Katie carefully stepped forward and tightened her head.
“Your Highness, Sophia collapsed as soon as she saw her. Therefore, the soldiers thought it was because of her, and they took her out before we could stop them so we couldn’t use our heads.”
“But that happened to her. You didn’t tell me.”
“That… is because your Highness has been away.”
“Also, you didn’t report her even after I informed you that I was looking for her.”
“…”
“Who said they didn’t know her?”
“Probably, Terra… it was that maid who said this.”
Although it was rare for a maid of a side palace to remember the names of the maids of the main palace one by one, they knew Terra because she had been in this castle for a long time.
It was a wild scene in the castle, and if Terra, the source, did not know, others had no choice but to believe it.
Leon muttered the name “Terra”, which he was not interested in, and opened Sophia’s door. It was a familiar name somehow.
“Ahh”
He quickly remembered that she was the maid who had a scuffle with Dana before. Leon easily identified her by that alone.
When Leon entered, Sophia was awake and sitting down. She was sitting on a tea table chair, not a bed, smiling and looking out the window.
She thought she was all better, but Leon, who was approaching, stopped walking and stood still.
“Oh my god!”
Katie, who was following, was surprised and ran to Sophia.
The chair where she sat and the carpet underneath were wet with something. Knowing at once what it was, Katie blocked her nose and stepped back.
“Mother, get up.”
Leon approached and grabbed Sophia’s hand to pull her up. Sophia looked at Leon and smiled as clearly as a child.
“I heard that the dead woman had a child, and it’s said she was two years younger than Leon. It’s not Owen’s child, is it? Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s right or not. We need to rip it all to death so that there’s no harm, right?”
Leon looked at Sophia’s face with a stiff expression. Katie also seemed familiar and surprised. Sometimes Sophia said nonsense, but he’d never heard of such a specific and cruel content.
“What are you doing? Hurry and clean it up for me.”
When Leon, who came to his senses, told Katie sternly, she quickly gathered her hands and bowed her head.
“I’ll call the maid.”
Katie couldn’t clean up her urine herself. Even so, it was their job to bathe Sophia, but they had been left to the maid for a long time.
Leon watched her go outside for a moment, and he stared at Sophia once again. Sophia, who was smiling brightly, returned a blank look that Leon often saw, even when she laughed.
What father said…
Two maids called by Katie came in and cleaned up Sophia’s mistake. And while trying to undress, she glanced at Leon.
Leon turned around and ordered Katie while looking at her.
“It’s something you’d do yourself.”
“That, yes.”
She thought she would be nauseous as the smell made her weak in the stomach, but it was more difficult to rebel against the Grand Duke.
Leon walked out the door watching Katie approach Sophia. The sweeping clean-up of her side palace, which he had neglected for a while, flashed through his mind once.
Well, a new hostess will be arriving soon anyway. It’s not bad to clean it away beforehand.
Ahil, a close aide to Leon, and Chedron, the butler, rushed toward the west side of the side palace. Usually, three or four people, including Daniel or Ahil, were always next to him.
Leon went alone and was told that he had turned the west side palace upside down.
Soldiers were deployed around the palace, and some of the maids complained to the knights saying they were unfair.
In particular, maids flocked around Katie and everyone was protesting against her with raised voices.
“Katie, do we deserve this?”
“His Grace ordered me to do it. Why don’t you tell His Grace in person?”
Leon entrusted Katie with the “cleaning” work of the Inner Palace. It was ordered to select lazy women, those who formed factions or particularly clouded the atmosphere.
Upon arrival, Chedron muttered in a tone Katie couldn’t hear.
“It must be Katie who has it all. How could the lord have entrusted the maid to work?”
“But there’s no wife to do this separately, right? Wouldn’t it be used as a kind of hunting dog? Chedron. How much did you know?”
“But still… Yes, of course. Of course, I knew. But it’s hard for me to touch them myself, and they’re the ones that the Madam Duchess cared for.”
He was able to manage the maid, and servant, but these maids were a little tricky.
Chedron’s status was exactly a commoner or a middleman. The status of the maids was higher than that of Chedron as a junior nobleman or middle class.
Of course, in the castle, the maids were also under Chedron’s management system, the butler. Above all, however, the maids in the separate palace were chosen by the Duchess, the current hostess.
In addition, since they have been serving the madam for a long time, he could not punish her for small corruption or negligence in work. Rather, if a person was replaced with such a problem, it could have had a more adverse effect on Sophia, who is now sick.
Chedron recalled the bitterness in his mouth, and Ahil spoke again.
“By the way, where did the Grand Duke go?”
“That’s it…”
Chedron also tilted his head and looked around, but Leon had already left the side palace for a long time. He was near the back gate.
He found out that he had interrogated the maids and the soldiers who had caught Dana at that time and sent Dana to the back gate. There was nothing he could do about what had already happened, but he couldn’t hold back his anger.
In particular, it was himself whom he was angrier with.