11.Chocolate

It was filthy wastewater!! Susan returned to the mansion casually, leaving behind a dripping knight. Mary didn’t want to make eye contact with Sir Kean’s blazing eyes, so I hurried to do something else.

What kind of relationship is that scary? The place where Susan took her steps was the kitchen, where the meal was about to end.

What kind of bloody thing is going on between them?

Susan’s steps headed for the kitchen where the meal was about to end.

As she wiped herself roughly and threw the bucket into a corner, she sat in front of Mary and poured cold milk tea into a teacup. Maybe her first impression that she was terribly weak was only an illusion. Because surprisingly, she has a fiery personality. Mary didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, so I took the remaining bacon and quietly ate it.

“Susan.”

A strange man came to the kitchen when Mary was trying to clean up the empty dishes and wipe the table like the youngest.

“Mr. Berkne?”

“Outside for a while.”

It was quite a surprise to Mary. It was because Susan’s expression, which had maintained a cold expression all the time, became relieved for a while. The person who visited her was a man with a good impression and short black hair.

I thought he would feel similar to Sir Kean because of his heavy voice, but their appearances were poles apart. It was also quite different when she was dealing with Sir Kean. After confirming that Susan had disappeared, Mary whispered to the maid who was enjoying tea next to her.

“Perhaps Susan sunbae and that man…Are they together…?” (t/n: omg I am laughing 🤣🤣)

The maid, who opened her eyes roundly at her question, spat out the tea and suddenly burst into laughter.

“What? Hahaha! Look at her, she’s asking if Susan and Mr. Berkne are lovers!”

Was it such a ridiculous question? I felt embarrassed as her face turned red.

“Hmm. But on second thought, it’s pretty plausible.”

“I’ve been watching her all day, and Mary is very perceptive. You’re good at adapting to work.”

Mary couldn’t understand those words when she just laughed at her a while ago, and now, telling her she’s perceptive. Sitting at the end of the table and smoking a cigar, Mrs. Colento added a passing remark.

“Susan didn’t go out to see Mr. Berkne. She went to see His Excellency.”

His Excellency. Mrs. Colento’s advice and Susan’s reaction. There’s definitely something going on between Duke Richton and sunbae.

Mrs. Colento knew it. The maids knew it too. Everyone knew, but she thought there must be a good reason not to talk about it.

At times like this, it’s best to move on considering the atmosphere surrounding me. But I was itching to know about it and it was hard to hold in my tongue…In the end, I coughed a little and slowly brought forward the curiosity I had endured.

“Is Susan Sunbae a… noble?”

I was expecting two kinds of reactions. They would say don’t be ridiculous, grab their stomach, and laugh like before, or they would speak ambiguously and pretend not to know. However, the reaction of the maids was different from those two.

“We don’t know either.”

Starting with a shrugging maid, insignificant answers poured out from here and there.

“She was brought in by His Excellency. So Mrs. Colento was quite wary of her at first, saying that she might lose her seat to a newborn-like lass.”

Mrs. Colento laughed, tapping the cigar over the ashtray with a small smile.

“If you’re so curious, why don’t you ask her yourself? Where and what she’s been doing?”

“Ahem, it’s not to that extent. It’s just that Susan sunbae seems to be personally close with His Excellency…”

I swallowed the remaining tea in my mouth, blurring the end of my words. Mrs. Colento’s expression, staring at me like that, was quite subtle.

‘If you have anything to say, please just tell me!’

As I groaned without being able to stand up, a sigh instead of smoke flowed out of the head maid’s mouth as if she felt sorry for me.

“You’d better not bring that up in front of Susan.”

“Oh! W-was it too rash of me? I’m sorry. I will be more careful from now on.”

So that’s what she was trying to say. It was depressing as I was criticized, but I felt relieved that I now knew the problem. I certainly couldn’t control what I wanted to say and might have brought it up too easily.

“It’s not like that… Yeah. It’s not bad to be careful. You’ll find out soon anyway as time goes by.”

Mrs. Colento tapped my shoulder and spoke vaguely. Did it mean that they can figure out the relationship if they wait and see?

Don’t tell me. Is Susan Sunbae the Duke’s mistress?. No, no. That prediction is rude to both parties.

***

My first break in Ingord ended with only curiosity. My afternoon routine was cleaning the bedroom in the annex, which I had to learn from other maids, not from Susan.

“Is this building under construction? As I walked in, I noticed that the left side was being repaired.”

“There was an incident a while ago. There were a lot of injured employees. It was quite a noisy month in various ways.”

Did the building collapse or something? The maids’ faces were not good, so I could not ask about it in detail.

That was the end of my routine in Ingord. Like a mansion with dozens of employees, it was both a moderately busy and moderately leisurely daily life. There was a reason why everyone was dying to come in here. I became very proud of my mother, who had the great status of being Mrs. Colento’s hometown friend.

