‘She said it was a letter to send me as a maid…’

Was he angry because his fiancée had allowed someone into the mansion without permission?

Facing his predatory gaze, Katarina had no choice but to repeat the excuses Loretta had told her to make, concealing the real reason for her visit.

With every word she uttered, however, the man’s eyes grew colder.

‘…I’m scared.’

When she met his gaze, she found it impossible to breathe, and her courage evaporated. Without realizing it, Katarina drew her shoulders inwards. When she lowered her head to escape his predatory gaze, she caught sight of her own pale, swollen br*asts, pushed upwards by the dress.

Heat flooded her face at once.

Having spent her entire life wearing clothing similar to a nun’s habit, this ornate dress made her feel as though she were undressed. It was humiliating enough that her shoulders and arms were bare, but the dress revealed half her br*ast as though it were nothing.

“You’re practically my representative now. Do you dare intend to stand before the marquis in such shabby clothes?”

With those words, Loretta asserted her authority as Katarina’s guardian for the day and forced one of her own dresses into her hands. She ordered Katarina to wear it before meeting her fiancé.

When Katarina first received the dress, she assumed it would fit well enough — she and Loretta were both small, southern women of a similar height, after all. However, once she reached the capital and tried the dress on that morning, she discovered that it wasn’t just form-fitting, her br*ast felt as though it might burst out of the dress altogether!

Only then did she remember: Loretta’s body was as slender as a teenage girl’s.

‘But I can’t refuse to wear it…’

Ultimately, she had no choice. Loretta’s dress was so tight that it took her breath away. If she took a deep breath, it felt as though the fabric would tear. Katarina was left panting silently, unable to breathe properly; her shallow, rapid breaths were laced with nerves and embarrassment.

‘I wish he would just send me back right now.’

Katarina kept her head lowered, only raising her gaze slightly to look at the man in front of her.

He seemed to have no interest in her whatsoever. He rubbed a hand over his face and stared at the letter again; his expression was twisted with irritation.

He clearly disliked Loretta’s suggestion.

Perhaps he would send Katarina back.

‘If I tell Lady Loretta that her fiancé was angry and sent me away, she can’t really do anything. It’s not as if she has any other use for me. Maybe she’ll just let me go…’

It was the moment she began nurturing the smallest sliver of hope, when the man suddenly rose to his feet.

…!

Katarina flinched so hard that she stumbled backwards, almost collapsing where she stood. A massive shadow fell over her, and when she looked up, she had to crane her neck higher and higher.

She knew Northern men were tall, but not like this.

Even standing still, he seemed to fill the entire room with his presence.

‘Was he even human?’

Katarina could barely reach his chest. Back home in the south, she had never thought of herself as small; yet here, in this mansion full of northerners, he seemed even larger than the rest.

‘This is impossible…’

As she watched him pass her to pull the bell cord, Katarina clapped both hands over her mouth.

‘How could I… with a man like that… how?’

She had grown up in a convent, but she wasn’t completely ignorant. A man that large would be proportional everywhere. Even the hand holding the bell cord looked capable of enclosing both of hers with ease.

“Katarina.”

And the parts hidden beneath his clothes…

“Katarina? Are you listening?”

Madam Keller’s voice jolted Katarina out of her spiraling thoughts.

“Ah—yes, yes!”

The head maid gave her a displeased look and opened a door. It was a small room with two beds.

“This will be your room. Normally, two maids share one, but this one happened to be empty, so you’ll use it alone for now.”

“Yes, Madam Keller.”

“What kind of work did you do at the House of Pescar?”

“Ah.”

It seemed the head maid assumed Katarina had been working as a maid in Loretta’s household. Katarina answered honestly.

“I’ve never worked there. This is my first time doing maid work.”

“…Have you attended to a high-ranking person before?”

“No.”

Madam Keller looked Katarina up and down in surprise as she shook her head. Katarina flinched and shrugged.

Had Madame Keller also guessed the real reason she had been sent here? Katarina quickly added.

“I’ve taken care of children smaller than me.”

Thankfully, the head maid only looked troubled as she continued speaking.

“There’s quite a lot you’ll need to learn. I’d prefer to train you for a few days first, but the Master has ordered you to start attending to him tomorrow, so unfortunately there’s nothing I can do. Hans, who usually serves the Master, will be with you. Watch him carefully and learn from him.”

Judging by the name, Hans is a man. At least she wouldn’t be expected to attend to the Master at night.

Relieved, Katarina nodded obediently.

“Yes.”

