I Possessed the Crazy Bastard's Maid (4)
There was no need to be flustered. Hadn't I already accounted for this? That moments like these would come — that becoming Rihardt's accomplice meant I would be made to witness countless scenes as ugly as this one.
What good would it do to despair over every single thing like this?
Too much to bear, you say? Then I could never be Rihardt's accomplice. And a Lucy who couldn't be his accomplice would simply be demoted to a toy — something to be used and violated. There was no coming back from that.
That was why I neither asked questions nor raised objections, why I avoided anything at all that might sour that man's mood. 'Lucy' had to be a capable maid in Rihardt's eyes — capable enough that killing her would feel like a waste.
I knew all too well how the people who fell out of his favor were dealt with.
"Can't do it?"
Had he sensed me wavering? Rihardt pressed again, and it felt as though a blade of cold blue steel had come to rest against the nape of my neck. I answered without a moment's hesitation.
"I can do it."
What he wanted was simple. He was testing how compliant an attitude I would show.
I knew. I knew, and yet — the dagger clutched in my hand felt heavier than it had any right to.
"I can do it. But it's my first time with anything like this, so I don't know where the proper line lies. That's why I need your instruction, Young Master Rihardt. One careless slip, and Bianca could end up dead, couldn't she?"
"Lucy, didn't you carry on like you were incredibly capable? You're turning out to be quite the handful."
"Who's good at something from the very first try?"
"I was."
Yes, how wonderful for you.
Catching the sour look on my face, Rihardt cocked the corner of his mouth into a lopsided smirk.
"Aren't you being a little too blatant about your defiance?"
"I beg your magnanimity — teach me kindly, if you would, Young Master Rihardt."
"Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Watch closely, then?"
He snatched the dagger back out of my hand. Twirling it deftly between his fingers as if preparing a demonstration, he stopped all at once — and of course, with him holding a dagger, my body cringed before I could stop it.
"Oh, right."
"...What is it?"
"If it gets too hard, you can quit partway through, Lucy."
Why did it feel like that offer would be followed by after all, I can just use you as a toy?
Somehow, I had a feeling tonight was going to be a night I'd never forget.
Rihardt de Line had grown up wanting for nothing. A distinguished family, exceptional talent, striking looks — he was a man endowed with every element that, on its own, would be enough to call a life a success.
Beyond that, he was the eldest son of the Line family — and an only child. There was no rival of any account to threaten his position. The phrase "smooth sailing" could not have fit him better.
In time, Rihardt becoming head of the Line family was all but a law of nature.
A life with a paved road stretching straight ahead. A smooth existence in which all one had to do was keep walking forward. Was that not, by any reasonable measure, an ideal life?
But that was, at best, the value system of an average person. Odd ones out exist wherever you go — take Rihardt himself, the very man who held that life of guaranteed success.
A life others looked upon as privileged was not, by any law, a life its owner had to be content with.
He was not fond of his circumstances. To put it more precisely, he found living as heir to the Line family ill-suited to his nature — to the point that, had it been possible, he would have handed the role off to someone else entirely.
Unfortunately, he was an only child; there was no one to live his life in his place.
Cramming your body into a mold that doesn't fit — what could be more disagreeable? Playing eldest son to a family that never suited you — what could be more insufferable?
For all these reasons, Rihardt simmered with discontent from beginning to end — though never once did he let it show. The stress, meanwhile, piled up without fail.
And so Rihardt needed a stimulus to burn that stress off. Abducting servants from houses of relatively poor repute and doing cruel things to them was one of those outlets.
Not the virtuous, levelheaded young master of House Line — Rihardt, bearer of sadistic appetites. When he bared that face to others, the way their expressions warped — as if they couldn't believe it, as if they'd been betrayed — brought him a considerable rush of elation.
Shattering the vain expectations others pinned on him. Rihardt found that act immensely satisfying.
A base and vulgar pastime? So what? Nothing had ever felt this exhilarating.
Today, too, was one of those moments — Rihardt, emerging from an hour of pleasant leisure.
Perhaps he'd been carried away by his delightful little transgression — he never noticed that someone else was in his room.
Lucifer?
And of all people — the very girl he'd been privately considering as his next target.
Rihardt's gaze snapped to the maid. Gray hair and eyes to match, finely cut features, flawless white skin and a tidy maid's uniform. The girl had been peering around uneasily; the moment she came face to face with him, her expression froze solid.
So she'd been caught?
Of course, this was not Rihardt's fault but Lucifer's. Not only had she come calling at a late hour, she had let herself into his room without so much as a by-your-leave. It was a situation that would have justified a flogging on the spot — and then some.
