An escort approached as if chasing after them while they were on their way to the carriage.
“The culprit.”
Kalcion asked briefly.
“Committed suicide.”
“…Was it a foul?”
“Yes.”
“The target.”
“The direction of the arrow was swung a lot by the wind. I’m not sure.”
At that, Kalcion wrinkled his brow and clicked his tongue.
“The suicide method?”
“It’s the same assassin I heard in the room in town.”
Selina, who was also listening to the escort’s report, took a short breath.
The Crown Prince clearly said it was an accident. A similar report must have been given to him, so why did he use the word ‘accident’? Did that mean he was pretending not to have done it after ordering everything…?
If it was an assassin belonging to the same group as the assassin who tried to kill Selina in the village, it may have been aimed at her again this time.
“It’s not the Count’s silence… but it was after me?”
“We can’t jump to conclusions. Did you have an important conversation with the Count?”
“We were talking… about the Crown Prince…”
There was nothing to talk about. It just happened when they were about to talk. It was the perfect time to shut up. It may be the Count’s silence, or it may be aimed at Selina… Still, it was worth a shot for both.
Her head got tangled up again.
In the carriage, Kalcion pressed Selina’s groaning head to his body.
“Don’t think about it now. It’s not a question that can be answered even if you think about it.”
Selina nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. The dizziness did not subside easily.
Chapter 12. The Real Culprit
“Did you come? You came back early.”
In hunting contests, they hunted during the day, and cooked and ate the prey when the sun went down. In addition, drinks and songs flow over a fire, which usually lasts more than one night. It was common to come back only after the sun had set, but it was not even lunchtime yet.
Mrs. Janet was also puzzled by the Duke’s hasty return. Nevertheless, seeing Kalcion’s face harden while holding Selina, she quickly retreated.
“I will prepare a bath.”
“What about Juna?”
Selina grabbed Mrs. Janet as she was about to turn her back.
Juna was her full-time maid. No matter if she was doing something else, when she heard the news of Selina’s return, she should have jumped out before anyone else. Her own life was at stake. Now, every single piece of information Juna had in her was important.
Still, Juna didn’t show up.
…Hopefully, she hasn’t run away.
As her nerves were so high that her head became stiff, Mrs. Janet replied indifferently.
“She must be at work.”
“Must be…?”
Selina’s eyebrows twitched. It was a more intense reaction than usual. Her voice was low as if she was about to explode at any moment.
“If nothing else is going on, she’ll probably be preoccupied with her excessive work until the morning.”
She had to polish all the silverware because she was afraid that Juna might escape. It was a method that she came up with out of a dilemma as Juna couldn’t possibly be imprisoned—including punishment for what she had done in the past.
In Mrs. Janet’s eyes, who was unaware of the circumstances, it could have seemed harsh.
“So, she couldn’t come out because she’s working now.”
“If you need confirmation, I will find out.”
“That’s okay. I should go see myself.”
She didn’t even have time to haggle with someone who wasn’t cooperating with her. Selina got off Kalcion’s arm and strode towards her kitchen.
efore leaving the mansion, Juna was in a closet attached to the side of the kitchen, and she even checked to make sure there was no way to escape. Nonetheless, that would be the case if the surveillance did its work.
As she entered the kitchen, the maids who had been standing and muttering turned around in amazement.
As she was greeted, she opened the door to the closet.
“Ack…!”
Inside, the maids who were assigned to work with Juna and who were entrusted with the monitoring role were diligently polishing silverware.
Their hands stopped at the same time, startled by the door suddenly opening without warning. Juna wasn’t among them. Red and white paint exploded in her head. She had to blink her eyes at the colors that even obscured her vision.
“…What about Juna?”
“Well, she kept going in and out of the bathroom saying she felt like she had an upset stomach today… It looks like she’s… still in the bathroom.”
The maids spoke, but their words ended up in silence because they were not confident.
“What do you mean it looks like?”
“This had to be finished today… we don’t have time to check because we’re at work…”
“Ha…”
Selina sighed and touched her forehead.
In the morning, Selina brought Juna into the kitchen and told them to ‘work together’ and ‘monitor her.’ This instruction was given knowing that the maids were sensitive to the distribution of work among themselves because she couldn’t really say, ‘just watch her, so she doesn’t do anything else.’
If she ordered it like that, even though Juna was Selina’s full-time maid, Juna got accused of playing and fooling around. They would watch her like a sword as they must have monitored her.
This happened because Juna was more sensitive and stronger than expected, and the other maids were soft and gentle.
