C186
Jack, Terence's assistant, was also there.
Jack asked, looking at his master, who seemed annoyed.
"What do we do, Marquess? There's a shortage of maids to work in the mansion."
"It makes no sense for a Marquess to have the honor of hiring someone who didn't even bring a letter of recommendation."
"... In fact, the Marquess dismissed almost all the employees who brought letters of recommendation."
"What?"
"Oh, it's nothing!"
"Well, do as you please. Should I even bother hiring a maid? Hey, you."
"Yes, yes!"
Ethel flinched as Terence looked at her with piercing eyes and grabbed her tattered sleeve.
"Looking at it, it seems you couldn't even get a letter of recommendation because you were in such a hurry to run away from home or your previous master's house. That's none of my concern, so just do your job well. Then Jack will pay you generously."
"Yes, I'll work hard!"
And so Ethel was hired by the Marquess of Freeheiden.
Jack told Ethel as he showed her the place where she would stay and the mansion.
"The Marquess is a very sensitive person, so you have to be careful."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Don't approach, especially if he complains of a headache."
"Um, does a headache make him sensitive?"
"That's right. Even so, it wasn't as bad before, but what's with that damn headache...?"
Jack cleared his throat a couple of times, as if he had said something unnecessary, and told her to ask the rest of the detailed work instructions from the head housekeeper, then disappeared.
After returning to the dormitory assigned to her, Ethel placed her only belongings, a tattered bag, on the floor and strengthened her determination.
"I'll never go back to that house. So I can't let myself be kicked out of here. Hang in there."
After that, Ethel's life as a maid began.
Perhaps because she had lived almost like a maid in the Wallace house, she easily performed the tasks assigned to her.
The head maid and Jack, who were indifferent at first, soon became friendly with sincere Ethel.
Fortunately, until then, she had never had to come close to the terrifying Marquess Freeheiden.
One day, Ethel took on one of her duties at the request of a servant.
It was simply a matter of placing the newspaper delivered at the entrance on the Marquess's office desk.
Ethel was nervous about encountering the Marquess, but fortunately, he wasn't in the office.
As she was about to relax and leave the newspaper on the desk, suddenly one of the articles in the newspaper caught her attention.
[Leandro Cassius, young Duke of Cassius, defies everyone's expectations and marries a rural noble!]
Ethel opened the newspaper with trembling hands.
The newspaper article covered the wedding of the young Duke Cassius, which took place yesterday with a grand ceremony.
"Is there an interesting article?"
Ethel, who was reading the article with mixed emotions, suddenly heard a voice coming from behind.
Ethel was startled and urgently bowed her head to the person who appeared in her office.
"I'm sorry, Marquess! I was presumptuous and read the Marquess's newspaper without permission. Please don't dismiss me. I have nowhere else to go except here!"
"... How the hell do I look? I won't fire you just for reading the newspaper."
"That..."
"Or will I? If I'm in a bad mood, I might fire you. You're lucky. I'm fine right now."
The Marquess looked at the newspaper Ethel was holding and smirked cynically.
"Are you jealous too? Is this the Agatha Wallace who went from being the daughter of a bankrupt family to becoming the wife of young Duke Cassius?"
"......"
"Everyone was talking about it. The news spread like wildfire."
"Well. Everyone's values may be different, but I'm not actually jealous. Because according to the family's interests, she ends up with a man she doesn't love."
"... It seems you're convinced that the young Countess Wallace doesn't love Leandro Cassius."
"Oh, no, what I meant was that it was an arranged marriage."
"Is that so? Anyway, you have quite a bold personality."
"What?"
"I'm also an aristocrat, so if I marry, I'll have to do so following someone else's choice, but I can't believe you're saying in front of me that you don't feel envious of a political marriage."
"... I'm sorry. I was presumptuous."
"Do you want to stop working?"
"W-What? No! Please don't do that!"
"I'm joking."
The man chuckled and said mischievously.
"Don't keep shrinking like someone who's committed a sin. It just makes me want to tease you."
Damn it, he's just making people crumble for no reason. Ethel, who was dusting the window frame, muttered quietly.
It's been several days already, but every time she thinks of that day, her heart races.
"But he didn't seem like a bad person."
The employees working in this mansion turned pale and fell silent when they heard the name of Marquess Freeheiden.
So, in Ethel's imagination, he was closer to a fearsome villain, but when she actually met him, he didn't seem so bad.
The third encounter with the Marquess further strengthened Ethel's thoughts.
"What are you doing there like a rat?"
These were the first words he said when he saw Ethel sneaking into the Marquess's study at night and reading a book.
Ethel tightly closed her eyes, thinking they were about to be fired.
No matter how hungry she was for books, she should have restrained herself, but the Marquess's study was filled with books she had always wanted to read, so she gave in to the desire.
Ethel, who grew up in the Wallace family, was always hungry for knowledge.
They had no intention of giving Ethel anything more than a basic education.
