“W-what?”
“The one who spared my life was His Majesty the Emperor. The person before whom I am a sinner, and whom I cannot even look in the eye, is the Krissus family—not you, who holds the same commoner status as I do.”
Those words silenced Marsha.
Edel was sick and tired of people who sought to reaffirm their own power and status by oppressing those weaker than themselves.
“Do you think you’ll somehow become a noble if you trample on someone who used to be one? That’s not how it works. The Count is still busy and hasn’t been able to manage the household properly yet, but he will find a butler soon and begin restructuring. When that time comes, you’ll just be a maid, after all.”
Those words pierced Marsha’s core like a blade. She gritted her teeth, her fists trembling violently, before suddenly striking Edel across the cheek.
A sharp, slapping sound ripped through the cold, damp air of the laundry room.
By the time Edel regained her focus, her vision cleared to find herself collapsed on the floor.
“Y-you wicked thing! How dare you look down on your superior and talk back? Until you finish washing all of that, you aren’t leaving this place—not for food, not for anything!”
Marsha stormed out, slamming the laundry room door and locking it from the outside.
Edel watched, dazed, from the sight of Marsha’s retreating form as she stomped away, to the final closing of the laundry room door. Everything felt strangely surreal.
The sound of a long wooden bar being slid between the door handles echoed faintly, but the sensation of her clothes soaking up the water on the floor felt, ironically, all too sharp.
A ringing sound hummed in her ears.
‘I have to get up…’
Her mind desperately wanted to, but her head was spinning and she had no strength left in her body.
‘If I don’t finish the work, I don’t know what Lady Bohen will tell Count Krissus…’
Mentally, she knew she had to stand up immediately and wash as many curtains as she could, but her body felt simultaneously as if it were burning and frozen solid. She couldn’t even twitch a finger.
Her vision blurred further.
‘I wish I could just… sleep forever like this.’
With that final thought, Edel lost consciousness.
* * *
Marsha, having locked Edel in the laundry room, continued to huff and puff, her anger far from subsided.
“That wretched girl! She’s basically a slave now, and what? ‘Same commoner status’? Just you wait, I’ll teach you a proper lesson!”
Her insides were boiling.
In this count’s estate, which was like her own little kingdom, the only thorn in her side was Edel.
“I am Edel, My Lady.”
She could still remember the day they first met. When asked her name, Edel had replied with a calm, indifferent gaze that betrayed neither anger nor humiliation.
That was when it began. That was when she started to hate Edel.
‘If you’re a human being, you should at least show a spark of reaction when someone scrapes your insides like that! To think that even though you’re no longer a noble, you’re still acting all high and mighty…!’
Having worked in this field for nearly thirty years, Marsha believed she understood human nature perfectly. She considered her ability to build this much wealth in her mid-forties to be proof of her “insight into people.”
She found it ridiculous how nobles would fall for syrupy flattery or words designed to stir up anxiety, and she eventually came to believe she stood above them.
But Edel reacted completely differently, as if to specifically target the inferiority complex Marsha held toward the nobility.
“Yes, My Lady.”
“I apologize.”
“I will do my best.”
No matter how she tried to provoke her, the only thing that came back were responses devoid of emotion.
Marsha, who had wanted to see Edel tremble with rage, lash out, or drown in self-pity, despised those answers because they gave her no leverage.
And those eyes!
Even though Edel claimed she had never defied or resisted, she had never truly submitted, either.
One could tell just by looking at those eyes, which remained steady even when she bowed her head.
‘You’re basically saying, “Bark all you want, I’m just going to plug my ears,” aren’t you!’
That was why she wanted to torment her more. Until she finally broke.
In the end, while she had succeeded in making Edel answer differently today, Marsha felt no joy.
“You speak as if you are a noble yourself, don’t you, My Lady?”
The moment she heard those words, she honestly felt a shiver run down her spine.
‘She must have been peering right into my mind all along! That’s why there wasn’t even a single mistake in her work until now!’
Edel knew everything—that Marsha thought of herself as something better than a noble, and yet was constantly anxious about the power that could vanish in a single day.
‘Edel, I can’t bend that girl to my will no matter what I do. When the Count returns today, I’ll have to tell him to sell her off somewhere.’
Since Edel would remain locked in the laundry room until she gave the order to release her, there was plenty of time to badmouth her in front of Laslo.
