TVBS 05

Episode 5

I could almost sense Creamu’s presence inside through the closing door.

“The young master isn’t feeling well. I think he’s coming down with a cold.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. That’s why I was about to call for a doctor.”

“Then I suppose I should tell the Duke.”

At the mention of the Duke, the nanny slightly furrowed her brows.

“I’ll tell him myself. It’s not a severe cold, just a slight fever.”

“I see.”

“Lady Marianne, you should hurry and go eat. It’s getting late.”

The nanny, who looked to be fairly old, seemed a little annoyed by my continued questions.

Just then, I heard someone calling me from behind.

It was Britta, my personal maid.

“Miss, the dining room is this way.”

Even the guard knight who had gone to the other side seemed to be approaching this way at the commotion.

Not wanting to become the subject of another strange rumor, I followed Britta and walked away.

The next morning, everyone gathered in the dining room.

The Duke and Shebert looked a little tired, as though they had come home late last night.

Creamu, sitting across from me, looked particularly dejected.

He looked like he was crying yesterday, and his eyes look a little swollen, too…

Even if he was a little troublemaker, seeing him like that made me worry a little.

Had he cried because he missed his mother?

Perhaps he did this every night.

Though, of course, his father, Duke Kereis, didn’t seem to care at all.

Raised in such an environment, Creamu would later play his role to the fullest as the youngest of the notorious three Kereis brothers.

He would grow up with such a nasty personality that whenever something happened, he would always overpower the other party with his monstrous strength.

What a damn dog of a personality.

I pushed away thoughts of that terrible future and bit into the fluffy piece of meat on my fork with an ang.

That afternoon, I called for Britta, hoping to wash away my tangled thoughts.

The maid with brown hair and sparkling eyes came running over.

Compared to the maid who had taken care of me at the Count’s household, Britta was incomparably more diligent and kind.

On top of that, she was so gentle that I sometimes found myself thinking, “There’s someone like this in the Kereis household?”

The last time I casually asked her about it, she said she hadn’t been here long and was still adjusting herself.

Oh-ho, maybe we can become friends.

Just that fact alone made me like Britta.

A maid who hadn’t been tainted by the Kereis household yet. She was exactly my kind of person.

With Britta’s help, I soaked myself in warm water.

“Ahh, this is nice. I feel like scrubbing myself down.”

“Scrubbing?”

“……!”

I was startled by the words that had slipped out of my mouth without thinking.

Sometimes, words from my previous world came out before I realized it, but most of the time, I was alone when it happened.

However, because my personal maid Britta was always so attentive and took such good care of me, I sometimes forgot that she was even there.

“Ah, no. I just meant that it feels good.”

Before Britta could ask anything else, I dunked my head all the way into the warm water.

At first, Britta had been startled when she saw me do this, but since I did it every time I bathed, she had gotten used to it by now.

As I quietly closed my eyes, the stillness and muffled sensation beneath the water wrapped itself around my entire body.

All sorts of scattered thoughts appeared and disappeared like waves.

Creamu. Kereis. A murderer. Triya’s fate. Ron.

“Pwah-!”

I lifted my head, spitting out water. Water spilled over the edge of the bathtub.

Britta stepped back slightly before handing me a towel.

“You seem to be taking a little longer than usual today. How about you get out now?”

“Yeah. I should.”

After finishing my bath, I immediately sat down in front of the mirror.

Then, without thinking, I found myself thinking that being a noble really was a wonderful thing.

If there was one thing I liked most about possessing this body, it was being waited on by other people.

Without lifting a finger, the servants prepared my meals, got my bath ready, and even dried my hair for me. There was no greater luxury than this.

“Miss, your hair is really beautiful.”

Britta kept admiring my long, flowing red hair.

I had to admit, she was right.

My tiny frame, my cute appearance, and on top of that, shiny hair.

Things like this were something you had to be born with.

Having naturally wavy hair in my previous life, I wanted to give my current appearance a full hundred out of a hundred.

I grinned at Marianne in the mirror, then suddenly asked Britta, who was looking at me and letting out a little pfft of laughter.

“Oh, right. Do you want this?”

There was a slice of cake on a plate on the table.

A butter cake topped with cherries soaked in sweet honey.

It had been served as dessert after lunch, but I had deliberately left it untouched.

Because I had seen the way Britta had been eyeing it.

“This… for me?”

“Yeah. My stomach doesn’t feel very good today. But if we give this straight back to the chef, he’ll be disappointed. Don’t you think?”

“Well, yes, but……”

“There’s only the two of us in this room. Hurry and eat.”

Britta blinked her eyes hesitantly.

With no other choice, I walked over to the table and held out the plate and fork.

“Then let’s eat it together. I only need one bite.”

Only then did Britta nod.

