The text you provided contains the same chapter twice. I’ll translate it without changing the character, tone, emotional nuance, or meaning. I’ll also keep names and fictional place names consistent.

Chapter 2

It would have been much easier to endure if she could at least smoke a cigarette.

It had already been a month since she had quit smoking, something that had begun alongside a marriage she had never wanted.

The woman who had once been Rose Davis and was now Rose Crawford sighed as she climbed the embassy stairs. The party being held at the embassy had already been going on for three long hours.

“Can we really have a toast without Oroturan’s most popular man here? Go bring him. He’s probably in the gallery room.”

At the insistence of the Prime Minister’s wife, who had ordered her to bring her husband back to the main hall, Rose was reluctantly on her way.

The embassy’s gallery room had an unusual layout: there was a door only at one end of the L-shaped passageway, while at the corner where the passage turned, there was nothing but a curtain.

As was customary during parties, the door was wide open.

Her husband, sitting alone on a velvet sofa in the corner, did not seem to notice even when she crossed the threshold, as though he were lost in his own thoughts.

Rose slowly approached him with an unwilling expression, but suddenly stopped when she heard a noise coming from somewhere.

“A Boltonian? Crawford must have finally lost his mind. I simply cannot understand why.”

A loud voice condemning someone, followed by mocking laughter.

The voices were coming from beyond the curtain, from the side where the paintings on display were hung.

“Just how much did Elliot Davis donate to the Conservative Party?”

“Oh, come on. Surely it wasn’t because of that. It’s not as though the party is short on money. I believe the story that he was taken in by that woman’s face is probably true. Even I was shocked when I first saw her.”

“With a face like that, how did she manage not to get married until that age?”

“Elliot Davis must have spent too long weighing all the candidates for his daughter, trying to sell her to the highest bidder, and missed his chance.”

“Good grief. I wonder which is the bigger problem—that she’s a Boltonian, or that she’s Elliot Davis’s daughter.”

“Isn’t it the worst possible choice precisely because she’s both? No matter how many strange foreigners have been crawling into Orotura lately, a Boltonian!”

Judging by the voices, there seemed to be three or four people there. Were they having this conversation because they did not know there were people in the space on the other side, or were they speaking like this despite knowing?

After thinking about it for a moment, Rose guessed the former was more likely.

Oroturans, at least to one’s face, did not speak quite so blatantly.

Of course, this was hardly the first time she had heard such criticism.

Every newspaper had been making a huge fuss, as though it were some kind of tragedy, over the news that Orotura’s most beloved young politician was marrying a savage Boltonian woman.

The patriotic newspapers had been subtly expressing concern that the foreign nouveau riche who was sweeping up Orotura’s money might use the political connections gained through his daughter’s marriage to cause even greater harm to the country.

“I wonder if Crawford even knows that that vulgar merchant has been poking his nose into all sorts of urban development projects just because he has a minister for a son-in-law. What a disgrace.”

“Is it our disgrace? It’s Crawford’s disgrace.”

“Isn’t that the same as Orotura’s disgrace? The newspapers will be making another fuss soon enough.”

Her father, whom she had not seen even once since the marriage, seemed to be living his life by fanning those very concerns.

Listening quietly as insult after insult continued, Rose clasped her trembling hands together for a moment.

Ever since she had come to this country, an unjust sense of guilt had followed her around. Even though it was obvious that this marriage was not her fault.

Rose glanced at the husband who had become the subject of gossip because of his marriage to her—and was utterly stunned.

He, Ray Crawford, was simply smiling.

“To be honest, Lord Crawford has always been far too arrogant, relying solely on his popularity. I suppose God has placed a stone in his path to teach him some humility.”

“Don’t assume that attitude is merely because of his popularity. He’s a Crawford, after all. A Crawford.”

“He’s His Majesty the King’s godson, no less. An attitude like that comes naturally to him.”

On his elegant, handsome face, as he listened to all the merciless criticism directed at him, there was unmistakably the faintest hint of a smile. She could tell even from his profile.

Every time Ray Crawford slowly tipped the toe of his shoe, the red wine in the glass in his hand rippled ever so slightly.

What on earth was he thinking?

Listening to things like that?

Once again, laughter erupted from beyond the curtain, and at the same time Ray Crawford’s head slowly turned.

Toward Rose.

He did not look surprised even after confirming that Rose had entered the room. The only thing that disappeared was the faint smile that had been on his face.

