it sounded different. It sounded like a wall of courtesy standing between them—polite, impeccable, and distant.

He did not want that wall between them. But he did not say so.

She remained dazed for another moment, then answered only, “Yes,” once again.

Whether she had decided to call him Jeffery or Grant, however, remained unclear.

Then she brushed a loose strand from her temple and tucked it behind her ear. What should she say? What words could keep the moment from becoming awkward? She turned the question over and over in her mind.

Jeffery watched her tuck the strand behind her ear. It was a tiny, unconscious gesture, yet to him it was like a pebble dropping into water. The ripples were quiet, but undeniably there. Silence filled the room. He did not try to fill it. He simply allowed it to remain, giving her time to find her way through it.

She was trying to think of something to say.

He could tell. Her eyes were not on him, but neither were they truly looking at anything else. Her gaze hovered in the air while only her thoughts moved quickly.

He suddenly remembered what Addie had said: Anna had gone days without speaking.

A person who had remained silent for days was now sitting across from him, searching for a sentence that would keep things from becoming uncomfortable. Something in his chest softened quietly at the realization.

He leaned back slightly and relaxed his posture, as though trying to ease the air in the room with him. Then, in an almost casual tone, he asked, “Yesterday... how many cakes did you eat?” It was nothing important, only a small, ordinary question, asked as easily as one might speak of the weather. Yet the line of his mouth had softened.

She looked up, surprise shining in her eyes.

Could something like that possibly matter?

No. It was not important at all.

And yet she felt something in her chest precisely because it was unimportant. Somehow, that made it matter more.

“I did not count.” She smiled softly, the corners of her mouth lifting at a question no one else would have thought to ask. “Have you ever eaten one? Those cakes...” For the first time, she sent a question back to him.

Jeffery saw the curve appear at her lips. Something inside his chest settled gently into place.

This was it.

Not the courteous smile she had learned to wear at banquets, but this one—the smile that emerged unguarded and unbidden because of an insignificant question.

He gathered that detail into himself with great care, as though putting away something fragile. When she asked if he had eaten one, he was silent for a second before answering. “I had one.” His tone remained even, but something in his eyes brightened slightly. “The stall is at the entrance to the alley.”

He paused as though genuinely recalling the taste. “Sweet. Simple.” Turning toward the window, he lowered his voice. “Not a flavor one would find in the palace.”

Then he looked at her again. His amber eyes rested on her face with quiet attention. “You like things like that.” It was not a question, but a certainty spoken after observing someone closely.

Because of that question, her gaze no longer wandered away from him.

She was simply an ordinary person who needed someone to care.

Not gold or jewels. Not flattery. Only the smallest gestures of consideration, things exchanged among common people as naturally as breathing.

“I do.” She gently set the letter opener on the table, freeing both hands. “I have liked them since I was a child. You could never eat anything like that in the palace.”

Her words began to come more easily.

Jeffery noticed but gave no sign that he had. He simply continued the conversation as naturally as possible. It was like a river whose ice was slowly thawing. One must not prod at it. One only had to wait and let it begin flowing on its own.

“The palace cooks,” he said lightly, as though discussing something entirely trivial, “try too hard.” He paused. “They want everything refined, everything beautiful, until you can no longer taste what it originally was.”

As he spoke, his gaze rested for a second on the hand with which she had set down the letter opener, then lifted again. “The old woman’s cakes had less sugar,” he said. He turned toward the light coming through the window. Something faint and difficult to name entered his voice. “They were sweet enough without hiding the scent of the wheat.”

Then he looked at her once more, quiet curiosity in his eyes. “When did you first taste one?” He did not ask merely to find another topic. He simply wanted her to keep talking.

“The first time?” She repeated his words, moving her eyes slightly as she searched her memory. “I think I was five.”

She paused long enough to make it seem the story had ended, but then continued. “Back then, I found Addie hiding in a little room. I did not know what she was doing...” She stopped again, then gave a soft laugh. “She was crouched beside the table, secretly eating one of those cakes... so... I told her I wanted one too.”