And after making sure that I took a bite first, Britta slowly savored the soft cake as though she were tasting it for the first time, carefully making it last.

For some reason, the sight made my heart ache.

I take back what I said earlier about nobles having it good. At least a little.

If someone gets to live comfortably, someone else is bound to live uncomfortably.

They say that’s simply the way of the world, but I still thought that, at the very least, you should know how to consider other people’s feelings.

“It was hard to adjust after coming to such an unfamiliar place, but you have no idea how reassured I feel knowing you’re here, Britta.”

“Miss.”

“I mean it. We haven’t been together for very long yet… but thank you.”

Britta, with a smear of white cream at the corner of her mouth, set down her fork with a touched expression.

“I’m actually the one who’s really grateful to you, Miss.”

“To me?”

“Yes. I entered this mansion around the same time as you, and it was so frightening. But the moment I saw you, I applied for the position. I wanted to become your personal maid.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You were small and cute, and you looked like you had a kind heart, too.”

“Pfft.”

I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at Britta’s honest yet embarrassingly sweet compliment.

You really do know how to judge people, huh?

Feeling pleased, I wanted to hear more compliments. It had been a while since anyone had praised me.

“So tell me more. What was your first impression of me?”

At my serious question, Britta answered even more seriously.

“I think the word ‘cute’ was created specifically for you, Miss.”

We continued chatting and giggling together for quite some time.

Then, all of a sudden, Britta opened her mouth as though she had just remembered something.

“Come to think of it, I think quite a few maids entered around the same time as me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. As you know, Miss, the Kereis estate is extremely strict and demanding when it comes to maintenance.”

She was right.

From what I had seen after staying in this mansion for a while, it was so clean that there wasn’t even a speck of dust anywhere.

Judging from that, I sometimes wondered if Duke Kereis was a neat freak.

“So people usually leave before they even make it through a year. Apparently, a whole bunch of them quit all at once this time, too. So two maids, including me, came in to clean the hall. Oh, right. I heard the nanny was new, too.”

“The nanny?”

“Yes. Young Master Creamu’s nanny.”

After finishing her words, Britta looked down at the empty plate where she had completely polished off her slice of cake.

I watched her with my eyes, but my thoughts were complicated.

The face of the nanny I had seen last night flashed through my mind.

That gentle-looking face with an inexplicable mixture of irritation and annoyance.

“What happened to the original nanny?”

“She went home for a while to see her daughter. So they hired someone else to fill in for her, and that person is the current nanny.”

“I see. Was she married?”

“Yes. She was married, but apparently……”

Even though there were only the two of us in the room, Britta lowered her voice into a whisper, as though afraid someone might hear.

“There’s a rumor that she ran away from her husband without telling him because she was having an affair with another man.”

“An affair, and… ran away?”

I felt something strange.

But I soon tried to calm myself down.

A rumor was just a rumor. It wasn’t the truth.

Considering how I myself had once been caught up in strange rumors, rumors weren’t something to be trusted.

Still, I couldn’t simply ignore this uneasy feeling.

I decided that I should keep a closer eye on Creamu’s nanny.

“I’d like to go out for a little while.”

I said it to the Duke with a trembling heart.

With no more memories to rely on, I couldn’t keep staying inside the mansion like this forever.

It was the conclusion I had reached after several days of consideration.

The Duke, who had been looking through some documents, slowly raised his head.

His characteristic languid yet emotionless gaze turned toward me.

“What is the reason for your outing?”

“I want to buy some dresses.”

It was the most plausible excuse I could come up with.

Marianne was currently thirteen, after all—the perfect age to want to dress up and look pretty.

The Duke gave me an answer that didn’t match his completely expressionless face at all.

“That sounds like a good idea. You likely didn’t bring much with you when you came here.”

The Duke readily gave me permission to go out.

He even gave me spending money.

Staring blankly at the heavy pouch of money in my pocket, I asked the butler,

“Are you really giving me this much?”

“The Duke happened to see you stroking one of the vases in the hall the other day. Hohoh.”

“……!”

“So he ordered us to give you as much as the vase was worth. He also left these words: ‘Now that she has entered the Kereis ducal household, she shouldn’t live like a beggar.’”

When was that again?

I think it was shortly after I first arrived at this mansion.

Seeing all those shiny, expensive objects, I had unconsciously gone around touching this and that.

I could probably make a living if I just stole a few things from the Duke’s residence and ran away.

But who would have thought that little habit of mine would lead to this?

Holy crap……! I should’ve touched more things!

Carrying the precious pouch of spending money and feeling completely excited, I belatedly realized what was happening.

The Duke had ordered me to bring along a huge number of attendants and maids for my outing.

No, Father, I said I was just going shopping……!

I stared at the procession following behind the carriage I was riding in.

My face burned with embarrassment, and I squeezed my eyes shut.