Chapter 65

That maid was Amelia, the loyal maid the late duchess had brought from her family home. She was, in a sense, what Veronica was to Lady Ellarod. And Veronica could not understand why her mistress Lady Ellarod had kept this unsettling woman, this remnant of the previous duchess, in the household all this time. Just as the previous duchess’s furniture and wardrobe had been discarded, this maid could have been turned out as well, yet Lady Ellarod had not dismissed Amelia. A few flatterers had called it Lady Ellarod’s magnanimity and fawned over her for it, but Veronica knew better than anyone that Lady Ellarod was not that kind of woman.

‘That woman is still useful to me.’

When Veronica had asked Lady Ellarod why she had not dismissed Amelia, the answer came back with full confidence.

‘Useful? What possible use could that woman be? She’s been acting nearly unhinged lately. She mutters strange things in her room at night.’

‘Unhinged, you say.’

Lady Ellarod’s eyes lit up at that. Seated at her vanity, she smoothed her radiant hair and said to Veronica, ‘All the better then. Veronica, listen to me quietly. Find some way to get Amelia out and about. Particularly in out-of-the-way places. Somewhere like the slums.’

Lady Ellarod’s words only confused Veronica further. But the lady looked supremely confident about whatever she had in mind. She checked her hair in the vanity mirror once more and spritzed on perfume. Given that the duke was away in the provinces, it was strange that Lady Ellarod was grooming herself so carefully and preparing to go out. It felt different from when she was meeting another noblewoman. Watching Lady Ellarod, Veronica thought of something and went pale.

‘My lady……’

Veronica opened the door, confirmed there was no one outside, closed it again, and turned back. Her voice was very low.

‘Surely you’re not still playing with fire.’

‘Veronica!’

Lady Ellarod burst into laughter at Veronica’s words. But Veronica was genuinely uneasy. Lady Ellarod had a past, from her days as a baron’s daughter, of keeping company with a certain man. Her father had been furious and driven the man away. The lengths they had gone to in order to conceal that affair…… Veronica could not help but worry.

‘Please, my lady…… you are no longer a young lady. You are a wife. A duchess! If what happened before were to happen again……’

Lady Ellarod scoffed.

‘Oh, stop nagging! I’ve thought it all through. If things go according to plan, there won’t be any problem.’

But Veronica remained uneasy. And that child. That was something she and Lady Ellarod would carry to their graves…… Lady Ellarod still showed no sign of listening to her. Full of confidence as she was, Veronica sometimes shuddered with a sense of foreboding. If that child had lived, they would be about that age by now. Surely not, but Veronica kept finding herself troubled by the beggar child the maids had been whispering about.

After some deliberation, Veronica came up with a plan that would carry out Lady Ellarod’s instructions while also putting her own unease to rest. She called Amelia, who was now hollowing out a pumpkin in the corner.

“Amelia! Come here a moment.”

“Yes, head maid.”

Amelia set down the pumpkin and answered Veronica’s stern call. Veronica looked at Amelia, who stood with her hands folded demurely over her skirt and her head bowed, and spoke in as indifferent a voice as she could manage.

“I have a new task for you. Find that beggar child everyone’s been talking about and give her a firm warning never to loiter near the ducal household again, and never to speak of the ducal family. You may rest from your other duties in the meantime.”

“Yes, head maid.”

Amelia answered obediently as always. Veronica looked at her with a vaguely uneasy expression, as though she were some kind of cursed doll, then left.

But not a single person noticed the peculiar light that came into Amelia’s eyes at that moment. She was already a severed thread by that time. But even a severed thread held information. Amelia had met a relative who had worked as a stable hand at Lady Ellarod’s family’s baronial estate. He was now working as a hunting servant for a count who had attended a summer banquet hosted by Lady Ellarod.

‘Oh, Amelia! How have you been?’

This relative, far more talkative than Amelia, told her about a scandal surrounding the young lady of the family he had served. There was a rumor going around, he said. He hastily added qualifications after passing on the gossip, but he answered Amelia’s final question properly.

‘So…… what was the name of the male servant who was driven away?’

‘Zebek Fell.’

The servant shrugged and said, ‘Not a particularly good sort. He worked as a forester or a gamekeeper of some kind. Decent-looking enough, but.’

