Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Cold sweat broke out on the palms of her hands. A murmur began to arise among the maids. However, as soon as the Duke started walking around, silence returned in an instant.

“Are you trying to evade it?”

As the Duke raised his voice, the terrified maids began to kneel down one by one. Kathleen and Emily, who were standing at the end, fell to their knees.

But the Duke didn’t seem to have softened in the slightest. He began to approach at a quick pace. Where Kathleen’s shoe was. So, in other words, the row in front of her.

Kathleen closed her eyes tightly and lowered her head deeper into the ground.

“I can’t.”

The Duke picked up the shoe and said.

“You have no choice but to try it on.”

“What?”

The maid made a startled sound.

“M-Master. Why would you seek among the lowly maids? Among the maids of high-origin, have them try it on first.”

“How dare you speak of origin in front of me?”

The maid’s mouth closed.

Only then did she remember that Duke Walten’s biological mother was also a maid who worked in the Imperial Palace.

“Young Master, hold on!”

The nanny approached urgently. This news seemed very shocking to her.

“Young Master, how can you be like this?

She hid her embarrassment and pretended to be calm, but a hint of anxiety remained. Everyone knew that she still thought of the Duke as a child in her arms to be carried around so Kathleen did not think much of it.

“I told you, you didn’t have to bother with this. Didn’t I tell you to rest in the annex?”

“How could I possibly let this go? We don’t know if this would be the future lady of the house.”

Speaking softly, the nanny patted the Duke’s hand, but the Duke grabbed her hand and pushed it away. The nanny’s face hardened.

The Duke of Walten turned his back on her in a manner she had never seen before, and ordered the maid in the front row.

“You. Come out first and try the shoe on.”

Kathleen’s heart sank, but she soon comforted herself. Her foot size was common with a lot of women. Four of the maids working in the kitchen were the same size as hers.

‘It won’t be easy to find out.’

As she expected, there were a few people who were a perfect fit for the shoe. Each time, the Duke asked a few questions. Where they worked and how old were they?

‘Is he trying to listen to the voices?’

When it was Kathleen’s turn, she clenched her teeth and stepped forward, she looked down and put on the shoe. It was a perfect fit.

“What is your name?” Asked the Duke who was watching her

Kathleen answered quietly.

“My name is Kelly.”

She answered as calmly as possible, hoping he would hear her voice differently from last night when he had not been sober.

But the Duke looked strange.

As soon as Kathleen finished speaking, his eyes became fierce. The Duke suddenly approached and grabbed her arm.

“Y-Your Grace!”

Kathleen was so startled, she froze. The corner of Duke Walten’s mouth, seen from up close, twisted.

Golden eyes shining like the full moon, a symbol of the imperial family, with black hair like the night sky. Although he had a gorgeous and decent appearance, his suffocating cold eyes made Kathleen feel as if he would bite her neck like a hound at any moment.

“Follow me.”

He dropped Kathleen’s arm like something he had chewed and spit out. He headed to the main building.

“Is it her?”

“Maybe, Kelly……”

“Oh my gosh.”

Shocked voices spread among the maids like a ripple. She shut her eyes tightly. The nanny’s vicious gaze felt like a harpoon piercing her body. Her legs were frozen.

“Why aren’t you following!”

The nanny shouted. Kathleen barely regained her composure and followed the Duke. She could feel dread down her spine, for fear that she would be hit at the back of her head at any moment.

While she walked about ten steps away from the Duke, all the curious eyes of the maids were fixed on her. As she reached the main building, she had to face a look of astonishment when she encountered the old butler, Alsdorf. Of course, like a seasoned servant, he quickly hid his expression, but there was no way he couldn’t have recognized her as he had lived there for twenty-one years.

“Go up to the drawing room.” The old butler said in a calm voice.

Kathleen looked up at the high steps and could barely lift her feet. The door to the drawing room was open.

The room was dark with the curtains drawn, but as soon as she entered, the door behind her slammed shut with a loud noise.

“M-Master!”

Duke Walten, who slammed the door shut, answered sarcastically with a hard face.

“That’s different from before.”

There was no regret for their one-night relationship in his sharp eyes.

“Didn’t you call me Your Grace?”

“…….That’s.”

“Among all the maids here, except for Alsdorf, no one calls me Your Grace. Commoners do not dare refer to me by that name.”

“But last night, you called me Your Grace.”

It was a mistake.

For six years she lived as the maid of the Duke, but for fifteen years before that, her status was a noblewoman. Her harshly taught knowledge sprung out unconsciously because it was drilled into her body.

