The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 71

Sheila still couldn’t understand.

Was it really that wrong to go and return the money…?

Maybe she’d been overstepping her place, but did he really have to say it like that?

No, to begin with, she couldn’t even understand why he seemed so determined to have it out for her.

Of course, the answer might be surprisingly simple.

Nobles were simply people she couldn’t understand….

Judith was like that too.

When Cedric first started teaching her, Sheila firmly believed Judith’s grades would improve, even just a little.

Because every time Sheila was whipped, Judith would cry as if she were the one being beaten.

But Judith’s grades didn’t improve at all…, not even by the tiniest bit.

Not only that, she even dumped her homework on Sheila, and in the end, it caused a scene.

Like an idiot, only after it was too late did Sheila realize Judith had no will to study whatsoever. She couldn’t deny it anymore, either, that Judith didn’t care in the slightest that a maid was getting beaten for her.

If that was the case, then why did she cry like that in the first place…?

So the reasons nobles cried, and the reasons they got angry, were things the lowly Sheila could never know to begin with.

Sheila stopped thinking about what she couldn’t understand and decided to focus on attending to Judith. But unfortunately, the accident happened at that exact moment.

Splat!

“Eek!”

As Sheila served the meal, the bowl of stew caught on her fingers and tipped over, ruining Judith’s skirt.

“You crazy bitch!”

“Miss, it was a mistake! I’m sor…!”

Smack, smack, smack!

In an instant, Judith grabbed a fistful of Sheila’s hair and slapped one side of her face three times in a row.

She even raised her hand again, and Molly barely managed to pry her off.

“Miss! Please, hold back. I think Sheila made a mistake. It’s the first time, isn’t it?”

Judith stopped and said, “Yeah, it’s the first time. She’s getting revenge because she’s been taking some whippings for me lately.”

“No, Miss. That can’t be!”

Caught off guard while her mind was elsewhere and saddled with a ridiculous accusation, Sheila desperately insisted on her innocence.

“It can’t be? Sure. If you mess up my lesson later, I’m blaming you for all of it. Got it?”

“Yes, of course. It’ll all be my fault.”

Sheila quickly soothed Judith.

No matter what she said back, the one who paid the price for Judith’s wrong answers was going to be her anyway.

The two maids hurriedly wiped the stew off Judith.

“Get out of the way! I need to change. Ugh, this is so annoying!”

At Judith’s bark, Sheila quickly helped her change. She could feel her tender skin swelling and burning, but she didn’t have the time to worry about that.

***

“If my brother asks, say you ran into a wall. Got it?”

Before they went in for the lesson, Judith warned her again.

“Yes, Miss.”

He’s not going to ask.

For whatever reason, he’d been firmly angry with her since last weekend.

When she opened the door and went in, Cedric’s mood was, as expected, heavy and low.

Ever since she went to return the money earlier, the distance between her and him had only grown.

After giving him a quiet bow, Sheila went to her spot by the hearth as if she weren’t even there and sat down.

Cedric pressed Judith with sharper questions than usual.

And every time a wrong answer spilled from Judith’s mouth, the mood of the lesson sank further into a disaster.

“Recite the names of the fifteen houses closely connected to our family.”

“Explain which house His Majesty King Roland III was born from through marriage, and what influence that house holds over the current royal family.”

“What are the historically renowned achievements of House Salviati, and what is the meaning of its coat of arms?”

Questions alone could make someone cry.

Judith, who only ever showed tears when Sheila got whipped, finally broke down and started crying during the lesson.

Even as Judith sniffled, Cedric pressed on with the lesson, unfazed.

Judith was so tense it was pitiful. She even got problems wrong that she should have known.

“Can’t you answer properly? It seems the whipping maid I hired for once is completely useless.”

At Cedric’s words, fear flashed in Judith’s eyes.

She clearly remembered what Cedric said last time: that next time, he wouldn’t let her off either.

Sheila tensed too, as if she were being treated as useless along with her.

Cedric had been in a foul mood all week.

When the lesson, which felt like an eternity, finally ended, Cedric ordered Judith, “Go downstairs and do your homework first. Homework isn’t assigned so you write neatly. It’s assigned so you memorize the content.”

“Yes, Oppa.”

“If you understand, get out. I’ll come to check it tomorrow morning, so keep that in mind.”

‘Check…?’

As Judith left, still sniffling, Cedric said coldly to Sheila, who couldn’t hide her confusion, “Follow me.”

With a chill like a cutting wind around him, he didn’t even ask how many Judith got wrong.

Of course, even if Sheila said nothing, he would already have the exact number calculated in his head.

Sheila set down the paper she was holding and stood.

There were forty-eight tally marks drawn across it.

