A New Job (1)
Mornings at the Dragonia Villa began at an unreasonably early hour.
At five in the morning, before the sun had even thought about rising, I changed out of my nightclothes, leaving Tia sprawled fast asleep behind me.
The Marquis was such a depraved lecher that part of me longed to hand Tia over to Irina or Sasha, but those two kept their days and nights flipped upside down—having them babysit a toddler from dawn to dusk seemed cruel even by their standards.
So I'd brought Tia along to the villa after all, but now I spent every waking moment in a cold sweat, terrified that the Marquis would catch sight of her and pull something unspeakable.
Given that he'd raped me, he was presumably not a pedophile... but you could never be too sure.
Better safe than sorry.
"Hey! Yulia, was it? Over here, if you would!"
"Ah—yes, coming...!"
A boisterous voice called out from the only brightly lit room in the wing—the kitchen, where the maids were evidently already hard at work on breakfast.
I gathered up the hem of my skirt and hurried toward them.
Though honestly, this skirt was so long I couldn't get used to it.
At the tavern, the short ones were so much more convenient...
Oh. What a terrible thing to catch myself thinking.
"Go wring out the mop and clean the kitchen floor."
"Pardon? But I thought I should finish the cooking prep first—"
"Ugh. The floor's all sticky and it's grossing me out. Are you going to mop it or not?"
Talking down to me like that on my very first day.
These women were rude beyond belief.
They were, at that very moment, the ones flinging flour everywhere and dribbling egg batter all over the floor, so ordering me to clean it was clearly just an exercise in throwing their weight around.
Still, mutiny wasn't an option, so I heaved a sigh and reached for the mop—
"There is no need to clean the kitchen, Yulia."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Come out of the kitchen. Your duty is to attend the Marquis. The only place you are to clean is his study. You are not to lay a finger on any other room."
"Understood."
At the Butler's low bark, I had no choice but to scurry out of the kitchen.
The glares the maids drilled into my back as I went were positively razor-sharp.
Apparently they'd decided I was some parachute hire.
Which, come to think of it, was exactly what I was...
"Follow me. The Marquis rises of his own accord every morning, so until he emerges from his chambers, you are not to set foot near the bedroom."
"Then what am I supposed to do in the meantime?"
"Tidy the study. Once the Marquis is awake, your job is simply to stay at his side and see to his needs."
...
Simple-sounding instructions that were anything but.
Tidy, he said.
Was I meant to simply dust until not a speck remained? Or was I expected to organize that entire mountain of scattered books as well? There was no way to tell.
They could well be part of some vital research, so I resolved not to touch the books at all.
"Thick tomes, thick tomes everywhere..."
I genuinely couldn't tell whether this was a study or a bookshop.
I skimmed each of the open volumes once through and couldn't make heads or tails of a single word.
It seemed to be about magic, roughly speaking, but every last term might as well have been alien language.
"He won't get angry at me for reading a little, right?"
Just a little. Just the tiniest peek.
In this world, there were exactly two paths by which a commoner could rise in the world: amassing a colossal fortune, or learning magic.
I wasn't about to start a business, and a colossal fortune was beyond reach—so mastering magic was my one and only avenue.
Which meant that if I could just read and understand these books...
"Haah. My head hurts."
Hopeless. Utterly hopeless.
The Marquis's books spared not one shred of consideration for anyone who'd skipped the introductory volumes.
This was precisely the sort of moment when I'd have given anything for the internet. Going without it was driving me half mad.
In the end, after more than an hour of struggling without comprehending so much as a single page, I had no choice but to return the book to its place.
So when does he actually wake up? I distinctly heard he was an early riser.
Come to think of it, the sun should have been up by now, and still there was no sign of the Marquis stirring.
His bedroom was right next door. Surely I hadn't missed the sound of the door opening? I crept over to check—and froze.
"Ah."
I had missed it.
The bedroom door was standing wide open.
Right—I kept forgetting that none of the doors in this house creaked on their hinges. The old, unoiled doors of the tavern had trained my ears badly, and it had cost me.
If the Butler caught wind that the Marquis had been awake all this while while I was still cooped up in the study, I'd catch an earful for sure.
I hastily shut the study door behind me and set off to find him.
The washroom?
I slipped into the bedroom and pressed my ear to the washroom door—nothing but silence inside.
I cracked it open. Empty.
Maybe he was having breakfast, then? I rushed to the dining hall.
Nothing there but maids bustling through their preparations. Not so much as the Marquis's shadow.
Just as I was pacing in circles, at a complete loss for where else to look, a single ominous thought flashed through my mind.
"Ah."
The one being the Marquis had shown a suspicious, almost unnatural interest in.
The instant the thought sparked, my heart plummeted into my stomach.
No. Absolutely not. Not Tia.
I broke into a sprint toward the servants' quarters.
"Damn it all."
Waking that morning, Marquis Dragonia squeezed his eyes shut and let out a groan.
His lower half was damp and sticky, and it was thoroughly unpleasant.
Why on earth was he experiencing now what he'd never once experienced even in adolescence?
Naturally, the reason was plain.
"Yulia..."
That woman was the problem.
A man who had gone his entire immortal life without so much as a whisper of lust—and the moment he laid eyes on her, he turned into a restless, panting mutt in desperate need of relief.
