The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 53

After finishing her morning duties, Sheila went into her room to change out of her sweat-soaked maid uniform. What she held in her hands was the new maid uniform she’d taken out and worn once before.

“You look so neat.”

The first compliment she’d ever heard from a noble in her life still tickled Sheila’s ears.

In truth, it hadn’t even been many days since she’d heard those words. But in that short span, a lot had happened to Sheila. It felt like she’d crossed a river she never should have crossed. Not just one, but several.

‘No matter what happened, I’m still just me….’

It was definitely true, yet somehow it also felt wrong.

She’d heard Alfonso would arrive sometime in the afternoon.

It would be a lie to say that taking out the new maid uniform again wasn’t done with Alfonso in mind.

Sheila took off the maid uniform she’d been wearing that morning and slipped into the new one.

She was wearing the maid uniform Alfonso had complimented, but it didn’t give her the same feeling as before.

Sheila could vaguely tell why. It kept feeling like her circumstances were different from when she’d first worn these new clothes.

As if trying to shake off her sinking mood, Sheila briskly patted down her skirt. That was when she noticed faint whitish marks on the black fabric.

Even if it was a new uniform, it was still clothing worn while working as a maid. Getting dust on it while cleaning or serving was nothing unusual. And yet….

“Ah, what is this? Why is it like this….”

A round stain had formed on the skirt she lifted.

Without realizing it, Sheila wiped away the tears that had begun to fall in drops.

Only after seeing the tears spilling from her own eyes did Sheila realize that she was upset right now.

“Ah, what is it….”

This wasn’t something worth crying over to this extent.

Even as she thought that, the tears only grew larger.

“Hic!”

In the end, Sheila burst into tears.

Suddenly, she remembered the dream she’d had last time where her older sister appeared. When the shoes her sister had bought her were dirty, the feeling she’d had in that dream was exactly like this.

At least in the dream, her sister was there.

Sheila cried out for her sister as she wept loudly. Right now, she wanted to see her sister like in that dream.

She wanted to complain to her sister, or even to her late father.

That the youngest, Sheila, was upset right now. That she wanted someone to hold her.

That she wanted to be comforted.

What made it even sadder as she cried was knowing that she couldn’t keep doing this forever. She’d only stopped by briefly to change clothes before the afternoon duties.

Sheila kept wiping away her tears until her eyelids turned red.

She didn’t want anyone to find out that she’d cried.

***

The carriage that had taken Alfonso to the royal palace stopped in the exact same spot.

Following Judith, who had come out to greet her second-oldest brother, Sheila stood there like a folding screen.

When the coachman opened the door, Alfonso appeared. With complicated feelings, Sheila stole a glance at him.

In just the few days she hadn’t seen him, Alfonso somehow seemed different.

If before he’d carried the arrogant image of the count’s second son who’d grown up lacking nothing, now he looked like someone weighed down by worries, tinged with melancholy….

‘Is he feeling autumn already?’

It wasn’t quite autumn yet, but it would be soon.

When autumn came, the young count’s appointment ceremony would be held, and Judith’s tutoring would end as well.

Since her father’s death at fifteen, Sheila had lived busily, working at a general store and then as a maid, never having the chance to feel autumn. But she had a vague feeling that once everything ended this autumn, she might finally understand what it meant to feel autumn.

Alfonso exchanged light greetings with the family members who had come out to welcome him. Then he found Sheila among the servants and cast a glance her way.

Because she’d cried shamelessly during the day, Sheila didn’t want to show her swollen face and quickly lowered her head.

But on days like that, it was always the case that she ended up running into him again.

Because she had to face Alfonso once more due to a family dinner that was suddenly scheduled that very day.

They said that in life, there were years that were particularly unlucky, and for Sheila, after the year she was fifteen when her father died and her sister married, now seemed to be exactly such a year.

At mealtimes, even when Judith called the maids over to pour wine, the Calley family generally had little interest in the maids.

Moreover, since Cedric returned, the number of times Judith called the maids over to pour wine had decreased significantly.

‘Then why do my eyes keep meeting the young masters’!’

Today, with Bernard Calley seated at the head of the table, Marisa and Judith sat to his right, and the three brothers sat in a row to his left.

Naturally, standing behind Judith, Sheila ended up facing the three brothers directly.

With the three of them seated side by side, one glared at her, one looked at her with pity, and one grinned at her for no reason.

As her eyes met each of theirs in turn, fatigue washed over her.

‘Should I use some kind of charm?’

Sheila thought of the ‘amulet’ that had been sold at Chandler’s General Store. An amulet was a charm meant to ward off bad luck, and it was something most shops, especially those that did business, usually kept.

Fortunately, when Marisa opened her mouth, the sons’ gazes turned toward their mother.

“Well then, what did His Highness the Crown Prince say? He’s attending Cedric’s appointment ceremony, isn’t he?”

