Chapter 2.1 – The Blade Stuck in Her Mouth

Maia stood at a desperate crossroads.  

Would she put the glossy steak before her into her mouth, or not.  

……Wasn’t this just too much?  

Maia suppressed the urge to tear at her own hair right then and there.  

“Take it away.”  

Even though she barely managed to spit out the words with her eyes tightly shut—  

“His Grace the Duke has ordered that you must eat, Madame. My apologies.”  

The maid standing politely in front of her always gave the same answer.  

In other words, until evening, she would have to be tormented with the sight of the steak she couldn’t even touch—a feast she could only look at.  

That wicked Lucas Western!  

Maia repeated curses in her mind that she had never spoken before.  

She glared at the splendid lunch spread before her with bloodshot eyes.  

The steak, its juices glistening, looked especially thick today.  

Next to it were garnishes, including asparagus with clear grill marks. Fragrant pasta loaded with spices, and bread baked golden with butter.  

She was so hungry her stomach hurt. Maia frowned deeply and turned her head away.  

It had already been two full days since she declared she would fast.  

After two days of starving, her patience was at its limit.  

Ah. Was I always this weak-willed?  

The constant rumbling of her stomach was not just agony—it was humiliating.  

The maids who brought her meals insisted they were following the Duke’s orders and refused to leave the room, standing firm before her. Hunger mixed with embarrassment, doubling her suffering.  

A person can endure many things, but nothing is more maddening than being tormented with food.  

For Lucas Western to go so far out of his way to torment her—he was surely bound for hell.  

Maia threw aside the book she’d been staring at and jumped up from the bed.  

“Madame……?”  

She commanded the maid who looked at her in surprise.  

“I’m going out for a walk and will come back. Clear all this away before I return.”  

“Wait—!”  

Ignoring the maid’s protest, Maia nearly ran out of the bedroom.  

“Ugh, it’s cold.”  

Maybe because she was hungry, the air in the Ducal mansion felt even colder than usual, sending chills through her whole body.  

Maia shrank into herself. She had rushed out so quickly, she didn’t even throw on a shawl over her nightgown.  

“……Where should I go.”  

Now that she was out, there wasn’t a single place in this vast, almost boundless mansion where she could relax.  

That fact struck her with particular bitterness today.  

Maia slowly turned her steps.  

There was only one place she could go.  

The former Duchess’s bedroom.  

It was the last place the current Duchess, her , wanted to visit.  

It was the only sanctuary in the mansion where the servants didn’t come and go as they pleased.  

But thanks to constant care, it was still as clean as if someone lived there.  

Going out to the garden dressed like this would be madness.  

She had no other choice.  

Maia, resigned, headed for the former Duchess’s bedroom.

* * *

A thick fog hung over the sky outside.  

Because of it, the path to the west annex where the former Duchess’s bedroom was located was shrouded in eerie shadows.  

A fluttering hem of a pure white skirt in the corridor.  

If anyone had passed by, they might have mistaken the scene for a ghost.  

“It’s cold.”  

In truth, the white garment was a nightgown, and the silent walker was the Duchess of this castle.  

Maia, making no sound as she walked the corridor, soon arrived at the bedroom door.  

Some unknown pressure made her tense up.  

She carefully pushed the door. The huge door opened smoothly, without even a creak.  

Beyond the grand entrance engraved with the crest of the Western Ducal House, she saw a bed draped with heavy lead-colored curtains, like a blue sea.  

She had seen this scene dozens of times before, but—  

“So extravagant……”  

She and the Imperial Princess, who was born noble, could never truly be the same.  

The room was filled with furniture and wallpaper, and her belongings still remained everywhere, not yet thrown away.  

Everything was completely different from Maia herself.  

Maia looked around the room with a renewed feeling.  

She liked light colors.  

She hung pale violet curtains, used soft ivory wallpaper, and filled the room with warm wooden furniture.  

But the former Duchess, despite her brilliant appearance, seemed to prefer deep colors.  

Dark blue curtains, blue bedding, furniture in gold and black.  

Everything in sight was so overwhelmingly solemn and grand.  

Maia shook her head and perched on a small chair.  

She doubted the maid would really clear away the meal as she ordered. So she would have to stay here for a while.  

Even if she felt nothing anymore, the fact that her only refuge was the dead former wife’s room was bitterly ironic.  

As that bitterness welled up—

Click.

She heard the door quietly open.  

“……Oh no.”  

