Chapter 39

Head maid Amelia Bunch. She had served Owen’s birth mother, the young lady of the marquisate, for her entire life. Amelia’s father had been the marquis’s coachman, and her mother had worked as a maid in the marquis’s kitchen. Born and raised under the marquis family’s roof, she had begun working as a personal maid to Owen’s mother at the age of ten, because the two were close in age. Owen’s mother was the family’s only daughter.

A gentle and warm young lady. Owen’s mother had treated Amelia well. Amelia had served her with devotion. They were close. When Owen’s mother married into the Tetias ducal family, she had specifically brought Amelia with her.

A loyal maid and a kind young mistress. If there were a textbook for servants, their story would surely have been in it.

Mrs. Colden said as much, but the kitchen maid snorted.

“But even that great Amelia didn’t look after the master when he was still a young boy after the previous mistress died! She just lived like she was dead herself. Her face was grim, yes. But do you think that was grief for the dead mistress? She knew perfectly well she was a thorn in Lady Ellarod’s side. That’s why.”

The kitchen maid was right. Amelia had done nothing.

“And when the master went through that…… terrible ordeal and went missing, Amelia didn’t even try to look for him. To be honest, she seemed a little unhinged at the time. She’d go blank-faced and then sob every night. Saying she was sorry, or something like that……”

“My goodness……”

Mrs. Colden clicked her tongue at the idea of that stone-faced head maid weeping.

“So she does know how to cry! It must have been her apology to the dead mistress.”

“I suppose so.”

The kitchen maid nodded in agreement. But then she glanced around and grabbed Mrs. Colden’s arm, pulling her close to whisper in her ear.

“There was a rumor, though, about why the master gave Amelia the authority over the household.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lady Ellarod was pregnant at the time. And then, of all things, she had a stillbirth.”

“A stillbirth?”

Mrs. Colden was genuinely startled. The kitchen maid continued with a serious expression.

“Yes! That’s why Lady Ellarod couldn’t treat the master however she liked after he came back to the residence. And after that, Lady Ellarod was never able to have another child.”

“How strange…… could the stillbirth have been the cause?”

Mrs. Colden clicked her tongue. However powerful a noblewoman might be, the moment she had no children her standing shrank to almost nothing. That was even more true for a duchess, whose position depended not on a title of her own but on providing her husband with an heir. From the moment Lady Ellarod could no longer bear children, it must have become all but certain that Owen would be the final victor.

“But…… what does that have to do with Amelia?”

“Because there was a rumor that Amelia caused the stillbirth.”

“What?”

Mrs. Colden cried out before she could stop herself. The kitchen maid pressed a finger to her lips and hushed her urgently.

“Shh! It was only a rumor! It started circulating after what happened to Lady Ellarod, so there’s no proof.”

“But……”

Mrs. Colden also looked around and lowered her voice.

“Then it makes sense that the master would give Amelia that kind of authority……”

“Exactly.”

The kitchen maid nodded.

“Setting aside loyalty…… he has quite a hold over her.”

“……”

Having leverage and using it. Mrs. Colden understood perfectly well what the kitchen maid thought of their master from those few words alone.

The master they had imagined as a fine and admirable gentleman might in truth be a cunning and dangerous man. Mrs. Colden smoothed the goosebumps on her arms. She was shaken, but she was a seasoned maid and showed nothing on her face.

What the kitchen maid had failed to account for, however, was that Mrs. Colden was not the kind of person who could keep a story this interesting to herself. And sometimes a person with a moderately loose tongue could be more dangerous than someone with a very loose one. They waited for the right moment, and then opened their mouths precisely when the damage would be worst.

In any case, Mrs. Colden had gathered yet more information about Amelia, and she filed it away carefully in her mind. Just as she had memorized the layout of the ducal residence.

❀❀❀

Even after taking the fever medicine, Lea’s temperature refused to come down easily. A dry cough tore through her again and again, and each time her already wasted body shook violently, like a window frame in a downpour threatening to snap at any moment. But by late afternoon, the medicine Dr. Melling had prescribed began to take effect, and Lea finally fell into a deep sleep.

The house was very quiet, but when a master was ill, help might be needed at any moment, so a servant would ordinarily take turns standing watch outside the door. A maid stood outside Lea’s room as well, waiting for a summons that might come at any hour.

No one liked standing at a door through the night out of boredom, so naturally the task fell to the newest maid. She stood tense and alert for the sound of a bell from behind the door, but as the deep of night came and the room behind the door remained silent, she began fighting yawns and the heavy pull of drowsiness.

She stared at the tips of her shoes for no reason, or watched the flame of her lantern flicker with intense focus, trying to make the long hours feel worthwhile, when the sound of footsteps in the distance snapped her to attention. This was the topmost floor, where the master and mistress’s rooms were. At first the maid assumed the footsteps belonged to another servant on night watch, but when the owner of those footsteps stepped into the reach of her lantern light and came into view, she startled.

“Oh! Master!”

She caught herself the moment her voice rose and clamped her mouth shut. But Owen didn’t scold her. He looked past her at the door behind her and said:

“……Is she asleep?”

The maid blinked at the unexpected question before quickly answering.

“Pardon? Oh, you mean the lady. Yes, she’s been very quiet, so I believe she’s sleeping soundly. I’ve been standing here the whole time, so I’m certain.”

Owen listened to the maid’s eager effort to demonstrate she hadn’t been slacking off, and let it pass without comment. The maid rolled her eyes at the unusual behavior of her master.

Even in the faint amber light of the lantern, Owen’s face had no color in it at all. It looked like a mask, a perfect sculpted replica of the master’s fine features. He wasn’t even carrying a lantern. He seemed to have walked through the dark with nothing.

Lea was sleeping in the mistress’s room, not far from the master’s. So Owen couldn’t have walked this dark corridor for very long, but given how perfectly composed he always was, it was still a strange thing to imagine.

He must actually be worried about his sick wife, even if he won’t show it! But they said the master didn’t even come when Dr. Melling examined my lady. The young maid felt a nervous and oddly fluttering sensation. Her master was so handsome and distinguished that she couldn’t approach him in any romantic sense, but the very idea of his love life was captivating.

“Oh! Master, here! Take the lantern when you go.”

Freed from boredom in an instant by Owen’s arrival, the maid held the lantern out toward him. It was well past midnight. She assumed Owen would return to his own room and was trying to offer him her lantern. But instead of taking it, Owen glanced at the door behind her.

He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head and said:

“I don’t need it.”

“But it’s so dark. Or shall I carry the lantern and escort you to your room?”

“I said I don’t need it.”

The sharp tone made the inexperienced maid flinch sharply. Owen looked faintly unsettled. There was irritation in the crease of his brow, but it wasn’t directed at the maid.

He let out a long breath and said:

“……I’ll be here, so you can go.”

“You will, sir?”

The maid looked at him with wide eyes.

“Yes. ……Is there a problem?”

“No. Of course not, but……”

The maid shook her head quickly, but inwardly she was deeply surprised by Owen’s sudden concern. There were plenty of husbands who kept watch over an ailing spouse, but to the maid’s eyes, her master and mistress, Owen and Lea, had always seemed far removed from that kind of ordinary romance.