I Became the Exclusive Maid (2)
The Line Count family was a martial house of great renown even within the Kingdom of Metzelich. It possessed secret sword arts handed down through the generations, along with heirloom arms worthy of being called the family's very emblem.
The previous head—Rihardt's great-great-grandfather, Sir Leon—was a knight worth a hundred men. His illustrious service and feats of arms in war were duly recognized, and he was granted the title of Count along with a sprawling estate besides.
The name of that estate was Line.
Yes, the very same Line that serves as Rihardt's family name.
Western names tended to work that way, after all—so-and-so, son of such-and-such, from this-or-that place.
Rendered literally, then, "Rihardt de Line" would come out as Rihardt of the Line Count family.
But I digress. Leon's descendants did not stop at merely inheriting the title and the broad lands; they tended them with care and built upon them generation after generation, and the result was the great city of Line as it stood today. In the novel, it had been described as a flourishing territory that could stand shoulder to shoulder with any royal capital.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd see the city of Line with my own eyes.
A landscape blending the medieval with the fantastical unfurled before me. Having lived amid the dazzling architecture of the modern world, I'd assumed it wouldn't stir much in me. But there are exceptions to every rule.
Buildings rose with a grandeur that would make even a modern man's jaw drop. The towering ramparts that wrapped the city in an embrace, the spires jutting skyward like so many conifers—befitting the name "fortress city," they moved me more deeply than I'd expected. All the more staggering, too, considering they'd been raised by human hands alone, without a single machine to help them.
Then again, this is a world with magic in it. Surely it wasn't all pure muscle and mortar?
In any case, it was enormous. Vast, too. It wasn't for nothing that the place was said to rival a capital.
Which was why we needed mounts. The territory itself was simply that large.
Rihardt could have covered the ground on foot at a decent clip, but I was the problem. Taking into account the stamina of a perfectly ordinary girl, he fetched a horse from the mansion stables.
Sean, the stablemaster, wore a look of mild astonishment at the unlikely pairing of me and Rihardt, but he handed the horse over without fuss. No small measure of worry clouded his face as he did.
It was because of his daughter Bianca's disappearance. A mischievous girl who did nothing but give him gray hairs, but a child was still a child. Of course he worried.
Sean had no way of knowing. That the daughter he was aching to find was, at this very moment, suffering unspeakable things in Rihardt's basement.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
"Aren't you getting a little too stiff back there?"
The voice of a bastard I had no wish to hear came from just behind me, and my mood soured on the spot. Expecting a conscience from this man was clearly beyond hope.
"It's my first time riding a horse."
The horse's gait was steady and rhythmic, the ride smooth enough that I felt no real swaying. Even a rank novice like me could tell this was a well-trained animal. But a horse was simply so foreign a conveyance to a modern soul that my body tensed up all on its own, no matter what I told it.
"Was it? I could have sworn you'd ridden before."
Oh no. In my fluster, I'd blurted out my experience instead of Lucifer's.
Scrambling to smooth over my slip, I fudged an answer.
"This is my first time riding with someone."
"Then you have even less reason to be nervous. I'm right here with you."
Rihardt was, after all, a man you could well call a proper knight, and a knight is versed not only in the blade but in horsemanship besides. By rights, riding with him ought to have lent me considerable reassurance, and yet—
"A skilled rider is no guarantee against an accident, is it?"
By that logic, did everyone holding a license go accident-free? Inevitable calamity comes knocking anytime, anywhere. Just as it had for me, the moment I was suddenly dropped into this body.
"You worry too much, Lucy. Besides, we're not even going that fast."
He wasn't wrong. We were moving at little more than a brisk walk. Rihardt was deliberately keeping the pace down so as not to trouble the people living in his territory.
Truth be told, even a horse at full gallop fell well short of modern conveyances—cars, trains, buses. But perhaps it was a matter of how it felt. A machine answers its operator's hands without complaint; riding a living creature stirred a genuine resistance in me.
"I had no idea you were this frightened of horses."
Tender though his tone was, Rihardt's eyes and mouth had curved into crescents. My terror of the horse seemed to be a delightful diversion for him.
"...My apologies. I shall endeavor to adjust."
Adjusting, of course, proved easier said than done. I flinched the entire way, and every single time, Rihardt tossed out another mischievous quip. A damnable young master, bent on tormenting me at every hour God sent.
Perhaps half an hour of that had passed when we arrived before a shop that positively exuded sophistication. The building's facade alone carried an air of understated elegance, and the solid wood furniture within was so finely lacquered it practically whispered luxury. The staff were impeccably groomed, their every movement measured and formal.
Not quite on par with the mansion's own servants, but they clearly worked to a standard. A shop run by a noble, perhaps? Either way, this was no ordinary establishment.
"Here, take my hand."
Rihardt, dismounting first, offered his hand up to me. In my heart of hearts I wanted to swat it away, but souring the mood would only amount to wringing my own neck. Demurely, I accepted his escort and stepped down from the saddle.
Having sat astride for so long, my rear end had gone stiff and achy. Had no eyes been upon me, I might have given it a rub or two.
The moment our feet touched the ground, the staff ushered us inside as though they had been waiting all along. Had he arranged this in advance? I glanced at Rihardt despite myself, and he winked one eye.
