A Week of Tears and Hidden Worries
Vivienne threw herself into Matilda's arms the moment she saw her after a week apart. Matilda was startled by the sudden move but quickly soothed her with a kind smile, patting her back.
“I was so homesick for you.”
The more one looked at her, the more her childish side showed. Or perhaps she was simply too honest with her feelings. For a grown woman, this was something she would rarely do. This enigmatic young lady had an absurdly innocent side.
She never held back, never hesitated when approaching, and gave her everything without reserve. She was grateful. She liked it. She was beautiful. She missed me. She expressed it all so well. And she almost never revealed anything she disliked or found uncomfortable.
Looking at her now, it seemed she craved a genuine love. Like, “I’ll be good and obedient, so please be a little nicer to me.” That only made her feel sorrier.
Matilda wasn’t entirely displeased. She was simply worried that someone might use her pure nature as a meal. Instead, she found it refreshing.
“I missed you too. I was uneasy leaving you behind and worried about you the whole time. How have you been, Vivi?”
“…Yes. I’ve been fine.”
Vivienne forced a smile, tugging at the corners of her mouth.
No, she hadn’t been fine at all. She had cried alone, gotten hurt, been chased away, and lost her clothes and shoes, leaving her completely lost.
A series of chaotic events, but after meeting Matilda, she felt relieved. Meeting someone who was kind to her was too rare an event in a long time, and just that alone made her feel compensated for everything.
She had so much she wanted to tell about what had happened, but there wasn’t much worth sharing.
How could she bring herself to speak of the things she overheard while sobbing in self-loathing, or the time she was falsely accused during roll call and nearly fired? She didn’t want to talk about those difficult, humiliating stories.
Vivienne suddenly remembered an appropriate topic.
“I met Theodore. Matilda’s son, Theodore. Right?”
“What? Theo? Really?”
“Yes. At first I didn’t know. Theo told me about Matilda. Now that I hear it, his face when he smiles reminds me so much of her.”
Because she had no one to talk to for so long, Vivienne couldn’t hold back and rattled on like a little sparrow.
“So that’s it. He did mention you. I thought he’d be too busy with knight duties to see you. When did you meet him?”
“A few days ago. I went to deliver a towel basket to the training ground and spilled it. He helped me pick it up. When he complained about a sore wrist, I gave him some herbal ointment.”
“A sore wrist? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Thanks to the ointment, it’s all better now. He’s completely healed.”
Vivienne answered cheerfully.
“Glad to hear it. The master said to take care of you and that you’d be sleeping here, so I came to bring you.”
When Matilda first heard that, she realized something had finally arrived.
Kian von Larson wasn’t the type to casually pick up something and bring it home. Especially when it was something to be placed inside his own domain.
On the surface, he acted as if he had simply laid it down and barely noticed her, but the frequency of his inquiries into her well-being clearly showed interest.
She thought there was plenty of room for trouble between a man and a woman. Beauty was hardly the point, and simply causing Kian to do something he normally wouldn’t was reason enough to suspect things were different.
The sudden assignment of maid duties and even the order for Matilda to take a vacation had been strange. But now it made sense: it had been some kind of passing test to deny his own desires.
Matilda carefully examined Vivienne’s appearance. She wore a large men’s shower gown. Instead of looking like she was dressed in it, she seemed to be swallowed by the clothes and uncomfortable.
Even though she and Theodore had been so close in childhood, he had never dared touch anything that was hers. Seeing him dress her in it now made everything clear.
It was as if “Kian von Larson” had been written on top of her.
“Really, he told me to take care of me? Didn’t he get angry?”
She had no idea. Vivienne remained fidgety.
“Yes. His tone was calm.”
“Then where did Kian go?”
“He went for a ride. With Theodore. He loves riding horses through the forest.”
“Did he drink any wine? Or read the newspapers?”
She had been comforted, but it didn’t quite settle her mind. She had heard that if a maid took care of him, the previous one had been fired.
That must have made her uneasy. By noon she had only just woken up, so she was probably worried that the horses might have gone lame.
“You don’t need to worry, Vivi. What you’re worried about are things that can be overlooked in a day or two.”
In truth, she had hesitated a long time before going on vacation, with Vivienne’s well-being on her mind. The sudden change in plans had been unsettling, but soon she learned the reason from Theodore.
The horses on the estate kept leaking information, and it was clear someone had planted a spy inside. A maid’s position would be empty and the discipline slightly lax, making it easy to catch the culprit.