Laslo was a man so stoic and expressionless that no one ever knew what he was thinking, but since he was just an uneducated man who used to work as a mercenary, it shouldn’t be hard to wrap him around her finger.
‘Good. That being said… it’s obvious Edel won’t finish the laundry, so what kind of punishment should I give her?’
Thinking of this, her heart, which had been unpleasantly racing, began to swell with a strange sense of anticipation.
* * *
At the hour the master of the house returned, the Krissus carriage pulled up in front of the estate.
However, unlike the usual days when no one would come out, Marsha and two maids were there to greet Laslo.
“You’ve returned, Count.”
“Thank you for your hard work today.”
Laslo, as he stepped down from the carriage, hesitated at the sight of the women smiling obsequiously at him.
‘Looks like something happened.’
Laslo felt truly fortunate that Marsha was so consistent.
The reason he had hired such an incompetent, arrogant, boastful, and money-hungry woman as his head maid was because he didn’t have to struggle with wondering if she was deceiving him or not.
It was actually comfortable to manage someone who displayed her schemes so transparently.
“Anything unusual?”
“Ho-ho! Let us go inside first, Count. The wind is biting.”
On a normal day, the reply would have been, ‘Nothing special, really,’ so it was clear Marsha had something she wanted to say.
Laslo didn’t say anything, entering the foyer and heading to the first-floor reception room.
The reception room, with logs burning in the fireplace, was warm. Laslo took off his coat, threw it to the side, and sat on the sofa.
“It’s quite cold today, isn’t it? Mina! Go and bring him a cup of hot chocolate immediately.”
Marsha tried to seem affectionate by having another maid bring the drink, but Laslo answered expressionlessly.
“When have I ever drunk something like chocolate?”
“Ah, i-is that so? Young Lady Lynnia likes it, so I must have mistaken it. Then, perhaps some warm black tea…”
“I don’t like wasting time. If you have something to say, say it quickly.”
Marsha seemed a bit flustered, then sat on the sofa next to Laslo, moving as close to him as possible.
“Well, Count. It’s nothing else, but… it’s about that… ‘prisoner.’”
“Prisoner?”
“You know, the woman who used to be a Duchess.”
“Edel Lancaster? What about her?”
Marsha feigned distress, wringing her hands, and only began to speak when Laslo’s gaze turned menacing.
“It’s difficult to say things like this, but perhaps because she lived as a noble, her nose is too high in the air. She’s so lazy and ignores the other servants.”
Laslo tilted his head at the unexpected story.
That woman Edel had a high nose? Lazy and ignores others?
‘The woman who even knelt before Lynnia?’
Seeing Laslo’s reaction—frowning as if trying to recall something—as a positive sign, Marsha whispered in a lower voice.
“It’s a daily occurrence for her to be late every morning, and she orders the laundry maids around like her own servants, while finding every excuse to push her own work onto them. And that’s not all. She uses her pretty face to seduce the male servants—oh, don’t even get me started.”
She shook her head and clicked her tongue. She was so absorbed in the lies she had fabricated that she didn’t notice Laslo’s eyes turning chilling.
It might have been better if she had stopped there, but Marsha had plenty more slander prepared.
“She even talked back to me today when I tried to give her some advice. Well, I suppose a former Duchess would feel that way—how grating must the advice of a mere maid have been to her?”
The anger revealed in that moment was genuine. My stomach turned again at the memory of Edel, who had accused me of “acting like you’re a noble.”
“If she works like that, receives all three meals, and lives in comfort, it will corrupt the other servants as well. We cannot have that! Wouldn’t you agree?”
“So, what exactly is your point?”
Marsha could not even hide the sardonic glint in her eyes as she spoke in an expectant voice.
“I felt I needed to give that woman a stern warning, so I assigned her some heavy labor today. I’m certain she couldn’t have finished it all. After all, she’s the type of woman who pushes even easier tasks onto the other maids.”
“…Is that so?”
“Of course! However, it might be a bit improper for me to hand out the punishment myself, so I thought it would be best if you, Count, were to deliver a punishment that would serve as an example to everyone.”
Having finally brought up her true intention, Marsha chuckled, “ho ho ho,” while carefully gauging Laslo’s reaction. Though she couldn’t read his expression at all, she was confident that Laslo would grant her request, as he usually did.
*After all, he’s a man who wouldn’t know a thing about what happens in this estate unless he hears it directly from my mouth.*
As expected, Laslo, who had been deep in thought, rose from his seat and asked.