Cheryl is the eldest daughter of a marquess, but because she was born with black hair and black eyes instead of the family's fair features, her father branded her a child of iniquity and refused to acknowledge her as his daughter. After her mother died of grief, Cheryl was treated worse than a servant by her father, stepmother, and half-sister Lilia. She was given barely enough food to survive, subjected to constant abuse, and isolated from any warmth or kindness. Then a letter of proposal arrives from Count Senodel, the frontier lord of the remote Senoder territory. Believing she has finally found someone who wants her, Cheryl accepts eagerly and travels to his estate with nothing but the thin, worn-out clothes her stepsister discarded for her. Upon arrival, the count greets her with cold confusion: he demands to know who she is. The proposal was a mistake. Lilia had been corresponding with the count under Cheryl's name, and when the count sent a proposal letter to the name he knew, it reached Cheryl instead. Lilia deliberately allowed the error to stand so that Cheryl would be sent away in her place. Count Greig Senodel is furious. He does not believe Cheryl's account of her sister's deception and assumes she is a schemer who took advantage of the misunderstanding. Unable to annul the marriage immediately due to legal formalities, he proposes a cold compromise: they will live as strangers for one year, and then divorce quietly. Cheryl is relegated to a guest room, given no duties, and treated with suspicion by the count, though the household staff soon begins to notice that the rumors about her do not match the gentle, hardworking woman they observe. During a severe illness that sweeps through the estate while the count is away, Cheryl nurses the servants back to health single-handedly, managing the household with a competence born from a lifetime of hard labor. When the count returns to find her exhausted from caring for everyone, he begins to question his assumptions. Over time, through shared meals, small acts of tenderness, and the count's growing guilt over his initial cruelty, their relationship softens. Cheryl reveals the truth of her abusive childhood, and the count realizes how deeply he wronged her. A romantic bond forms, and they eventually confess their love for each other, deciding to remain married. However, their happiness is threatened when Lilia arrives at the estate, determined to reclaim the count for herself. Lilia and her attendants bully Cheryl, exploit the count's past mistake, and attempt to drive the couple apart. Cheryl, still recovering from years of trauma, struggles to stand up to her sister but gradually finds the strength to assert herself with the count's support. The story concludes with Cheryl overcoming her past, the couple's love vindicated, and a happy ending where the misunderstood marriage of convenience becomes a genuine partnership built on trust and affection.