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“Last time, the Crown Prince intervened, so I just let it go, but this was the last warning. If I ever see you again, I won’t let you go next time.”
Without giving me a chance to speak, he drove me into his phase, and this time again, he just said what he wanted to say and turned around. That’s the way I would go.
“Wait a minute!”
His steps didn’t stop because I called him urgently. To be honest, I didn’t want to get involved with Ellex anymore.
If we left it this way and didn’t meet in the future, it would only have passed without resolving the misunderstanding.
However, I ended up working as a maid at the Imperial Palace, and to prevent the disaster that would happen a year later, Ellex, who came from the north, was forced to come to the palace.
Even if I didn’t want to meet him, there could have been situations where we would accidentally bump into each other like today.
That’s why I had to resolve the misunderstanding now. I chased him desperately and grabbed him by the wrist.
“You may not believe me, but listen to me until the end. I’m sorry I’ve been chasing you. I’m sincerely reflecting on myself.”
“…”
Ellex, who stopped walking, then I apologized before getting nervous.
With a slight frown, he looked at me. Suddenly apologizing like this, he must be wondering what else I’m up to.
“And I’m going to work as a palace maid from today. I didn’t follow the Duke, I only ran into you. By chance!”
“You’re always…”
“Why would I become a Palace maid just to see the Duke once?”
It’s called ‘. Aren’t you tired of it?’ I stopped talking about it being a coincidence. The same thing
How about it? You get annoyed too, right? I continued my speech with a relaxed smile.
“Moreover, I need a letter of recommendation to become a Palace maid. Our family wasn’t great enough to be able to enter as a maid of the Imperial Palace overnight.”
“You’re not so trustworthy. You might lie about being a palace maid.”
A sigh came out of my mouth. I felt like I was talking to a wall.
Inwardly, I cursed him because he was acting like a child and a wall without a window, and that calmed my heart.
“I understand why you think of me that way because I’ve been following the Duke every time you come to the capital.”
Trying to convince this type of person was useless. I had to convince them logically.
“But how could I know that the Duke was coming to the Imperial Palace today?”
“…”
“I only attended the first day of the New Year’s party, and after that, I didn’t attend other social gatherings.”
Ellex could not refute. I guess so. Whatever I say here, I’ll only spit on my face. He extremely hated contact with other people.
Regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman.
So he never attended another party and, if it was nothing special, he was absent from the noble meeting.
Except for the New Year’s party, many nobles tried in various ways to meet him, but most of them failed.
Among them, the way with the highest probability of success to meet him was to wait in the path where the Duke would come and pretend to meet him by chance.
‘When I heard rumors that Ellex would come to the capital, I would be waiting for him all day in a place where I heard as rumored.’
It was a memory that I didn’t even want to call a memory.
My dark history. It was the best way to succeed several times and remain in the memory of Ellex. It’s the bad side.
After that, the Duke made sure that wherever he went, only his closest aide knew his destination.
To keep stalkers like me from catching up. Therefore, a humble family couldn’t know his whereabouts in advance.
Unless someone planted a spy in the Duke’s Castle.
“I don’t know if the Duke deliberately made rumors here and there, and even the commoners passing by would know it.”
An innocent-looking face helps in times like this. His face crumpled when I spoke as sarcastically as possible as if there was nothing wrong with what I said.
As I was looking at that expression, I felt a little joy.
“Another thing I wanted to point out was that I was just heading towards the main palace first. It was the Duke who called me up.”
Blowing the last shot at Ellex, he held his mouth shut. It was the most ridiculous and unfair part. The resentment accumulated from the corridor of the Imperial Palace. He couldn’t have said anything about it.
“That…”
But I smiled refreshingly and cut off his words.
“Well, in the past, there were times when I was waiting in advance, so this situation could be mistaken for that. But don’t worry. It would never happen again in the future. The Duke would safely return to the North and I would be attached to the Imperial Palace so we won’t meet again.”
I said all the words I had endured so far. It felt refreshing!
“I would try to avoid you as discreetly as possible during the New Year’s party next year. Then, let’s not see each other again. Have a peaceful day Duke!”
Ellex tried to say something, but I just passed him by.
In case he would catch up to me, I walked hurriedly. With a power walk, my foot speeds up almost running. I walked without looking back and arrived safely at the main palace.
It would be fine since I came this far. I looked around, breathing heavily.
Since the main palace handles all administrative affairs and has cultural facilities such as libraries, many people were passing by.
Among them, I looked for someone who would kindly answer my question.
‘I couldn’t ask someone busy.’
