Why the Maid Inherited the Duke's Legacy

Surprised, Ivnia jumped up, unable to give up her old habit.  Ranelli, who was sitting on her lap, was startled by how quickly she got her body up and hung it around Yvnia's neck.

Yvnia calmly laid down Ranelli and pulled her little body up to hide the child and buried Ranelli in her skirt.

"Young master."

Her nervous expression rolled her eyes down, not even daring to look at the young master to his powerful face.  It was only then that I remembered that I should now call him Duke/Master and not Young Master.

Fortunately, the opponent didn't seem to have any intention of grabbing it.

“It’s been 7 years.”

Shoes that made a heavy sound approached without hesitation.  Arad Gelendzhik's clean shoes without a single dust came into view.

The nose of the shoe was directed in front of Ivnia.  Viewing angle saw Arad clasping his arms.  He wanted to look down at Ivnia's crown without saying a word for a while, then commanded in an arrogant and overbearing voice that suited his position.

“Lift up your head, Ivnia.  From the butler, it sounds like you're trying to make a deal with me, but it's no fun if you lie flat from the beginning."

“…  …  .”

Yvnia meekly raised her head.  But his eyes were still looking down.  At her attitude of not making eye contact with him, Arad looked down at her with her strange gaze, and grit his teeth.

Yvnia knew that he was looking at her as if he was going to eat her without looking at her.  It was such an open gaze.

It would be anger

His anger at her for not listening to his offer to take her back again if she erased her child, no, his cruel command to her right away.

It was.  He was the cruel ex-lover who gave Yvnia the sweetness of her love that shone in her most splendor, and at the same time trampled on it mercilessly, and was Ranelli's biological father.

‘I would have completely forgotten myself, but I thought it would be nice.’

Yvnia knew that her own stubbornness stirred his wrath, but she just swallowed her dry saliva and closed her eyes.

From the moment she heard his voice, her heart felt like it was going to explode.  I haven't had the courage to face him yet.

"You are still stubborn."

He murmured lowly.  However, compared to the stinging gaze a while ago, the voice was strangely weak.

Without a moment's doubt, he found Ranelli, who grabbed Yvnia's skirt and poked her head out, and was intrigued.

“This little…  …  What's with this... a miniature of you?”

He thoughtfully picked out the words, and in his actions, she read that he couldn't believe that such a tiny creature was a human being.

Yvnia answered in a monotonous voice.

“She is my daughter.”

She pulled her daughter tight and tried to widen the area covered by the skirt width.  But her curious little head kept sticking out.

"Daughter?"

Arad slowly rolled her words out of his mouth.  The voice somehow stood up to me.

As he abruptly lowered himself and sat down in front of Ranelli, Yvnia, who had her gaze below, was forced to face his face, which she had been so avoiding.

In an instant, Ivnia almost stumbled.  As I faced his handsome face that still made my heart sink, old thoughts flooded me like an oasis.

I felt like crying.

Compared to his seven years ago, his elegant auburn hair and straight forehead, which seemed to keep his a little longer than he was seven years ago, deep eyes under the strong-looking dark eyebrows she was particularly fond of.  And his tall nose and delicate lips positioned in perfect harmony.

He was the exact same image she remembered so clearly that she could draw even with her eyes closed.  'Cause she kissed his face one by one, stroking her hands and looking into them for a long time.

Fortunately, he didn't notice how Yvnia's expression changed from moment to moment, as he was looking at Ranelli.

He stared at Ranelli with his yellow eyes full of innocence and grumpiness.  It was like a huge red lion showing interest in a baby rabbit.

“Are you Ivnia’s daughter?”

Ranelli rolled her big eyes and looked at Yvnia and Arad alternately, then nodded her head.

"Yes.  It’s my mother.”

Yvnia swallowed her dry saliva.  I don't know if the two of them, looking at each other at eye level, noticed, but Ranelli and Arad's eyes were the same as reflected in a mirror.

With all her earnest heart, she repeated and believed that Ranelli's eyes were yellow-green. Despite what she had believed, the child inherited her father's mysterious gold eyes.

As expected, Yvnia, chewing her lips, was asked, "How old is she?"  ' I answered Arad a little hastily.

“She turned six this year.”

A hasty answer followed by a hasty question.

“Her father?”

Does he suspect that she is his own child, even though she has lied to Ranelli about her age?

Yvnia recalled what she had done in the past, crafting his legacy with a midwife. Yes, she was. She had the help of a midwife who was shaken by her pleas that she wanted to save the child.

It was the day she sent the body of another aborted baby and a blanket stained with pig blood to Arad.  What she had escaped at night, Ivnia trembled as she remembered the terrible feeling of that day.
“…  …  The child's father passed away a few years ago.  So i had no one to take care of the child.  She's a quiet kid, so she won't make a fuss during the conversation."

She deliberately affixed her with a lie, and Yvnia hoped that Arad had not noticed anything.

Fortunately, Arad seemed to be completely drawn to the words Ivnia had uttered.

“Passed away... Hmm.”

Arad sat down, so Yvnia sat on the sofa with Ranelli.

But she seemed to hear rumbling, and the sound of a tree breaking.  Following the voice, she reflexively looked at Arad's hand as he grabbed the armrest of the sofa, his voice stopping her gaze in the air.

“Are you alone now anyway?”

Yvnia looked up at him with courage, reminding her that she didn't have to answer all of Arad's questions.  Then she met his gaze, which had been on her all the way, exactly.

‘Your eyes are clear.’

It was a strong gaze that did not look like a person suffering from madness.

