Chapter 15
“Your Highness, Edwin.”
As if he hadn’t completely lost his reason, the head maid greeted Edwin politely.
The other maids followed her lead, bowing to the prince.
“We were merely punishing someone who dared to disrupt the order of the Third Prince’s Palace.”
At the head maid’s courteous explanation, Edwin, who had been standing silently, turned toward her.
“Who disrupted the order?”
“…Pardon?”
It was something no one could have anticipated.
Even when the maids serving him bullied him, or the head maid scolded him harshly, he was the prince who would say nothing while gauging their moods.
Yet here he was, suddenly displaying such a high-handed attitude.
The head maid’s eyes widened in shock.
I was surprised by the unexpected turn of events, but I could tell.
The fist of the boy who had burst in so boldly was clenched so tightly that it had turned bone-white.
His large eyes were trembling ever so slightly.
‘Why?’
He was clearly terrified.
And yet, Edwin stood his ground there.
I couldn’t fathom the reason at all.
“The one who disrupted the order isn’t that woman. It’s you.”
Edwin glared at the head maid and continued word by deliberate word.
He lacked the commanding presence of imperial blood, but he didn’t seem like an easy pushover either.
“Y-Your Highness, how can you say such a thing…….”
“I’m the master of the Third Prince’s Palace. You know that too, don’t you, Head Maid?”
At Edwin’s question, the head maid could only work her lips silently.
Her face was that of someone wondering why this brat was suddenly acting up.
“Everything in this place belongs to me by default. Right?”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
“The maids are the same. Aren’t they?”
“Th-that’s right.”
Edwin stared at her silently and continued at her affirmation.
“But I don’t need those maids. They were your maids from the start, not mine.”
Silence fell over the room at Edwin’s words.
No one present was too foolish to understand the young prince’s meaning.
The maids looked extremely tense at his declaration, while the head maid stood frozen, her face hardened.
“But this woman is different.”
“…Pardon?”
“This woman is the nanny for me and Lia. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The head maid’s face crumpled even further at Edwin’s words.
But the prince ignored her reaction and pressed on.
As if he were a young king proclaiming an important fact.
“My nanny is mine. No one but me and Lia can touch her.”
“That’s right! Nanny belongs to Oppa and Lia!”
Up until then, Emilia, who had been hiding silently behind her brother, asserted her own claim of ownership.
Edwin gripped her hand tightly.
“I’ll be the one to punish her if needed, and I’ll be the one to reward her too. So…….”
He spat the words through gritted teeth.
“If you ever lay a hand on my nanny again, I won’t stand by anymore. Head Maid.”
It was the first counterattack the prince had launched against the world surrounding him.
* * *
“Nanny, does it hurt a lot?”
“No.”
Emilia, nestled in my arms, looked up at me with teary eyes.
“But it looks like it hurts?”
“I’m fine.”
“No. Lia will blow on it. It’ll get better fast if Lia blows on it.”
Emilia puffed her ticklish breath onto my cheek, hoo-hoo.
The young imperial princess didn’t yet know that warm air on a slapped spot only made it sting more.
Just as I was letting Emilia’s breath wash over me without a second thought, Edwin, who had been staring out the window the whole time, turned to me and shouted.
“You idiot—!”
Startled by his sudden yell, Emilia flinched and shrank her shoulders.
“Do you have any idea what happens if you take on that witch hag? Do you?!”
“Please lower your voice. You’ve scared Her Highness Emilia.”
Edwin glanced at his frightened sister’s face and bit his lip.
“You have no idea what you made me do.”
He muttered to himself in a voice he’d forced much lower.
“That witch hag’s definitely going to go tattle to the Second Imperial Consort. She’ll tattle on everything.”
So the object of Edwin’s fear wasn’t the head maid or Lady Katrina—it was the Second Imperial Consort.
“Then why did you step in?”
“What?”
“Your Highness is a coward, after all.”
“Wh-what?”
For the ‘young and incompetent Third Prince,’ it would have been right not to step forward in a situation like the one just now.
And yet, I was curious about the psychology of the boy who had done so upon seeing my slapped cheek.
Edwin’s mouth flapped open and shut for a long while, as if I’d hit a nerve.
Then, his face flushing with anger, he yelled.
“Y-yeah, I’m a coward!”
I hadn’t expected him to admit it so readily.
With surprised eyes, I watched as he boldly shouted at me.
“But I’m not a coward! I promised Emma I wouldn’t become a cowardly person!”
Not a coward?
I raised an eyebrow at his response.
