Why the Maid Inherited the Duke's Legacy

Being honest takes Courage

Ranelli was truly courageous and patient.  She was a bit fidgety throughout the adults' conversation, but she waited patiently without whining or fussing enough to get attention.

The child, who had been keeping her mouth shut while watching the grown-ups, opened her mouth only after the butler showed Yvnia to a private residence for hire on the grounds of the Duke of Gelendjik.

Glancing at the back of the butler as he left after his guidance, Ranellie tugged at the hem of Yvnia's skirt. Yvnia bowed her back to her daughter's eye level.

"Mom..Mom."

"Huh?  Why?"

“It’s about that old man.  Such a big and handsome man.”

Yvnia, relieved her tension, wondered if Arad would look good in her child's eyes, and she burst into laughter.

“He is the Duke.”

“Factory?”

Yvnia smiled calmly and corrected Ranelli's pronunciation, as she spit out an unfamiliar word for the first time without any confidence.

“No, it's Duke.”

“Ah, Duke.”

"Yes. So what about him?”

“Does the Duke like her or hate her?”

"Huh…  …  ?”

What question is this?  It seemed like a normal question, but there was a bit of a puzzlement in the situation in which she was asked.

Of course, even if it wasn't, it was an ambiguous question to answer easily.  It will hurt the child's heart to tell her that a stranger who doesn't like her mother.

After a moment's hesitation as to how Yvnia would answer her, Ranelli added her explanation, apparently frustrated.

“Because the Duke looked at mom like a candy jar.”

The child who tried to get her quicker answer from Yvnia, made her speech even worse.

Even Yvnia knew the meaning of the idiom Ranelli spoke.  The child now imitates what her grandmother often used to say.

If Ranelli, who was helping with the housework next to her mother, watched the village children running around with envy, her grandmother would laugh and say, 'It's like looking at a jar of candy'.

She tilted her head as if it was strange.

“If you like it, you should treat it kindly, but why does the Duke speak bad words to mom?  Charles is always so mean to us, so no matter how much he looks at us like candy jars, he doesn't want to play with us."

“Um, so…  …  .”

Yvnia smiled awkwardly and agreed with Ranelli.  But she had no idea what the child was seeing and what Arad said was looking at her 'as if he were looking at a candy jar'.

Arad maintained his overbearing attitude throughout, and he never had a friendly smile, except for a grumpy grin on his face.

Yvnia thought that Ranelli would have been afraid of his intimidation.  Even as an adult, she was afraid of Arad, so Ranelli must have been afraid as a child.

But she never imagined that she would hear this from Ranelli, let alone saying she was terrified, that he would 'look at her mother like her candy jar'.

‘You must have misunderstood something.’

She won't need to change Ranelli's thinking.  Because the child will never meet Arad in the future.  Wouldn't it be more important to give emotional satisfaction to children than to tell them everything directly?

Yvnia smiled as she stroked Ranelli's hair.

“Does our Ranelli know how to make friends?  Ranelli knows it's good to be kind, but the Duke doesn't seem to know it yet.  Still, he has allowed us to stay here, so he must be a very kind person.”

“Why then does the Duke act against his heart?”

“Originally, adults are shy to show their true feelings.”

“Why?”

“To be honest, it takes courage, but as you get older, you lack courage.”

In reality, it was not that Arad wasn't courageous enough to be honest, but rather, it must have been that he was expressing his dislike of Yvnia.

Because he's a person who doesn't need to hide his heart.  All are at his feet, and he will have nothing to fear.

Yvnia was simply inventing a bona fide lie for her child.

At her mother's words, Ranelli's eyes widened like a rabbit.

“The Duke looked so big and brave, doesn't he have the courage?”

“You know the story of the cowardly tiger?  The story is that the tiger that looked fierce and scared was actually a coward.  Even a tiger that big and fearsome sometimes lacks courage.  He's not just what he looks like."

After hearing her familiar fairy tale story, Ranelli, who understood at once, said, "That's right."  and nodded her head.  Then she suddenly opened her eyes and spoke shyly.

“By the way, Mom...the Duke also had pretty yellow-green eyes just like mine!”

“No, it’s yellow.”

Astonished, Yvnia answered her calmly and resolutely.  It was because she was terrified by the embarrassment that Ranelli had discovered the secret she had been hiding.  It was only after she had uttered her words that she looked at Ranelli with a look of embarrassment, and she smiled softly again.

"See, that's what Ranelli looked like.  She looked different to mom.  Next time she sees the Duke, let's take a closer look."

Then she hastily changed the subject of the conversation.

“Now then, shall we stop looking around the dormitory?”

The place the butler showed me was a small private house on the site of the mansion.

The site of the large Gelendzhik mansion was very large, and there were many buildings.  In addition to the main building and the annex, there were separate living spaces for knights and employees, and there were quite a few facilities that were built for various purposes and then neglected.

The place given to Yvnia and Ranelli as their lodgings was a private house where an elderly couple gardeners lived seven years ago.

Originally, this detached house was built by the Duchess of a certain generation as a hobby space, and was decorated for aesthetics rather than practicality.  The former duke lent it to the gardener who took care of his sick wife.

‘Are they well?’

Yvnia recalled the short, chubby gardener's wife who lived here.

Although she often complained about her body aching here and there, she was a diligent and affectionate person by birth.  With her aching body bustling, she meticulously maintained this little house, often inviting her employees.

She had even been affectionate to Yvnia, so she had been there a few times.  So this private house remained in her memory as a very comfortable and warm place.

But now, for some reason, the familiar place has turned into ruins.

‘Why is this place empty?  Did you quit your job?’

The front yard where tomatoes, lettuce, and figs were grown modestly was empty, and the roof of the porch covered with cobwebs looked like it had not been touched by humans for about 100 years.

