Chapter 120

“That’s right. Thank you. It’s rewarding work. But you know what? The more favorably the Duke views me, the more anxious I get.”

“What? Why?”

I drained as much tension from my face as possible, cast my gaze down in a gloomy pretense, and let the corners of my lips drop heavily.

At this rate, the way my facial muscles moved so freely made me feel like I should try my hand at acting if I ever made it back to reality.

“W-why are you like this…?”

Noah fidgeted, clearly unsettled.

A single tear rolling down my cheek would have been the cherry on top, but unfortunately, my dry tear ducts refused to cooperate.

Instead, I covered the area around my eyes with my hand in the most delicate gesture I could muster.

“Because the better the Duke treats me, the more the Duchess is going to find me an eyesore…”

“I told you before! Her interest will fade in no time!”

“I know, I remember… but I heard a rather strange story from Bridget just a little while ago.”

Noah furrowed his brow, asking what kind of story it was.

“She asked if there had ever been anyone else who tried to cash in on a single night to dream of status, like me. And she said all of those people met a terrible end. Like being found hanging in their rooms, or floating as corpses in the pond behind the mansion… Ah, of course, I didn’t become a dedicated maid for that kind of purpose. Please don’t misunderstand.”

I hadn’t actually been spoken to quite that harshly, but a little exaggeration added depth to a story.

I had laid it on thick partly out of the desire to make him realize the intensity of the threat I was under.

As expected, a startled Noah frantically waved his hands in denial.

“Ah, those women are a bit different!”

What’s that supposed to mean—don’t tell me all those stories I made up were actually true?!

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

“Those women tried to launch a physical charm offensive on the Duke and got caught. Red-handed, completely in the act! The Duchess threw a massive fit, and the Duke drew a firm line, saying it was just a one-night fling. They were publicly disgraced in front of their colleagues, and because everyone tiptoes around the Duchess, they get treated like transparent ghosts and ostracized in the mansion… so most of them couldn’t endure it and quit, or made unfortunate choices.”

“Unfortunate choices? You mean they committed suicide?”

“The pressure must have been immense. Even if they quit, it’s hard to find a job that pays this well again. The Duchess gave them a stern warning not to even dream of getting a recommendation letter or transferring to another noble household.”

Noah added that there were no places that paid as well as high-ranking noble households, so if it were orphans like us, or if you had a family of dependents to feed, life could become so hard you couldn’t even manage.

“Oh, and on top of that, she even threatened to haul them before a religious trial.”

A trial, huh. I suppose Ralphicanism has a crime for adultery, too.

“If it goes as far as a trial, wouldn’t the Duke get dragged into it safely?”

“Ahem, as if a noble gets a scratch on their reputation from something like that. Instead, since disrupting domestic order is considered blasphemy, only those women would have been punished with a heavy crime.”

Setting aside the unreasonable judgment fitting the era’s background, I understood what Noah wanted to say.

Those women hadn’t been directly murdered.

Yet, it was true they had taken their own lives driven by the surrounding environment.

“They must have wanted to protect whatever pride they had left.”

“Then why do you keep saying I’ll be safe?”

Couldn’t I also get terrified of the Duchess and choose a bad path?

I had no idea what he was banking on to make such a firm assertion.

“You… you’re just the Duke’s dedicated maid. I think as long as you show that you’re just working hard without getting distracted by other things, it’ll be fine. You’re not someone eyeing another person’s man just for status, Belita.”

U-uh, as it turned out, I actually was eyeing him…

That aside, it felt like a whole lot of things had been conveniently omitted from what Noah was saying.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Ah, t-that is. There’s no one trying to seduce a man with such a blank, blunt face… No, it’s because you only focus on work!”

“Me?”

Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be reasonable to suspect this bastard was deliberately blurting out what he wanted to say while pretending it was a slip of the tongue? And here I was, prior to finding out about Robert’s perverted quirk, putting in all sorts of effort—acting pretty, flattering him just to farm affection—only for him to say I just worked? That was a direct insult to my hard work!

…I was thoroughly disillusioned with Noah continuing to spout groundless talk, but let’s push him a bit further for now.

“Noah. But I’m just too anxious being here. I feel like my nerves are being frayed day by day. You know as well as I do that commoners like us can vanish without a trace overnight depending on a noble’s mood. Besides, I’ve already ignored a warning from the Duchess once before. I really should just quit and leave—”

“No! It hasn’t come to that! Trust me, Belita!”

“Then can you tell me? Why the Duchess is acting like this… and how you can be so damn sure… I’m just so anxious, that’s why.”

Noah hesitated, falling into a silent dilemma.

“You’re the only person I can rely on… I understand it’s a sensitive issue. I swear I’ll never breathe a word of it. I just want some peace of mind.”

“…Only me?”

‘Great timing.’

“Alright, Belita.”

Noah continued with slightly unfocused pupils.

“The reason the Duchess acts so sensitive is actually because of a certain incident. It’s an event so fatal to the Duke’s prestige that it was kept a secret even from other members of the ducal family, so you absolutely must keep your lips sealed. I only know because I was in the Duke’s innermost circle at the time.”

“I see.”

“I’m only telling you this. Belita, because it’s you…”

Right. We had barely known each other for a few weeks, but thanks for trusting me.

“You must never tell a soul.”

“Yeah.”

