The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 70

‘Why…?’

What the hell is it…?

All the while she attended to Judith, Sheila’s head was filled with nothing but thoughts of Cedric.

With how she felt, she couldn’t sit still.

In the end, Sheila made time and went to Cedric’s room holding one of the two gold coins he’d given her.

And she froze on the spot.

Because he was giving off an even colder air than what he’d shown in her room the day before.

“What is it?”

What I came for…, what was it…?

Sheila, stiff all over, barely remembered the reason she’d come to find him.

“Ah, um, I came to give the money back. This solid is too much….”

She walked toward his desk to hand him the coin she’d brought. Even with only a few steps, her knees went weak.

That was how frightening Cedric’s presence was. Like that time four years ago when she first saw him.

She thought it had gotten better after seeing him so often, but it hadn’t.

Sheila finally reached the desk and gently set 1 solid down on one corner.

Cedric stared at the gold coin on the desk, then silently looked at Sheila, who had already retreated far away. Tense, Sheila swallowed her dry saliva.

He said, “Just take it.”

“B-but…!”

Sheila opened her mouth again.

Bringing the money back wasn’t about pride or anything like that.

Who was she to put on airs in front of the Young Count? She brought back half the money he’d given her because two solids for underwear was too much.

No matter how much she liked money, she refused money without a reason.

Even with the other maids, she’d always only taken proper compensation. Maybe that was why she’d been even stingier about cutting prices.

She did think, Since it’s money from a rich Young Count, should I just take it, but she only decided it would be better to return half than to fidget like this.

When Sheila couldn’t continue, Cedric asked, “How much was the underwear?”

“Yes?”

“I asked how much.”

Cedric’s force as he asked the price was still sharp.

“I-it was a gift, but I know you can buy it for about this many denis.”

“Then since I said I’d pay double, it’s four denises?”

Sheila tensed up, already predicting what he would say next.

“Then why is it only one solid that you brought?”

Since 1 solid was worth 20 denises, the 2 solids Cedric gave her was the same amount as 40 denises. So if she returned it exactly, she should return 36 denises, meaning 1 solid and 16 denises.

“You can take up to one solid, but you can’t take this solid? Is that your pathetic conscience? Ah, no. Money’s just an excuse, and you came in to get an apology.”

At Cedric’s words, Sheila’s face flushed.

“An apology…! Absolutely not.”

Sheila insisted that her intentions were innocent. Then she added, “I’m sorry. The money, I mean, I’ll return the rest exactly once I exchange the coins.”

As soon as Sheila finished, Cedric’s expression turned even colder. He was definitely furious.

“This is ridiculous.”

Cedric spat it out slowly, syllable by syllable.

“Do I look like I’m doing this because I want to take that money right now, or do I look like I’m doing this because you don’t need to return the money, so take this and get out?”

Sheila opened her mouth.

“To be honest….”

It seems like you’re saying you don’t care about a pittance, so get out….

With her face burning red, Sheila answered, “Hoo… that’s right.”

Looking at Cedric’s attitude right now, it was clearly the latter.

“B-but….”

Still, with Cedric that angry, Sheila got confused about what was right.

Unable to back down, Sheila lingered, and he snapped one more line at her.

“What, you can take money other people give you, but you can’t take money I give you?”

“Pardon…?”

At Cedric’s words, which she couldn’t make head nor tail of, Sheila, already tense, shrank even more.

To Sheila, who didn’t know what to do and had practically turned teary, Cedric said, “I’m curious how long you plan to take my time over something pointless.”

“N, no, I… I’m sorry….”

At Sheila’s apology, he said, “Then stop doing what you’re sorry for, and take this back out with you.”

Sheila thought maybe she’d done something pointless. To him, it really was nothing but pocket change….

Embarrassed, Sheila held back the tears that were trying to come and went to his desk and picked up the gold coin she’d set down.

Then she bowed, and in the end, a tear fell.

Startled, Sheila hurriedly retreated from Cedric’s room.

He stared blankly at the teardrop that had fallen onto the desk.

***

Cedric was recalling the report he’d received after going to Sheila’s room the day before.