In the meantime, I could see furniture stacked up to the ceiling inside the messy windows, probably because the building had been used as a warehouse.

'I think it's been empty for quite some time... He must have given me this place as an anger.’

Yvnia guessed, Arad must have thought that if he gave this place to her as lodgings, she would hate it and run away from him right away.

But she said that her vitality was very strong, and she even passed on her overflowing vitality to her daughter.

Arad overlooked a really important point. It was said that the house in her hometown where her mother and daughter lived was built about 70 years ago.  On the other hand, this is…  …  . 

“I love it here, Mom!

"Right? A little sweep and polish, and it will look pretty cool.”

The mother and daughter cheerfully entered inside.

“Wow, the ceiling is so pretty!”

“It’s called Casson.  The ceiling was decorated with wood panels carved by artisans.”

“I've never seen anything like that!  Shining like gold!”

“Isn’t that cool?”

If Arad had seen it, the friendly conversations would have made him angry and went back and forth endlessly.

On the other hand, Arad has been unable to concentrate on his daily routine since returning to the office after parting ways with Yvnia.  He took off the ring he wore all the time, fiddling around with it, and set it roughly on his desk.

As the butler opened the door and entered with knock, Arad grumbled as if waiting.

“She has a child, is that dust pit okay?”

“…  …  .”

The butler, who came in because he had something to say, was annoyed at first and stopped what he was going to say because of his master, Arad and waited for a while.

Arad grumbled for a while before asking him, "What?".  The butler, who had been quietly standing still, finally opened his mouth.

“It’s Yvnia.”

Arad, who had been looking to the side, buried deep in his chair, raised his head and looked at the butler for the first time.

“Is she saying that she can’t stand it? Is she calling me outside for help?”

“…  …  The head maid was at a loss as to what to do.”

His golden eyes, which had been alive for a moment, subsided coldly. 

“Do I have to instruct each and every one of those things?  Please tell them to do it properly.”

His eyes narrowed with a light of contempt.  Some hate is indistinguishable from affection if you look closely.  Such was the light of hatred in those eyes.

“I want you to regret being so arrogant to me.”

I hoped she would regret it.

I hope that she will regret it every day as she look back on it and regret even the events of that day that vanished like a mirage 7 years ago.  Then, when she couldn't be able to stand it, she would long for a comfortable life, and I hoped that she would run to me, throw away that wretched pride and ask for help.

There was no more hatred on Arad's face, imagining Yvnia reaching out to him for help in his imagination.  However, neither joy nor arrogance took the place where hatred had cooled. 

Rather, there was relief and serenity.

He had no idea what kind of expression he was making.

“That's enough.”

"Yes, I understand."

The butler left after completing the task, and Arad was left alone again.

He was a groping of the past.  He didn't even move, stayed like a statue as he thought of Yvnia blankly.

***

The butler quietly left the office after completing the task.  He tilted his head a few times as he closed the door, and his face was confused as he could not understand the owner's will.

The young butler, Hampton, was the son of a former butler, whom the previous Duke trusted.  He will serve Arad after his father, who retired together after the death of his predecessor Duke.

It had been seven years since he had followed his father and learned to work, but it had not been long since he had looked after Arad so closely.  So he was still struggling to keep a close eye on Arad's mood.

However, he couldn't help but blame his eyes for not fully grasping the owner's temperament.

Arad was a secretive and sensitive person.  He was sometimes uncontrollably nervous and ferocious, and Hampton could not comprehend Arad at that time.

Even today, he's been rolling his head alone hard to figure out why Arad is upset.

‘Did he hurt his self-esteem because of her?’

I can't quite catch it, isn't it?  After all, I don't think anyone would like when someone without a drop of blood tried to take my parents' inheritance.  Even more so, if the legacy is such a wonderful and iconic Gelezhik mansion.

‘I don’t know what conversations went on between the master and Yvnia, but she is a bold woman.  She's thinking of sitting here.'

It was surprising to Hampton that a woman who seemed infinitely docile, but wasn't really like that.  He also knew of her unsavory affair of seven years ago.

It was surprising that the woman who had left with such absurd rumors had a letter written in the will of the previous duke, but it was even more amazing that she dared to come and see Arad.

Inwardly, he admired how hard her determined eyes were.

‘There was something that couldn’t just be called shameless.’

Should I say that the wick looked hardened?  For her, the unsavory rumors about her 7 years ago really didn't suit her.

‘Because you can’t judge a person just by looking at them.’

He clicked his tongue.

Hampton had never heard of why Yvnia had offered to work here as a maid.

Presumably, Arad would need time to clear the paperwork with a notary public about Yvnia's inheritance.

‘Besides, she doesn’t have the confidence to fight her master only from Yvnia’s point of view, but maybe she is left with regrets about her legacy.’

Thinking like that, it was understandable that Arad was nervous.

Hampton immediately ran to the head maid and delivered Arad's words.

“Selby, this is the way of the master.”

As the butler in charge of everything in the mansion, he had a higher position than the housemaid, but he was treating the housemaid, who had worked in the mansion for a long time, as an adult.

Shelby, the maid, asked him, sneaking a snack or something.

“What did the master say about the woman?”

“He wanted her to regret that she offered to work here.”

“Is he telling me to put the hard work out?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Hampton answered without certainty.

Selby, who thinks Yvnia is rude and blatant, was unaware of the Hampton's flair as she thought about how she could cook Yvnia to her taste.

"Right.  I see.  What kind of a woman of such poor quality in such a high-class mansion?  She may have seduced her old master to receive a nonsensical letter, but as long as I am guarding this place, she is still young".

The maid chief shook her head satisfactorily and left.

The quiet night was ripe.  Tomorrow was going to be a different day than today.