***

In the punishment room stood a structure shaped like a long-necked lectern. It even had arm supports on both sides.

He made Sheila kneel on the floor, then tied her arms to the structure. Her soft breasts pressed against the slanted wooden board and squashed like cream buns.

Matching the low height of the structure, he lowered one knee to the floor and took his place beside Sheila.

“From here, I’ll strike you eight times with my palm.”

As expected, Cedric knew Judith’s number of wrong answers without a single mistake.

“Count the number each time you’re struck, and say, ‘Thank you.’”

Sheila answered in a tense voice, “Yes… Master.”

She already felt like she might cry.

In the next instant, Cedric swung his arm wide.

Smack!

“Hngh!”

A moan echoed through the punishment room after a sharper sound than she expected.

“Number.”

“Haa… ngh, one. Thank you.”

Sheila barely pulled herself together enough to count and give thanks.

Cedric watched Sheila, bound to the structure and writhing in pain.

She was probably surprised. Up until now, for less than ten palm strikes that weren’t converted into time, he often just hit her roughly and moved on.

Cedric had both sadistic and dominant tendencies, but if he had to choose, dominance was stronger.

The maid who stepped outside his control and went in and out of unfamiliar places had provoked something in him.

Even applying the most generous standard and acknowledging a private life of a maid he didn’t know, the fact that she dared lie to the Young Count was plainly her fault.

So the maid who did wrong needed to be punished in his own way.

“Was it nice, going to your hometown?”

“Yes… yes, it was nice.”

Smack!

The second strike rang out the moment another lie slipped from Sheila’s mouth.

“Hngh!”

“Number!”

It wasn’t just the lie. No matter how he thought about it, the fact that she’d been going in and out of a suspicious place without a shred of fear was infuriating.

“T-two. Thank you. Hic!”

After only two strikes, the woman’s hips started trembling.

But Cedric’s anger still didn’t ease.

If it were going to ease at this, he wouldn’t have started in the first place.

Whenever Cedric tried to get close to the maid even once, he always had to come up with a reason worthy of it. After all, it wasn’t appropriate for a Young Count to approach a maid for no reason.

Sheila was the same. If he came to her room for no reason, she was the type to keep asking what he needed until she heard a reason she could accept.

And yet, at that suspicious place, she accepted food without hesitation, and even snatched up fare money….

Then, because she didn’t want Cedric to find out anything, she said she went down to the market to buy a carpet to hide the floor.

“You said you’d come back early, and you didn’t even keep your promise.”

Smack!

“Ack! Th, ngh, three. Thank you.”

Sheila always kept her nerves bristling like a hedgehog full of quills. And yet the moment she put her head on the pillow, she’d collapse and fall asleep. It was impossible not to know how exhausting a life she lived.

Smack!

“Ugh… h-hic.”

“Count properly.”

“Hic… four. Thank you….”

Fine. She could take fare money, for all it mattered.

She was always busy making work for herself, so it was possible she had relationships he didn’t know about.

‘But the money I give you, you pick apart like that?’

That was exactly what made him angry.

And the money he gave her had a clear basis. It was compensation for tearing her underwear to shreds as he pleased. But she said it was too much and brought back half.

‘Right. With you, I’m a relationship that has to be calculated down to the last coin.’

Every strike, even the time they spent tangled together….

Smack!

To begin with, it was the relationship between a maid and a Young Count, so it couldn’t be helped. That was why he’d put in so much effort until now.

“Ack…! Five, h-hic… Thank you.”

Sheila burst into tears.

Of course, that wasn’t Sheila’s fault.

If there was any fault, it was only that she’d caught the eye of a pervert like him.

It was nothing compared to what she was enduring, but Cedric felt a considerable pain in the palm he used to strike her.

That stinging sensation delighted Cedric.

On Sheila’s snow-white buttocks, the shape of his handprint swelled up from the five strikes she’d taken.

Smack!

“Hhk, hic! Six. Th-thank you.”

And over those marks, another one was added.

Only after seeing his trace left behind did the irritation he felt earlier at Sheila’s face settle a little.

On Sheila’s face was the red imprint of a hand where Judith had slapped her.

The time he even sent Rufus down to stop Judith from retaliating against Sheila only worked up to that point.

As long as she was Judith’s maid, this would keep happening.

Smack!

Sheila’s body jolted up from the blow to her buttocks. After breaking into tears again, she couldn’t speak for a while.

But soon she got herself together and counted.

“Seven… hic! Th-thank you.”

Cedric’s palm strikes, which started rationally and became utterly emotional, now had only one left.

“Just one left, Sheila.”

At Cedric’s words, drawing it out before the final strike, Sheila’s spine shuddered.