Chapter 59
“Oh?”
Even as Lucy’s eyes widened, Clara didn’t stop talking.
“No matter how ambiguous your position may be, miss, this is too much. Is it really acceptable to starve a person like this?”
“…”
“Even if everyone is speaking ill of you, a meal is… Gasp! I’m so sorry!”
Clara rolled her eyes, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
Lucy, who had been watching her closely, slowly parted her lips.
“Speaking ill of me?”
“That is… well, everyone’s been whispering that His Grace might have picked up some vagrant from the streets.”
“Mm.”
“They all go on about how someone who ought to be in a vagrant shelter outside the castle is using a room finer than the head butler’s.”
“It is a fine room.”
It was called a storage room attached to the duke’s chambers, but it was far more spacious and better than any ordinary inn or hotel room.
Even as Lucy nodded at the plain facts, Clara didn’t stop.
“Honestly, no matter how preoccupied everyone is with taking sides, this is too much. How could they treat someone His Grace personally brought here like this…”
Having openly grumbled this much, Clara glanced sidelong at Lucy, as if gauging her reaction.
“Clara.”
“…Yes?”
“You’d best be careful about what you pass along.”
And at Lucy’s answer, Clara shut her mouth in bewilderment.
Lucy looked at Clara with a face far quieter than usual.
A face that seemed far more grown-up than her usual youthful appearance.
“If you go around passing along unnecessary talk like this, you could end up in a difficult situation yourself.”
As she spoke, Lucy recalled the maids who had seemed awkward around her.
Faces that had laughed and chattered among themselves, yet always looked flustered when they met Lucy.
‘They all did seem to not know quite how to treat me.’
But as for whether they would speak ill of her like that… well.
‘First of all, Rosendal wouldn’t have hired such maids.’
Servants who gossiped about others behind their backs, no matter who the target was, were clearly the sort Edward despised.
There was no way Rosendal, who knew Edward’s will better than anyone, would employ such servants.
‘And besides, she says she’s been struggling with factional strife.’
Clara had, from the start, been badmouthing only one side.
The servants who worked for Edward.
Merely disparaging the servants loyal to the duke and relaying their words to Lucy already had the effect of taking someone else’s side.
…For instance, the side of the Grand Madam’s faction.
Instead of pointing this out, Lucy simply stared at Clara, who flinched and gauged Lucy’s reaction.
As though she had never expected Lucy, who looked so scatterbrained, to say such a thing.
While it wasn’t entirely false that she appeared timid and fearful in the eyes of others…
Lucy, too, was a twice-lived transmigrator who had been through her own share of trials.
‘If she were really suffering from hazing, she wouldn’t only be speaking ill of one side.’
It was a thought that came from someone who had actually lived through being bullied in the shelter.
‘If it were me, I would have cursed both sides that were hazing me.’
Come to think of it. For something meant to be given to knights, the sandwich had been far too large and delicious.
And meeting here probably wasn’t a coincidence either.
It seemed she herself might have gotten caught up in the factional strife.
‘What should I do.’
She didn’t want to be swept up in such things…
Lucy was just holding back a sigh when—
“I-I’m so sorry.”
“…”
“I’m still so inexperienced…”
Clara’s voice trembled as though she were about to cry, looking terrified.
The moment she saw that face, Lucy was reminded of the faces of the children who had cried with her in the shelter and the temple’s underground.
‘…She does look young.’
And when she glanced down, Clara’s hands were covered in wounds, as though she’d been beaten.
Lucy was silent for a moment, then nodded.
“Just don’t do it again.”
At her calm words, Clara’s face brightened once more.
Soon, she clasped Lucy’s hand tightly.
“To offer guidance even to an outsider like me… you truly are a good person, miss.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m that good a person…”
“You are to me. So much so that I’d like to stay by your side… Ah!”
Clara, who had been talking ceaselessly, lifted her head as if something had just occurred to her.
“Now that I think of it, miss, do you not yet have a personal maid?”
“Huh?”
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to serve you!”
Lucy blinked slowly.
…Setting aside how sudden this was.
She had already discerned the other’s motive.
‘More importantly, I’m a contract worker at best. A personal maid, really.’
Lucy was just about to refuse outright when—
“Wouldn’t it be absurd for someone who might become the mistress of Thesseron not to have a personal maid?”