Marisa’s voice was filled with excitement.

For some reason, Cedric wore a rotten smile as if thinking, ‘There’s no way,’ while Allen had an expression full of anticipation like his mother’s, and Judith….

Although only her back could be seen, she was clearly uninterested, relentlessly stabbing her fork.

She was obviously far more absorbed in the baked beans served as a side dish than in the corned beef that had come out as the main course.

After a brief silence, Alfonso answered, “His Highness the Crown Prince has been very busy lately and couldn’t give a firm answer that he would definitely attend.”

“Th, then…?”

At Alfonso’s reply, Marisa couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“Don’t worry, Mother.”

Alfonso’s voice as he comforted Marisa was gentle, like the protagonist of a play.

“The friendship between the Young Count and His Highness the Crown Prince is very close. You could say the two are ‘birds of a feather.’”

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

Alfonso likened the relationship between Cedric and the Crown Prince to an old proverb about friendship. At those words, Bernard spoke in a voice puffed up with self-importance.

“It was worth spending so much money to send him abroad. To build such a deep relationship with His Highness the Crown Prince.”

Cedric nodded briefly to his father, Count Bernard Calley, who was boasting about having sent him to study abroad, offering a light show of gratitude.

If one were to start picking apart the reduced funds within the family compared to the time of the previous count, and the state of the count family’s finances that had only begun to recover after Cedric started his business, it would never end. So this was the minimum courtesy Cedric showed to Bernard as the current head of the household.

Bernard was a man who hadn’t managed to stand out compared to his own son or his father, the former count. Cedric was also well aware that Bernard was revealing a petty sense of jealousy toward the closeness between Cedric and the Crown Prince.

Sitting across from Cedric, Marisa muttered,  “If they’re that close, he should’ve dropped everything and come….”

Whether the Crown Prince would attend was, to Marisa, the most important issue.

Having the Crown Prince appear in person would be a hundred times more effective than boasting with their own mouths to the people gathered at the appointment ceremony about the family’s closeness with him.

Alfonso was irritated at his parents, who failed to catch the nuance he’d given off and only kept talking on their own, but he didn’t open his mouth any further about it.

“Tell us more about the palace, Brother.”

“That’s all there is. What more is there to say?” Alfonso replied as if annoyed. An unpleasant emotion was inevitably mixed into his voice.

Whenever the topic of what happened at the royal palace came up, memories of the Crown Prince Marquis and the unpleasant conversation he’d had with him came tumbling out one after another like linked sausages.

Despite Alfonso’s uncharacteristic reaction for someone who usually loved gossip, Allen didn’t notice a thing and continued pestering his brother.

“You didn’t get distracted staring at beautiful women, did you?”

Alfonso glared at Allen without a word.

“What, it’s the royal palace. Of course there’d be lots of beauties.”

“Allen. Let me give you one piece of advice. Don’t drag every conversation down to your level. If you’re going to do that, you might as well focus on eating, like Judith.”

“What, was I wrong? The fact you’re suddenly giving advice makes it seem like I hit a nerve. Ah, but you really shouldn’t be like that, Brother.”

After finishing his words, Allen cast a sideways glance at Sheila with his usual fresh-looking face twisted into a lewd smile.

‘Ah, that face really…!’

Sheila cursed inwardly as their eyes met.

Allen was undeniably handsome, but his youthful face lacked even a shred of mature charm.

Whenever he made such a slick expression with that face, she felt like smacking him hard on the forehead.

Of course, Sheila knew perfectly well why Allen was making that expression right now.

‘It’s because of that conversation in the corridor last time.’

Just like Allen, Sheila had also become more conscious of Alfonso after that day.

Separate from her urge to hit him because of his expression, being subjected to that kind of gaze made Sheila feel oddly embarrassed and awkward.

Flustered for no reason, Sheila rolled her eyes around, and this time her gaze collided head-on with Cedric, who was staring at her.

Why… what…!

Sheila retorted to him silently in her mind.

Angered by the way his gaze seemed to look down on her or view her restlessness as pathetic, Sheila’s cheeks flushed bright red.

Cedric soon ignored Sheila and shifted his gaze away.

That only made Sheila angrier.

But what could she do?

Not only was there the difference in status, but now even a contract bound them together, making Sheila the lowest of the low.

Sheila also averted her gaze. Getting angry over every little thing like this would only hurt her in the end.

It already felt like her lifespan had been shortened by five years since getting tangled up with Cedric….

‘At this rate, I won’t even die a natural death.’

The moment she resigned herself and turned her eyes away, she met Alfonso’s gaze this time.

For some reason, the sympathetic look in his eyes felt like it was comforting her situation.

‘That can’t be.’

Alfonso had no idea what had happened to Sheila while he was away.

“Sh, Sheila’s… pussy is… hhk, uh, lewd, hh! A lewd pussy… is what it is. Hhng!”