The Prince's Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 15

Chapter 15. One Who Knows Gratitude (1)

“Your Highness, Prince Edwin.”

Perhaps she hadn’t completely lost her composure, as the head maid greeted Edwin politely. Following her lead, the other maids also bowed to the prince.

“I was merely punishing those who dared disrupt the order of the palace.”

Edwin turned to face her, listening quietly to her explanation.

“Who exactly disrupted the order?”

“…Pardon?”

No one expected his response.

The prince had always remained silent, no matter how much the maids tormented him or how harshly the head maid scolded him. Yet, his tone was suddenly authoritative.

The head maid’s eyes widened in surprise.

Though the unexpected situation startled me as well, I noticed something—Edwin’s clenched fists had gone pale, and his large eyes were trembling slightly.

‘Why?’

He was clearly scared.

Even so, Edwin stood his ground.

“It’s not this woman who disrupted the order—it’s you.”

Edwin spoke clearly, glaring at the head maid. Though he lacked the commanding presence of the imperial family, he did not appear weak.

“Y-Your Highness, how could you say that…?”

“I am the master of this palace. You know that, don’t you?”

At Edwin’s question, the head maid could only open and close her mouth, unable to speak. She looked as if she couldn’t understand why this young prince was behaving this way.

“Everything here belongs to me. Isn’t that right?”

“…Yes, that is correct.”

“And that includes the maids. Isn’t that right?”

“Y-Yes, Your Highness.”

Edwin quietly observed the head maid before continuing, “But I don’t need those maids. After all, they were never truly mine—they were always yours.”

Silence fell over the hall.

There was no one present who did not understand the young prince’s words.

The maids looked extremely tense, while the head maid stood frozen, her face stiff.

“But not this woman.”

“…Pardon?”

“This woman is the nanny for both Lia and me. Do you understand what that means?”

The head maid’s face twisted further, but Edwin paid her no mind. He spoke like a young king making an important proclamation.

“My nanny belongs to me and Lia, and no one else can touch her.”

“Yes! Achel belongs to my brother and Lia!”

Emilia, who had been hiding behind her brother all this time, now chimed in to assert her claim as well. Edwin held Emilia’s hand tightly.

“If anyone needs to punish her, I will do it, and if anyone rewards her, that will be me too. So,”

Through gritted teeth, he continued, “If you lay a hand on my nanny again, I will no longer stand by idly, Head Maid.”

This was the first counterattack the young prince had ever made against the world around him.

***

“Achel, does it hurt a lot?”

“No.”

Emilia, sitting in my lap, looked up at me with tearful eyes.

“But you look like you’re in pain?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, I’ll blow on it. It’ll get better if I do.”

Emilia puffed warm breaths onto my cheek.

The young princess seemed unaware that warm air would only make the stinging worse.

As I sat there, allowing Emilia’s breath to soothe me without thought, Edwin, who had been staring out the window the entire time, suddenly turned and shouted at me.

“You idiot—!”

His sudden outburst made Emilia flinch.

“Do you even know what happens if you provoke that witch? Do you know?!”

“Lower your voice, please. You’re scaring Princess Emilia.”

Seeing his frightened sister’s face, Edwin bit his lip.

“Do you have any idea what I had to do because of you?” He muttered to himself in a low, angry voice, “That witch will definitely go and tell the Second Empress everything. She’ll tell her everything.”

It seemed that Edwin’s true fear was not the head maid or Countess Katrina, but rather the Second Empress.

“Then why did you step forward?”

“What?”

“Aren’t you a coward, Your Highness?”

“W-What?”

If he were truly the ‘young and incompetent third prince,’ he shouldn’t have stepped forward in the situation earlier. I was curious as to why he had acted after seeing me slapped.

Edwin, seemingly hit right in the mark, opened and closed his mouth for a while before shouting, his face flushed with emotion.

“Yes, fine, I am a coward!”

I hadn’t expected him to admit it so easily.

Edwin, noticing my surprised expression, spoke confidently, “But I’m not a cowardly person! I promised Emma that I wouldn’t be!”

Not cowardly?

I raised an eyebrow at his response. “You helped me because you’re not cowardly?”

“Yes! And you helped me, so I helped you back.”

He raised his wrist proudly, showing the bracelet I had retrieved from Gale’s gang.

“I’m someone who knows gratitude!”