***

The sunset completely passed over the ridge and the midnight of late summer came. To familiarize herself with the structure of the mansion, she was going to check if there were any lights that could not go out in the building. I found it strange that the surroundings were bright, but the lights were fluttering inside the drawing room.

“Is the light turned off…?”

On the floor, next to the swaying yellow light, a long shadow rose. I carefully entered the drawing room and identified the owner of the shadow. The first thing I saw was a tall figure blocking the light from the fireplace. I thought it was red-colored hair like fire, but when I looked closely, it was pure platinum hair without any flaws. Soon, a man, wearing a light shirt, turned his head slowly towards me. The ridge of his nose was high, the frame of his forehead was clearly defined, and the shadow deepened the features on his face.

“I’ve never seen you before.”

Really, what should I say? I had never seen such a beautiful man in her entire life. His presence was sharp enough for her to forget to breathe and chilling to make me shudder. Under the pressure she felt instinctively, she had no choice but to step back.

Anyone with two eyes had no choice but to feel that intuition. The fact that this man was the famous Duke Richton Ingord.

“G-greetings. My name is Mary Edith who just joined in.”

I erased every last handful of my imagination of Richton Ingord. Instead, I replaced it with the man in front of my eyes.

His various notoriety that had spread throughout the public, including the slaughterer, an unloyal vassal, and a watchdog that preyed on its owner, and the real Richton Ingord were too different from each other. I stood corrected. It was too different from the actual appearance of Richton Ingord.

“Are you the new maid who became Susan’s partner?”

“Yes.”

There’s certainly something between Susan and Duke Richton. Otherwise, Susan’s name could not come out so naturally. I thought it would be beneficial for me later on if I pretended to be close to sunbae. I managed to add a word as I let my brain work.

“S-susan sunbae taught me a lot. She’s a really good senior.”

The duke’s reaction was only simple. All he did was lift one corner of his mouth and let out a smirk. He happened to be reading something as a letter filled with cursive handwriting was torn in all directions and fell into the fireplace. The duke lightly brushed off his hand and stared at her again.

“Do you know Susan’s room?”

“Yes”

“Go tell her I called.”

At this hour? Don’t tell me the relationship between the two is really…

I couldn’t hide my embarrassment and opened my mouth, stuttering.

“W-where to…”

But the duke already turned his back and disappeared before I was even done talking. I stood at the spot where he disappeared and gazed vainly at the fireplace.

Was it only a dream?

I turned off the lights, went back to the employee’s area, and headed for Susan’s bedroom. The innermost right door. In case it might interfere with other people’s personal time, I moved carefully and pulled sunbae’s bedroom handle.

“Well, Susan Sun….” (sunbae)

Bang.

The door closed violently, and I was dragged somewhere without having the time to come to her senses. Before I knew it, I was lying on the bed in the dark room and staring at the ceiling. With a sharp dagger that pressed down my neck.

Ugh.

I stopped breathing without realizing it.

“I-I-I’m sorry!”

“Mary?”

My dark field of vision brightened sharply. The weight that was pressing against me and the owner of the dagger was none other than Susan. Turning on the lamp, she slowly removed the hideous thing from my neck after checking Mary’s face thoroughly.

Oh my God, she almost stabbed me!

I apologized in a trembling voice and wiped away my tears that came out from fear. I was so surprised that I couldn’t stop crying.

“I-I’m so sorry. Ugh. I just, uh, just wanted to tell Susan sunbae..Hic….”

“Don’t cry. Next time, don’t try to enter silently like that.”

(P/R: she was literally saying that don’t kill your steps)

“Hngh, sniff. Yeah…”

I opened the door slightly to avoid disturbing her and also thought about whether to knock or not…But Susan sunbae told me to come whenever there was a problem. After some time went by, the fear and injustice that I felt calmed down to some extent. Yes, it was definitely my mistake. I felt like I had to completely break my old habit from my previous workplace.

“Hi-His Excellency called for you. I’m here to tell you that.”

As Mary swallowed her tears to say those words, her sunbae ruffled her bangs with an annoyed touch. Then she closed her eyes and exhaled as if she was holding something in. When she opened her eyes after a long time, she rummaged through the drawer, pulled out something small and threw it at Mary.

“Eat.”

“T-this is…?”

“Chocolate. “

Was the wrapping paper gold leaf? I opened my mouth and stared at the gold-wrapped chocolate and Susan alternatingly.

“T-thank you. “

Returning to her bedroom quietly, she put the chocolate she received from her senior in a treasure box inside the drawer. She’d save it for later. As she smiled at the unexpected gift, she then organized her thoughts.

‘But what the hell is His Excellency’s relationship with Susan sunbae?’

Looking back on the reaction of Duke Richton and Susan in the drawing room, she couldn’t find any plausible assumptions. She figured that she’s not his mistress at all based on their reactions, but it’s really confusing. Mrs. Colento’s words that she would know naturally over time seemed to be the answer to her question.