“Keh— hack, koff, cough!“
At the sudden remark, the sandwich she’d swallowed came back up and caught in her throat.
Lucy pounded her chest, trying to shout.
“His Grace and I are that sort— that kind of…!”
But the sensations that surfaced without warning blocked the words she was about to speak.
Things she had been pretending were nothing, forcing herself to forget.
The plush feel of lips and tongue. The pleasant splashing of warm water in the tub.
The way those hands, ferocious enough to look as though they could crush anything they held, had, unexpectedly, delicately stroked her thigh…
“…Damn it.”
The moment she remembered how the low, bitten-off curse had been laced with an excitement he hadn’t managed to hide.
‘…Are we that sort of relationship?’
Honestly, even she thought… hadn’t that been an exceedingly lewd act?
If she hadn’t fainted there…
She had just been thinking this, without realizing it, when—
Clara spoke again, as if ambushing her.
“Since the two of you even bathed together, word is spreading that His Grace will soon be taking responsibility for you, miss.”
“No, he did say he’d take responsibility, but that sort of relationship…!”
She was just trying to refute, her voice having grown a little less certain at Clara’s words, when—
“We aren’t that sort of relationship, are we, Duke Thesseron!”
Unable to even finish her sentence, Lucy lifted her head at the shout that rang out simultaneously with her own voice.
And then she froze.
“…”
“…”
Stare.
Because she had locked eyes, head-on, with the person shouting at the other end of the corridor.
Flutter, flutter.
Face flushed crimson with fury, a red sash — the symbol of the temple — fluttering…
“A priest…?”
A priest of the temple.
Soon, the priest’s eyes slowly widened.
“…You!”
* * *
A few minutes before Lucy and the priest crossed paths.
“This is outrageous!”
Bang!
Tepe, who had shot up from his seat, slammed his fist down on the table, his hands trembling.
“Calm yourself, Tepe.”
“But in this situation, how can…!”
“We must not give them any leverage.”
“…”
“It would be troublesome if the temple priest outside were to notice that we are enraged.”
At Rosendal’s words, Tepe’s gaze shifted beyond the door.
The special envoy and priest sent from the temple was standing just outside, in the corridor beyond that door.
“Your Grace! Duke Thesseron!”
“…”
“Must we not discuss this at once!”
And shouting so fiercely, at that.
At any other time, even a temple priest would have lowered his posture, mindful of Edward’s gaze.
The reason he was so arrogant today was because he had backing he trusted.
“Damn it.”
Unable to hold back the curse that burst from him, Tepe bit his lip with a devastated expression.
Gorgo, standing beside him, wore an equally grave face.
“What shall we do, Your Grace.”
Rosendal, the first of the three to regain her composure, bowed her head toward Edward, who was surrounded by them.
The corner of Edward’s mouth lifted crookedly.
“Indeed. To think.”
“…”
“I never imagined they would bring a decree like this.”
Rustle, rustle.
In Edward’s hand, a thin sheet of paper turned over and over, riding his fingers.
It was paper stamped with the imperial seal.
“Just moments ago, word came from the capital…”
Right after Rosendal had come running with that.
Edward had been able to hear the full details in a place where Lucy was not present.
“…His Imperial Majesty in the capital has sent an imperial decree.”
When he first heard those words, Edward had reacted with indifference.
“Is that all?”
Meaning, was that all she had come fussing about?
If anyone else heard, they would be appalled that he dared treat an imperial decree as trivial, but this did not apply to Edward.
‘The old man has only grown more impatient with age.’
It was hardly a one-day or two-day affair that the Emperor constantly whined to Edward.
His words were always polished, but in the end, what he wanted to say was one of three things.
‘Do it for me.’
‘Help me.’
‘Resolve it for me.’
Exceedingly annoying and bothersome.
‘Seems he’s left it all to me.’
When he recalled that phrase, Lucy came to mind without his realizing it.
The image of her standing boldly before him, shouting at others, “You left it to him?!”
Edward’s gaze, which had softened considerably, swept over Lucy standing blankly in the distance.
“It wasn’t merely an imperial decree that arrived… It came with a special envoy.”
“A special envoy?”
“A special envoy sent from the temple.”
Rosendal spoke heavily.
