Laura Pendleton stepped down from Ian Dalton’s lap.

“You’re a guest. I have to go downstairs, darling.”

Ian clicked his tongue.

“Ann Steel was absurd before marriage, and now as Mrs. McGill, she’s still making a fool of people.”

Ian, with a sullen expression, rose from his seat.

“Turn around.”

As Laura showed her back, he began retying the corset strings and fastening the buttons one by one. Reassembling the barriers he had personally undone to caress his wife’s bare skin, he suppressed his simmering anger.

After fastening the last button, he turned Laura around. He smoothed her wrinkled collar and tidied a few stray strands of hair, restoring her to the neat lady she was before disheveling on his lap.

“You were prettier just now.”

Laura smoothed Ian’s crumpled collar.

“That prettier version, I’ll show it to you plenty later.”

“That’s some consolation, at least.”

Ian and Laura linked arms and descended to the lower floor. Entering the drawing room, the McGill couple rose from their seats. Ann McGill, in a purple silk dress, and Oswald McGill, in a chestnut suit, looked impeccably suited for a christening or garden party.

“Miss!”

Mrs. McGill, or rather Ann, rushed over and threw her arms around Laura’s neck the moment she saw her.

Laura burst into laughter, tightly hugging Ann’s waist.

“Ann! It’s been two years. No, even longer, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s right! That’s right!”

A moment later, the two ladies released their embrace. Ann gave a slight curtsy to Ian.

“Good day, sir?”

“Yes, Mrs. McGill.”

Ian, hiding his irritated mood, nodded politely.

Then Ann’s husband paid his respects to the Dalton couple.

Oswald McGill was a handsome man with reddish-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. Tall, his posture was as straight as a needle, making him appear even taller, and though his manners were impeccable, his face lacked any trace of a smile.

They sat on the sofa. Laura took Ann’s hand.

“So, how did you end up arriving at this hour?”

Ann let out a deep sigh and began explaining.

The McGill couple, residing in London, set out for King’s Cross Station to catch the early train for the christening. The train to Yorkshire arrived on time. The two, boarding the train, had no doubt they would arrive as scheduled.

But as the train left London, someone in the compartment next to their seats suddenly began shouting.

The person shouting was a middle-aged man. He stood in the corridor, pointing accusingly at a couple.

From what they overheard, it was a confrontation over an affair. The seated woman froze in panic, and the young man involved turned deathly pale.

The middle-aged man seemed blind with rage, but not so blind as to miss the young man’s attempt to slip away. He drew a pistol from his coat and shot a bullet into the young man’s shoulder.

A lawyer and his wife, watching the scene with keen interest, were horrified by the shooting unfolding before them.

The man who fired the gun was subdued by ticket inspectors and taken away at the next station. As the closest witnesses to the shooting, the McGill couple had to accompany the investigating officer to the police station.

Hearing the story, Laura was aghast.

“So, did the man who was shot die?”

Mrs. Ann McGill shrugged.

“I don’t know. The bullet hit his shoulder, so it wasn’t fatal, but he might have gone to the other side from blood loss. If God exists, he probably deserved it. Anyway, we had to repeat our account of the incident to the investigator several times. By the time we left the station, it was past noon. We thought we could still make it before the party ended if we hurried, but it was Sunday, and there were no hired carriages near the station, so we arrived much later than expected. I’m sorry, miss.”

Laura fidgeted with Ann’s hand, which she was holding.

“Don’t say that, Ann. I’m just grateful you came at all. Especially after going through something so harrowing.”

“I wasn’t about to give up celebrating you just because of someone else’s scandalous drama.”

Laura smiled at Ann’s freckled, delicate face.

Dear, lovely Ann.

Laura kissed Ann’s cheek as a gesture of gratitude, then turned her gaze to Oswald.

“Thank you for visiting, Mr. McGill.”

Oswald, who had been sitting silently beside his wife, shook his head.

“No, madam. It is an honor to be worthy of celebrating the precious children of the Dalton family.”

His tone was so blunt it almost undermined the humility in his words. But his gaze toward Laura was filled with warmth.

From the letters exchanged with Ann, Laura knew Oswald McGill was fundamentally a workaholic with poor emotional expression. Raised under a cold mother, he never learned to treat people warmly, and having served in the army from age sixteen to his mid-twenties, he lacked any polished demeanor. In short, he was not easy to befriend.

Even now, it was the same. In a social setting, he neither smiled nor offered compliments to win favor.

But Laura knew. He was a just and warm-hearted man.

Laura’s certainty about his character stemmed from knowing how the McGill couple first met. Their first encounter spoke volumes about Oswald McGill’s true nature.

Before marriage, Ann used to sneak off to a cheap tavern that served terrible snacks whenever she received her wages, to join the poker games held there.

From the age of thirteen, when she started working, she always divided her wages into thirds: one-third for savings, one-third sent to her parents back home, and one-third for necessities. Though she managed her money frugally, a maid’s wages were meager. A mere third was barely enough to buy a single petticoat.

Though she served a generous mistress, she couldn’t ask for a raise. She was already earning better wages than most maids on Grosvenor Street. After much thought, Ann recalled how, as a child playing cards with her sisters, she won every game. Fearlessly, she strode into the tavern.

The card tables were mostly filled with men, though occasionally middle-aged women joined—tavern owners’ wives or wealthy, bold widows. But there wasn’t a single young woman like Ann.

Once Ann sat at a table, she swept up all the stakes. She was a natural gambler—sharp-minded, bold, and capable of maintaining a poker face no matter the hand. Unfazed by the risk of heavy losses, she’d push in all her money and walk out with double the amount.

Most of her opponents gambled for fun and laughed off the petite young woman taking their money. The jovial atmosphere was why Ann chose gambling to supplement her income.

But while Ann had talent, she lacked wisdom. A true gambler never leaves an opponent destitute, for someone with nothing left to lose acts recklessly.

Sure enough, a year after frequenting the tavern, a butcher who lost four months’ worth of income to Ann began harassing her. The tavern owner tried to intervene, but the man knocked him down and grabbed a broken glass.

He seized Ann by the collar. Threatening the petite Ann, who was half his size, he demanded her money or he’d scar her face. In that moment of crisis, Ann weighed her options: hand over the money or kick him in the groin and flee. The latter was far more tempting.

Just as Ann was about to strike the butcher’s groin—

With a thud, the hand gripping her collar vanished. A man who had been quietly sipping a drink in the corner of the tavern’s bar approached silently. He began pummeling the butcher, who soon collapsed, battered senseless.

That was her first meeting with Oswald McGill, a former soldier turned law student.

As a gesture of gratitude, Ann bought him a drink at another table. There, she learned that Oswald McGill had been watching over her for the past year.

During his military service, he suffered a severe headache from a training injury. Unable to afford proper treatment, he drank to fall asleep. He frequented the cheap tavern near his lodging, drinking before returning home.

Then he noticed a small young woman. A freckled face with big eyes, petite and thin.

She ordered a beer out of courtesy to the tavern owner, then sat at the poker table. Within an hour, she pocketed all the stakes and vanished.

Oswald grew concerned for her. This was not a safe place for a young woman. But he couldn’t lecture a stranger whose name he didn’t know. Whenever Ann appeared, he kept a close eye on the game, ready to protect the small young woman if trouble arose.

His silent guardianship continued even after he met a skilled apothecary who fully treated his injury, eliminating his need to visit the dingy tavern. It continued until the day he saved Ann from the butcher’s grasp.