Chapter 14
“Where is Flora?”
Claude, entering without hesitation, looked around the room. Then he turned his gaze to the wardrobe where the maids had been speaking just before.
Soon, seeing the padlock hanging on the tightly shut wardrobe door, his expression crumpled grimly.
Pushing aside the maid in front of him, Claude first forcefully struck the padlock with his large hand, ignoring the fallen maid’s groan. The iron lock shattered under the man’s rough touch and fell to the floor.
Finally throwing the wardrobe door open, Claude groaned.
Inside the cramped space, filled with stuffy heat, his eyes fell upon a small woman curled up, making herself as small as possible. Unaware that the door had opened, Flora had her head bowed deeply.
“Flora.”
Instinctively grasping her shoulder, he sensed something wrong. Her sweat-soaked body was burning hot. He shook her shoulder, but she was unresponsive, having apparently lost consciousness.
Claude carefully turned Flora’s head, which was leaning against a corner, toward himself. As expected, her eyes, revealed between strands of hair plastered to her cheeks, were tightly shut.
He first checked her pale complexion. Her breathing was exceedingly faint.
Without further thought, Claude scooped Flora up in both arms. The fact that her body, fitting snugly in his arms, was unbelievably small made something rise in his throat.
“M-Master…”
To the Head Maid, who had been watching with anxious eyes by the door until then, he sent a chillingly cold glare.
“Madame Melady. Have you still been doing such things in my residence, daringly?”
The flustered Head Maid flinched, her knees weakening. After glaring at the old woman, who was pale and silent as if her lips were sewn shut, Claude immediately called loudly for his adjutant.
“Harriot!”
Harriot, who had hurried over from a distance at the voice that resounded through the mansion, saw Flora in the Duke’s arms and his eyes widened in shock.
“Your Excellency… that woman, why… Surely she’s not dead?”
“Stop talking nonsense and summon a physician immediately.”
Giving the firm order, Claude moved his legs. The pale-faced Head Maid and maids watched the Duke’s receding back and stamped their feet anxiously.
—
At the Duke’s command, a physician rushed over. He gave a clear diagnosis to the Duke, who seemed unusually unsettled.
“She is merely asleep.”
“Are you sure you examined her properly? She didn’t even move a muscle when I carried her in.”
“Yes. She is deeply asleep.”
“…Her body was burning hot.”
The Duke, who had been certain she had fainted, asked again and then quietly looked at Flora lying on the bed.
Even though he knew she had been a soldier, seeing her like this, she was utterly a frail-looking woman. The aftereffect of carrying her limp body just before was significant.
Nevertheless, the physician gave his opinion that it was nothing serious.
“Having been locked in a wardrobe, her body temperature rose due to the heat. It’s not a matter of great concern.”
Having been told by Sir Harriot that it was urgent, he had hurried over, only to be dumbfounded by being asked to examine a maid. This was the first time he had examined a maid in this ducal residence.
Assuming something serious had happened, he had treated her urgently, but there was nothing that could be called treatment.
“However, it is true that her vitality is depleted. She also has severe malnutrition and dehydration.”
“…Malnutrition and dehydration, you say.”
“Yes. From what I can tell, she seems to have not only starved for several days but also not had enough water.”
“Hah… So they even starved her. They gave her nothing.”
The Duke, who had been muttering darkly, suddenly let out a hollow laugh. In truth, the female body he had held was so light it was hard to believe it was a person’s weight; she didn’t feel like a living being.
Claude’s eyes overlapped with his first meeting with Flora, who had been gaunt and thin.
A woman who, despite her small stature, had been robust and had the boldness of a man, now looked so emaciated she was no different from an orphan girl collapsed on the street.
At the Duke’s suddenly changed attitude, the physician couldn’t figure out what to say. Wondering what there was to laugh at in this situation, the bewildered physician saw for a moment that the Duke’s eyes weren’t laughing at all.
Having served as the attending physician of this ducal residence since the previous Duke’s time, he could tell just by the Duke’s expression. Just how angry he was now.
It was a cruel smile, as if the brutal former Duke had come back to life. Feeling as if the temperature around him had dropped, the physician flinched.
No, what on earth was this maid? Muttering internally that he had no idea, he stood up hesitantly and added an additional explanation.
