The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 29

As Cedric swung the crop with a terrifying calm, his mind was working quickly.

‘She did the homework for her.’

Cedric realized that fact right away. The handwriting was as good as Judith’s, but there was an unnatural tension from copying someone else’s writing.

For now, Cedric hid the fact that he had noticed with a brief “Good job.” Today, he had nothing prepared.

He did not want to throw away all the progress he had piled up so far with a hasty move.

Judith’s skills were improving.

With language, it was hard to see noticeable change in just a month, but in areas like currency units, which she had no concept of at all, and in math problems she had completely shut herself off from, her grasp of the basics had definitely solidified. Since she could not fool around like she had in front of the other tutors, even if her head were a complete rock, it was only natural that her skills would improve to this extent.

But Cedric adjusted things so that even Judith herself would not notice it.

He had agreed to take on Judith as a student in order to get Sheila into his hands, but it was a good thing that Judith was gradually developing a basic foundation along the way.

Since Judith had been born with the Calley name, she was, without a doubt, someone Cedric, the next head of the family, was responsible for.

However, if Sheila hadn’t been Judith’s maid, Cedric would never have gone to the trouble of teaching his sister himself. If he had looked, he could have found any number of ways to educate Judith without stepping in personally.

Left alone, Cedric took the key and opened the door that led to the adjoining room.

When he turned on the light, a familiar sight unfolded before him.

He didn’t know how it would look to the eyes of “ordinary people,” but it was a space into which Cedric had poured great effort.

Cedric felt that the day he would bring Sheila into this place was not far off.

Since she would know absolutely nothing about this kind of thing, she would surely be shocked.

Imagining her reaction, Cedric walked toward one wall. Various tools were hanging there. Among them were items whose purpose ordinary people would find hard to guess.

Cedric took each one down in turn, held it in his hand, and swung it. Even if they were the same type, the many tools in different sizes all had different weights and grips.

His face, as he chose the switch he would use next time, was more serious than ever.

But the criteria were surprisingly simple.

He would choose a tool that the maid would find “unbearable.”

In a way, everything so far had been nothing but a game.

He had merely been gauging the maid’s sensitivity with various tools.

After swinging several different implements, Cedric chose one with a suitable weight and impact.

When he thought about punishing the maid with that, a shiver ran through his body on its own.

The maid’s snow white skin was exceedingly delicate.

Since she was so weak to pain, Cedric had always swung the switch in moderation for her.

So with this, it was certain she would not be able to endure.

In particular, compared to the rods she had been struck with so far, the crop he had used today was closer to a toy.

Of course, since it was something meant to be used on horses or cattle, it seemed to have given the maid quite a sense of humiliation while she was being beaten.

‘She is probably relieved by now.’

There was no need to check on her condition, so he skipped going to apply the ointment, and she would no doubt be glad about that.

For the maid, lifting her skirt to have ointment applied had been more embarrassing than lifting it to be beaten during the lesson.

It was not hard for him to read the maid’s expressions. She truly didn’t know how to hide what she was feeling.

No, it was beyond simply not being able to hide it.

Having worked as a maid for a long time, Sheila moved almost like a machine when it came to anything involving Judith, but in everything else, she showed every thought she had right on her face.

Just watching Sheila’s ever-changing expressions throughout the entire lesson was enough to keep him from feeling bored.

While she was being beaten, she would pull thoroughly humiliated faces, and once the beating was over, she would drift off into other thoughts as if trying to forget it.

When he bluntly asked what she was thinking about so much, the maid had replied,

“N-no, nothing.”

“Nothing, huh.”

“I was just thinking about what I have to do tomorrow….”

Tomorrow….

The next day was finally the day Alfonso would leave for the palace with the invitation.

It would be better to be rid of pointless obstacles.

The timing lined up perfectly.

Cedric now felt that the time had truly come.

***

The next day. The esteemed young master had a long way to travel to the palace, and fortunately, the weather was good.

With all the men of the house gone off somewhere, the ones standing out in the bright morning sunlight at the front entrance were Marisa and Judith, each with their assigned maid.

Sheila was, of course, one of them.

After that day, Alfonso continued to come looking for Cedric mostly around the time Judith’s lessons ended. Each time, he naturally ran into Sheila, who had finished her beating and was on her way back to her room to rest.

Sheila tried to simply give a silent bow in passing whenever possible, but Alfonso always greeted her first.

The reason Sheila wanted to slip past him was simple. Ever since she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Allen in the hallway last time, she had become keenly aware of him.

“That’s right, I’m interested.”

“Let’s just say that girl is a bit special.”

Several weeks had passed since that day, but his words still had not faded. If anything, the tone of voice and manner in which he had said them were growing clearer and clearer in her mind.

Even if not for that incident, Sheila had never liked getting entangled with nobles.

She was fundamentally different from some servants who dreamed of catching the eye of their betters and rising in the world.

Sheila would rather that the people she served did not even know her name.

