Chapter 7

Paula, a maid who had been working at the Blumhart Ducal Residence for ten years, was heading to the third-floor room with clothes for a guest who had caused a stir in the residence.  

Everyone disliked going to see the Duke’s daughter’s biological mother, so she volunteered to go.  

Someone had to deliver the clothes.  

‘The Duke’s daughter, they say….’  

“The Duke has declared that Lady Rafaella will be formally registered as the Duke’s daughter, and her biological mother will be treated as a guest of the Duke.”  

The butler, who had just entered the servants’ hall, conveyed the Duke’s orders to everyone.  

The servants of the mansion were abuzz with the sudden news.  

The news broke during the brief rest period given to the servants, which only added to the excitement.  

Most of the reactions were negative.  

Though she was called a ‘Duke’s daughter,’ the child of the unmarried Duke of Blumhart was no different from an ‘illegitimate child.’  

They considered Rafaella an ‘illegitimate child’ and her mother, Lia, a ‘witch’ who had bewitched the Duke, who had lost his memory.  

If Lia had been a noblewoman, the opinion might have been slightly different.  

Moreover, thinking of her as a bumpkin from the northern mountains, they regarded her as beneath them.  

“To have to treat such a woman as a guest in the Duke’s residence is terrible.”  

“It wouldn’t be so uncomfortable if she were at least the daughter of a wealthy merchant.”  

“She just took advantage of the Duke’s illness.”  

“…She’s a very lucky woman, daring to act like this as a country bumpkin.”  

“Besides, the Princess is the Duke’s fiancée, who does she think she is!”  

“How do we even know if it’s true that she saved his life!”  

They criticized Lia harshly, regardless of gender, and many showed their discomfort even without adding words.  

However, Paula didn’t think much of it.  

She never really thought deeply about what happened around her.  

Besides, she was an orphan who had been lucky enough to be employed at the Duke’s residence.  

‘I’m not in a position to criticize anyone for their origins since I’m an orphan too.’  

Who was she to judge anyone?  

‘Just do as I’m told, what does it matter to me who she is?’  

Thinking this, she reached the third-floor Duke’s daughter’s room, when a sharp sound of someone being slapped echoed loudly from the wide-open room.  

Startled, Paula peered inside to see what was happening.  

Inside was a woman who seemed to be the Duke’s daughter’s biological mother and Carolina, the real power in the mansion.  

‘Oh, I can tell who it is just by that back view.’  

Carolina, who had been pompously lecturing the Duke’s daughter’s biological mother about manners and etiquette, pushed past Paula and gracefully left with the maid she had brought along.  

And then, she made eye contact with the woman whose cheek was swollen and eyes were filled with tears.  

* * *

Tears welled up in Lia’s eyes as she was slapped by the Duke’s aunt.  

‘If Raffy had seen that…!’  

Feeling her cheek burning, Lia turned slightly.  

Fortunately, it seemed Rafaella hadn’t come out of the dressing room.  

However, startled by the noise, the child emerged from the dressing room and approached her.  

“…Mom.”  

Rafaella called out to her worriedly.  

“I’m fine, Raffy. This lady is….”  

“You must be Johann’s daughter. What was your name again…?”  

The noblewoman interrupted Lia and spoke to Rafaella.  

“It’s Rafaella.”  

Lia answered in her place.  

“When you see an elder, you should greet them properly, not just stand there.”  

“…Hello.”  

Rafaella said, placing her hands on her belly and bowing.  

“…Ha, is that what you call a greeting now?”  

The noblewoman let out a derisive laugh at the ordinary greeting, not the noble style.  

“To think such a mess is entering our family….”  

She shook her head.  

“It’s truly dreadful!”  

“…Aren’t your words too harsh?”  

Unable to hold back, Lia spoke up.  

“I’m holding back because she’s Johann’s daughter, so don’t talk back and make sure to teach your daughter proper manners. How dare you!”  

The noblewoman, after looking Lia and Rafaella up and down, said this and left the room.  

Not realizing she was the truly rude one from start to finish.  

‘She didn’t even bother to say who she was, just got angry and left!’  

Lia glared at the noblewoman’s retreating figure and then noticed a maid standing near the door.  

“Oh… I brought these because I heard you didn’t have any spare clothes.”  

The maid, who had made eye contact with Lia, spoke hesitantly.  

Lia felt embarrassed, thinking the maid must have witnessed the situation.  

“Hello, nice to meet you, Lady Rafaella. And Miss Lia.”  

However, the maid entered as if nothing had happened and greeted Lia and Rafaella.  

“Hello.”  

Lia greeted her back.  

“…Please sit and wait for a moment.”  

Seeing Lia’s reddened cheek, the maid took a towel and went to the bathroom.  

Lia sat on the sofa with Rafaella.  

“It must hurt a lot, right? That person is always so blunt….”  

The maid applied the towel to Lia’s cheek.  

Startled by the Duke’s aunt, Rafaella clung tightly to Lia.  

“…She’s the Duke’s aunt, but she’s the real power in this mansion.”  

The maid cautiously began to speak about the Duke’s aunt, Carolina.  

“…Are the Duke’s parents not here?”  

“The previous Duke passed away about two years ago, and the Duchess is busy taking care of Lady Penelope, who is currently ill.”  

“Lady Penelope?”  

“She’s the Duke’s younger sister. Normally, she would have had her debutante by now, but she’s ill….”  

That explained it. That’s why the previous Duke’s sister, who was already married off, was acting as the lady of the mansion.  