Amelia did not forget that name.

Before long she was able to find the child who had been going around asking about the ducal family, just as Veronica had instructed. She had tipped off the delivery man in advance.

“Wh, who are you……?”

Amelia looked at the child steadily. She was a small girl. She really did look no older than ten. But the poor often looked younger than their age from growing up underfed. Amelia looked over the girl’s thin limbs, her short hair wrapped in cloth, and asked why she had been going around asking about the ducal family.

The girl tried to stammer an excuse and flee, but Amelia gripped her shoulder firmly. The frightened child hunched as though expecting to be hit, but Amelia paid no attention. She was about to speak again when she noticed something on the girl’s worn clothing.

She examined it carefully. It was a single strand of gleaming blonde hair. Against the child’s dark clothing it shone all the more clearly. Too long to be a woman’s stray hair, slightly longer than a boy’s. Just one strand of hair. But that small thing struck a flash of suspicion into Amelia’s mind like lightning. It was a realization that felt almost like fate.

“What’s your name?”

Amelia asked, and,

“Lea…… Lea Fell.”

Lea answered.

Amelia went silent. It was the moment when the suspicion and hypothesis that had been flashing through her mind took on a complete and perfect shape. She gripped Lea’s shoulder and drew a sharp breath. The face of a young lady, gone white as chalk, passed before her eyes. The guilt that stabbed at her chest every time she thought of that face. Amelia asked again.

“Is your father…… Zebek Fell?”

Lea did not answer, but Amelia could read the answer plainly enough from her face. Because the same emotion she herself carried was written there.

Amelia did not regret anything that had happened after that day. She had done the right thing. She had chosen the best course of action. But now the girl whose name she had thought she could finally forget had come back as the new mistress.

Now head maid, Amelia rose from her quarters at dawn as she always did. Through the window of the servants’ annex she could see young maids taking down the bed sheets that had been hung out overnight. Looking at those sheets, pale as white could be, Amelia let out an uncomfortable breath. My lady……

The hem of a white chemise floated before her eyes. The chemise Owen’s birth mother had been wearing when she died, the young lady Amelia had served, had been that same white. Her death had been the greatest shock of Amelia’s life. If that had not happened, Amelia would never have persuaded Lea and proposed such a bargain.

If that were the case, the master would never have come looking for that small child again after all this time. Amelia bit her lip and straightened her back. Even so, she believed her actions had been right.

***

The Duke and Duchess of Tetias seemed to be returning to an ordinary day, as they always did. An ordinary day meant Owen was indifferent and Lea accepted that indifference as a matter of course. There were no more letters from Garrick Beverfield in this routine, no banquets or formal dinners. The days were monotonous, and apart from the hands of the great grandfather clock in the ducal manor turning and time passing, it seemed as though these days would go on forever.

Owen, shackled to the past, kept Lea on a leash in the present and lashed out wildly, and Lea submitted lifelessly to that merciless shaking. The ripple that broke those seemingly unchanging days began with the visit of a young man one late afternoon.

“Please, I’m begging you!”

It was the hour when the evening light was spreading across the world. The gardener heard the voice while pulling weeds and looked up. A young man was arguing with the butler at the front gate. Paul narrowed his eyes and watched. The young man was dressed reasonably well, but he was not a noble. Paul had tended the garden and seen countless nobles over the years, and he could tell at a glance. The young man staring at the butler with the expression of someone who believed the world was ending tomorrow was not a noble, and his clothes were not quite fine enough for him to be the son of a wealthy man of means.

In fact, even setting aside Paul’s personal experience, the butler’s manner made it plain. If the young man had been a noble or the son of someone who could not be dismissed, the butler would have been flustered but polite, saying ‘I’m terribly sorry, this really is most difficult.’ But right now the butler was making no effort to hide his cold irritation toward the young man. What on earth is going on. Paul covered the soil and quietly listened in on their exchange.

“I wish to see the duchess. Right now.”

“Now see here!”

Even Paul was startled by the young man’s request. This bold young man had arrived at this hour and was simply asking to see the mistress of the house. It was the kind of request that would be refused even from the highest noble.

Loved by the duke or not, the mistress of this manor was the duchess, and she was not someone an unannounced man, let alone one who was not even a noble, could simply demand to see.