During the process, the fact that Vivienne had been involved had bothered her, but seeing how carefully she was being looked after as if she were her own, she thought everything would be all right.
“It’s all because I overslept.”
“It’s fine. The master said to rest well since you were hurt. A doctor will be coming soon.”
“But I was treated.”
“That was just temporary, according to the master. He said since it can heal, you must see a doctor.”
Matilda smoothed Vivienne’s messy hair to comfort her.
“The master even gave you a new room. Change your clothes and go there.”
“A new room?”
“It’s bigger and prettier than the one you used before. It’s close by.”
Another room. Now there would be no need to compete with the other maids for a bed?
She had been here for a week and still didn’t know how many times her sleeping place had changed.
“And there’s a bathtub too.”
Matilda whispered playfully in her ear.
“…Y-yes!”
Was the bathtub that good?
A flush of color finally returned to Vivienne’s face.
***
It seemed like rain. The air felt heavy.
On days like this, Kian usually didn’t bring the horses out, but today was an exception.
The Larson duchy wasn’t just sea. After passing through a long row of poplar trees, a vast plain opened up. At the end of rolling hills filled with nameless wildflowers and grass stood an old, majestic tree. Kian always used it as his starting point.
Lacking the sea scent so long, he sometimes missed the smell of earth. Before rain fell, the scent grew even richer. He knew it meant nothing, but as long as he could forget the sea for a moment, that was enough.
Kian walked, recalling last night. The shoes he had brought out and her bare feet. From that he immediately knew her answer. Foolishly. The conclusion was far from ideal.
Looking back, her back as she left the glass greenhouse after serving tea had already been drooping. She must have been tense. That could be. He had doubted her when he heard she had turned down the dinner the housekeeper brought.
There was no place to go, and yet she had dared to ask for help in front of him, acting ambiguously. It was an unpleasant sight.
Of course it was natural, but giving her a choice hadn’t truly granted authority. Forcing the choice would breed resentment. Humans were creatures who would only submit if they believed they had chosen it. He had merely strung together plausible excuses.
Sleep wouldn’t come, so he drank wine, but the unpleasant feeling only grew clearer. He thought he might sleep after a bath, so he drew water for the tub. Then suddenly, the words Matilda had casually mentioned came to mind.
That was it. This would do. So, on impulse, he went in front of the woman’s room. Seeing Vivienne’s stained cheek at the door, he immediately understood.
This woman clearly craved him.
He intended to use that craving. She was needed to remove his fiancé for a farce, and if she wanted this side too, it would be a fairly good deal.
That had been his plan.
Though she was a woman with an odd streak. He had gone in when she didn’t come out of the bathroom for a long time, only to find she had fallen asleep.
She must have been suffering greatly, staying awake until the dead of night. Naturally, lack of sleep was to be expected. But was the place where she slept too out of place?
When he lightly tugged the reins, the black horse Thor that Kian rode slowed its pace with a lazy trot. He had been riding it for quite a while after a long absence due to training, yet even the normally smart horse stopped of its own accord beside the tree.
“Will it rain?”
Theodore, following behind, grabbed the reins and gradually matched the pace.
“What?”
“You were in a hurry today.”
“Sometimes there are days like this.”
A vague smile tugged at the corner of Kian’s mouth.
“I was surprised you called me so suddenly. What happened?”
In truth, that was the main point. Kian’s actions always followed a certain pattern. But since returning to the estate, he had been doing things that were increasingly untraceable. Theodore was worried about exactly that.
Matilda suddenly ordered a vacation, and the maid was dismissed. Around the same time, the woman—Vivienne—had vanished from the laundry area.
The knight fellows had often crossed eyes with the maid. During training, gossiping, her story was a frequent topic.
Hearing she had been assigned to serve the master came as a shock. It was a radical promotion. Naturally, rumors followed—about sleeping together, touching, or worse.
The commotion among the maids was unlikely to be unrelated. She hadn’t had the right to interfere, but it kept bothering her.
Kian’s behavior felt strange, and the woman who wandered alone without anyone to rely on looked pitiful.
“How much longer until knight training?”
“It’s over. New recruits have arrived recently. I’m mostly supervising physical training.”
“Good timing. That doesn’t have to be your responsibility.”
“Eh?”
Theodore’s eyes widened.
“I have someone I can assign to you.”