Someone who knows gratitude.

‘To think such an admirable sentiment would come from this cheeky little prince.’

I glanced at the prince’s bracelet and then chuckled softly.

“Is that so?”

“Why are you laughing?”

“It’s nothing. I share the same sentiment, Your Highness.”

I gently touched my slightly swollen cheek and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“If someone shows kindness, it’s only right to return it in kind.”

I smiled at Edwin, baring my teeth.

“Because I, too, am someone who knows gratitude.”

***

That evening, Catherine stood up to change out of her ruined clothes.

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong, Catherine?”

“My maid uniform is gone. It was the only spare I had.”

Catherine looked at her roommate with a distressed face. Her roommate, as if suddenly remembering something, slapped her knee.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. The nanny borrowed your maid uniform.”

“What? The nanny?”

“She said she’d return it clean.”

“Really? Doesn’t she have anything else to wear? Why borrow a maid uniform?”

Catherine scratched her cheek with a troubled expression, recalling the new nanny.

Her cold demeanor seemed at odds with her kind features. Her seemingly indifferent yet gentle actions.

Thinking of the nanny, Catherine chuckled to herself. “She really is a strange nanny.”

“Right, isn’t she strange? I think she’s strange too.”

“What?”

“The new nanny. Don’t you think there’s something odd about her?”

“Like what?”

“Like the questions she asked us earlier.”

Catherine remembered the questions the nanny had asked the annex maids earlier that day.

“What about them?”

“It’s just weird, you know. Asking about the relationship between the head maid and Countess Katrina, when the head maid usually goes out, stuff like that.” The maid grumbled discontentedly, “She even asked about the head maid’s daily routine from start to finish.”

“She could just be curious.”

“Well, maybe. But still.” The maid shrugged but then shivered as she continued, “There’s just something eerie about her. It’s a bit scary, don’t you think?”

“Huh?”

“She seems friendly, but her gaze could kill, I swear.”

Catherine frowned at her roommate’s words. “Don’t joke like that. She helped me, you know.”

Seeing Catherine’s serious expression, her roommate awkwardly shrugged. “Alright. Anyway, there was quite the commotion at the main palace because of this incident.”

“What? What kind of commotion?”

“They say the head maid slapped the nanny across the face.”

“What?!”

Catherine screamed in shock, and her roommate hushed her.

“Not so loud. You’ll wake the others.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Anyway, I heard that Prince Edwin stepped in and sorted things out.”

“His Highness Prince Edwin?”

“Yeah. He couldn’t even speak up when Madam Conrad was treated badly, but he did this time.”

Catherine lowered her head quietly at her roommate’s words.

“What’s wrong, Catherine?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Catherine blinked for a moment and then smiled brightly.

“It just feels like something big is about to change.”

“Change? What’s going to change?”

“Everything, I guess.”

“What, do you have divine powers or something? Can you see the future?”

“No, it’s just a feeling.”

At that moment, Catherine, a perfectly ordinary human, didn’t know yet. That her premonition would soon become a reality.

***

The head maid of the Third Prince’s palace was busy working on her abacus as usual.

“This month’s numbers are awful.”

She rolled the pen in her hand and muttered irritably to herself.

“All because I ended up with a useless master.”

Just as she was going over the documents, drawing lines over the figures, there was a knock at the door.

“Head Maid, it’s time for you to leave.”

“Is it that late already? I should go.”

The head maid quickly hid the documents, put on her coat, and left her office.

It was a typical day for her.

Perhaps that was why she didn’t notice.

The office door, firmly shut, silently opening.

Or the shadow that slipped inside through the gap.

***

The head maid’s office was filled with the scent of expensive perfume. A scent far too luxurious for a mere baroness.

Now then.

I began rummaging through the office, moving naturally as if I were its rightful owner. I had to finish my business before the head maid returned from the Second Empress’s palace.

‘Just as the annex maids had said.’

The first virtue of an assassin: thorough prior investigation.

With the information gathered from the annex maids and a few days of observing her, I’d deduced that the head maid would be away at the Second Empress’s palace for at least an hour.

I pulled out books from the shelves one by one, flipping through them.

How long had I been searching?

From within one of the books fell a golden necklace.

A necklace so extravagant that anyone could tell it belonged to the imperial family, gleaming as if it were polished daily.