Those Who Do Not Forget Grace (1)
“Your Highness Edwin.”
At least the head maid hadn’t completely lost her senses. She offered Edwin a polite bow.
The other maids quickly followed her lead, bending at the waist toward the prince.
“I was merely punishing the one who dared disturb the order of the Third Prince’s Palace.”
At the head maid’s courteous explanation, Edwin, who had been standing silently, turned his body toward her.
“Who exactly is disturbing the order?”
“…Pardon?”
It was a question no one had expected.
This was the same prince who had never spoken up, even when the maids serving him tormented him or when the head maid raised her voice. He had always simply watched with nervous eyes.
Yet here he was, suddenly speaking in such an overbearing tone.
The head maid’s eyes widened to their limit in shock.
I was surprised by the unexpected situation as well, but I could see it clearly.
The fists of the boy who had burst in so boldly were clenched so tightly that they had turned bone-white.
His large eyes were trembling ever so slightly.
Why?
He was clearly terrified.
Even so, Edwin stood his ground.
I couldn’t understand the reason at all.
“The one disturbing the order isn’t this woman. It’s you.”
Edwin glared at the head maid and continued speaking clearly, word by word.
He lacked the commanding presence of royalty, but he didn’t look weak either.
“Y-Your Highness, how can you say such a thing…”
“I am the master of the Third Prince’s Palace. You know that, don’t you, Head Maid?”
At Edwin’s question, the head maid could only move her lips without making a sound.
Her face clearly asked what had gotten into this little brat all of a sudden.
“So everything in this place originally belongs to me. Isn’t that right?”
“…Yes, it is.”
“The maids are the same. Correct?”
“Y-Yes, they are.”
At the head maid’s confirmation, Edwin stared at her quietly before continuing.
“But I don’t need those maids. After all, they were never ‘my’ maids from the beginning. They were always ‘your’ maids.”
The room fell silent at Edwin’s words.
There wasn’t a single person here who failed to understand what the young prince was saying.
The maids looked extremely tense, while the head maid stood frozen with a hardened expression.
“However, this woman is different.”
“…Pardon?”
“This woman is the nanny for me and Ria. Do you understand what that means?”
The head maid’s face twisted even more at Edwin’s declaration.
But the prince paid no attention to her reaction and continued speaking.
Like a young king making an important proclamation.
“It means my nanny belongs to me. No one else is allowed to touch her. Not me, not Ria.”
“That’s right! Neiche belongs to Big Brother and Ria!”
Emilia, who had been quietly hiding behind her older brother until then, stepped forward to claim her own ownership as well.
Edwin gripped his little sister’s hand tightly.
“If there’s punishment to be given, I’ll give it. If there’s a reward, I’ll give that too. So—”
He spat the words out between clenched teeth.
“From now on, if you lay a hand on my nanny, I won’t stay quiet anymore. Head Maid.”
It was the first counterattack the prince had ever launched against the world that surrounded him.
“Neiche, does it hurt a lot?”
“No.”
Emilia was nestled in my arms, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“But it looks like it hurts…”
“I’m fine.”
“No. Ria will blow on it. If Ria goes ‘hoo,’ it’ll get better fast.”
Emilia puffed warm little breaths onto my cheek.
The young princess didn’t seem to know yet that warm air on a fresh slap only made it sting more.
I was simply letting her innocent breaths wash over me when Edwin, who had been staring out the window the entire time, suddenly whirled around and shouted.
“You idiot—!”
At his sudden outburst, Emilia flinched and shrank back.
“Do you even know what happens if you pick a fight with that old witch? Do you?!”
“Please lower your voice. You’re frightening Her Highness Emilia.”
Edwin looked at his scared little sister and bit his lip.
“I don’t even know what I just did because of you.”
He muttered to himself in a heavily suppressed voice.
“That old witch is definitely going to run and tell the Second Empress. She’s definitely going to tell her everything.”
So the person Edwin truly feared wasn’t the head maid or Countess Katrina, but the Second Empress.
“Then why did you step in, Your Highness?”
“What?”
“You’re a coward, aren’t you?”
“W-What?”
If he truly was the ‘young and incompetent Third Prince,’ he should have stayed silent in a situation like that.
That was why I was curious about the psychology of the boy who had stepped forward the moment he saw me get slapped.
Edwin opened and closed his mouth for a long time, as if I had struck a nerve.
Then his face flushed with anger and he yelled.
“Y-Yeah, I’m a coward!”
I hadn’t expected him to admit so easily that he was a coward.
He shouted at me with fierce determination in his wide eyes.
“But I’m not a coward! I promised Emma that I wouldn’t become a coward!”
Not a coward?
I raised an eyebrow at his answer.
“You helped me because you’re not a coward?”