When she finished, she seemed to notice that she was smiling. She hurriedly erased it, as though she had done something improper.

Jeffery saw the smile, and he saw the instant she withdrew it. He did not want her to. “You do not have to hide it.” His voice was scarcely louder than a breath, but his words were direct. Something quiet yet impossible to restrain lay in the gaze he fixed on her face. “That smile is more beautiful than the one you wore before.”

Even after saying it, he did not look away. He simply continued as naturally as if the words needed no further attention. “Five years old.” His mouth softened. “How old was Addie then?” He rested a hand on his knee and leaned slightly forward, the posture of someone truly listening to a story. A quiet light in his eyes urged her to continue.

“She was hiding in a little room to eat a cake and was caught by a five-year-old you.” He paused. “She must have panicked.” A faint, restrained laugh colored his voice. He did not laugh aloud, only held the curve at his lips and waited for the rest.

Being told she did not have to hide her smile only made Anna more uncomfortable. She had been trained to anticipate other people’s thoughts and read their faces. If she failed, she was punished. Whether she resisted or not, the ending was the same.

“Addie was... I think she was twenty-two then...” she said softly, remembering even such a small detail. “She panicked terribly. She thought I was someone else.” She wanted to laugh, but that only made her movements more awkward and left her looking a little shy.

Though no hair remained loose, her hand rose behind her ear again.

Jeffery watched the gesture. There was no strand left to brush aside, yet she still lifted her hand. He took in the detail without commenting on it.

She had said Addie thought she was someone else. He assembled the scene in his mind.

A young maid of twenty-two crouched in a small room, secretly eating a cake. She heard a sound and turned, expecting someone of rank, only to find a five-year-old girl standing in the doorway with shining eyes fixed on the food in her hand.

He could not hold it back.

He lowered his head and laughed softly. It was genuine—not loud, but unmistakable. It slipped from deep in his chest with a true ease he usually kept buried and rarely showed anyone. “A woman of twenty-two,” he said, raising his head with laughter still at the corners of his eyes, “caught in the act by a five-year-old child.” He paused. “Did she let you have some, or did she try to talk her way out of it?”

As he asked, he leaned back slightly in his chair. His posture was looser than before, and even the air in the room seemed to lighten with him. He wanted her to let out the smile she was trying to hide.

The instant Anna saw him smile, something seemed to pierce her chest.

She realized that he was truly beautiful when he smiled. His already handsome face became even more captivating.

“She gave me some.” Anna smiled softly, the tips of her ears turning faintly red. The color did not come from the pleasant memory, but from Jeffery’s smile. “Addie is kinder to me than anyone. Of course she gave me some.” She spoke with certainty. Because she knew how dearly Addie cared for her, Addie was the first person before whom she had ever dared to be willful.

But Anna’s sensitive mind caught a detail in Jeffery’s words.

“How did you know Addie was choosing the cakes so carefully?” she asked softly, without calculation.

Jeffery went still for an instant. It was so brief as to be almost imperceptible, but the pause was there. He did not look away. His gaze returned from the window and settled on her face, meeting violet eyes that held no calculation now, only a genuine question.

She was not trying to draw anything out of him. She had simply noticed and asked. It occurred to him that lying in front of those eyes would be exceedingly difficult.

After a pause of two seconds, he answered in the even tone of someone recounting an event neither great nor small. “Because I was standing beside her, watching.” He paused. “I went with her to buy them.”

He did not explain why he had accompanied Addie or add anything more. He merely laid the words before her with the candor of someone who had no intention of hiding them. His amber eyes remained on her face as he waited for her to take in their meaning.

In the sunlight from the window, his amber eyes shone like gemstones, and for an instant she forgot herself. “Why?” The word fell softly and unconsciously, almost like something spoken to herself, yet it was full of curiosity.

She blinked the violet eyes others had once called unnatural.

Jeffery saw the blink. Her violet eyes flashed once in the light, and his heart gave a single, distinct beat against his will.

