Chapter 15.3

Gerard was a very promising butler. He was quite able, which earned him the grace of the Duke of Bavaria. Coming from a foreign noble family, he possessed perfect manners and good looks. Gerard was a good butler, and Annette had received a lot of meticulous care from him since childhood.

‘But that’s it. I can’t stand by and watch him be rude to my husband.’

Annette bit her lips and approached the front door. She saw Gerard standing straight, looking as graceful and calm as ever. However, Annette found the problem at once. It was his attitude that was now quite different from what she had known before.

‘What’s wrong with his posture?’

Gerard looked very proud and confident, with his back erect and head held up straight. On the surface, it didn’t look like much of a problem but his posture was quite disrespectful considering who he was standing before. It was none other than in front of Marquis Rafael Carnesis. No way Gerard wouldn’t know such basic manners.  So it must have been done deliberately.

Seeing this, Annette frowned and walked out to the front door. Rafael, who was quite sensitive to his surroundings, sensed her presence and looked back first. Following his gaze, Gerard also looked that way. Seeing who was standing there, his eyes widened slightly.

“Good morning, Marchioness of Carnesis.”

“Gerard.”

Gerard recognized Annette immediately and bowed his head politely. Apparently, Gerard’s neck only bowed before people of Bavaria. Seeing this, Rafael’s deep blue eyes became narrow. He wondered whether his neck could continue to be stiff before him if he cut it off from his body.

Annette, who had already grasped Rafael to some extent, was stung by his bloody gaze. To prevent him from taking any irrevocable step, she quickly cleared her throat and asked Gerard.

“Gerard, what’s going on? Why are you making a fuss so early in the morning?”

“I’m sorry, Madam. I just came here to fulfill the Duke’s command. I couldn’t complete the work smoothly. So, I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”

Gerard said politely while bowing his back. He no longer called Annette ‘Lady’. Well this was the right title to address her, since Annette was now married. She had not seen him since her marriage, so she felt a little strange for a while. But Annette quickly adapted to the change and immediately refuted Gerard’s words.

“It’s good that you’re here to fulfill your orders. But Gerard, since how many years have you been serving the House of Bavaria?”

“It’s been 12 years now, Young Lady…um Marchioness.” Gerard, who belatedly corrected the habitual title, was sweating. He was right now very embarrassed by Annette’s sudden appearance.

In a fight, the first one to be distracted was bound to lose. Annette, who had already won the game, began to reprimand Gerard in earnest.

“12 years! That’s enough time to learn etiquettes. But what’s with your attitude towards my husband, Gerard? If someone sees how you’re behaving right now, they might think you’re the master here.”

“Madam, that’s not it. Sorry, I think there’s a misunderstanding regarding this situation, but I’m…”

Gerard was very flustered and hurried to correct Annette’s misunderstanding. However, Annette was not a person who could be easily swayed by a butler’s eloquence. She was also from the Bavarian family, so it was as natural as breathing for her to correct the discipline of her employees.

Annette raised her head in a haughty way and lashed out at the butler who was comparatively quite taller than her.

“What misunderstanding! I saw it with my own eyes! How could you be so rude to my husband, Gerard? Are you saying that just because I got married, you don’t see me as your master anymore? So there’s no need to be polite to me and my husband?” 

As she spoke, it seemed as if she would explode from her anger and sadness. Annette only blamed Gerard on the surface, because she knew the actual truth. Gerard didn’t do this because he looked down upon Rafael. He was originally an exemplary butler who knew how to politely entertain the guests even if it was the commoners who came to visit the Ducal house.

‘Gerard is probably doing this right now…  because my father ordered it.’ 

Annette’s father, Allamand Bavaria, was a terrible supremacist. He openly ignored Rafael even before Annette’s marriage because Rafael was an illegitimate child of the royal family. No matter how pure and high the royal blood flowing in him was, it was never ignored that the blood of his mother was vulgar and from unknown origins.

This contempt of Allamand continued even after Rafael became his son-in-law. Because of this, Annette who was inexperienced, struggled to mediate between her father and her husband. But she never thought something like this would have happened.

‘This is so mean!’

‘Why did you marry me off to Rafael if you didn’t want to treat him like a son-in-law in the first place?’

Annette resented her cold and selfish father. Thanks to this, Annette’s pink eyes became a little teary. She couldn’t see Rafael’s expression standing behind her, so she glared at Gerard spitefully.

When Gerard saw Annette’s teary eyes, he hung his head in a daze. He was very vulnerable to the weak look of his young lady.

“No, Madam, I apologize for my rudeness. Please forgive me with a generous heart.”

“Apologise to my husband, not me.”

Hearing Annette’s firm command,  Gerard closed his mouth with a difficult expression. His green eyes were stubbornly neglecting Rafael’s existence. Gerard could never apologize to Rafael, as long as he had been instructed by his master. Instead, Gerard decided to try to somehow persuade Annette.