“That’s right! And since you helped me, I helped you back. That’s all.”
He lifted his wrist and showed off the bracelet dangling there.
The very bracelet I had reclaimed from Gail and his gang.
“I’m someone who knows how to repay a favor!”
Someone who knows grace.
To think those words would come from this sly little brat’s mouth.
I stared at the prince’s bracelet for a moment, then let out a small chuckle.
“I see.”
“W-Why are you laughing?”
“It’s nothing. I feel the same way as you, Your Highness.”
I gently touched my slightly swollen cheek and tucked my messy stray hairs behind my ear.
“If you’ve received a favor, it’s only right to return it in equal measure.”
I smiled at Edwin, showing my teeth.
“Because I’m also someone who does not forget grace.”
That evening.
Catherine stood up to change out of her ruined uniform.
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong, Catherine?”
“My spare maid uniform is gone. That was my only extra.”
Catherine made a pitiful face at her roommate.
Her roommate suddenly clapped her hands together as if she had just remembered.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. The nanny borrowed your uniform.”
“The nanny did?”
“She said she’d return it clean.”
“Really? Does she not have anything to wear right now? Why would she borrow a maid’s uniform of all things?”
Catherine scratched her cheek with a troubled expression, then thought of the new nanny.
Kind features that didn’t match her cold expression.
Actions that seemed indifferent yet somehow gentle.
As she recalled the nanny, Catherine suddenly giggled to herself.
“She really is a strange nanny.”
“Right? She’s weird, isn’t she? I think the new nanny is strange too.”
“What?”
“The new nanny. Don’t you think there’s something off about her?”
“Like what?”
“The way she asked us questions earlier, for one thing.”
Catherine recalled the questions the nanny had asked the annex maids during the day.
“What about it?”
“I don’t know, it just felt weird. She asked about the relationship between the head maid and Countess Katrina, when the head maid usually goes out, things like that.”
The maid muttered as if she found it quite unpleasant.
“She practically interrogated us about the head maid’s entire daily schedule from start to finish.”
“She might just be curious.”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
The maid agreed with Catherine at first, then shuddered.
“Still, that atmosphere… how should I put it? It felt gloomy. Doesn’t it scare you a little?”
“Huh?”
“She looks friendly enough, but those eyes of hers look like they could kill several people.”
Catherine frowned at the maid’s words.
“Don’t joke like that. She’s the person who helped me.”
When Catherine turned serious, the maid shrugged awkwardly.
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the main palace is in an uproar over what happened today.”
“What do you mean, uproar?”
“Apparently the head maid slapped the nanny across the face.”
“What?”
Catherine let out a startled scream, but the maid shushed her.
“Keep it down. You’ll wake the others.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“It’s fine. Anyway, they say His Highness the Prince stepped in and resolved everything nicely.”
“Prince Edwin did?”
“Yeah. The same person who couldn’t even say a word when Madam Conrad was going through all that.”
At the maid’s words, Catherine quietly lowered her head.
“What’s wrong, Catherine?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Catherine blinked a few times, then broke into a bright smile.
“I just have a feeling that something big is going to change.”
“Change? What?”
“Everything. Just… everything.”
“Do you have divine power or something? Can you see the future?”
“No, it’s just a feeling. Hehe.”
Catherine, an utterly ordinary human, still had no idea at that moment.
That her feeling would soon become reality.
The head maid of the Third Prince’s Palace was busy clicking away at her abacus today as well.
“This month is really disappointing.”
She rolled the pen in her hand and muttered irritably to herself.
“This is all because we ended up with the wrong master.”
While she was drawing a line through a number on the documents she had been examining for a while, a knock sounded from outside.
“Head Maid, it’s time for you to leave.”
“Has it already gotten that late? I should go.”
The head maid hurriedly hid the documents, put on her outer robe, and left her office.
It was the same routine as always for her.
Perhaps that was why.
The head maid failed to notice.
The way the firmly closed office door opened without a sound.
Or the shadow that slipped inside and hid its tail between the gap.
The head maid’s office smelled of expensive perfume.
It was quite a luxurious scent for the wife of a mere baron to use.
Let’s see.
I began rummaging through the room as naturally as if I were its owner.
I had to finish my business quickly while the head maid was away at the Second Empress’s palace.
Just as the annex maids said.
The first virtue of an assassin.
Thorough preliminary investigation.
Combining the information I had gathered from the annex maids with several days of observing her, I knew the head maid wouldn’t return from the Second Empress’s palace for at least another hour.
I pulled books off the shelf one by one and flipped through them.
After searching for some time.
A gold necklace tumbled out from inside one of the books.
The ornate necklace, clearly belonging to a member of the imperial family, sparkled brilliantly as if it were polished every single day.