Why, she had asked. Her voice was as light as a feather touching water. Perhaps she had not even realized what she was asking.

He remained silent for a while. He was not searching for a lie. He was searching for the words closest to the truth—words that would not be too heavy or crush her beneath them, yet would still be honest.

At last he spoke, slowly and quietly. “Addie told me that you had not spoken for several days.” He paused. “And that day, you sent her to buy cakes.” His gaze did not leave her face. “If you wanted them...” He stopped for a long time before gently placing the final thought between them. “I thought she should bring back a few more.”

He did not say, “Because I care about you.” Nor did he say, “Because I cannot leave this place.” He simply told her what had happened.

But the amber eyes meeting her violet ones now, and what burned within them, had already said everything.

Anna was silent for a moment before asking, with a trace of careful probing in her voice,

“Addie does not tell strangers so much. Did you ask her?” She was not foolish. She was skilled at noticing details and reading what lay beneath words. She needed only one answer.

Above all, she needed it from Jeffery.

Jeffery watched her in silence for a second. Of course she was not foolish.

He pressed the thought quietly into himself. There was no surprise, only a calm sense that this was exactly what he should have expected. She had grown up in the palace, a place where one had to read every shift in another person’s face in order to survive. Of course she knew how to read what words concealed.

He did not avert his eyes.

“Yes.” One word, plain and unmistakable. “I asked her.”

He did not pretend the subject had arisen by chance or try to conceal that he had been the one to ask. He simply placed that “yes” before her and let her judge its weight for herself. Then he leaned forward slightly, set his elbows on his knees, and looked directly into her violet eyes. His voice dropped further. “Do you want to know what I asked?”

Now it was his turn to ask.

He waited for her answer, waiting for her to decide whether to open the door a little wider.

At the question, Anna’s body leaned forward without conscious thought, an instinctive movement born from not wanting to miss a word. “What did you ask?” she said softly. A faint flush slowly spread over her pale cheeks. She did not yet know how deeply she wanted to hear his answer.

Jeffery saw the instant she leaned closer, and the color that slowly rose in her face. His heart gave another unmistakable beat. He said nothing of it, merely allowing the distance between them to narrow until it was less than at any other moment that morning.

He lowered his eyes and glanced once at the air between them, now so much smaller than before. Then he raised his face to meet her gaze. His voice was low and soft, meant for her alone. “I asked if you were safe.” He paused. “And how the wound on your back was healing.”

He did not continue at once, first allowing those two sentences to settle. Then he said, “I also asked how you had spent the past several days.”

His gaze never left her face. “That was when she told me you had not spoken for days.”

He spoke the final words slowly, leaving a little space between each one. “That is why I waited in the eastern part of the city.” He did not say, “I waited for you.” The meaning was there nonetheless.

Every word startled her, and her eyes widened.

He had asked how she had spent the past several days.

What struck her most deeply was not his concern for the wound on her back, but the fact that he had asked how she had been living. She knew there was something within that question, but she did not want to decide what it meant based on her own hopes alone.

“You are staying in the eastern district?” Avoiding everything he had just said, she asked why he was still here. Addie had kept telling her that he seemed unable to leave. “Why have you not gone? You came here looking for someone, did you not? Have you found them?”

As one question followed another, something brightened quietly in his eyes. She had avoided his words.

Even so, he knew she had heard them.

She avoided them precisely because she had heard, hiding behind her questions as though they were a shield. He did not pursue her.

He settled back against the chair. Watching her violet eyes widen with curiosity, he remained silent for a moment before answering each question slowly, one by one.

“I am staying in the eastern district,” he acknowledged first. “I have been there for several days.” He paused. “Why have I not left?” He repeated the question as if tasting it before answering. “There is still something unfinished.” He did not say what.

“I came here looking for someone.” His answer to the third question was the quietest. His gaze settled on her face and remained there for a long time. “I have been searching for seven years.”

“Perhaps...” His voice sank until it was scarcely more than a breath. “I am very close to finding her.”