Chapter 39
A maid well past her youth scoffed with a prickly tone.
“Ralph. How can you be so sure Maddie’s not a con artist?”
Ralph looked up from shoveling soup into his mouth and answered with a snort.
“Maddie waves at people even when she’s just pulling weeds in the garden. I can recognize her from the back of her head alone now. There’s no way someone that kind could be a swindler!”
The stablehands quickly jumped to the gardener’s defense.
“Exactly. If she really had a lover in the slums, she would’ve dressed up nicely before going. But Maddie? She literally gave us all her decent clothes as tips and strutted off looking like a beggar.”
“Right! When she heads to the slums, she looks like a beggar. No—forget ‘like.’ She is one!”
“Kale. That was just an insult.”
“Sorry.”
Kale, having gotten a bit too worked up, shut his mouth.
Chuck added the final word to Ralph and Kale’s defense.
“She must have her reasons. Everyone’s got things they can’t talk about. Maddie’s no different.”
Their chatter carried on until dawn.
Some insisted Maddie was a terrible woman. Others argued she was just uneducated, not bad. Some claimed she was trying to deceive the Grand Duke. Others pointed out—if deception were her goal, why leave without saying a word? It was just a push and pull, they said. That His Grace had been naive and got played. No—Maddie had come back because she was sincere, brave enough to come clean. Honestly, wasn’t it weirder to think someone like her didn’t have a lover?
It was then that Rayleigh joined in.
“Maddie’s past doesn’t matter! She truly loves His Grace!”
“How would you know?”
“She said it wouldn’t matter if she got kicked out. That just having the memories with His Grace was enough. That’s how much she loves him!”
“Anyone can say that.”
The room stirred with doubt.
But Rayleigh’s sentiment found allies among the stablehands.
“She’s the type to give. I’d take her over some arrogant young noble any day.”
One by one, people who’d once received Maddie’s generosity chimed in.
“That’s true. Whatever else she is, she’s not the type to deceive. Her rough way of speaking just leads to misunderstandings.”
“Right. It’s just how she grew up.”
“She’s got a good heart if you really look.”
And at last, they reached a unanimous conclusion.
“She’s a good kid—just uneducated, is all.”
Exactly the image Maddie had wanted.
Even the gossip swirling around her.
“Client. You can’t leave your weaknesses exposed like that. What if someone notices and uses it against you?”
“So?”
“Hmm?”
“So what did you do?”
Yulikian’s eyes grew icy cold.
“I fixed it. Brilliantly, I might add. You’re going to be impressed.”
Maddie sat up with all the casualness of someone recounting a prank.
But despite her mischievous smile, her clothes were stained with dried blood.
Something had clearly happened.
Something involving Astrid.
Yulikian’s jaw began to tremble.
“…Is this a game to you? Digging up people’s weaknesses? You’re vile. Petty.”
Maddie’s lips curled into a slanted smile. Though she looked amused, her face radiated nothing but chill.
“Hey. You started it. You were the one who reported the bodies I left behind. I killed those men to save you, remember?”
She said it with stunning nonchalance. So much so that Yulikian snapped. He grabbed her by the collar.
And yet, Maddie’s expression remained proud and undisturbed.
“Sweetheart, you can’t be mad at just me. We each have something on the other, now.”
It made his skin crawl—how she called that little girl his “weakness” so shamelessly.
His fury erupted.
“That’s different! I only kept her secret in case you ran. But you—you’ve become my weakness the moment I proposed! Did you forget the poison? The assassin? Everything?!”
“No, no, darling.”
Maddie twisted his wrist off her collar and, in a flash, flipped herself on top of him.
Her long, wavy brown hair fell over his cheeks like a curtain.
“We’re bound by a life-and-death contract. There shouldn’t be any secrets. How could you hide your niece from your fiancée?”
“Don’t be absurd. Even if you were my real fiancée, why would I tell you about Astrid?”
Yulikian spat the words through gritted teeth.
“…If you were really someone I fell in love with, it still wouldn’t matter. I’m not foolish enough to introduce my niece to a con artist.”
“Oh? Then why was her house so easy to access? Any half-decent infiltrator could waltz in.”
“Infiltrator?”
The word made Yulikian bolt upright and shake her off. He grabbed her by the shoulders, pushing her to the floor.
The roles reversed in a heartbeat.
“You laid a hand on her? Do you know who she is?! Do you know what I’ve done to keep her safe?!”
His clenched jaw bulged as he stared down at Maddie with murderous rage. His eyes quivered with fury.
“I wasn’t trying to save me. I was trying to make sure she wouldn’t have to live her life running from death like I did…”
The words cracked with emotion, his lips parting not with tears, but a strangled sob.