What she had hated about being called like a dog by Judith in the dining hall was the humiliation of receiving that treatment in front of others, not the fact that they didn’t know her real name.

Someone might say it was all the same, but to Sheila the two were completely separate.

Yet somehow, Judith of course, and now Cedric and Alfonso, and even that blockhead Allen, had all come to know her name exactly.

Sheila wanted, as much as possible, to go back to the days when they hadn’t known who she was. When the time came to leave this house, she had hoped there would not be a single person who remembered her.

That wish had been shattered beyond repair.

It was all because of Cedric.

From the moment he had returned from studying abroad and picked her out as the whipping maid, it went without saying that her existence had become burned into the Calley family’s memory.

When she thought of Cedric, her thoughts spiraled out of control.

The night before, Cedric hadn’t come to apply the ointment.

At first, she had been glad, but little by little she had started to find it strange.

The crop only stung a little at the moment of impact, and after the beating was over, it did not hurt at all. But even when she had been beaten at a similar level before, he had always come to apply ointment.

‘What is it this time? What now…?’

Growing anxious, Sheila had gone over everything again to see if she had done something wrong.

There really was a reason people said you should never get involved with nobles.

Once you got tangled up with them, you had to watch every little thing from one to ten, just like this.

It was easier to think of a maid’s wages not as payment for work, but as payment for living while constantly watching nobles’ moods.

So it was only natural that she was on edge about Cedric’s mood, when he had already paid her whipping wages of ten solids in advance.

As Cedric and the ointment came to mind, Sheila’s face slowly grew warm without her realizing it.

All she could remember were the times when she had bared all her bare skin in front of him, from the moment she was beaten to the moment he applied the ointment.

His touch as he applied the ointment suddenly surfaced in her memory. Soft, almost ticklish…. Sheila blushed by herself.

While that happened, Alfonso, who had told Marisa and Judith he would be back safely, came to stand before Sheila.

“Sheila.”

“Y-yes?”

Startled, Sheila answered, and Alfonso’s gentle eyes curved as he smiled.

“What are you so surprised about?”

Sheila came to her senses and offered an apology.

“I’m sorry, Young Master.”

“You look so neat.”

“Ah….”

At the unexpected compliment, Sheila’s face, which had already been flushed, burned hot.

She was flustered because she had no idea how she was supposed to react at times like this.

It was the first day she had taken out and worn the maid uniform Molly had bought for her. The new maid uniform she had only stared at for a full three weeks despite Molly’s nagging, asking if she planned never to wear it in her entire life.

She had gotten up at dawn and agonized more than a hundred times over whether to put it on or not, then ended up wearing it. It would be a lie to say she hadn’t thought about seeing Alfonso off today.

And yet she had never imagined he would even notice it like this.

“Take good care of Judith while I’m gone,” Alfonso said.

If anyone else had said it, it would have sounded like, “Was that really necessary?” but Sheila, moved by Alfonso’s gentle tone, answered politely.

“Yes, Young Master. Have a safe trip.”

Having received Sheila’s solitary farewell, Alfonso lifted his long arm and gestured toward the mansion that he would be off.

Cedric stood at the window, looking down at his younger brother as Alfonso raised a hand toward him.

The day before, he and Alfonso had already exchanged their goodbyes. Even so, Cedric standing by the window to watch Alfonso’s departure was, in its own way, just as out of character as Alfonso standing in front of a maid and waving.

The maid, who had unconsciously turned her head following Alfonso’s gesture, spotted him and hurriedly ducked her head.

Her face, which should have shone clear in the morning sunlight, was flushed red as if burning.

What was even more of a sight was the brand new maid uniform he was seeing for the first time.

Ever since Cedric had returned, the maid had stubbornly stuck to her old maid uniform. The phrase “stuck to” fit perfectly, because she had insisted on wearing only the old one even though she had a perfectly fine new one. No matter how cleanly she washed it, worn clothes were still worn clothes.

On top of that, the sleeves and skirt were short. It seemed to be the same outfit she had received when she had first become a maid. After four or five years, she would have grown taller.

But aside from the two places on her body that must have filled out more since then, she was overall thinner, so there would have been no problem wearing it.

Had she changed into new undergarments too?

Separate from being clean and neat, her undergarments had been just as old as her maid uniform.

He even felt he wanted to punish her if she had gone so far as to change her underwear, especially if it was because of Alfonso….

A memory from four days ago surfaced in Cedric’s mind.

***

“Then I will deliver it properly and return, Young Count.”

After receiving the invitation addressed to the Crown Prince, Alfonso formally gave his respects to the next head of the family. Of course, it did not suit the relationship between Cedric and Alfonso at all.

“Drop the fake tone.”

Despite Cedric’s cynical response, Alfonso’s expression was bright. It seemed he didn’t dislike the idea of going to the palace.

No, the fact that he had even gone so far as to have a new suit tailored under the pretext of visiting the royal family made it clear Alfonso was uncharacteristically excited.