If anything, this was fortunate.
Inwardly, Rihardt deemed the encounter with Lucifer a chance — a golden opportunity, with this as the pretext, to invite her down to the Basement.
Had she not shown that unexpected side of herself, he would have been listening to a different kind of weeping by now.
Even thinking back on it now, it was absurd.
She'd felt like an entirely different person.
The change had been so stark it was as if someone had swapped the person inside her body — enough to make him wonder whether she, like him, had lived her whole life masquerading as someone she wasn't.
The Lucifer that Rihardt himself knew? A woman with nothing remarkable about her beyond passable looks. She wasn't especially sociable, nor clever at her duties — so unremarkable, in fact, that rumors had spread among the servants that she must have sold her body to become a maid in the first place.
A person with no close friends, one who could vanish without a sound and not a single soul would care. That, he had assumed, was who Lucifer was.
And yet Rihardt remembered those slate-gray eyes, staring him down with perfect composure. Unconcerned eyes that held no expectations of him whatsoever. That audacity was why they alone had stayed with him.
You could even say his heart had been drawn.
That was why I'd given her the chance.
She'd said she wanted to be his accomplice, so he had handed Bianca over — to see what she would do.
Lucifer's performance had been astonishingly clumsy. Like someone who had never touched such work in her life.
It probably was her first time.
Hadn't she said so herself — that her very purpose in seeking him out was 'survival'? She was plainly a stranger to the entertainments he enjoyed.
Besides, Bianca's tolerance for pain had thickened under Rihardt's merciless games; these days she no longer wept at run-of-the-mill amusements. Thanks to that, Lucifer had to put in considerable effort before she earned a passing mark.
She couldn't conceal her turmoil. Her body had been trembling, too.
Seeing that, he understood — this maid was not his kind. If anything, she was no different from any perfectly ordinary person.
Could someone like that truly become his partner in crime?
Only one way to find out.
He meant to watch her for a while. An accomplice did come with its conveniences, after all — and hadn't she said it herself? That should he ever find her wanting, he need only make her into his toy.
I had slept wretchedly, all because of a vicious nightmare.
The reason for the nightmare? It might have had something to do with butchering the stable keeper's daughter — a girl named Bianca — with a dagger the night before.
It had been grueling work, truly. No matter how sharp the dagger, the muscle it carved through was stubborn and tough, and the blood that welled up made everything slippery.
Because Rihardt preferred the sight of exposed bone, I had no choice but to slice away flesh until white bone showed through.
And of course, Bianca had shrieked through her sobbing.
What she screamed was the saddest part. No curses aimed at Rihardt. No bitterness aimed at me.
Stop, please stop, please, I'm begging you, it hurts, it hurts so much.
Mostly, it was just begging.
In the novel, she'd been described as a plucky girl — bold, spirited, unbreakable. And that girl had been broken this badly.
What in the world was supposed to be fun about this?
The instant that question surfaced, Rihardt — watching my face twist — had asked:
Your hand stopped. Shall we stop?
Clench. My fist had tightened without my noticing. Perhaps I'd squeezed too hard — my hand was trembling.
"...Haah."
Was this really how I was going to survive?
I swept the sweat-damp hair from my forehead and pushed myself upright, trying to rise from the bed.
"Ugh?"
A savage grip clamped around my waist. Escape from a forearm corded with muscle was a distant hope. In the end, my brief bid to get up accomplished nothing; I was pressed back down into the bed.
Whose doing that was needed no guessing.
"What is the meaning of this, Young Master Rihardt?"
"You look glum, Lucy. Something troubling you?"
Goosebumps raced across my skin — above all because it proved I couldn't let my guard down for even a second.
I twisted around to glare at the man who had dragged me into this bed: Rihardt.
"Why are you in my bed?"
"What are you talking about? You're in my bed, Lucy."
Me? I looked around.
Ah.
He was right. This was Rihardt's room.
...Which meant we had slept together?
I never got to finish that thought.
Knock, knock.
The knock was followed at once by a brief greeting.
"Young Master Rihardt, were you coughing?"
"Mm. Come in, Head Maid."
The door creaked open — and in that instant, the head maid's eyes flooded with horror. Small wonder, given that the person standing there was the last one who had any business being there.
I could only stare at Rihardt, dumbstruck. Utterly indifferent to my gaze, he pulled me into his embrace.
"I'd like all of Lucy's duties reassigned starting today. From now on, she'll be attending me exclusively."
It was an extraordinary privilege. In every possible sense.