Chapter: 3
I had learned that it was polite to give your name when someone gave theirs. But it seemed that the young master I was to serve wasn’t very polite.
The young master replied curtly.
“Who asked you that?”
“Pardon?”
“You grabbed the pillow and the clock! How could an ordinary maid do that?”
“Well… I’m a bit athletic.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
The young master looked incredulous, then immediately snapped sharply.
“You… you’re an assassin sent to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
An assassin? Just because I’m athletic?
“Lisa, see that? You saw it too, right?”
What exactly did he see? What part of my actions looked like I was an assassin?!
I felt wronged, but I couldn’t interrupt the young master, so I just glanced at Lisa. She sighed once and then spoke calmly.
“Yes, I saw it. You were just bullying the new maid, young master.”
Lisa, you’re the best!
The young master, who had been smug thinking Lisa would side with him, instantly turned into a gloomy pout.
“If Mary had failed to catch the clock, she could have been seriously injured. You’re not such a child that you don’t know not to throw things at people, are you?”
“W-Well…”
“Then you should apologize to Mary.”
“What? No way. Why should I apologize to a mere maid?”
“If you don’t properly apologize to Mary, I will report this to Mistress.”
Flinching at the mention of Rianne, the young master moved his lips with a displeased expression.
“Fine. Are you satisfied now?”
If it weren’t for the “Are you satisfied now?” part, that was a perfect apology.
“Yes, I’m fine, young master.”
Since he had apologized, I accepted it graciously. Children with pride often have a hard time admitting mistakes and apologizing, so this was enough.
“Since you’ve apologized, don’t tell Mother about this.”
“Understood. We’ll let this slide for now. But if this happens again, I will report it to Mistress immediately.”
“…Fine.”
The young master answered sullenly. Then, he glared at me and said to the head maid.
“Fire that ugly girl.”
Ugly girl? Did he just say that to me?
I was so stunned that I forgot he was the young master and asked anyway.
“Young master, what makes you think I’m ugly?”
“From head to toe. Your hair is like straw, your eyes are yellow like a snake, freckles all over your nose… you look like a witch’s minion.”
I felt wronged.
I wasn’t as beautiful as a fairy-tale princess, but in my village, people called me a pretty, cute little girl.
“Mary is really pretty. Her hair is soft like freshly spun thread, and her eyes are bright like spring flowers.”
I remembered the compliments from my childhood friend Ian and argued silently to myself.
‘It’s not that I’m ugly; it’s that the young master has no eye for beauty.’
And calling me a witch’s minion… really.
I had a lot to say, but I held my tongue.
Patience, patience.
I can’t act childish and fight a boy four years younger than me. Especially since I’ll have to serve him.
“Young master.”
Lisa scolded the young master on my behalf. He pouted but replied curtly.
“Am I wrong? And that girl isn’t even noble, right? From her tone, she seems like a country bumpkin. I can’t stand someone like her around me, so fire her immediately.”
Seeing the young master show not a shred of consideration for me, I realized that it would be difficult to get close to him.
Imagining a future with this haughty and mean young master, who had no charm whatsoever, already gave me a headache.
The next morning.
As I carried breakfast for the young master, I recalled what Lisa had told me.
“Mary, you know that Mistress Rianne had a carriage accident in the past, right?”
“Yes. I read about it in the newspaper.”
The carriage Rianne and her husband, the Grand Duke, were riding had a wheel suddenly collapse.
The carriage fell off a bridge, killing the Grand Duke instantly, while Rianne barely survived.
But the carriage fell into a river infamously known as cursed, polluted with industrial waste.
Rianne’s body was covered in mysterious black stains. The blackened areas would sometimes burn as if on fire, causing excruciating pain.
“Fortunately, treatment helped remove some of it… but not all.”
Rianne suffered from depression due to the loss of her husband and the pain. She even considered joining him in death… until she discovered she was pregnant.
“That child was the young master, Ricardo Hamilton.”
Rianne prayed that her child would not share her misfortune. But the baby was also covered in black marks.
Fortunately, he was still a child, and with proper treatment, he could be fully healed.
Following the doctor’s advice, Rianne had the young master stay in the annex until he was fully treated, protecting him from people’s ridicule.
“Everyone who saw Mistress Rianne reacted the same way. They screamed in shock or looked as if they’d seen a monster.”
She hid her son to prevent him from inheriting her humiliation and suffering.
“The young master has lived alone in the annex since birth. So he’s a little awkward around people.”
“So no one’s been taking care of him all this time?”
“Yes. The staff she hired either quit quickly or caused problems and were dismissed.”
“What kind of problems?”
I asked to avoid making the same mistakes, but Lisa just smiled without answering.
“Don’t worry. Mary will be fine.”
What exactly did she mean by “fine”?
One thing was certain: both Rianne and Lisa believed I could handle this.
I wanted to live up to their trust.
To do that, I had to get along with the young master.
I clenched my fist and braced myself.
“All right, let’s do this!”
But not even five minutes after shouting that, I ran into a huge problem.
Knock. Knock.
“Young master…!”
Knock knock knock.
“I brought your breakfast. Please open the door!”
Bang bang bang!
No matter how much I knocked, there was no answer. I tried to open the door with the key Lisa had given me…
Click, click.
It wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I pulled. Something must have been blocking it.
There was nothing I could do… I sighed, staring at the stubborn door.
What now?
After a while, the hallway outside went quiet.
“Gone?”
Ricardo, having bolted the door and even fixed a chair in front of it, tiptoed to check if I was outside.
Peeking through the gap, he smiled.
“Gone.”
Of course. The door was locked; what could she do?
He chuckled at the trolley with the breakfast left behind, planning to complain that the scrawny maid didn’t serve it properly so she could be fired.
‘In case that strange girl comes back, I’ll open the door later.’
Feeling relieved, he turned—
Clack—.
Ricardo froze at the sound of the balcony window opening behind the curtain. A shadow appeared faintly through the curtain.
Someone had entered through the balcony window.
“Wh-Who’s there?!”
A pointless question. If someone was entering through the window, it could only be an assassin.
At this early hour? Really?
Blocked by the chair, he couldn’t escape. Ricardo, pale as a sheet, didn’t know what to do when the firmly closed curtain suddenly swung open.
“Ugh! It’s so bright…”
Squinting, Ricardo cautiously confirmed the intruder’s face.
It was a familiar face.
“Y-You…!”
The strange girl standing confidently on the balcony, Mary, smiled brightly.
“Good morning, young master! Here’s your breakfast!”
