Securing a Master (1)
“Nanny, are you even listening to me?”
Catherine seemed thoroughly resentful that I hadn’t spared her so much as a glance. Sitting directly across from me, she puffed out her cheeks and glared. Paying her irritation no mind, I gently patted the belly of the sleeping little girl in my lap. It was the princess’s afternoon nap time.
“I wasn’t aware the position of head maid afforded so much leisure.”
“Leisure? As if! I’m swamped! I went out of my way to carve out time just to spend it with you, Nanny!” Catherine hissed in a rapid-fire whisper, mindful not to wake the slumbering princess.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’?! Naturally, it’s because I want to get closer to you, Nanny…” Catherine trailed off, narrowing her eyes as she studied my face. “Come to think of it, Nanny, I don’t think you know the first thing about making friends.”
“Excuse me? Me?”
“Do you have any idea how terrified the other maids are of you? They say an icy winter gale blows wherever you walk!”
I tilted my head slightly at her dramatic accusation. Well, I doubt that’s the only reason.
The servants had begun avoiding my gaze ever since rumors spread about the day the former head maid was dismissed. Word had circulated that I had shoved the woman violently to the floor and showered her in filthy curses. I wonder who on earth concocted such ridiculous gossip. In truth, she had practically tripped over her own two feet, and not once had a curse crossed my lips.
“I am under no obligation to be tender-hearted toward the other maids.”
Catherine arched an eyebrow at my flat reply. “Nanny, be completely honest with me.” She took a sharp breath, leaned forward across the small table, and whispered, “You don’t have any friends, do you?”
“…”
“Oh, good heavens, look at you! You can’t even answer! You really don’t have a single friend!”
“…It is not that I have none. I simply choose not to make them.”
“And what on earth is wrong with making friends?!” Catherine threw her hands up, thoroughly exasperated. “Wouldn’t it be nice to just open up and talk to someone? Doesn’t it get lonely living behind a fortress wall like that?”
Lonely.
I had lived for decades pressed skin-to-skin with another human being, yet I had never truly known what lay hidden within his heart. What meaning, then, did loneliness hold? Humans were solitary creatures by nature—whether walking alone or surrounded by a crowd, that fundamental truth never changed. It was the sole certainty etched into my soul the moment my flesh was consumed by fire and reduced to ash.
“The closer someone is to you, the more dangerous they become.”
“Pardon?”
“In a world where even family will stab you in the back, what guarantee is there that a friend wouldn’t do the same?”
“Good grief. Anyone listening would think you’d actually been betrayed by a friend.”
“…”
Well, it hadn’t been a friend who betrayed me, but a lover. And to be entirely accurate, the blade hadn’t grazed my back figuratively—it had been driven straight between my shoulder blades.
“Even so, I still want to get close to you, Nanny. If possible, I’d like us to be friends.” Pouting with dissatisfaction, Catherine tapped the tip of her shoe against the floorboards. “Friends? You and I?”
“Yes! By the way, did you know that you and I are the exact same age?”
Catherine was my age? She appeared to be in her early twenties at most. Had she truly lived thirty-three years? As I stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief, Catherine broke into a sunny smile.
“We’re both twenty-one, so let’s try getting along, all right?”
“…Both twenty-one?”
Only then did reality sink in once more: I was no longer Kyla Angel. Right. The real Rachel Brown was merely a girl of twenty-one. I suppose shedding twelve whole years could be called a stroke of fortune. Who in this world could ever reclaim their lost youth without paying a steep toll? Though to claim I had received it freely was a lie—my final moments had been far too horrific a price.
“Nanny? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I was merely thinking that twenty-one is terribly young.”
“Young? At our age, it wouldn’t be strange in the slightest to already be married with a child or two, you know.” Resting her chin in her hand, Catherine wore a melancholic look. “Though I suppose penniless folks like me just end up marrying late.”
That struck me as odd. Catherine was the daughter of Viscount Vale. Even for an impoverished noble house, arranging a decent marriage for a daughter was rarely an insurmountable obstacle.
“Still, you are a noblewoman, are you not?”
“There are nobles, and then there are nobles. My family were commoners who bought our way into high society.” She let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Back in the day, we were wealthy enough to purchase a title outright, but now there isn’t a copper left to our name.”
“Why is that?”
“My father gambled every single coin of the family fortune away.”
“My word.”
As expected, gambling was the ruin of countless lives.
“That’s why I’m stuck working like a dog at this age!” Catherine threw both arms into the air in theatrical despair. “I want to get married too! I want to find a dependable, bear-like husband, pop out a bunch of cute little rabbit-like children, and live happily ever after!”
“If marriage is your desire, why not seek the services of a matchmaker?”
“An arranged marriage? Absolutely out of the question! I will marry for love or not at all!”
“Is that so?”