His whole body trembled.
With his left hand pressed lightly against her neck—too light to choke but firm enough to feel—Yulikian asked in a whisper.
“…Did you kill her?”
In just three syllables, hope and despair tangled beyond repair.
Maddie slowly reached up and held his trembling hand, guiding it away.
“No,” she said flatly.
“I hid her.”
The moment Yulikian exhaled in relief and shut his eyes tight, Maddie’s lips lifted into a faint smile.
“I see.”
“What?”
“No wonder. You didn’t do it for revenge, or survival. You kept throwing money around for her.”
“So you… what? Tested me? You dug into my past just to confirm your theory?”
Yulikian was speechless.
“You spied on me, interrogated me—just to find out why I hired you?”
“You never planned to tell me honestly anyway. I was just curious. Why all the secrecy?”
Maddie puckered her lips like it was no big deal.
Yulikian ran a hand through his damp hair in exasperation.
“…Is this how you always operate? Suspect everyone? Dig into their pasts? Collect their weaknesses and bait them into revealing things? This is your method?”
With a little hum, Maddie twirled her large pale-green eyes and nodded.
“Yes.”
It was such a brazen answer that it actually stunned him.
“What did you just say?”
“This is how I do things. I don’t trust anyone. Not a soul. No matter how much they cry and beg for help, I never take them at their word. I investigate myself. Is that so wrong? It’s how I survive.”
“Survive? You call this business?”
“If it’s not business, what is it? You were the one who offered the contract.”
Suddenly, everything felt hollow.
Maddie had been doing business all along.
From the moment she signed that contract.
Even when she drank the poison for him, even when they kissed under the threat of spies.
She was just working.
His chest tightened.
“Right. This is a job. That’s all this is.”
Maddie simply smiled.
“Anyway, I protected your precious secret!”
The only one suffering from irregular heartbeat now was Yulikian.
Lowering his eyes, he nodded wearily.
“Cheer up. I saw her nanny abusing her—how could I just leave her? Poor thing.”
At the mention of abuse, Yulikian snapped his head up like a drowning man gasping for air.
“What? Who abused her?”
“The woman she was living with.”
His face grew even more severe.
He ran a hand across his brow, mumbling disjointed thoughts.
“No… that can’t be. It’s impossible…”
Maddie patted his shoulder.
“Calm down, Your Grace. That woman’s dead now.”
“What?! Wait—what?!”
He was still trying to process the abuse—now she was gone?
His brain couldn’t keep up.
“You killed her?”
“Nope. Krocton did.”
Yulikian’s brow furrowed deeper.
“He’s the one who brought her in! She looked after Astrid for years—”
“Kroctooon? And you still trust that lukewarm little snake? Ha! Your Grace, every time you visited, you gave them advance notice, didn’t you?”
“…Of course. Dropping in unexpectedly is dangerous. We agreed eyes were on us.”
“Uh-huh. And the moment I saw that kid—middle of winter, in a dress that barely covered her knees?”
“She never showed signs of mistreatment.”
“Because she hid it! She’d be dead if anyone found out.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Her palms were covered in lash scars. And her dress was so short, her ankles were freezing! She was dressed lighter than me. I could’ve cried.”
Maddie pretended to dab at imaginary tears.
Thrilled by her own discovery, her voice kept rising.
Yulikian leapt to his feet.
He couldn’t listen anymore.
“That’s enough. Where is she now? I need to see her. With my own eyes.”
“I was just about to go.”
As if she knew this would happen, Maddie sprang out of bed and strode to the window.
She proudly held up a rope.
It trailed all the way down to the ground.
“Let’s go. Time to see your one and only niece. I’ll explain the rest on the way.”
After dressing, Yulikian silently grabbed the rope.
Just before descending, he turned his shadowed face toward Maddie.
“…Don’t call me ‘sweetheart’ anymore. It’s nauseating.”
Maddie shrugged and gave a cheeky grin.
That smile again.
Yulikian didn’t know whether what surged in his chest was resentment or sorrow.
He turned and walked toward the garden gate without a word.
Then he realized—there was no one around.
“This is odd. The guards shouldn’t be this careless.”
“I distracted them. Come on. She’s waiting.”
He had countless questions, but now wasn’t the time.
Maddie brought out a horse, hidden in the brush like it had been waiting all along.
She mounted swiftly, then nodded toward him.
“Well? You coming?”
“…Where’s my horse?”
“Ugh, so picky! Fine, walk then.”
Reluctantly, Yulikian got on behind her.
Maddie fit into his arms like a puzzle piece.
A little stiff, with no scent of perfume. A strange person.
Yulikian straightened his back.
Tonight, he didn’t want to feel anything.
Not for her.
Not anymore.