The Duke was busy with affairs outside, and the Duchess was preoccupied with caring for her child as a mother.  

It was only natural for the household management to fall to the Duke’s aunt, Carolina.  

“Please don’t tell anyone I mentioned this.”  

The maid, who introduced herself as Paula, whispered as if worried someone might overhear in the spacious parlor, where only Lia and Rafaella were present.  

Whether out of sympathy for Lia, who had been slapped, or because she was naturally kind-hearted, the maid explained the mansion’s structure and the relationships among the people at the Duke’s residence to Lia.  

“Lady Carolina, the youngest sister of the previous Duke, was originally the Marchioness of Sprecher,”  

But the Marquis of Sprecher died young.  

Not just died, but left behind a massive debt.  

The debt was all accumulated through the extravagant spending of both the Marquis and the Marchioness.  

After the Marquis’s funeral, the Sprecher family had to scramble to pay off the debt.  

However, Carolina, who became the proxy for her young and inexperienced son as the Marquis, did not stop her extravagant ways.  

Unable to bear Carolina’s ab*se of the Marquis’s seal, the Sprecher family eventually had to petition the Imperial Family and the Temple.  

They pleaded to revoke the privileges given to them to preserve the ‘Sprecher family.’  

Both the Imperial Family and the Temple judged the situation to be severe and accepted their petition.  

In the end, Carolina and Marco were humiliatingly expelled from the Marquis family, stripped of everything except the name ‘Sprecher.’  

The previous Duke of Blumhart could not protest this decision.  

His sister’s actions had clearly crossed the line.  

However, she was still like a sore thumb to him, a young sister he couldn’t let go of.  

“Brother, I just want to live as I did when I lived at the Blumhart residence.”  

“If even you abandon me, I… sob.”  

“I won’t do it again. Can’t I just live at the ducal residence in the capital like when I was a child?”  

The previous Duke was particularly soft-hearted toward his youngest sister.  

So, even though he knew she wouldn’t change, he harbored false hopes and took her into the Duke’s family.  

He couldn’t have imagined that his sister would later torment his granddaughter.  

‘That’s why she acts so arrogantly, both before and after my regression.’  

There was practically no one who could pay attention to the household affairs in the Duke’s residence.  

As the saying goes, when the dragon is away, the lion takes charge.  

It was exactly like that.  

“…And you can just call her ‘Lady Carolina.’ She was originally ‘Lady Sprecher,’ but since she’s no longer a Marchioness, we can’t call her that.”  

“Thank you for telling me.”  

“Yes, and please never mention the word ‘Sprecher’ in front of Lady Carolina. She detests it with a passion ever since being expelled from the Marquis family.”  

“Okay.”  

“And this is just a word of caution….”  

Paula glanced at Rafaella, sitting beside Lia, with worried eyes.  

“Lady Carolina’s son, Young Master Marco, has a very fierce nature.”  

“Fierce?”  

“…Yes, he’s about two years older than Lady Rafaella, but perhaps because Lady Carolina raised him so indulgently.”  

She remembered seeing it in a dream.  

Her husband’s cousin tormenting her daughter.  

Lia clenched her hand as scenes from the dream came to mind.  

‘That must never happen again.’  

“He can’t stay still for a moment and often does bad things to passersby.”  

“…I see.”  

“No one stops Young Master Marco, so the servants of the Duke’s residence have no choice but to avoid him.”  

“I’ll be careful too.”  

Paula was concerned that the young Duke’s daughter might become Marco’s target. Lia was grateful for this fact.  

‘I must get Paula on our side.’  

Not just her husband and his family, but the servants of this mansion were also important to Rafaella.  

She hoped that even one more person would truly care for Rafaella.  

‘To do that, I first need to turn their hostility towards me into goodwill.’  

If they didn’t like her, there was a high chance they wouldn’t like Rafaella either.  

Before her regression, Rafaella often didn’t receive good treatment even from the servants.  

‘Things must change now.’  

Thinking she had said everything she could, Paula suddenly remembered her original purpose and was startled.  

“Oh! I came to give you this….”  

She handed Lia a few spare clothes.  

They were made of plain cotton, the type worn by maids.  

“Thank you, I’ll wear them well.”  

“There aren’t many decent clothes, so it might be good to buy a few nice ones when you go to the shop next time.”  

After saying that, Paula mentioned she had stayed too long and, after politely greeting Rafaella, left to return to her work.  

“…Sigh.”  

“Mom, are you okay?”  

Lia, who had sighed without thinking, covered her mouth at Rafaella’s concern.  

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”  

“Liar! You look hurt.”  

Rafaella shouted angrily.  

“It’s all red here, that lady is a villain!”  

“Pfft, she’s not a villain. She’s, um, your great-aunt.”  

Seeing her daughter use the word ‘villain’ from a fairy tale, Lia laughed and replied.  

“…Then she’s a bad great-aunt!”  

She couldn’t deny it, nor could she agree.  

The first meeting had been like that, so it was hard to say for sure.  

Whether she could change her husband’s aunt or not.  

In a mansion where the Duchess was practically absent, Carolina’s influence was overwhelming.  

If she could get Carolina on her side, on Rafaella’s side, Lia could leave her daughter with a bit more peace of mind.  

If she was bold enough to slap someone as an initial show of power, she must be no ordinary person.  

Her husband’s aunt and cousin as well.  

‘Can I really change them?’  

Lia, deep in thought, kissed both of Rafaella’s cheeks in turn as she held her daughter in her arms.