My Husband Never Dies - Chapter 37 - 4. Resignation

4. Resignation

It was a clear, crisp day without a single cloud in the sky.

Today’s tea time had been set in the garden, meant to take advantage of the pleasant weather. Dalebury’s garden, the one Princess Rowena had once adored, was overflowing with summer blooms rich in fragrance.

Thanks to the mild weather, there was no need for a greenhouse. The scent of flowers carried through the entire garden.

It was a sight anyone would have found breathtaking, but Evelyn looked unimpressed. Or, more accurately, she wasn’t in the mood to focus on the scenery.

The strange old woman’s words from a few days ago refused to leave her mind.

‘Never forget that all wisdom is passed down from ancestors. Daughter of Dalebury.’

At first, she’d been startled by how the women mentioned the word “Dalebury, ”but thinking it over, it wasn’t much of a shock. Even the royals, including that wretch Prince Adrian, treated her like a real princess. It was only natural for some half-possessed old crone to believe the same.

What mattered was what the woman had said before that.

All wisdom is passed down from ancestors.

She had no way of knowing anything about her bloodline and no interest in it either. Her first memory was of scavenging garbage on a roadside, swarming with bugs. She must have been trying to beg at first, only to give up and turn to a trash bin when hunger gnawed too deep.

So no, Evelyn had never once given any serious thought to so-called ancestors.

And yet here she was now, lost in thought over a single sentence from a woman she couldn’t even name.

“My lady.”

Laura’s voice stirred her from her reverie, just as the girl took in a lungful of the heady, almost dizzying perfume of flowers.

“Are you sure it’s not too hot for you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Still…”

Laura frowned at the table. The bucket that had once been filled with ice had melted entirely into water.

Evelyn let out a faint, hollow laugh. It was amusing, in a way. Laura had been the one who’d insisted so passionately that they have tea outside while the weather was still lovely. And now she already looked wilted.

This kind of heat was nothing. Evelyn had long since grown used to both cold and swelter alike.

It was, in a strange way, fortunate that the nameless parents who’d abandoned her had done so in a warm climate.

Looking back, she realized she’d spent most of her life in places where summer overstayed its welcome.

In the nameless town whose name she couldn’t even remember anymore, food spoiled quickly and was often thrown out. Little Evelyn grew up eating trash alongside bugs of all kinds.

When there was truly nothing to be found, she stole from other people’s fields. The weather had been so mild and generous that greens grew easily.

It might have looked like the world had tried to kill her, but the girl survived somehow. It was around the time when the line between what she could do and what she shouldn’t began to blur.

‘Hey, kid. You wanna try a job? It’s nothing hard. If you’re good, you won’t go hungry again.’

She’d been running little errands on the street — quick, light on her feet — and some man had taken notice. He offered her a path. She often wondered what she might be doing now if he hadn’t.

‘Shxt… whatever it is, it’d be better than this.’

Even if she’d ended up doing grunt work, being used like a slave or hanging off the arm of some useless man, putting on a pretty face, she probably wouldn’t be living in a world this twisted.

Heat, she had been born into. Cold, she had grown into.

She committed crime after crime just to get by, and eventually, she became a wanted criminal. It became routine — ducking through seasons, hiding in one place, and fleeing to another. It hardly mattered whether it was spring or winter.

That year, in the early days of winter, Evelyn decided to pass the season in a small village tucked northwest.

Back then, she truly thought she would freeze to death. The cold that year had been so brutal that the memory of it alone was enough to carry her through the unforgiving winters of Zelakent.

Evelyn gave a hollow smile at the hardship that now lived only in her own mind, then turned to Laura with a question.

“Hot? Should we go in if it’s too much?”

“No, my lady! I’ll just have them bring more ice!”

Laura chirped back with determined cheer, scurrying off at a brisk trot. Evelyn didn’t bother to glance toward the manor, only kept her eyes on the teacup beaded with droplets of condensation.

To someone born with nothing and raised on the streets, what did ancestors even mean? If the old woman truly believed Evelyn was a real princess, did she mean the royal ancestors?