Chapter : 05
“Bring something a child can eat.”
“…Yes, my lady.”
The maid’s gaze wavered as she looked at me, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
She seemed genuinely surprised by my act of kindness.
Still, deciding to focus on her duties, the maid soon nodded and closed the door.
Once the sound of the door shutting faded, an awkward silence settled over the room.
“……”
“Um, if you wipe the dirt off first, the food will be here soon.”
I said this as I handed the child the basin and damp cloth the maid had brought earlier.
“Uh…”
“You need to clean the dirt off.”
I gently pressed the cloth into the child’s hesitant hands.
The child quietly nodded and rubbed his face with the cloth. His movements were clumsy and unsure.
“Give it to me. I’ll do it for you.”
“No, I—I’ll do it myself!”
“I’ll just do it.”
The child shook his head, insisting he could do it himself, but it seemed better if I helped.
Despite the fact that I was clearly being kind, perhaps because he had heard rumors about Patricia, the child’s shoulders trembled.
“I won’t get angry.”
“…”
“You don’t need to be scared.”
“…”
Only then did his trembling gradually subside, and he finally let his body relax into my care.
He occasionally stole glances at me, but I deliberately avoided looking back.
For some reason, I felt that if our eyes met, he would flinch again and lower his head in fright. I didn’t want to scare him any further.
Knock, knock.
The maid soon returned with food for the child.
Drawn by the savory aroma, the child stared intently at the bowl in the maid’s hands.
Seeing him swallow hard, clearly hungry, I almost laughed—but I pressed my lips together, worried it might frighten him.
“Ahem. No one will come in, so eat comfortably.”
When I placed a spoon in his hand, the child looked back and forth between me and the food.
“You can eat by yourself, right?”
“Yes.”
He nodded as he answered.
As he nodded, his orange hair swayed lightly.
Finding the sight endearing, I patted his head. His smooth hair slid pleasantly through my fingers.
So soft.
I left the room while quietly admiring his hair.
The vivid orange of his hair reminded me of a sky dyed by the sunset.
‘Was orange hair common?’
I’d seen reddish hair and light brown hair before, but this kind of high-saturation orange felt unfamiliar.
“…”
I had the uneasy feeling that I was missing something, though I couldn’t tell what.
Why does this feel so unsettling?
Perhaps it was because I hadn’t dealt with those ruffians yet.
“Steward. If you go to the backyard, you’ll find two men there. Bring them to the reception room.”
With my resolve set, I said this to the steward I met in the hallway and headed into the reception room.
I couldn’t come up with a good idea for how to exact a truly cruel revenge.
If I were the real Patricia, I might have poured boiling tea on them.
Or lashed them with a whip.
…No. That wasn’t right.
No matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t have the nerve to go that far.
As someone who had lived in modern 21st-century society, no matter how angry I was, there were lines I couldn’t cross.
Knock, knock.
The steward lightly knocked and spoke.
“My lady, I’ve brought them.”
“Let them in.”
I deliberately lifted my chin proudly and stared at the door.
‘Don’t lose momentum.’
I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that in a fight, momentum accounted for ninety percent.
The door opened, revealing two men hiding behind the steward, heads bowed.
‘Ha! Now you’re scared, are you?’
I narrowed my eyes further, trying to exude an intimidating presence.
“Are these men employed by our household?”
“Yes. They’re stable hands.”
The steward nodded as he answered.
“Fire them.”
I crossed my legs arrogantly and spoke as unpleasantly as I could, flicking my foot.
I hoped it didn’t look awkward to them.
“F-Fire them?”
At the steward’s shocked question, I nodded silently.
Sometimes money was the most frightening thing of all.
No—almost always.
“My lady, may I ask the reason?”
After glancing at the men, the steward asked cautiously.
“It seems we hired thugs instead of stable hands.”
I wanted to interrogate them further, but once I was face to face with them, I didn’t feel like talking at length.
Even if they were scolded, their personalities wouldn’t change. If they were capable of easy remorse, they wouldn’t have committed such acts in the first place.
“Throw them out today.”
