Chapter 26

The third method. Making my side. (6)

I could see how much the godfather who praised Charlotte’s merit regarded her. I said with a friendly smile to Charlotte.

“I see. I sometimes have a headache, can you help me?”

“Anytime.”

Charlotte replied to me, but her eyes and attention were on Carl in my arms. Carl is cute.

“Now, Carl. Shall we say hello to Young Lady, Countess Emil?”

“Hello!”

Carl, who was fiddling with the necklace around my neck, said reflexively to me. How smart you are! I also made a fuss, saying that I was good to Carl, the godfather. Carl smiled and hit me again, rubbing his head on my shoulder.

We entered the castle together. Charlotte unpacked Duchess Dowager’s suitcase, organized her luggage, and headed to her room first to relieve some of her fatigue. The maid showed her around. When I and the godfather had climbed the stairs, she said in a low voice.

“She’s a poor kid. She is the young daughter of the count, but she couldn’t marry anywhere because she couldn’t have a child. I brought her in because she wanted me to get her out of getting into a nasty old man’s house. She’s been with me for quite a while, so I hope Amanda welcomes Charlotte.”

Seeing that she even told me such a background, she seemed worried that I might be reluctant to let Charlotte, who is single, into the castle. I thought of the Duke for a moment. He loves to have sex with me, but he doesn’t chase other women. I didn’t think he was going to cheat on me. Above all, what was urgent for me was not the risk of an affair.

“I didn’t have a sister, but I’ll treat her like a sister. However–”

I lowered my gaze, blurring the end of my words. A wretched face that I’m so insecure and pathetic right now! Carl responded first when he hypnotized himself and tried to make a sad face.

“Mandy.”

Calling my pet name Mandy, Carl began to cry. All right, well, it’s better to look pathetic for both of them. I didn’t coax Carl with envy. My sad face made Carl sad. Carl’s big green eyes filled with tears.

“But?”

Even if no one showed me, I knew the Duchess’s drawing room better than anyone else, and the Duchess Dowager’s step towards it stopped. The steps of the maids following us also stopped.

“I’ll ring the bell if necessary, so leave.”

The servants watched each other’s faces left at the words of the Duchess Dowager. The expression on the Duchess Dowager’s face changed at once when she saw the maids who did not obey.

“Since when did I have to say it twice in the Duke’s Castle?”

At first glance, the similarity of the Duke’s annoyance overlapped with her expression and cold words. I must learn from my mother… Thinking to myself, I was silent. The maids bowed down. Carlos’ escort also backed out of the situation. Only two of us and Carlos in my arms remain.

“What a mess of discipline.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mean to blame you. Let’s go to the drawing room.”

The Duchess Dowager’s displeased voice soon became gentle when I apologized in a very discouraged voice. In the Duchess’s drawing room, where there were no maids, the Duchess Dowager was in a good mood when I exaggerated a little and pretended to be very pitiful.

It was not early to know the subtle conflict with Count Petrika. I only recently got to use the Duchess’s room, only to say that Gellerhard was angry and then I changed my room from the guest room to the Duchess’s room, that the maids were warier of the head maid and Lady Blone, and that Lady Blone picked my ex-fiancé as Carl’s escort, so I could barely change the escort.

Lady Blone knew the Duchess Dowager as well. And the Duchess Dowager seemed to have grasped the situation at once by saying that she had been recommended by Count Petrika to put Lady Blone in the Duchy as my staff.

“My precious things!”

The Duchess Dowager, who shouted, said in a calm voice as she suppressed her anger.

“I’ll stay here for a while.”

Charlotte, who had gone to unpack her suitcase, and the maid, Jean, who was guiding her, were called up by The Duchess Dowager to her parlor. Lady May, and the maid, looked a little scared when they heard that The Duchess Dowager would stay for a long time, and Charlotte accepted the order with a gentle face to go back on the long journey and pack up her long-term luggage. And after a week or so, Lady Blone returned to her estate, saying she wanted to see if her son and daughter-in-law were doing well.

Worried about her young grandson and weak daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law decided to stay in the Duchess’ castle and teach me the Duchess’s work. Perhaps her old days, when she was rejected as a stranger married from the south, came to mind when she saw me.

So I got another person on my side. Winter was approaching before I knew it. Perhaps it was time for my husband to come.

* * *

When I went out to greet her husband, who returned from the war this year, The Duchess Dowager did not accompany her. I couldn’t ask my mother-in-law, who said she was going to rest because she wasn’t feeling well, to go outside and meet her son, so I had no choice but to wrap up Carl tightly. Carl’s nanny, Charlotte followed me, and Carl’s escort followed us.

My mother-in-law’s illness, which she said was sick in time for her son to return to the castle, was very coincidental at that time. The reason why The Duchess Dowager did not appear here was not because of the bad relationship between the Duke and The Duchess Dowager, but there seemed to be a reason. If she had a bad relationship with her son, she would have ignored my request to come and see Carl, and she wouldn’t have helped me because I was being ignored.