Absurdly, the place she went wasn’t her hometown. They said Sheila’s destination, using a carriage rather than the train, was Holzeroad Village, which belonged to Calley County.

Because of the man who’d suddenly shown up and because it made him uneasy that Sheila would go a long distance alone, he’d sent someone to follow her, but from the moment he learned the place she went wasn’t her hometown, Cedric felt like he’d been caught off guard.

“Miss Sheila went straight into a restaurant. A young staff member welcomed her, and the two seemed very close. The man kept chewing something the whole time, too.”

The man who tailed her spoke in fairly detailed terms about what happened at the restaurant.

“Miss Sheila went up to the second floor, and the time she stayed there was only about two hours. In the middle, the young staff member brought up a meal once, and it seemed like it was for Miss Sheila. Then, when Miss Sheila came out after finishing, that staff member followed her and said the Master told him to deliver it, and handed her something. Ah, the one who looked like the restaurant owner seems to be a front, and it seems the real owner, who’s called “Master,” is separately on the second floor.”

Rufus, who was beside him, kept writing things down as he listened.

“Miss Sheila thanked him, received it, and went straight to rent a carriage. It was a carriage rental voucher.”

After that were trivial stories about her going down to the market, looking around, and buying a used carpet.

Aside from a bit of speculation, there wasn’t much useful information about what happened there. It was because, since he was tailing her in real time, he hadn’t been able to do other background digging.

‘So I thought she was in a good mood because she’d gone to her hometown, but that wasn’t it?’

Even if she hadn’t gone to her hometown, it was clear that Sheila had met that guy who claimed to be her hometown younger brother.

Because the young man who kept chewing something while talking had a high chance of being the same one who’d visited the estate.

Sheila was a more crafty woman than he’d thought.

After all kinds of side work and the milk collusion, now she was even going in and out of suspicious places and associating with suspicious people….

Cedric had already sent Rufus there right away to investigate, but unlike simple tailing, finding out what that place really was and why Sheila went in and out of it would take quite some time.

The moment Sheila barged in holding 1 solid happened to be when Cedric was ruminating on what had happened yesterday.

Even though he didn’t express even one hundredth of how absurd and angry he felt, Sheila ended up crying.

Cedric mocked himself as he looked at the tears she’d left behind.

‘Fucking idiot….’

It wasn’t even the punishment room, and all he did was make a woman cry, and even to himself, it was pathetic beyond words.

“What, you can take money other people give you, but you can’t take money I give you?”

He’d never even dreamed such a childish line would come out of his mouth.

In truth, his mood had started twisting the moment he saw her coming up the stairs, humming, saying she’d gone to her hometown.

The new outing clothes he’d never seen before, the carpet she’d newly laid, all of it looked disgusting to him.

And then, when he saw the new underwear too, in a flash of anger, he tore it to shreds.

He knew himself that he’d been emotional in a way that wasn’t like him.

But he didn’t regret it. It was just underwear. He could compensate her however much he wanted.

Cedric tossed 2 solids onto the carpet the woman had laid to hide her secret space and walked out.

If you only looked at it as the underwear’s price, it might have been a bit too much, but as compensation for damaging someone else’s property as he pleased, it was a reasonable amount.

But then she brought that money back, so of course he was going to be angry.

‘She took fare money from another guy just fine….’

And that wasn’t the only point that made him angry.

Looking at Sheila’s ledger, it was practically the same as her having almost no spending at all. For someone like her to ride a carriage was close to a miracle.

Of course, since she had to move while carrying a lump sum of money, it must have been an unavoidable choice.

The problem was the fact that the other party had predicted that when she returned to the estate, she would definitely walk, and gave her a carriage rental voucher.

It meant that guy called “Master” had already known her tendencies long before Cedric had only recently figured them out.

Cedric stood up, frowning.

His steps stopped at the spot where Sheila had been standing earlier.

On the mahogany desk, wiped so clean there wasn’t a speck of dust, a single drop of the woman’s tears had fallen.

Cedric wiped up the tear with his index finger.

Then, lost in thought, he rubbed his thumb and index finger together until the woman’s tear dried on his skin.