“You came into my bedroom last night.” He said as he came closer.

“Aren’t you going to say you didn’t?”

“I’m sorry… Master.”

She was strongly convinced that there would be no use to deny it here. So Kathleen affirmed but she lied.

“I did it out of greed to make my situation better because my work is too hard. But when I realized that I had defiled your noble body, I could not bear it and ran away. Please have mercy…”

“Did the Empress send you?”

“Pardon?”

Kathleen doubted her ears. At the unexpected words, her spine became cold.

“I asked if you were sent by Margaret Trivellian!”

“No! No. I am not the assassin sent by the Empress!”

It was then that she understood why the Duke’s eyes were like that. Kathleen slumped down and cried.

“I never intended to kill the Master!”

In the Imperial Family Records, the Empress was listed as the mother of the Duke of Walten. In other words, she was the legal mother who accepted the emperor’s illegitimate child as her own.

The fact that she cursed the Duke of Walten out of hate and drove him to the battlefield since he was a boy was a well-known fact to all the people of the Empire.

Looking down as if observing Kathleen, who had turned white, he said after a while.

“Yes. If you were an assassin, you would have strangled me right away last night.”

The Duke looked down at her with his cold eyes.

“Instead, because of your greed, you tried to better your station in life, but it is actually as if you had put a knife to my neck.”

“W-What.”

“I will make a proposal.”

Those eyes looked brutal considering he was giving her a choice. It wasn’t even the face of a man who couldn’t forget the lingering feelings of that night. He looked at her as if she was the leader of a rebellion.

‘Are you going to make me choose between hanging or beheading…?’

Cold sweat broke out.

But he leaned down, grabbed Kathleen’s arm, lifted her up, and said something unexpected.

“You should marry me.”

“…I-I’m sorry?”

The words sounded ridiculous to her ears. Kathleen doubted what she had heard.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

With an annoyed voice, the Duke said quickly.

“I intend to take you as my wife. You said you wanted a better station in life, so there’s no way you can refuse.”

“Oh… I, I.”

A nobleman with the status of an Imperial Family and was also a Duke. Besides, he was the first person she had ever been with. Other people would be thrilled with this proposal, but the first emotion Kathleen felt was fear.

‘I’m scared.’

Ever since she was born, she had resented the noble blood flowing through her body. They were people who lived by deceiving with emotions thoroughly controlled by calculations. They even thought of their families as tools. She didn’t want to be like that.

“I wouldn’t dare. I will continue to live as a maid like this.”

“If you leave this room, you will be immediately grabbed by the hair and thrown into a dungeon. Do you think you can survive?”

“Oh….”

She remembered the face of the nanny who looked at her as she was going to tear her to death. It occurred to her that she was such a person who was more than capable of doing such a thing.

Two months ago, the nanny harassed her maid, whom she loved, and kicked her out. She didn’t like the temperature of the tea, and she scolded her because of her disrespectful expression. The maid had been missing since her banishment. Among the maids, there were rumors that she must have dumped in a back alley.

When Kathleen couldn’t speak, the Duke of Walten walked across the drawing room and sat down in a chair.

“Now I think you’re ready to listen.”

As natural as if he was calling for his pet dog, Kathleen had no choice but to follow. Sitting across from her, Duke Walten quickly spoke with an indifferent look. As if he wanted to be done with this troublesome work immediately.

“I will give you the position of Duchess. It means I will give you all the property of this family and the rights of the great nobility. You will live until your natural death, and if you want anything, tell Alsdorf and take anything. But nothing more…”

“When you say more than that… are you saying that I could have more?”

He sounded like he would already give her everything he had, the property of the Walten family and the rights of the great nobility. But what did he mean ‘more than that’?

“It means that there will be no heirs.”

“…..”

“No, it would be more accurate to say that you would not give birth.”

What the Duke Walten wanted was clear. Only then did Kathleen understand what he was saying.

She was silent.

After a while, Kathleen answered.

“Really… Can you really spare me?”

Her hands trembled as she took a deep breath. She could feel the cold because she wasn’t wearing her gloves, but the thought that she could live a long time in the Duchy where her father’s influence could not reach, strengthened her resolve.

“If you accept my terms, you will.”

The answer to Duke Walten’s proposal was obvious and Kathleen’s acceptance was quick.

“……Yes. I will.”

“If I have a child because of what happened last night, I wouldn’t admit it as my child.”

It was a word that would hurt normal women, but it didn’t matter to Kathleen.

“That won’t happen.”

Duke Walten’s eyebrows rose upward as if questioning. Kathleen confessed.

“Because I can’t have children.”