Hearing stories from people with the same ailment, it was said that by the age of 25, at Arad's age, he had already seen madness in his eyes.  They said that they usually do not exceed the age of 30 and die in complete madness.

'You must have been treated properly.'

There is hope for Ranelli.  Yvnia sighed a little, feeling relieved.

Arad was looking at her with a close gaze, as if covering her lasso on each one of his with the little gestures of her.  Even as he rummaged through his arms with his long fingers and pulled out his cigar, his gaze could not be taken away from Yvnia.

He leisurely and gracefully crossed his long legs and, as usual, took a cigar to his lips.  Then he found Ranelli next to Yvnia, sticking her head out and looking at my face with curious eyes.

The hand holding the cigar stopped.

He frowned and put the cigar back in.

“By the way, you are brave to come to me to rob my estate without a notary.”

It was a sarcastic tone, but it wasn't a voice that somehow felt malicious.

‘Is it because he is confident that he will never lose the inheritance?’

Yvnia acknowledged that confidence.  Even in my opinion, the inheritance of the legacy of the previous duke was absurd.

To inherit an inheritance to a single maid, an untrustworthy employee who ran away in scandal.  It would have been ridiculous from Arad's point of view.

She said she didn't have the strength to fight Arad.  All she had was a letter signed by the duke of Lagon and signed by the previous duke.

She wasn't even sure if she was actually able to inherit her inheritance just by having it.

So she wanted to clear things up before Arad's malice broke out.

“I know what is written here is nonsense.”

“Even though you know that, there must be a reason you came here.  Moreover, you even summoned me, so it shouldn't be a trivial reason."

Feeling the pressure in the air, Ivnia swallowed one more dry saliva, which she do not know how many times she did, and placed the letter with the inheritance information on her lap. She felt like a foolish one trying to negotiate with a worthless hostage.

In her head, the image of him continuing to recommend an abortion to me with a cold face was repeated over and over again. She felt like she was about to go nauseous, weighed down by the re-emergence of disappointment, fear, and sadness.

‘Can we expect warmth from him?’

She was not confident  But she had to try it for Ranelli.

“I promise you, I will not dare bother you with this, if the Duke grant the me one little favor.”

"Request?"

“I don’t need an inheritance.  Please let me work here as a maid again.”

“You really came back for that?”

Arad frowned. He asked again.

"There is another reason…right?"

It seemed to Ivnia that he did not believe her words.

‘Probably…  …  I would also be reluctant.’

Since the relationship between the two is like that, it was the expected reaction. Yvnia decided to lower her posture a little more.

“It is very difficult to raise a child on my own,” she said.  Please, have mercy on us so we can stay here.  I will do anything.”

However, as Ivnia's plea continued, Arad's expression grew even more frowned upon.

“Hey, are you stupid?  I'd rather...  …  .  That kid is my...  …  .”

He glanced at Ranelli to see what he was thinking, then he clenched his teeth and stopped himself.

Yvnia felt anger in his voice.  But as she bowed her head, she didn't realize that his eyes were full of sad light, contrary to her guess.

He turned his head and clicked his tongue.

“It’s only because it’s so dark.”

“I don’t care what you think of me.  I am well aware of my situation here, so I will accept it even if I only get paid half my salary.”

In fact, it would have been nice to not have to receive any salary at all as long as room and board were provided.  What Yvnia wanted was to find out how Arad was managing his illness.

As she remembers, his predecessor Duke did anything to cure Arad's illness.

The previous duke was a sorcerer called a geek.  Yvnia knew better than anyone how devoted he was to research to develop a treatment method for his son, who was considered with an incurable disease.

Those who were unaware of such circumstances would say that the former Duke was a geek who was obsessed with his hobbies.  But she knew how desperately he was devoted to his research as much as Ivnia.

'I've seen him keep his research material somewhere before.'

She was lucky enough to be caught by the duke's eyes, working as a research assistant, and being paid on condition of confidentiality.

Then she saw the approximate location where she hid her research data.  If I could work here, it would be a matter of time to find it.  It was a study conducted without even his young son knowing at the time, so there is a high probability that the materials still remain in this mansion.

“Please consider the situation.”

At her earnest plea, Arad folded his arms and tilted his head slightly.  It seemed that his patience was running out.

“Is it necessary to be so humiliating in front of me? You just ran away to do this.  I thought if you appeared in front of me again, you would have been a little more brazen.  Even with past relationships.”

Yvnia was nervous.  To be honest, I didn't expect him to speak of the past with his mouth.  She didn't know what to do with herself, but she thought that to him, their love affair was something that would have been forgotten.

It is common for a good house master to touch a young maid who works in a mansion, and it is usually only the woman who loses her honor and gets kicked out.

Men with power and background do not take responsibility for women.  To them, women are just tools.

Wasn't that the case with Yvenia?  Arad was cruelly cold to the pregnant Yvnia.

So, for her, it was surprising and terrifying that Arad first mentioned the relationship between the two people of the past. She didn't want him to ridicule and despise her.  Especially when Ranelli is listening.

Yvnia hopes that no more tales of the past will come out of his mouth, and she draws a line on her side.

She said, “I will live as the Duke wanted, as if nothing had ever happened between us.  Please believe me.  The past has already been forgotten like a white paper.”

“…  …Are you serious?"

He burst out laughing as if he was stunned.

Yvnia simply nodded her head innocently, hoping that her sincerity would be reached.

Arad, who was staring at her with his contemptuous eyes, got up from his seat as if there was nothing more to say.

He called the butler in a loud voice and said,

“Give that stupid woman a job.  Or let her live in the abandoned house.”

Then he mumbled to himself, inaudible.

“Someday you will find me while crying again.”