Even with the trait’s effect triggering, Noah took a long time to choose his words. Then, he whispered in a voice so quiet it was barely audible.

“Actually, the Duke once brought an illegitimate child here a long time ago.”

…As expected, Robert was no ordinary piece of trash.

Not content with just having affairs, he even brought home an illegitimate child.

“He was even agonizing over whether to put the child on the family registry. He said having one illegitimate child in a noble household wasn’t even a flaw. Plus, it seemed like he was trying to bring the mother’s side into the household entirely, just like the previous head. As you know, Sir Carlo’s mother lived in the ducal residence, too.”

I figured I had heard something similar in passing during Oscar’s confession.

“Naturally, the Duchess was furious, and that was when the Duchess’s anxiety started.”

So the Duchess was trying to block all approaching women out of fear that Robert might bring home another illegitimate child?

No, wait. Come to think of it…

“I’ve never heard a rumor about the Duke having an illegitimate child.”

“That’s because the child died not long after coming to the mansion.”

“How did that happen?”

“… Newborn babies just die a lot for various reasons, right? The child probably couldn’t make it through that phase.”

Noah spoke in a smooth, nonchalant tone, but the fact that he was avoiding my gaze, kept fiddling with his right ear, and constantly swallowing hard made him deeply suspicious.

“Anyway, they used confidentiality oaths to shut the mouths of the servants who knew the secret, and after countless rounds of staff turnovers, nobody knows anything about it anymore. Now you understand, right? That’s why I told you that as long as you work diligently, there won’t be any problems.”

Noah looked like he wanted to wrap up the conversation soon.

‘I want to get the truth out of him here.’

Didn’t Noah say it earlier? There were barely any people left who knew about this incident.

Trying to track down people who used to work in the ducal household in the past could be an option, but it was too troublesome.

Even if it meant sacrificing some of Noah’s affection, let’s resolve this right now.

“Noah, you know what? When you’re trying to hide something, you have a habit of touching your ear.”

“Huh? Uh?”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve always watched you closely, but I can see it.”

“M-me? You watch me like that?”

It was noticeable enough that anyone who knew Noah even slightly would have caught on, but it seemed nobody had ever pointed it out to him until now.

“I’m a bit hurt, you know. I trusted you and poured out worries I hadn’t told a single soul… But I guess you don’t feel the same way.”

“No! I trust you too!”

After raising his voice in a sudden knee-jerk reaction, Noah lowered it back down and made an excuse.

“That’s not it, I just couldn’t talk about it because I wasn’t certain. I only heard it secondhand, myself.”

“What is it?”

“T-that illegitimate child dying… was actually the Duchess’s doing…”

…This was absolute, top-tier soap opera drama.

The legal wife murdering the illegitimate child brought home by her husband? It made you wonder how the two of them even managed to play act as a married couple.

I had felt a bit sorry for Duchess Rachel after marrying the Duke, but I needed to take that back. Both of them possessed personalities no different from demons.

“B-but that’s probably just a distorted rumor! There’s no evidence… And even though the Duchess resented the Duke back then, it seems she’s let all of that go by now.”

Is that the kind of thing you can just “let go”? I wanted to retort, but obviously, I couldn’t actually do that.

Instead, I kept up the persona of a maid terrified that she might be murdered by the Duchess at any moment.

“If the Duchess didn’t divorce him even after going through something like that, she must be extremely obsessed with the Duke. Then, surely, I’ll also—”

“No! Obsession doesn’t change anything. The Duchess can never go against the Duke anyway.”

“…Why?”

“The Duchess’s maternal family owes a huge debt of gratitude to the Duke. If the support for her maternal family gets cut off, they’ll be buried under a mountain of debt… With nowhere else to go, what else can the Duchess do besides stay here? Plus, Young Master Hereis is here, too.”

Was her maternal family her weakness?

And while Noah said there was nothing the Duchess could do, that was wrong.

There was a way.

If the Duke died, she could pay off her debts with the inherited property and live a happy life.

With this, the hazy doubts finally took on a sharp, clear shape.

The Duchess’s motive for murder was far more powerful than I had thought.

“Anyway! Unless you’re genuinely trying to commit adultery, there’s nothing the Duchess can do to you. She’s just throwing threats around! She’s all talk, so you don’t need to worry! Ah, and don’t worry about the religious trial either, because I can testify that you’re just a faithful maid!”

“As you know, I have a lot of enemies. People willing to give false testimony are a dime a dozen. If the Duchess is determined to kill me, there won’t be any way out for me. Just like those women before.”

“Ah…”

Noah rolled his eyes, seemingly searching for the right words.

“W-well, how about this then! Y-you make a lover. Then you won’t be suspected of having a relationship with the Duke, right?”

Well, it was an effective method. Easy to understand, too.

“For instance, someone very close by… M-me, perhaps…?”

Except that only worked under the assumption that the Duchess didn’t know about Robert’s perverted quirk…

Wait. What did he just say?

“D-do you hate it?”

So I had just received a confession…?

I had been wondering how I was supposed to confess, but I hadn’t expected the other side to make the move first.

Was there any need to hesitate? I immediately tried to accept.

However, a familiar sense of frustration suddenly washed over me as a notification sound rang in my ears.

Ding!

Seriously, is the dating sim system actively trying to sabotage my love life or what?