Chapter 31
"Is the bath far away? I’ll walk on my own."
"It’s not far, but the floor is dirty. You might hurt your foot."
What she said wasn’t a joke. The hallway we first entered was the cleanest. The further I went into the hallway, the more everything was cluttered with that unknown mold. What the hell is this mold? The Grand Duchy of Berg, the largest family after the imperial family. Who would believe that the mansion, base of the Grand Duchy, would be a mess?
If the bath were like this, I really wouldn’t want to bathe, but fortunately, the bath was clean. Martha filled the empty tub, saying she had previously boiled hot water, and I slowly immersed myself in the warm water.
And I realized again that my body wasn’t as frozen as I thought. While half asleep on the horse, Lesche held me tightly. It’s probably because he transferred some of his body heat to me.
Somehow I felt a little strange. After soaking in the warm water for a while, I told her what happened with me and Lesche.
"Oh, my goodness. That’s the story."
"Yes."
"Actually, what I thought the first time I saw the young lady and His Highness."
"Yes?"
Martha said she thought Lesche was trying to kidnap me and hide me here. I asked seriously.
"His Highness isn’t the type of person who would do that, right?"
"He’s more emotional than you think," Martha said with a smile.
Actually, she wasn’t wrong. I would never have agreed if I hadn’t read the original story, but… After realizing his feelings for the heroine, Lesche, who seemed cold, indifferent, and strangely tormented by his life, simply rushed forward without looking back.
Yes, it was more accurate to say that he moved by instinct. In the original story, there was nothing that paralyzed his reason except Lina. He was never an emotionally weak man.
"Now, tilt your head back."
I tilted my head back as Martha told me. Martha wetted my hair with warm water and lathered it up. The bubbles smelled of mugwort, as if it were handmade soap in the mansion.
It seems that my scalp also froze from the cold. After raising my temperature several times with warm water, my whole body relaxed. I blinked and looked around the bath. I noticed the bath was very simple. The bath in my detached house is much more colorful than this.
Martha spoke as if she had read my question.
"This is our bath. All the other baths are hard to use."
"Is there anyone else here?"
"There are three more people besides me. There’s also a gardener. And there’s a maid. When the cart arrives, she’ll dry your clothes."
(N/T: It literally says 침모, which is a woman who works in someone’s house and takes care of sewing, so it would be a seamstress (? .)
I was perplexed. At first, I thought the reason why this mansion was so dirty was that it didn’t have enough employees. I don’t know why, but I thought Lesche decided to close this mansion and let Martha take care of it. I thought it was a mess because it was naturally hard to clean...
"Isn’t the outer garden too ugly to have a gardener? If they had received a notification that the lady would come, they would have pulled out all the weeds the day before..."
"In winter?"
"No problem."
"You are very kind."
Martha smiled.
"Wait a moment, miss."
She left me alone in the bath for a while and returned shortly after. In her hand was a pair of slippers.
"I just remembered I have a new pair. I thought they’d fit the lady’s feet well."
After finishing the bath, Martha wrapped my head with a towel and dried it, then opened her eyes wide.
"Oh, is this a Stern mark? I’ve only heard of it..."
"Oh, yes. That’s right."
"Oh, my goodness. It’s amazing how it’s a red dot."
A red star-shaped dot on the back of my neck. This is a sign from God that no one else will ever be able to imitate, and because it can be pursued for blasphemy if done.
Now that I think about it, in the original story, there was an episode where Lina went to the ballroom with her hair up and crushed all the nobles who looked down on her with contempt.
Seria could do it if she wanted, but she didn’t bother to style her hair, show her mark, and prove she was Stern. I could fully guess why. If Seria raised her eyebrows and looked at her opponent as if she wanted to kill them, almost everything would be resolved.
She had such a comfortable face...
Martha applied perfume to my hair and brushed it with a fine brush.
"All right, young lady. Could you lift your foot?"
I lifted it gently. Martha gently grasped my feet and put the slippers on me. I blinked.
I hadn’t noticed it before because of the foam and the sponge, but Martha had many calluses on her hands.
"Was she a knight?"
Bibi's hands were like this.
I don’t know exactly why, but I felt like she was someone who held something as heavy and hard as a sword for a long time.
But the smile she had was so warm that in its own way, there was a sense of disparity in it. I guess she has worked hard.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think there are other workers in Laurel Mansion. Does she sweep and clean this spacious mansion by herself? Why does Lesche leave this mansion unguarded? Did something bad happen?
It didn’t seem like Lesche had a bad relationship with Martha, so why is she suffering in this spacious mansion?
There was a limit to guessing since she didn’t even appear in the original story. I looked around the bath once more, wiping my face with the towel Martha handed me. Even in the rarely cleaned corner of the bath, the black mold was slowly increasing.
Berg’s chief aide, Linon, was trembling.
He really didn’t like coming to Laurel Mansion. There were many reasons, but the main reason was that Laurel Mansion was also dirty. No matter how beautiful and old the mansion is, Linon could never like the mansion occupied by those moldy black shadows.
"This green mansion is still here."
At Linon’s lamentable comments, a middle-aged man who was handing him a dry towel smiled.
"It has always been like this. Since that day."
Linon frowned.
"Doesn’t Ben feel uncomfortable living here?"
"What’s the problem? I’ve been here for over 10 years."
A middle-aged man, called Ben, was neatly dressed in a black suit, the one usually worn by butlers of the Glick Empire.
In the front pocket, the butler's monocle was placed at an angle in the front pocket.
Linon spoke in a disgusted voice.
"Everyone wonders about the butler of the grand duchy whose face they can’t even see. Tell His Highness and just return to the main mansion."
"He doesn’t have many guests at the mansion anyway, does he?"
"Yes, yes, if it weren’t for Lady Seria’s wedding this time… Oh, by the way, butler Ben asked me who Lady Seria was."
It was so cold that he forgot what he was going to say because he was trembling.
Because Linon was particularly vulnerable to the cold. He squeezed his face tightly with a dry towel Ben brought, warmed it over the stove, and briefly told him what had happened.
"Who would know? I didn’t expect His Highness Berg to get married like this. I’m glad it was Stern’s wedding. It would have been a disgrace for the grand duke if that had happened during a normal lady’s wedding."
"His Highness wouldn’t have saved a woman who wasn’t Stern."
"Well, that’s true."
Actually, it was a bit embarrassing to call it a wedding, and for years it would be the noisiest wedding in imperial society. Maybe even after all the main actors of society retired honorably, they would say, "In my day, there was this nonsense…" it was gossip that could be passed down from generation to generation.
It was as good as an Imperial scandal.
Anyway, Lesche brought Seria to Laurel Mansion. No one disobeyed because that is the will of their lord.
"So, that’s what happened. In the duchy, she is usually called 'Lady Seria.' Or sometimes we call her Lady Stern… It has not yet been officially approved by the royal family, and the wedding situation is very special."
Ben had a slight impression, and his personality was also very kind. As if suddenly remembering something, he asked while shaking the towel Linon couldn’t shake well.
"By the way, Linon."
"Yes?"
"If it’s Seria Stern... Isn’t that the cruel and arrogant Stern that Linon criticized two years ago?"
"..."
Linon closed his mouth. Then he looked back at the ominous feeling that Seria might be watching him from behind. Of course, no one was there.
"Yes, I’m sure she’s still bathing."
Still...
"T-That was two years ago. She has changed a lot since then," Linon whispered immediately. "Please never tell Lady Seria what I said a long time ago. We’re on good terms now, I don’t want to change that."
"All right, but how much has her attitude changed?"