"I have someone to meet. Someone I'd like to introduce to you as well, Lucy."
Someone to meet? Out of nowhere? And someone to introduce to me, no less? So I hadn't been brought outside for my own sake at all?
All manner of faces flitted through my mind, but not one of them fit the timeline for crossing paths with Rihardt. We were, after all, years before the original story had even begun. And since that unhelpful novel doled out its backstory only in fragments, I hadn't the faintest inkling whom we might be meeting.
The door swung open with a smooth, well-oiled creak, and the scene within revealed itself.
Before the spread of dishes laid across the wide table, it was a person my eyes found first. Her conduct was such a spectacle that she seized my attention in an instant—feet propped up on the table, arms crossed, glaring daggers our way.
A woman with the appearance of a young girl. Hair red as the evening glow spilled down to her waist, and her eyes held a wavering crimson, as though flames had been sealed inside beads. Like me, she was dressed in an arrangement of black and white.
Which made it all the more ironic that her outfit threw her behavior into sharper relief. What do I mean by that?
She's wearing a nun's habit, that girl.
A delinquent nun, perhaps?
"Rihardt, I got tired of waiting! What took you so lo—...huh?"
The girl, who had been rattling on without a breath, caught sight of me and her face crumpled. The kind of violent reaction one reserves for a cockroach.
BANG!
The red-haired girl shot up from her seat and came striding straight toward us. Her petite frame made her seem less intimidating than outright adorable.
"R-Rihardt! Who's— who is this beside you?"
Rihardt's eyes slid toward me. A look that seemed to ask, Shall you explain, or shall I?
I bowed my head to the girl a full head shorter than I was, lifting the hem of my maid's dress.
"I am Lucifer, who as of today has entered Young Master Rihardt's service as his exclusive maid. Might I ask your name, Sister? The Young Master neglected to tell me whom he would be meeting."
Despite the barb tucked into my words, Rihardt only smiled his sly, unrepentant smile. The one to react with real heat was the girl instead, her brows knotting into a scowl that wrinkled her whole face.
"An exclusive maid? You're not the type to keep one. What sudden wind blew in?"
She addressed Rihardt, not me. Ignoring me outright, to my face.
More to the point—had a character this lively actually existed in that dreary novel?
"We got along, one thing and another, so I've kept her by my side. Lucy, this is Karen Florence. She's a battle nun."
A battle nun? With that dainty little body?
Just then my eye caught the mace hanging at her waist. It felt churlish to say, but the weapon did not suit the girl called Karen Florence. It looked like the sort of thing only a grown man could swing properly. Could that child truly wield it?
Perhaps she sensed the doubt in my gaze, for a razor-edged reply came back at once.
"Don't look down on me. You're just a maid."
Why, this little brat. What a mouth on her. Enough to make me want to land just one good hit.
"If I have given offense, I apologize."
"Hmph."
Karen Florence snorted at my perfectly polite apology. I found myself genuinely curious who had raised her.
"Standing there like a post won't fix anything—sit down, Rihardt. The food's all going cold."
"Shall we?"
At her word, Rihardt took his seat. And I, naturally, remained standing. So long as I was a maid, sharing a table with an employer was simply not done. That was common sense in this world.
"You sit too, Lucy."
Though with the employer's express permission, the matter changed somewhat.
"How could I possibly share a table with the Young Master—"
"Have you forgotten? We came here to eat together. What good is a meal if I'm the only one eating?"
How touching of him to look after me. I could weep with gratitude.
The one whose eyes flashed into an axe-edged glare at those words was Karen Florence. She clenched her jaw so hard the grinding of her teeth carried all the way to my ears.
"You'll understand too, won't you, Karen?"
"...Of course. Of course I'll understand."
A soft answer—nothing like the venom she'd spat at me a moment ago. The gulf between how she treated Rihardt and how she treated me could not have been starker. Watching her, I thought I finally understood why Karen Florence was acting so hostile toward me.
So she's fallen for a dangerous man.
A sudden pang of pity washed over me for this Karen Florence, whom I'd written off as nothing but hateful. Like a butterfly walking itself willingly into a spider's web—surely anyone would feel that ache. There were so many good people in the world. How on earth had her heart been stolen by a bastard like this?
"Then, with your leave."
"Here you are."
As I moved to take my seat, Rihardt pulled out a chair for me. His own, right beside him, no less. It wouldn't be strange for a master to show such attentiveness to his exclusive maid. Except this was unmistakably deliberate.
He's cherry-picking, one by one, only the gestures guaranteed to inflame Karen Florence's jealousy.
What a sly, scheming creature of a man. And the one footing the bill for Rihardt's shallow little games was, as ever, me.
I'm going to give myself indigestion at this rate.
And what could I possibly say to a Karen Florence who wore her hostility so openly? Frankly, the entire arrangement was unbearable, so I leaned toward Rihardt and murmured low.
"I worry that I, a mere impurity, might be spoiling the two of your... intimate time together."
"Not at all, so don't fret. As it happens..."
Rihardt whispered back, softer still.
"Karen Florence is someone I intend to invite to the mansion."
Ah. So that was it. He had marked this girl as his next target?
At those words, I could not, for the life of me, keep the disgust off my face.