‘If you’re the lady I served, you’d take my side. If you’re just saying it…’

The lady whom Gerard had served, though clever, was rather weak-minded. Gerard clung to that point. Now that her husband was in front of her, she pretended to scold Gerard. He has known her for so many years, so he thought it was an attempt worth trying.

Gerard gulped and began speaking in a distinct elegant tone.

“No, ma’am, I visited you on the occasion of a formal visit by the Duke of Bavaria. There seems to be a misunderstanding, but please understand that my actions do not contain any personal intention. All of this was by Duke of Bavaria….”

Annette was immersed in her thoughts while listening to Gerard’s fluent excuse. As expected, her suspicions that her father had ordered to do this was right. Allamand must have done this with an intention to demoralise Rafael and to clearly show that he refused to acknowledge him as his son in law. Instead of letting him think Annette was married to him, he wanted Rafael to know Annette was rather thrown away to him.

‘So you’re openly ignoring Rafael so much. You didn’t even consider the position of your daughter who was married to him.’

A bitter smile emerged on Annette’s face. She couldn’t believe her father sent a butler to insult his son-in-law who was also a nobleman. Because of this Rafael was angry and cold towards her. This showed her how selfish her father was and how he didn’t care about her at all.

In fact, even when Annette was having a hard time during her marriage in her previous life, her father only kept his distance and stayed on the sides. It stayed like that until the day she died at a young age. The last time Annette saw her father was the day of her wedding, and that too, he had only attended to satisfy the king.

It was then Annette realized that she had been abandoned by her father. Being unable to become a Crown Princess, she became useless to Allamand. But it was not surprising. Her father was cold-blooded, with blue blood flowing in his veins. So it was time for the abandoned daughter to make choices for herself.

‘Rafael is my husband. And now he’s… my only family.’

It was a sad truth. Rafael was her husband, and she was obliged to protect her husband. Although she couldn’t do that in her previous life, it would be different this time. Annette’s pink determined eyes elegantly looked down at the butler.

“Okay, Gerard. Then tell me with your own mouth. I too, have the Bavarian blood flowing in my veins, and even after marriage, my middle name will contain Bavaria in it. Then, am I, who is standing in front of you, your master or not?” 

Unexpectedly, Annette’s resolute attitude left Gerard feeling stifled. Annette, who had a lofty chin and cold eyes, was currently more Bavarian than anyone else. Seeing this, Gerard realized that she had no intention of compromising.

“Madam has always been a Bavarian, and will continue to be so. I am loyal to the House of Bavaria, and I have devoted my whole life to its noble lineage.”

Gerard gave Anette the answer she wanted in a quivering voice. After all, he had never gone against his young lady. From the moment he first saw a young Annette broadly smiling at him, Gerard was desperately defeated and he always gave in to her.

“Good. Then, I would like you to apologize to my husband, who deserves respect.”

Annette raised her head straight as she clasped her hands around Rafael’s arms. Her figure looked quite haughty and arrogant. Rafael thought this image of Annette was rather strange, but it wasn’t surprisingly bad. To be honest, he also seemed to like it.

‘I never thought I’d see a Bavarian taking my side in my life.’

Rafael felt indescribably strange. He had always been alone. He had to climb fiercely from the bottom to the top all alone. And he always took it for granted. Even his own biological father, King Selgratis, would not have recognized him as his son if he did not have talent. That was the heartless world that Rafael knew.

But suddenly in his life, a woman named Annette Bavaria appeared. She didn’t let Rafael solve the problem ‘directly‘ in his own style. Instead, she stood in front of him with her slender body, and even scolded the butler that was sent by her own family, by saying, ‘How dare you disrespect my husband?’

It was the first time in his life, Rafael had ever experienced ‘protection’ of others. Unbelievably, he was now protected by a woman who barely reached his shoulder. And on top of that, she was the daughter of the Bavarian family, who despised Rafael’s very existence. This was all a really fresh shock to Rafael.

‘Strange woman.’

Rafael glanced at Annette and then turned his gaze to the butler. He could see Gerard looking at himself from the distance, with a pale face. In Rafael’s eyes, this impolite butler seemed to like Annette. Only a man could better know the heart of the other man.

Gerard’s arrogance came from the fact that he was backed by the Duke Allamand Bavaria. But it was clear that his hostile feelings towards Rafael were his own. And he knew very well where they came from. Gerard bowed his head to Rafael with a frustrated face and at the order of his young lady, he politely apologized.

“I politely apologize for my rudeness, Your Excellency, Marquis of Carnesis. Please forgive me.”

Rafael stared at Gerard’s bowed head with cold eyes. He wanted to make an example by teaching the butler a lesson for his insolence. But it was obvious that if he made an employee from his wife’s house like that, he would never hear the end of it and would be scorned by the public. Annette will be portrayed as a poor victim and he will be described as a ruthless butcher. It’s better to show mercy once than to hear such things.

Above all, Rafael honestly didn’t expect Annette to raise her voice like this and give him face. Since she did a great job as a wife, he also had to consider his position as her husband.

The determined Raphel opened his mouth coldly. “Hey, did you say your name was Gerard?”