“So you helped me because you’re not a coward?”
“Yeah! And since you helped me, I was just returning the favor.”
He proudly held up the bracelet on his wrist for me to see.
The one I had retrieved from Gail’s gang.
“I’m someone who knows how to repay a debt!”
Someone who repays favors.
‘To think such a spirited line would come from that cheeky little brat’s mouth.’
I stared at the prince’s bracelet before letting out a soft chuckle.
“I see.”
“W-why are you laughing?”
“It’s nothing. I feel the same way, Your Highness.”
I gently touched my slightly swollen cheek and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“If you’ve received a favor, it’s only right to return it in kind.”
I bared my teeth in a grin at Edwin.
“Since I’m not one to forget a favor either.”
* * *
That evening,
Catherine rose to change out of her ruined clothes.
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong, Catherine?”
“My maid uniform’s gone. And that was my only spare.”
Catherine made a pouty face at her roommate.
The roommate suddenly clapped her knee as if remembering something.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. The nanny borrowed your maid uniform.”
“What? The nanny did?”
“She said she’d return it clean.”
“Really? Does she not have anything else to wear right now? Why borrow a maid uniform of all things?”
Catherine scratched her cheek with a troubled expression, then thought of the new nanny.
A kind face that didn’t match her cold demeanor.
Actions that seemed indifferent yet gentle.
Catherine thought of that nanny and chuckled to herself.
“She’s a really strange nanny.”
“Yeah, she is strange, right? I think so too.”
“Huh?”
“I mean the new nanny. Something’s off about her, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like the questions she asked us earlier.”
Catherine recalled the questions the nanny had asked the annex maids that afternoon.
“What about them?”
“Well, it’s just… asking about the head maid’s relationship with Lady Katrina, or when the head maid goes out…….”
The maid muttered as if it rubbed her the wrong way.
“She was prying into every detail of the head maid’s daily routine.”
“She might just be curious.”
“Well, maybe. But still.”
The maid nodded at Catherine’s words before suddenly shuddering.
“But that vibe… it was kinda eerie. A bit scary, right?”
“Huh?”
“With that kindly face, but those eyes look like they could kill a bunch of people.”
Catherine frowned at the maid’s words.
“Don’t make jokes like that. She helped me out.”
When Catherine turned serious, the maid shrugged awkwardly.
“Yeah, well. I heard there was a huge fuss at the main office over this incident anyway.”
“Huh? A fuss?”
“Yeah, they say the head maid slapped the nanny across the face.”
“What?!”
Catherine yelped in shock, and the maid shushed her.
“Keep it down. You’ll wake the others.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“It’s fine. Anyway, they say His Highness Edwin stepped in and it got sorted out.”
“His Highness Edwin did?”
“Yeah. The same one who couldn’t even utter a word when Lady Conrad went through something like that.”
At the maid’s words, Catherine quietly bowed her head.
“What’s wrong, Catherine?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Catherine blinked for a moment before breaking into a bright smile.
“I just have this feeling that something big is about to change.”
“Change? What?”
“Just… everything.”
“Do you have divine powers or something? Can you see the future?”
“No, it’s just a hunch, hehe.”
The utterly ordinary human Catherine had no idea yet.
That her hunch would soon become reality.
* * *
The head maid of the Third Prince’s Palace was busy clacking away at her abacus again today.
“This month’s not looking good at all.”
She grumbled irritably to herself, rolling the pen in her hand to a stop as she reviewed the documents.
Just then, as she was drawing lines over the numbers,
A knock came from outside.
“Head Maid, it’s time to go.”
“Already? I suppose I should.”
The head maid hurriedly hid the documents, threw on an outer garment, and left the office.
It was just another routine day for her.
Perhaps that was why.
She didn’t notice.
The firmly shut office door opening silently.
Or the shadow slipping through the gap and vanishing.
* * *
The head maid’s office smelled of expensive incense.
Far too luxurious for a mere baroness’s wife.
Now, let’s see.
I began rummaging through the room as naturally as if I owned the place.
I had to finish up quickly while the head maid was away at the Second Imperial Consort’s palace.
‘Just as the annex maids said.’
Rule number one for an assassin.
Thorough prior investigation.
Combining the information from the annex maids with several days of observing her, the head maid wouldn’t return from the Second Imperial Consort’s palace for at least an hour.
I pulled books from the shelf one by one and flipped through them.
How long had I been searching?
A gold necklace tumbled out from between the pages of one.
It was unmistakably imperial, dazzlingly ornate and gleaming as if polished daily.