“When did she disappear?”
“A little while ago…”
“A little while ago.”
“Oh, it was not long after you left the mansion!”
In response to Selina’s tough question to not skim things over, the maid screamed in response.
“Ha…”
She sighed once more.
If it was that much time, even if she had run away, she would have gone a long way. It was not the right time to search around the mansion to find her. It was only her own loss about the inevitable. At that, Selina shook her head and turned around.
Mrs. Janet, who had followed her, was staring at Selina, hiding her displeasure.
“I don’t know when the guest was given the authority of managing the maids.”
“Juna is my maid.”
“Then, why don’t you give orders only within the scope of your duty? It’s too much to dig into the mansion management here and there.”
It was because of her position as a ‘guest’ that Mrs. Janet didn’t nag Selina. Because of that, she should not have violated Mrs. Janet’s rights as the guest. Although she understood it in her head, Selina’s expression was not as pretty as the fact that her most important witness had gone away.
“You shouldn’t have left the guest to the point where she had to step out and use her own hand.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Before Selina, Juna was a maid who was also deeply involved in Irell’s work. If Mrs. Janet thought of the family’s honor, she should have searched thoroughly to find the string connected to Lirel, or she should have kicked her out.
“If you had figured out whom she was working on and what was going on in this house, and if you had taken action, I wouldn’t have needed to come forward.”
“What, what… What do you mean?”
It didn’t matter what her inner feelings were that she stuttered. Selina anger soared to the top of her head, and she just wanted to get angry.
“They say that Renbird’s honor is the most important thing, but you have no intention of managing the inside of Renbird well, so why not stop clinging to and obsessing over only the Duke?”
“His Excellency is a Renbird.”
No matter how much pressure came, she never wavered.
Selina turned her head and snorted.
“Who are you and decide that…? If it’s a maid, I do my best to manage the maids. Don’t act like the Duke’s mother.”
She couldn’t pick out each word, so she spits out whatever came to mind. As a result, her hidden feelings that she had been holding out came out.
Mrs. Janet, who somehow hid the change in her expression, stiffened. Selina, who saw it, was also surprised. She then walked out of the kitchen while Mrs. Janet couldn’t argue with her. Because she felt uncomfortable facing her like this, she just wanted to avoid this place.
* * *
Selina was able to sit on the sofa only after closing the door tightly and listening to the footsteps of the escort taking their position outside the door. Her tense nerves couldn’t bear it any longer, and she jumped up and roamed around the room.
“Duke. What do you think of Mrs. Janet?”
“A faithful person.”
Kalcion answered the question steadily even though he did not understand the gist of the question.
“It seems to be true. Though in my eyes, it seems that she is more obsessed with the Duke than loyal to the family.”
“…Is it.”
Kalcion, who was the party involved, did not notice anything.
Mrs. Janet was just a person who took care of every nook and cranny in Kalcion’s eyes.
Just as a person was unaware of the presence of air with every breath they take, Mrs. Janet, too, was only a natural part of Kalcion’s life. He would never attach an exceptional value to the air and does not think of it with emotion.
While he would feel the void if Mrs. Janet was to disappear one day, he wouldn’t know for now. The bodily organs needed to be broken, too, for their presence to be recognized.
“Mrs. Janet, how did she get to work at Renbird?”
“It’s been quite a while.”
Kalcion dug his thoughts and pulled the cloak off his shoulder. He had no choice but to take it off with his own hands. It was not a story to be told by the servants.
“I’ll help you.”
Selina, who was watching, came and helped. No matter how he could untie the cloak, he needed help dismantling her armor. It wasn’t difficult for her to dismantle, as she helped him put it on.
She began to remove the armor.
“It was before I was even born. In the capital, I heard that my father, the former Duke Renbird, was on his way back to Silenza and saw her.”
“On the way back?”
“Even though I don’t know the details, it looks like she was in trouble. He couldn’t leave her alone, so he brought her to Silenza castle, and she said she didn’t want to go back to her husband’s estate at the time, Merin, and begged him to do maid work.”
“In trouble?”
“I haven’t listened to that in detail, so I don’t remember…”
“Then, he has been living at Renbird Castle ever since then, hasn’t she? As a maid.”
“She’s still a noble lady, so she can’t be the lowest maid so she was once my nanny.”
“Once…?”
When one was hired as a nanny, didn’t they usually stay with the child until they were an adult unless something big happened…?
“Although I was told that mother vehemently objected and she eventually made her her handmaid.”
“…Isn’t it strange?”
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