A powerful pawn

Aleister. The man whom everyone feared. The person she was supposed to dread but in the end, she felt relief knowing that he was around her. That he had his gaze on her and the moment something happened, he would appear. 

Then came his family.

When Aleister and her said that they loved each other as a pretense, she had expected the royal family to try to poison her at the very least. Esme had felt grateful that she knew about herbs at that moment. 

But much to her surprise, they treated her like a treasure. 

Esme had initially been suspicious of Duchess Flora when that woman appeared at the ballroom, right at the moment she was about to extort the truth from that servant girl but as time passed by, she was blinded. Blinded by the greed of having everything she never had. 

Having been betrayed by her trusted Uncle, and sharing a stranded bond with her Aunt, she never experienced such familial love.