When Maia met the eyes of the person entering the room, she barely stopped herself from screaming.  

“Head Maid.”  

Maia called her in a subdued voice. She was already standing, having risen from the chair.  

The woman called Head Maid, who still had a youthful face for such a title, gazed at Maia with a cold expression.  

Maia bit her lip and forced herself to look unconcerned.  

Why did it have to be the head maid?  

“I didn’t expect you to be here, Madame.”  

A chilly, elegant voice spoke to her.  

“……I have my reasons. And you, why are you here?”  

“I always visit this place.”  

The head maid turned her head, looking around the room as if seeing it anew.  

The moment thehead maid entered, the once-quiet air in the room turned so stiff it was hard to breathe.  

Maia frowned and moved toward the door.  

She would rather be tortured by the meal she couldn’t eat than spend another moment with this suffocating woman.  

“Fine. Then I’ll be going.”  

Maia mumbled and tried to pass by the head maid.  

It was when she put her hand on the doorknob.  

“Mrs. Mary Hauer has finished her husband’s funeral and returned to the kitchen.”  

Maia slowly turned her head back.  

At some point, the head maid was staring at her.  

“I just wanted you to know in advance, since I wouldn’t want to have to remove the corpse of someone who starved to death from this mansion.”  

It seemed the head maid couldn’t help but add an insult to the end of her words.  

Maia made a disgusted face and flung open the bedroom door.  

As if to blow away the stifling air of the dark room, a chilly breeze rushed in.  

Now she could finally breathe.  

Maia turned around. And, as if to show off, she wore a dazzling smile.  

“That’s right. It would be terribly unlucky to have to remove the bodies of two Duchesses who died in the Ducal mansion. I didn’t realize it before, but I see now that your concern for the Western Ducal House is truly admirable, Head Maid.”  

At Maia’s breezy voice, the head maid’s iron face twisted into a mess.  

Maia’s smile grew even brighter.  

The hatred in thehead maid’s eyes, trembling with anger, was unmistakable.  

Maia glanced at her face and then left the room.

* * *

“Madame!”  

“It’s been a while, Mary.”  

A woman with streaks of gold in her hair, tightly coiled up, spotted Maia walking from afar and called out in delight.  

Maia smiled back and took the wrinkled hand of the elderly woman.  

“You look quite worn out. You should have rested longer.”  

“No, that wouldn’t do. I still have to marry off my youngest son, so I must work hard while I can. Have you been well, Madame? Is that head maid woman still bothering you……?”  

“Hush, what if the maids hear you.”  

The warm-hearted woman, Mary Hauer, laughed heartily.  

“What’s there to fear about dealing with a frail woman? I only worried that you might have had a hard time while I was gone these past two months, Madame. The maids are so arrogant, after all.”  

Maia managed only an awkward smile, unable to say she had decided to divorce the Duke of Western.

Mrs. Hauer, who supervised the kitchen maids, was the only servant in this mansion who treated Maia with genuine respect.  

Even fallen, a noble was still a noble.  

Most of the maids were from impoverished lower-ranking noble families, yet they used Maia’s status as an excuse to ignore her and refused to acknowledge her as the lady of the house, even though Maia herself was from a wealthier middle-class background than they were.  

But perhaps out of a sense of shared hardship, Mrs. Hauer, who was of commoner birth, despised such behavior from the maids and helped Maia, who had no one to rely on, to endure life in the Ducal mansion.  

Anyway, this woman was utterly convinced that Maia was the perfect Duchess of Western.  

Maia looked at Mrs. Hauer, who fussed over her, exclaiming about how thin she had gotten as she took her hand.  

She had already handed over the divorce papers, the Duke of Western had unexpectedly refused them, he had dragged her back to the mansion as if to imprison her, and she was now staging a hunger strike to force a divorce—but how could she say all that?

“Madame, you always loved tomato soup best, didn’t you? I simmered it gently. Here, please eat before it gets cold.”

How could she possibly say it.

Maia looked down at the steaming bowl of soup before her, feeling at a loss.  

But she couldn’t betray the hopeful look on Mrs. Hauer’s beaming face.  

Besides.

Growl—

She had, from earlier, been painfully aware of what it felt like to be starving to death.

“I’ll eat well.”

It was irresistible.

Maia took a spoonful of the thick soup and held it in her mouth.

“It’s so delicious……”

A wave of deep emotion washed over her, as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

At Maia’s nearly tearful praise, Mrs. Hauer smiled contentedly.