CH 1.10

He’s the real enemy.

The truth was, I knew that my husband was harassing me like that because he wanted me to act on my own initiative.

Yes, I knew that from the beginning.

Perhaps my husband had come all this way because he thought that after a week or so of sounding and moving about, and after a month or so, the mansion would have changed in some way.

He used Elise’s invitation as a pretext.

But when he arrived, he found that nothing had changed at all.

As usual, Mrs. Miriam was free to do as she pleased and was in charge as she saw fit. Meanwhile, Elise was playing around in social gatherings shamelessly; borrowing the Duke of Lindbeld’s prestige.

That’s why my husband went to such lengths today to expressly show that I couldn’t escape, not in any way.

I want my innocence back! I can no longer stay married after what you did to me!…I’m already married…

When I was involved to this extent, I really gotta do what I could to save myself.

So, I checked with my husband.

I should know where to set my ultimate goal.

“Ahem…Just out of curiosity, are you sure it’s just those two women you want us to get rid of?”

“Otherwise, is there someone else?”

Are you serious, or are you testing me?

Well, it was probably the latter.

I exhaled and said, “There are a number of maids and servants I would like to get rid of, but they are insignificant and can be dealt with. As for the Chief Steward Rockdell, it depends on what you want to do with him.”

As soon as I said that, my husband laughed with amusement, and the secretary-dono, who was listening to our conversation, was rendered gaping.

“If you have the right people for the job, you can sack them right away.”

Right.

I was thinking the same. 

As far as I could tell, this Rockdell fellow was actually very crooked.

Even though he was a member of a branch family of stewards, he was quite ambitious.

Personally, I was fine with ambitious people. I appreciated it when people worked hard to get ahead.

But people who were ambitious but useless were just useless. In fact, they were only harmful because they would envy everyone around them.

In this respect, Rockdell was the former. He was ambitious and was good at his job.

As a matter of fact, this Rockdell fellow was the same age as my father-in-law, the former duke, and they were playmates at the estate.

Well, they were close in age. It was an appropriate choice to be his playmate at the estate.

And it was not wrong to build a trusting relationship from childhood with the person who you would serve as your future master.

But only if it didn’t head the crooked path. 

It was the duty of a loyal retainer to stop his master if he seemed to be going in the wrong direction, but this butler was different.

He could do the job.

That was for sure.

He naturally should be proud of that, and he deserved to be paid accordingly.

However, he began to dream big dreams.

He had grandiose dreams of one day taking over the main branch, and so he left his no-good master without even bothering to admonish him.

As a result, Rockdell took charge of most things, and consequently, he gained power.

On the household affairs, on territory matters. 

And you know what? It was Mrs. Miriam and Elise whom he tried for his grandiose dreams.

Those two seemed air-headed, and I guessed they were just right for Rockdell to manipulate.

First off, Mrs. Miriam was quite a beauty.

When the former duke’s wife passed away, Rockdell sent Mrs. Miriam to be his companion for the night.

If it went well, it would stay that way. If not, he would just send a different girl.

If Mrs. Miriam successfully conceived and gave birth to a child, he planned to take guardianship of the child and have the duke disinherited.

I knew there was something fishy going on when the steward kept tolerating Mrs. Miriam. I wasn’t sure if Rockdell was really for his master or Mrs. Miriam was, but now I knew.

In other words, it was accurate to say master versus the chief steward. 

But would it work out that well? I wondered, but it seemed to work more than half the time.

At any rate, the former duke was a womanizer, and although he was reasonably good at his job, he was classified as a useless master in recent years.

A workaholic hedonist, so to speak. This was my husband’s father.

Once a person was corrupted, he would seek comfort wherever possible.

My husband’s father was no different. He was a man who thought that since someone could work for him, he didn’t have to work himself.

Thus, he used it for good.

A steward who made things easy for you was very useful, wasn’t it?

And even more so if the steward wouldn’t say anything even if you messed about.

It was unimaginable how such a father could have raised such a person as my husband.

However, I heard that my husband’s mother was in charge of his education most of the time.

Also his paternal grandfather, my paternal grandfather.

I guessed he probably thought his own son was so useless, so he gave up on him. Then, he expected his grandson to be better, and he was right.

His grandson turned out to be too good at his job.

It seemed that my husband would work where there was work to be done. He had been really busy since he took over the title.

So much that he couldn’t manage the housekeeping of his mansion or the family affairs of the Duke of Lindbeld.

And, as I’ve said many times before, Rockdell could do his job.

However, what Rockdell used to settle as he pleased now required my husband’s approval every time, so Rockdell wanted to deal with my husband.

But it was the same with my husband.

There was simply no suitable person for the job.

Because of Rockdell’s case, he was cautious about choosing from the butler family of the family branch.

Moreover, Rockdell wanted to hold the authority himself, so he hadn’t even trained another steward.

I knew that Rockdell would crush whoever my master would consider.

So, apparently, there was no one who could replace Rockdell.

At present.

An excellent steward was not something that was easy to come by.

It would be very troubling to have Rockdell quit now because he was an eyesore.

The work would be so intensive that even my busy husband would really be overworked.

“I knew I made the right choice in choosing you. I’m glad to trust in your skills when you run the Count’s domain since you were ten years old, and turned a dying estate into that.”

Oh, you knew that, did you, Husband?

But I wish you hadn’t thrown me into this boggy world expecting that.

I told you, didn’t I, Husband?

I told you that I wanted to live a life of depravity.

Why do I have to break my bones first to make that life possible?

Nothing would help even if I told him that, so I gave up everything and said.

“There is one person I can think of, so I’ll ask him.”

I wanted at least one ally.