Dare to Lie [Novel] Chapter 21 – A New Hand and a New Home

The maid seemed so shaken that she sat quietly by the side of the passage where I led her, continuing to sniffle. While she calmed down, I called over a passing servant to clean up the broken shards and handed her a handkerchief I had brought in my pocket.

I wondered if I sounded too cold, but fortunately, the maid tried her best to stop crying even as she hiccuped.

Someone else had to consider ending their life, but not you.

Maya mumbled, pressing the already soaked handkerchief to her eyes as if she were about to cry again.

I asked out of sheer absurdity, and an even more absurd story poured out.

Apparently, a thug in his mid-thirties in her neighborhood had taken a liking to Maya and tried to force her to marry him. This was when she was only sixteen years old.

Hmm. Considering how many bastards would think of doing even worse things, I suppose he’s a bit of a romantic in his own way. Though, of course, it must be terrifying for the person on the receiving end.

Fortunately, an elderly person who felt sorry for her had arranged a job as a maid so she could make a living, and after working elsewhere, she had come here starting last year.

Maya seemed to have finally stopped crying; she took a deep breath and bowed her head to me.

I stared at her for a moment as a good idea occurred to me.

At those words, Maya’s swollen eyes went wide.

Given the difference in the cost of living between Tesis and Herona, they only gave her an extra 100,000 Gilden? And for a commuting maid at that.

Of course, I wasn’t exactly well-off either, but I felt I could afford to be a bit more generous.

It was a bit bitter, but it was the truth. Even though it was publicly known that Emma, my personal maid, had died, even Count and Countess Brow hadn’t introduced a maid to me. It would have been easier for them to keep tabs on me if they had attached one of their own maids to me.

Of course, I might have been able to get an experienced maid if I requested one from an employment agency, but the resumes from those places weren’t exactly trustworthy….

I told her where to report for work starting tomorrow.

I had been uncomfortable having to watch my words and actions in front of the Brow family’s maid, but now that I had my own maid, things would be a bit easier.

Attending the Dartmouth tea party hadn’t been a bad experience.

First, I was able to confirm the details regarding Arthur Gottfried and his ‘childhood friend,’ I got to eavesdrop on the latest social news, and I managed to irritate Heather Dartmouth while gaining a personal maid.

‘This is actually quite excellent!’

The Count and Countess Brow seemed to want me to get along with Heather Dartmouth, but aren’t there just some people in the world you’re biologically incompatible with?

I could have forced it if I had to, but was there any reason to go that far?

‘If we ever end up in a situation where we cross paths often, I can just pretend to be close then.’

Thinking lightly of it, I first informed the Count and Countess Brow that I had hired a new maid.

They wore expressions of confusion.

They couldn’t argue with that.

‘Did you think I wouldn’t know the maid you assigned to me was also acting as my watcher?’

That young, obedient maid was quite brisk and clever, but she didn’t yet know how wide the world was.

My dear. There are many people in this world who grew up seeing all sorts of despicable and filthy things from birth. If you roll your eyes that loudly, there are places where you’ll die without anyone knowing.

If you were going to try to deceive me, you should have been more thorough.

I simply smiled in front of the delighted Countess Brow.

And that afternoon, Maya arrived as promised. She was momentarily confused about staying at the Brow estate as a maid for Baroness Tesis, but she soon nodded in understanding.

Since she was a maid with only three years of experience, I thought she might be a bit clumsy, but she was surprisingly deft and intelligent.

‘She’s pretty enough that if she’d joined a theater troupe, she might have snagged a lead role.’

Able to relax in a comfortable posture for the first time in a while, I watched Maya as she set up her own bed in a corner of my room and asked her a question.

I felt a brief hesitation before she said they were dead, but I didn’t pry. I had a strong feeling that they might actually be alive, but I figured there was no point in me knowing the tedious history that led her to say her living parents were dead.

At that question, Maya remained silent for much longer than when she had answered that her parents were dead.

It seemed she was living a life that wasn’t exactly smooth sailing either.

I had taken this opportunity to move my quarters in the Count’s estate to the second floor of the west wing.

I felt self-conscious using the guest suite in the central wing when I wasn’t even a close relative of the Brows, and it was also uncomfortable to live with my nerves constantly on edge.

Though they didn’t say it, the Count and Countess must have found it quite bothersome as well, because when I gave a plausible excuse for wanting to move rooms, they readily agreed.

I also received additional rooms to be used by the servants I employed.

Maya prostrated herself on the floor and bowed several times in gratitude.

Even as I received her thanks, I felt somewhat bitter.

Strictly speaking, I had only provided a room to keep the hands I needed close by, yet to that maid, it was salvation.

‘The world is truly unfair, and I am participating in it.’

The next day, Maya entered the Brow estate with a boy whose face was almost entirely hidden by blonde hair and another boy who looked exactly like her, though a bit younger.

Both boys bowed, but the voice greeting me came only from the younger one.