“Still, that may not be the only reason. Since she came from the battlefield, the effects of not eating properly are likely greater.”
For a moment, as he pondered the physician’s words, a strange focus appeared in Claude’s eyes.
“How did you know that? I never told you where this woman came from.”
“Pardon? Everyone knows that…”
The physician’s expression grew even more bewildered when the Duke asked something that everyone from the servants to the ducal knights knew, if they had any dealings with the residence.
Flora’s rumors had already spread far and wide, and had long since reached the ears of the attending physician, Enoch.
But what he said next was even news to him.
“Everyone knows Flora was a soldier?”
“What? A soldier? What I heard was…”
“Tell me immediately. What are the rumors?”
“Well… that she was a maid who attended to soldiers on the battlefield…”
Enoch, wondering if he had said something wrong, told the Duke everything he had heard.
That the Duke had brought in some camp follower to be a maid, and because of that, both maids and servants openly whispered whenever they saw Flora.
The old physician, not one to pay attention to gossip, could objectively convey how Flora was currently being treated.
“Ha, a camp follower… So that’s the rumor.”
Claude was dumbfounded. Having even discovered that there had been an unspoken ostracism within the residence, he found himself pathetic for not knowing anything and clicked his tongue.
He recalled that Flora had been frequently involved in large and frequent altercations.
*’They were the ones who first did me harm.’*
So those words had been true.
The Head Maid claimed Flora attacked others without reason, but if such things were commonplace, it was rather remarkable that Flora had ended things at that level.
He had thought her a foolish woman who wouldn’t even try to protest her innocence, but then it occurred to him that even if she had explained properly, he probably wouldn’t have believed her.
The moment he saw the blade, his prejudice against her had resurfaced.
“That stubborn Madame Melady isn’t the type to overlook such scandal… Does the Head Maid not know?”
“She probably… does. It’s been nearly weeks now that whenever people gather, they talk about this maid.”
*Is that so.* He smiled self-deprecatingly.
The fact that even the Head Maid, who should have disciplined the servants, had joined in made Claude feel a great sense of betrayal. Having had no interest in the affairs of the residence until now, Claude had assumed Madame Melady would manage things properly.
In fact, during the eight years he had been away, she had done so, and even before that, she had never been negligent in her duties nor overstepped her bounds.
Although it bothered him that she was someone the previous Duke had trusted completely, this was why he had thought there was no need to replace her.
But with what had happened today, it became clear that he had misjudged.
So, she had calmly carried out that very act he had forbidden, using the nonsensical excuse of ‘discipline’.
The conclusion was easily drawn.
—
Normally, at this time, smoke would be rising from the chimneys in preparation for dinner, and everyone would be bustling about.
But now, the Heinster Ducal Residence was on thin ice, as if someone might drop dead at any moment.
The Head Maid had been summoned by the Duke a moment ago, and several maids had been called in one after another. The remaining servants, unaware of the situation, couldn’t help but be cautious.
The servants summoned to the reception room could barely swallow their breath in front of their master, who was staring intently at them with a cold expression.
The setting sunlight streaming through the large window dyed the reception room red. It was when the outside was growing dark that the Duke, who had been sitting with his eyes gently closed, finally spoke.
“Head Maid, explain yourself.”
“I merely confined her for a while. When maids commit wrongdoing, this kind of discipline is very effective… Even the former Duke…”
The Head Maid continued her excuses steadfastly. Not anticipating that this would only inflame the Duke’s anger further.
“It seems I’ve been quite lenient with you. I am certain I forbade the act of locking people in wardrobes.”
“Excuse me…?”
It was the first time the Duke had criticized her in such a sharp tone. *Ah.* The old woman belatedly recalled one fact.
What was the reason that discipline method, which had occurred frequently during the previous Duke’s time, had disappeared at some point?
*’What a disaster, forgetting that…’*
Her old mind, dulled by time, had only just recalled it, but it was already too late.
“It seems I have been a rather lenient master. To think you dared to defy my orders.”
“I misspoke.”
“You locked a person in a wardrobe for four days and didn’t give her a single sip of water… Ah, were you planning to starve her to death this time? Because she’s just an insignificant maid?”
Their master, always relaxed and generous, is the only son of that cruel former Duke. Even while smiling kindly, very occasionally, his temperament changes just like the former Duke.
She had momentarily forgotten that fact.