“Besides, I don’t even have the money to hire a matchmaker. It’s all I can do to scrape together living expenses to send back home.” Clutching her forehead, Catherine shook her head in sheer misery. “At this rate, forget marriage—I don’t even know if I’ll ever date anyone. I came all the way to the capital hoping to find a decent man, but…”
She shuddered violently from head to toe, as if the mere recollection turned her stomach.
“Honestly, there wasn’t a single sane man back in my hometown! Nothing but lecherous scoundrels who only cared about chasing skirts!”
Catherine rambled on for quite a while, cataloging every single flaw of the men from her province. She flitted from one complaint to the next with astonishing ease, chattering away all on her own. At the very least, my ears were never left in silence.
“Ah, that’s right!”
“What is it?”
“I completely forgot to bring His Highness Edwin his afternoon refreshments!”
Edwin was currently in the annex, deeply absorbed in his studies. Today was his weekly tutoring session.
“You can bring them once his lesson is over. It isn’t as though His Highness has much of a sweet tooth anyway.”
“I suppose so, but—”
“There’s no need to bring a snack.”
“Eeeek! Y-Your Highness Edwin?!”
Startled by Edwin’s abrupt appearance in the doorway, Catherine let out a piercing shriek. Fortunately, I clamped my hands over the princess’s ears in the nick of time, preventing the disaster of waking the soundly sleeping toddler into a fit of tears.
“H-Heavens, I’m so sorry! With Her Highness Emilia sleeping, too…!”
“It’s quite all right.” That was hardly what mattered right now. I turned toward the boy. “Your Highness, it is not yet time for your lesson to conclude. Why have you stepped out?”
“Ah, well…” Edwin looked visibly crestfallen. In lieu of an explanation, he held out an envelope. “I waited and waited, but the tutor never showed up. Then a maid brought this to me.”
Inside the letter was a long-winded, tearful sob story, but the core message was unmistakable: he would no longer instruct the prince.
“He certainly found an extravagant way to say he’s quitting.”
“What? He’s quitting?!” Catherine gasped, her jaw dropping in disbelief. “B-But we already paid him next month’s tutoring fees in advance just last week!”
So he took the advance and ran. The man ought to have been a merchant rather than an academic.
“What can we say to a man who claims an unforeseen domestic tragedy forces his departure?”
“But how on earth are we supposed to find a replacement?” Glancing nervously at Edwin, Catherine leaned in and whispered frantically into my ear. “All the prominent, learned nobles flatly refused us before. It was an absolute ordeal just to recruit that man in the first place!”
“They refused? Why?”
“Why else? Because all they care about is their own political advancement!” Catherine shook her head in disgust. “Normally, a tutor to an imperial prince expects to secure a prestigious post down the road, like the headmaster of the Imperial Academy. Those snobs are as mercenary as they come.”
Edwin, however, was an imperial prince with nothing to his name. Far from ascending the throne, it was impossible to guarantee he would ever be granted a meaningful official title. Who among the ambitious aristocracy would willingly tie their future to such a powerless prince?
Listening to Catherine’s lament, I glanced toward Edwin. Clutching a thick history tome against his chest, the young prince stood with his shoulders slumped and head bowed. No doubt he was already drowning in self-blame, convinced the scholar had abandoned him because he was deficient.
What a dilemma.
Finding a suitable mentor for the prince was no simple feat. A noble possessing both unblemished character and profound erudition was a rare gem in its own right. To expect ‘Rachel Brown’—an orphaned noblewoman with neither wealth nor royal influence—to recruit such a figure was next to impossible.
There’s no other choice.
I tossed the resignation letter onto the table.
“Your Highness, do you truly desire a master?”
For Rachel Brown, it was an impossible task. But for ‘Kyla Angel,’ it was an entirely different story.
“If you require one, I shall secure him for you.”
After all, I had once reigned as the supreme commander of the continent’s deadliest assassination syndicate.
Dawn had not yet broken over the capital.
Having slipped silently out of the 3rd Prince’s Palace under the cover of darkness, we arrived before the servants’ gate at the outer perimeter of the imperial castle. It was the sole gate kept open around the clock to accommodate the castle staff working rotating shifts. Despite the ungodly hour, it bustled with activity—those heading home after night duty brushing shoulders with those arriving to begin their morning service.
“Are we finally leaving?”
“Keep your voice down, Your Highness.”
I raised a finger to my lips, signaling the petite figure beside me whose hood was pulled low over his brow. Yet despite my warning, the Third Prince could scarcely conceal his restless excitement. Children would always be children.
“By the way, what is all that luggage for?”
Edwin peered curiously at the towering mound of baggage lashed tightly to the roof of our carriage.
“They are gifts to present to the gentleman who will become Your Highness’s master.”
In truth, they were not gifts at all, but rather indispensable ‘props’ required for our impending venture—though there was no need for the young prince to know that just yet.