Even seeing Ray silently staring at her with a cold, expressionless face, his glass still in hand, Rose found it difficult to speak.

She felt that if she raised her voice, the people beyond the curtain might hear her. And besides, she did not know what she could possibly say to someone who was listening to this kind of criticism.

There was only one thing she was certain of.

Even when listening to criticism about himself, the man smiled.

But when he looked at her, his face became completely expressionless.

Why had Ray Crawford married her?

When he clearly could not stand her this much.

That was precisely what Rose was beginning to wonder about as well.

She did not know what he had received from her father in exchange for the marriage, but perhaps it had not been enough to make her existence something he could welcome.

After a brief passage of time, Ray placed his glass on the side table and quietly rose from the sofa.

Every movement—from straightening his clothes to walking toward her—was simply immaculate.

He did not seem to be making any particular effort to keep quiet, yet he passed her without making much noise at all.

Rose followed her husband, who felt more like a stranger, without saying a word.

Ray walked only fast enough that Rose would not fall behind. When they reached the stairs, he stopped and held out his arm.

This man, who clearly disliked her immensely, was nevertheless impeccable when it came to manners.

When Rose quietly placed her hand on his arm, he whispered,

“Smile.”

Then he slowly began descending the stairs.

Rose barely managed to pull the corners of her mouth upward, feeling as though they were about to cramp.

Having to smile at a crowd of strangers she did not even know was more exhausting than she had expected.

In Bolton, where she had lived, no one smiled if there was nothing to smile about.

Boltonians used to say this:

Anyone smiling for no reason was either a clergyman or a madman.

One or the other.

By the time Ray reached the bottom of the stairs, a natural smile had once again appeared on his face.

“Don’t say anything unnecessary.”

He whispered once more as he led her forward.

The Oroturans filling the hall greeted them with bright smiles.

Exhausted from conversing with strangers, Rose absentmindedly tapped her fingers against the table, following the faint piano melody of a nocturne drifting through the noise.

The party had now gone on for more than four hours, and she had a terrible headache because her lady’s maid, Joanne, had stuck more than ten hairpins into her hair.

A cold hand briefly settled over her unconsciously moving fingers, as if telling her to stop, before slipping away.

When she raised her head, Ray, her husband, was looking down at her.

The formal smile at the corner of his mouth was so precise, as though measured with a ruler, that it looked almost like a warning.

That was generally all the meaning behind the smiles he occasionally showed her.

A warning.

Or contempt.

Something like that.

Instead of continuing to fidget pointlessly with her fingers, Rose picked up the wineglass Ray had handed her and took a sip.

Her throat was parched.

Quitting smoking was difficult, but perhaps just as difficult was correcting every one of her habits—even the tiny habits she had not realized she possessed.

They were such trivial things that sometimes it felt less like she was simply correcting her habits and more like she was being broken apart piece by piece, gradually erasing the person that was Rose.

In any case, there was no doubt that everything that made up Rose was considered subject to “correction.”

“But honestly, judging only by Mrs. Crawford’s appearance, she doesn’t really look like a Boltonian.”

A woman who was apparently the wife of some mayor said it with an expression of fascination.

How many times had Rose heard that already?

She had heard it more than a hundred times since coming to Orotura.

These people seemed to believe Boltonians had three eyes or two noses.

“Oh, right. I believe her mother was of noble Antakan descent rather than Boltonian, wasn’t she? I once heard the Dowager Lady Crawford mention it.”

For the entire month, her mother-in-law, Agatha Crawford, had been presenting Rose in exactly this way—erasing her father as much as possible and bringing up her deceased mother instead.

Orotura and neighboring Antaka had spent more than a thousand years fighting over land, power, and all sorts of other things, but although Oroturans disliked them, they did not disregard them.

Even that dislike was not a serious emotion like hatred. It was closer to the amusement of going up against an opponent whose weight class was equal to their own, whose level they acknowledged.

The very party they were attending now was privately hosted by Antaka’s ambassador, who had been dispatched to Orotura, yet many Oroturan nobles had willingly attended.

The only people Oroturans looked down upon were the lowly Boltonians caught between them.

Even when they went to war with Antaka, they had been more displeased with Bolton for refusing to take their side than with Antaka itself.

Agatha Crawford had never been particularly pleased by the fact that her daughter-in-law was a product of both Antakan and Boltonian blood, but it seemed she had nevertheless decided that having Antakan blood was better.

She always led with that fact.