It wasn't as though he'd suddenly awakened to desire in general, either.
The moment Yulia vanished from view and some other maid entered his line of sight, his arousal died like a snuffed candle.
Only Yulia—only that woman—could stir the Marquis's blood.
Strictly speaking, there had been one other, once, but her face had long since faded from his memory.
"Haah. What am I to do about today, then."
He was the one who'd demanded Yulia be appointed as his personal attendant, and yet looking back on it now, the regret was bitter as bile.
If his body reacted every time he caught her trailing at his heels, things were bound to become very difficult indeed.
He turned the matter of dismissing her from the post over in his mind, but the Marquis soon gave up on the idea entirely.
No maid in this house would look kindly on the woman who'd swooped in and claimed the attendant's position on day one.
Should Yulia be knocked down to their level overnight, he dreaded to imagine the torments she'd be subjected to.
"Hmm..."
Slipping his door open in secrecy, the Marquis swept his gaze down the corridor, confirmed Yulia was nowhere about, and stole out on tiptoe.
The soft rustle of turning pages drifted from the study—Yulia was evidently inside.
Too awkward to risk a face-to-face encounter, the Marquis removed even his shoes lest they betray him, and descended the stairs in a silent, crouching prowl.
"Marquis? Whatever are you doing, skulking about like a common thief?"
"Silence, if you would..."
Being caught red-handed by the Butler had not been part of the plan.
The Marquis flushed scarlet to the roots of his hair and jammed his shoes back on.
"Speaking of which, where is this attendant of yours? Ah—this fellow. I'll fetch her at once—"
"No. Leave her be."
"Aha. I see—waiting for her to take notice on her own, so you may levy an even greater punishment. Then I shall say nothing further."
"Ahem. Hmhm..."
He could hardly admit he'd sneaked out because the sight of Yulia's face might rouse him into committing yet another shameful, indecent act.
Sheepish, the Marquis cleared his throat repeatedly and stepped out into the open air.
It was one of those days when the morning breeze blew sweet and pleasant. The Marquis had just slid a hand into his pocket and drawn in a deep, contented breath—
—when he felt someone seize his sleeve and tug, taut as a drawn bowstring.
"Hm?"
"Who are you, mister? Where is this?"
"Hmmm...?"
Brilliant, jewel-blue eyes.
Those two beautiful gems were the first thing the Marquis saw.
They seemed to be making an emphatic declaration: I am Yulia's daughter.
Only belatedly registering that their owner was a tiny little lady, the Marquis turned and studied the girl from top to toe for a long moment.
A dragon's child, then.
A hat and skirt concealed her horns and tail, but they couldn't fool the Marquis's eyes.
The faint, unmistakable scent of his own kind clung to her.
For one wild instant he even wondered whether this child might be his own illegitimate daughter—then shook his head.
Impossible.
The child he'd fled from in cowardice back then had been a newborn, nothing more.
And that had been a mere three months ago.
The girl before him looked, at a glance, to be all of eight years old.
"So I wasn't the only one with the peculiar taste for lusting after humans, it seems."
"Mmmuh?"
"Nothing. I am called Dragonia. And what is your name?"
"Tia..."
"Did I ask you where this was? Did your mother not explain it to you?"
...
Tia nodded quietly.
She had heard an explanation, in truth.
Just last night, riding on Yulia's back.
A long, careful talk about where they were going and what work her mother would be doing—but she'd been halfway asleep, and not a word of it remained in Tia's head.
"This is my villa."
"What's a villa?"
"It means... a house built besides one's main home."
"Whoa. Mister, are you rich?"
"If you insist on knowing—yes, rather."
For the Marquis, money was the thing that rotted in heaps.
He'd recently begun gradually spending down the wealth accumulated and forgotten over long centuries, and the empire's economy was in an uproar over it.
Spend too much and the Emperor came groveling, begging him to please show some restraint; spend too little and the treasure vaults beneath the snow mountain tunnel threatened to fill up to bursting again. It was a dilemma with no easy answer.
"Then where's Mommy? Where is she?"
"Working, most likely, on the second floor. You see, your mother has come to work for me now."
"Ooooh...!"
The Marquis crouched down to meet Tia at eye level and explained, slowly and carefully.
He could hardly bring himself to tell a child, of course, that your mother now glares at me like a mortal enemy, ever since the day I violated her without her being able to resist so much as a twitch.
The thought of it again bowed the Marquis's head under the weight of his guilt.
They said nobles never apologized to commoners—but this once, he truly wished to offer a heartfelt apology.
It seemed the barest duty of being a person.
"I have some things to say to your mother, you see? I'll only be a moment—"
"What did you do to my daughter?!"
"...?"
In that instant, Tia vanished from his view with a whip-crack of motion.
Yulia had appeared out of nowhere, shoved Tia behind her back, and stood there huffing and bristling, glaring daggers at the Marquis.
So she still takes me for a child molester.
Anger flared hot in the Marquis's chest, and the urge to apologize withered and died on the spot.
"Ugh."
Entirely apart from that, his lower half reacted with devastating honesty, and the Marquis jerked his hips backward, ending up frozen in an awkward, half-crouched stance.