Moreover, here were rare books that Ethel, who was just a maid, would never be able to buy in her life.
"I'm sorry, Marquess! Even if I had ten mouths..."
"You're reading a quite difficult book."
"Really?"
-"You. When I first saw you, your appearance was pitiful, and your behavior had a slightly servile quality, but if you look closely, your behavior is noble."
Ethel's heart sank.
How did he know? Even her colleagues who spent a lot of time with her naturally thought of her as a commoner.
-"W-what do you mean...?"
-"If you think about it, the newspaper you read at that time was also a newspaper that used a lot of advanced vocabulary because its readers are mainly from the upper class."
The Marquess approached slowly and placed both hands on the shelf behind Ethel.
The shelf was behind her, and the Marquess's arms on both sides. She was trapped and had no way to escape.
He looked at Ethel silently for a while and then took a step back.
"Anyway, I like you. I think I've said it before, but as long as you work hard, it's none of my concern beyond that."
-"... Is he forgiving me?"
-"Yes. But unless you want to be kicked out for stealing, wouldn't it be better to turn on the lights from now on?"
From now on? Does that mean she can continue reading books in the library?
Ethel wanted to ask, but she didn't have the courage to say anything more to the Marquess's back as he left the study, so she simply toyed with the book in her hand.
The next day, Jack told the employees that they could use the Marquess's study as they pleased until past midnight, except during working hours.
Most of the servants were afraid of the Marquess and had no interest in a library that didn't contain popular novels, so in the end, Ethel was the only one who used the library.
As she read more books, Ethel became increasingly favorable toward the Marquess.
Her heart still trembled when she remembered how he doubted her the other day, but oddly, the tremor didn't seem as strong.
One more surprising thing was that Ethel kept her eyes on the Marquess.
Even if she was washing a window, if she saw him walking in the garden, her eyes would stay on him for a long time.
There was a moment when she felt she had made eye contact with the Marquess and was so startled that she hid under the window.
When she looked back out the window, she saw the Marquess walking as if nothing had happened, so she probably was mistaken.
Anyway, time passed like water.
One day, when Ethel began to feel fortunate to be able to escape from the Wallace family thanks to her peaceful daily life, an incident occurred.
While she was picking up dirty clothes with other maids, she heard the sound of something breaking.
Then, she heard the sound of an unknown object crashing and someone screaming.
She listened carefully and realized that the sound was coming from the floor where Marquess Freeheiden lived.
Ethel was about to run to see what had happened, but her fellow maids stopped her.
-"Stop. It could turn into a big problem."
-"It finally arrived."
-"Is this the beginning of hell?"
-"It was nice having this peace for a while."
When Ethel asked the reason, they explained it to her quietly so no one else could hear.
-"The Marquess's headaches are chronic, but there are periods when they become particularly severe. Usually, he is a good employer and is in good condition for long trips."
-"But when that time comes, nothing remains standing in the mansion."
-"There was a servant who wandered nearby for no reason and was accused of being a spy sent by the Empress and was nearly executed."
-"Well, I really understand why he's so sensitive since I heard there were several real spies during that time."
-"But in a situation like ours, if he suspects us just once, it's over, so we have to be as careful as possible. Do you understand?"
It was an incredible story for Ethel.
The Marquess of Freeheiden, whom she met, was a sharp and mischievous person, but he had the kindness to open his study for a simple maid.
However, Ethel couldn't ignore her colleagues' warnings, so she decided to be as careful as possible.
She walked quietly on tiptoe, and when she saw the Marquess from afar, she took a different route.
But there were days when she couldn't do that.
-"... out."
That day, while the Marquess was eating, he suddenly complained of a severe headache and dismissed his servants.
But a problem arose.
While he was holding his head in pain, the shards of the broken water glass got stuck in his hand, and blood began to flow.
The blood gushing from his hand, probably because the wound was deep, quickly formed a small pool on the floor.
She felt she needed to remove the glass pieces before they dug deeper into his skin, but the other employees, fearing the Marquess, had quickly left the dining room.
Normally, Jack, who had served the Marquess for longer, would have stepped forward, but today he had left the mansion for a job.
In the dining room, only the injured Marquess and Ethel remained.
Ethel approached him cautiously.
-"... I told you to leave."
Ethel also wanted to flee, but when she saw him bleeding continuously, she couldn't bear to leave.
-"I-I'll quickly remove the glass shard and stop the bleeding."
-"Don't you understand that I'm telling you to get out?"
-"But Marquess, your hand is important, so if you accidentally hurt yourself..."
It was at the moment Ethel tried to carefully take the hand of the man who had his head bowed.
-"Get out! Get out of here!"
The Marquess shouted in a sharp voice, and Ethel fell backward.
At that moment, his image overlapped with that of Countess Wallace, who was screaming and hitting young Ethel, and tears welled up in Ethel's eyes.
Terence looked at her with a puzzled expression.
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