"Ugh."
Penelope tugged the bright white sheets up to her neck, blinking her two sparkling emerald eyes.
Her eyes and mouth were dry, and her head was aching from the hangover.
"Where am I?"
'Wait now. I do remember talking with someone...'
"Hmmm."
"Oh, good lord!"
As she turned toward the low muffled moan, Penelope's eyes widened.
The sheets slowly slid down to reveal the bare back of the stranger.
"I'm, so, doomed."
She shut her eyes tight and tried to remember.
* * *
One week ago.
"Oh, how refreshing. My back feels so warm."
Penelope lay on her back under the poplar tree emitting warmth from the ground.
Her fair visage was tingled with a mild-tempered wind, and the entailing scent of grass cleared her mind.
"My lady! Here you are again. I told you your fiance is to visit today!"
"What? What for?"
As she slightly opened her eyes, Penelope saw her maid Jenny glaring.
Having turned red as a carrot, she appeared to have been looking everywhere for Penelope.
"Come now, get up, my lady. I need to bathe and clothe you. What is this in your mouth?"
"Just bebbermint candy. Would you like one?"
Bebbermint candy was Penelope's favorite snack made with the minty fruit from the Bebbermint tree, only grown along the coastal cliffs of Lavata.
As Penelope pulled one out, Jenny shook her head and began to talk.
"Oh goodness, no, no, thank you. You really do have unique taste buds. Bebbermint, such an elderly liking. I am alright with everything else, but the scent is just really hard to get used to!"
Penelope paid no attention and grinned.
"You don't know what you're missing out."
"Alright, well, come get up now, miss. We have no time!"
"It looks like it's about to rain. All my joints are restless. Can't we stay just a bit longer on the warm ground?"
"My lady!"
Jenny finally exploded and shouted with her hands on her hips.
"Do you not know what an event it is for a lady of a baron's family to be wed to a count?! And besides, Count Gordon said he urgently had important news for you."
"Important news?"
"Yes! Perhaps it is a romantic proposal!"
Penelope watched indifferently as Jenny's eyes glowed, holding her hands together.
'Could I not marry and just be on my own?'
Penelope swallowed these words down hard as they made their way up her throat.
Jenny immediately noticed her struggle and pouted.
"If you speak of not marrying again, the Baroness is sure to faint this time!"
'Oh, of course. My fainthearted mother!'
Jenny tugged on Penelope's arms and grumbled.
"Come on, get up now, my lady. We mustn't keep the Count waiting!"
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"Let him wait if he must."
"Good lord! Don't speak such words. You won't find a better man as sweet or as rich with as good a title as Count Gordon!"
Dragged by her arm, Penelope's beautiful visage was shadowed with boredom.
Penelope Arina Zecalion.
Just 24, at the prime age for marriage, she is the youngest daughter to the honorable Baron Zecalion.
Shining blonde hair as golden as the sand of the Balkan Peninsula and brilliant emerald eyes.
Just below her ample bosom was a fistful waist.
Anyone would believe it if they were told this beautiful damsel was the star of society in Lavata.
"Oh, what bugger all this is!"
But the truth was quite the opposite.
She resented aristocratic society, going out, and any activities a noble lady would enjoy.
Penelope's pessimistic preferences all hindered her from becoming the rose of the noble circle.
Her peculiar personality dates back to a secret from years before.
One day when she was seven, Penelope fell while climbing a tree and hit her head, which brought back memories from her previous life.
Unfortunately, the last memory she recalled was that of a stubborn old woman.
From the aching joints on a rainy day to the idiosyncratic swearing when aggravated, the tendencies of an old granny were still left inside her.
"Bugger? There would be no such man like him even if you searched throughout all of Lavata. Come now, quickly!"
Praising Count Gordon relentlessly, Jenny led Penelope with quick steps.
Just then, Penelope's pink lips gaped, and cranky words unmatching her elegant voice came out.
"Darn it. All men are the same."
* * *
"I'd like our engagement to be... called off."
Penelope slowly blinked her eyes, looking at Count Gordon.
"I apologize, Penelope."
As Count Gordon frowned, his large nose twitched.
At that moment, Penelope's gaze lingered at his nose.
'That nose. I would never have accepted the proposal if not for that large nose.'
In fact, Penelope never wished for marriage.
All she wanted was a country house to live out her days in comfort, with her dog and a garden.
That was all.
However, her parents could not leave their daughter alone at a suitable age.
Eventually, countless suitors were called upon.
Penelope only chose him based on the peculiar memory as a granny that she favored a man with a big nose.
Now she realized that she had made the wrong choice.
Disengagement! Unbelievable!
Now all of Lavata would be whispering how the proud Lady Penelope was disengaged...
Penelope felt dull as if hit with a stone on the head and her palms clammed with sweat.
But in truth, it wasn't what she wanted in the first place.
The dissolution only brought her closer to her dream of living alone, spending her remaining days tending to her garden.
'So what?'
Penelope spoke in a flat tone.
"Fine. Then it shall be, Count Gordon."
"So that is it."
Count Gordon swallowed a bitter smile as he watched Penelope easily accept his request.
"Once again, I apologize, my lady. But I know that you don't love me at all, and I cannot bear it."
"Love...?"
"Yes, I do not wish to marry without love."
Penelope tried her best to remain calm, gulped on her dried throat, and spoke.
"You loved me?"
"Yes, I did."
But the Count's late confession of love only left a feeling of heavy discomfort instead of the magical dream come true.
"I now plan to love... another woman."
Count Gordon acted somewhat strangely.
While announcing a dissolution, he acted as though he wanted her to stop him.
Penelope could think of nothing else but how lucky she was to have heard his calm confession.
'Disengagement is a thousand-fold better than a forced marriage.'
"Is that so? Then I wish you happiness with the woman who you'll love in the future."