Young people were busy walking somewhere with an armful of documents in their arms, and it was difficult to talk to someone who walked leisurely with a mustache and belly fat because they looked like high-ranking nobles.
While I was breathing in place for a while, I noticed a guard yawning and guarding the entrance of the main palace came to sight for a moment.
It seemed like there was one person with nothing to do, so I approached to ask that person, and then I started thinking about what to ask…
“I’ve been waiting.”
“Oh, my! You surprised me.”
I was surprised by the man who suddenly appeared without notice.
It felt like my heart had fallen off my chest because of the ghost that appeared without a warning in the horror movie. I was even more surprised than when I met Grandiel in the back alley.
‘If this person was an assassin, I would have died without knowing why my head and body fell separately.’
I looked at the man with his dark green hair neatly turned over to the side, thinking bitterly.
Realizing that only one person was waiting for me in the main palace, I asked him carefully, “By any chance, are you Mr. Sedum?”
“Yes, I’m Sedum Raul, the exclusive attendant of the Crown Prince.”
When I thought that being an assassin was more suitable to call him than the exclusive attendant title, I naturally thought of Nepenthes’ closest aide from the novel.
Even though the name was never mentioned, I felt that it might be this person for some reason.
“I’m Mayerie Syringa. I look forward to your kind cooperation. Thank you.”
“I’ve heard about the contract from the Crown Prince. The letter briefly described it as a palace maid, but all you had to do exactly was to take surveillance.”
What do you mean by surveillance? I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so I glanced at him with a puzzled expression on my face.
‘There must be a lot of talented people who are suitable for monitoring someone. Why would they ask me to do it?’
The underworld does not mean that there are only people with low status. There must have been more people than me who are more confident in their status and are good at monitoring the palace as a maid.
But I couldn’t figure out why he was making me do this, so Sedum said the answer first when I was about to ask.
“It’s about becoming Stella’s exclusive maid of honor and monitoring the princess’ routine.”
Stella? The evil girl?
At the moment, I was confused as to where to start asking questions, so I became speechless.
While struggling to talk as if the loading was jammed in my mouth, Sedum took the paper out of his arms and handed it over to me.
It was a letter of recommendation signed with the Imperial Seal.
After seeing my name written on the document, I finally came to my senses, starting with the most basic question.
“…Wouldn’t I be a little short of my qualifications to deserve and become an exclusive maid of the princess?
The exclusive maid of honor was an indicator of the servant’s master ranking. She judged her master by his appearance, lineage, and culture.
Basically, to become an exclusive attendant to the royal family, at least they have to be a descendant of a Count family.
In other words, as a lady from a Viscount family, I have to fall from the first document screening!
“It’s okay. Because it has an Imperial Seal, even Princess Stella couldn’t refuse it.”
I don’t think it’ll be okay. I became an exclusive maid of honor that the princess herself couldn’t even refuse.
What if I was framed for offending her when she’s in a bad mood and I was executed? Just by imagining the worst, my face turned pale, but Sedum’s speech never stopped.
“I only said to take surveillance, but it’s not that difficult. You just need to record her daily routine. And collect the week’s worth and deliver it to Makia, the maid who also works in the palace of the princess.”
After finishing what he had to say, Sedum turned around, saying, ‘Well then.’
I urgently tried to grab Sedum, but he moved away at a faster pace than my power walking. I stared at him as he drifted away with a bewildered gaze.
‘Wasn’t this dangerous?’
I already expected it to not be normal. It’s what Grandiel told me to do. I was even preparing myself that I might be doing something dirty to some extent.
‘This doesn’t seem just like bad luck, it’s life-threatening!’
For a moment, I wondered if Grandiel had placed me as Stella’s maid to kill me without using his own hands.
‘No, if he tried to kill me, he would have killed me even before we signed the contract.’
He wouldn’t have bothered to worry about writing a contract and calling me to the Imperial Palace just to kill me.
Then why did he entrust Stella with me? The information provided was so limited that it was difficult to grasp Grandiel’s intentions.
‘In the novel, Stella was a flat character.’
I thought of Stella as described in the novel. A typical evil woman who was jealous and tormented Radiata.
Although she caused various incidents to disrupt the relationship between Ellex and Radiata, the two went through the incident and grew closer.
‘Because it’s the only natural way to burn with hardships and adversity.’
A romance novel without a villain was a long way off, and it’s like a bland strawberry cake without a strawberry, its excitement disappears!
Stella, who wasn’t an extra like me but a real villainess, was a perfect woman with a gorgeous appearance and a status of a princess, but she had a bad personality and did not hesitate to do anything bad for the things that she wanted.
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