“Of course, serving the master is nothing like caring for a child. He dislikes having others meddle with every little thing. For most tasks, he prefers to do things himself rather than rely on his staff. As for what you’ll be doing starting tomorrow…”

Madam Keller began by explaining Katarina’s responsibilities, then moved on to the household rules. Realizing that Katarina knew nothing about being a maid, the head maid’s instructions became longer and more detailed.

Finally, she reached the most important point.

“A new maid’s weekly pay is eight gold. Once you get used to the work—after about three months—it’ll go up to ten.”

“What? That much?”

Katarina’s eyes widened.

She had lived in the convent all her life and saved whatever money she could. When she left, she had only twenty-one gold coins to her name. Here, she could earn that much in just two or three weeks.

“There’s a reason Lorhast pays triple the usual wage. You’ll need to work hard enough to match it.”

“I’ll work very hard, Madam Keller!”

“Good. Then get changed. Before supper, I’ll show you around the estate.”

The moment the head maid left the room, her hunched shoulders straightened on their own. It felt as though a beam of light had cut through the bleak, uncertain future ahead of her.

‘Right. I’ll work. I’ll save money by working diligently.’

She would never dream of attempting to seduce her lady’s fiancé. She would simply do her job faithfully.

After all, ever since leaving the convent, she had needed to work to survive. With such limited funds, she would run out within a few months, no matter how frugally she lived.

But now she had found employment quickly, with such generous wages.

“Thank you, Lady Loretta!”

She bowed deeply toward the window facing south.

“Sorry, but… I still won’t do what you asked.”

Because she was so used to praying aloud, speaking to herself came naturally. Katarina murmured as though Loretta were listening through the window.

“As for that poison… honestly, I don’t believe it. What kind of poison takes a whole year to k*ll someone after a single dose? If such a thing really existed, it would be unbelievably expensive. Why use it on someone like me?”

Even as she said it, her voice trembled.

Pretending it meant nothing wouldn’t erase the faint, lingering fear.

During the ten days she spent travelling to the capital by carriage, she had felt dizzy and nauseous. For days, she had worried that it might be the first signs of poisoning. However, as time passed and her condition slowly improved, she wondered if it had only been motion sickness. After all, no other symptoms had appeared.

Was the poison real, or not?

Katarina therefore resolved to work here, save money, and investigate the poison herself.

This was no longer the convent, surrounded on all sides by stone walls. Outside these walls, there were no rugged mountains and no walks that took days just to glimpse another home.

Here, she only had to step beyond the mansion’s gates to find bustling streets crowded with all kinds of buildings. There would be libraries, apothecaries, doctors and perhaps even information brokers, whom she had only ever heard whispered about: people who could uncover anything as long as they were paid.

She had been told that she would have one day off every fifteen days. On those days, she could leave the estate to find out whether such a poison existed, and if so, how to secure an antidote.

Loretta had claimed that she had one year before she died. If Katarina uncovered the truth before then, she would not have to force herself into the bed of that terrifying man.

“Let’s see if I ever do what you told me to.”

Katarina quietly gripped the hem of her skirt.

“Even without whatever reward you promised, I can still save up enough to buy a white cottage by the sea someday. I’ll do it with my own hands. And I’ll marry a gentle, honest man and live a peaceful life.”

Who was supposed to give birth for whom?

The fabric in her clenched fists crumpled mercilessly.

After staring at the ceiling for a moment, she began to wriggle out of her dress. The moment her br*ast was freed from the tight bodice, she finally felt her lungs expand.

‘How do noblewomen live in clothes like this?’

She could have blamed her discomfort on the poor fit, but the truth was simpler: she could never bring herself to wear a dress that revealed so much of her br*ast. Although she had lived far from noble society all her life, she still knew that this style of dress was not considered unusual. Whenever the carriage passed through a sizeable town, she would see women dressed just like this.

So this feeling — of being half-n*ked despite being fully clothed — was probably just her own hang-up.

The thought of showing so much bare skin to a man she had just met made her stomach twist and her head spin. But he hadn’t even noticed; he had been too busy glowering at his fiancée’s letter to spare her a single glance.

‘At least that’s a relief. If he really thought I came here to seduce him, I’d be in trouble.’

With her face burning bright red, Katarina tossed aside Loretta’s dress and quickly changed into a maid’s uniform. Once she had wrapped herself fully in the muted fabric and fastened the buttons up to her neck, she finally felt at ease.

“I think… I can do this.”

She whispered the words aloud, almost like a prayer.