Being expelled from the House of Herarilla wouldn’t mean instant starvation, but without a letter of recommendation, they’d never work at a noble estate again.
“M-My lady, we’re sorry!”
“We’re sorry for offending you! Please forgive us just once!”
“If we’re kicked out like this, we’ll starve!”
“Please, have mercy!”
The men, who had been quietly watching from behind the steward, finally dropped to their knees and begged.
“So only your own suffering matters to you?”
Their desperate pleas made me scoff.
“You had legs so cruel to that tiny child, yet now you kneel and beg for mercy.”
“…”
“Should I really do that?”
I let out a hollow laugh at the sight of such selfishness.
Yet one of them continued to spew excuses, as though deeply wronged.
“He wasn’t working properly and just stood around, so I acted without thinking!”
“That brat is always slacking off and wasting money! We ended up doing all the work because of him!”
“That’s right. Of course, hitting him was wrong, but it was the first time!”
“Yes! That’s right! We never hit him before!”
The man raised his voice and shuffled closer on his knees.
“He couldn’t even do his stable duties properly, yet he looked down on us! Even though he’s just another stable hand like us!”
“Looked down on you?”
Sensing I might learn the real reason they beat the child, I leaned forward and asked.
“Yes! Just because his face is a bit pretty, he always looked down on us—it pissed us off!”
The stable hand grew more animated when he saw me react.
“He always acted like he was different from us, like he was going to become a footman!”
“That’s enough.”
I raised my hand and cut him off.
So they’d beaten him for not working, they said—but now I finally understood the real reason.
“Have you told nothing but the truth so far?”
“Of course!”
The man nodded vigorously.
“Steward. The child had old bruises on his body. Find out who else has beaten him.”
“Yes, understood.”
I said this calmly to the steward, no longer looking at the stable hands.
When the steward left and the door closed, their faces began to drain of color.
“The truth will come out soon, so don’t feel too wronged.”
Judging by their expressions, I already had a good idea of what that truth was—but I decided to wait.
“M-My lady…”
“That’s enough. I want some quiet.”
I had no reason to listen to them any longer.
“If you didn’t lie, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Right?”
“……”
“You didn’t lie, so surely I wouldn’t torture you.”
“My lady! We’re sorry!”
I couldn’t even finish my sentence over the man’s scream.
“We lied… We lied because we wanted to live.”
He bowed deeply, confessing.
“Truth is, this wasn’t the first time we beat him. We did it before, too.”
“Why?”
“…”
The man hesitated.
“His pretty face… the way he lived so easily—it rubbed me the wrong way.”
It was probably connected to the talk about becoming a footman earlier.
Still, I wanted to hear the exact reason from his own mouth.
“Those good-looking kids can easily become footmen, and footmen can make big money without much effort. I was jealous.”
“Ha!”
It was ridiculous.
So they tormented a child over something that hadn’t even happened yet.
Out of petty jealousy.
Knock, knock. The man shut his mouth at the sound of the reception room door.
“My lady, it appears the two stable hands were solely responsible for training the child. He had no contact with anyone else.”
“So they even dared to lie. Steward, do you need any more reason?”
“No. As you said, I’ll have them expelled.”
The steward answered respectfully, bowing his head.
“My lady!!”
With even the steward no longer on their side, the stable hands cried out in desperation.
But by now, nothing could change.
“They say the child is malnourished. I’ll keep him with me until he recovers.”
“Yes, understood. Then we’ll give him one of the empty rooms on the second floor.”
“Alright. By the way, what’s the child’s name?”
Since we’d be living together for a few days at least, it seemed appropriate to know his name.
“Carlos.”
“…?”
My brow furrowed at the steward’s reply.
“Pardon? His name is…?”
“Carlos.”
The steward finished the sentence for my stammering self.
“……”
Carlos?
That child’s name was Carlos?
Only then did I realize what that lingering sense of unease had been.
“My lady?”
“Ha. That’s impossible.”
That small child with swollen eyes was supposed to become Carlos—the greatest knight of the empire?
I couldn’t believe it.
