The maid who put me on the sofa sat next to me and held my hand.
“Lady, are you sure?”
“Yes, it’s been months.”
The maid bit her lips. There were signs of anxiety around her wrinkled eyes.
“How did it happen?”
“Well…”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Is it a side effect of poison or a severe head injury I don’t know about? I don’t know because I don’t remember at all.”
It was a reasonable excuse.
The duke has a lot of enemies, and the maid knows that.
“Is there anything uncomfortable other than memory?”
“None at all.”
I licked my lips.
“Well, I can’t remember anything but basic information. My parents, my childhood memories, how I became a duke.”
The maid’s expression slowly collapsed. His face was so miserable that I couldn’t describe it.
“Miss…”
I wasn’t the girl she was looking for, but somehow my heart was pounding.
“Can you help me? Help me regain my memory.”
The girl she knows is already gone.
It was only a torture of hope to say that I could regain my memory.
I made up a voice more desperate than ever and held the maid’s hand together.
“Of course, miss. I’ll tell you everything.”
Fortunately, the maid swept my face with a warm smile.
At the touch I leaned my head on the maid’s shoulder. I didn’t know what the urge was, but I wanted to.
“Please listen to me from the beginning.”
The maid burst out laughing.
“I feel like we went back to when I told you old stories before you went to bed as a child. You always asked me to tell you what I know from the beginning.”
I nodded quietly, enchanted by the maid’s laughter.
“The lady was born from the previous duke and a maid.”
“… an illegitimate child?”
I didn’t even imagine.
It’s not enough that the head of the duke’s family is a woman, but she’s also an illegitimate child.
The maid hesitated.
“If it’s an illegitimate child, it’s an illegitimate child. I don’t like that word.”
The maid began to pat me on the shoulder.
“The child did nothing wrong. If there’s anything that is wrong, it’s with the adults.”
It was a little sentimental, but I nodded quietly again.
“I was a close friend of your mother’s. Your mother was weak, and when she suffered from a major illness, I came to nurse her and took care of her.”
The calm voice of the maid continued like a song.
“Maybe you, your mother, and I, could have spent peaceful days in the annex. The year you turned five, if only the duke’s wife hadn’t been diagnosed with infertility.”
The maid’s face for the first time showed a feeble loathing.
“The duke was a man who could not be satisfied only with his work. He wanted his daughter to be crowned the crown princess and to be at his disposal until the next emperor.”
Her tone was still calm, but I could read her remorse, hidden by serenity.
“When he couldn’t get what he wanted through his infertile wife after giving birth to two sons, the duke formally made you enter the mansion. At first….”
Suddenly the maid’s tone became slow.
“At first, I was happy. I thought that my lady could finally be recognized as a princess and enjoy the luxury she had never enjoyed before. But that hope didn’t last long.”
The eyes of the maid were moistened.
“The previous duke treated her coldly because he thought she was the only disgrace in the life of a perfect aristocrat, and the duchess’s family despised you. If you showed any weakness, she wouldn’t hesitate to punish you severely. Every day was more dangerous for you than walking in thin ice.”
The gaze of the maid, lost in old thoughts, clouded.
“In the meantime, the duke took her to the palace every time he entered the palace for his own ambitions. Fortunately, Lady Eleanor thought of you as a daughter, and Prince Cardan treated you well, so I thought it would be better for you to enter the palace altogether as the previous Duke wished.”
Me?
Cardan was nice to me?
It was hard to believe when looking at their current relationship, which was close to losing my neck at any moment.
“But, for some reason, since His Highness Cardan left for the battlefield, you no longer go to the Imperial Palace, and as you became more and more absorbed in your family’s work, you rarely met me.”
The maid hesitated for a moment, looking at the bed where Eleanor was lying.
“And one day, you brought in Lady Eleanor.”
I could tell by intuition.
So this is what Cardan was referring to as a contract.
I headed for the bed where Eleanor was lying.
She was asleep like a picture. She looked as calm as if she would wake up at any moment.
“When you brought in Lady Eleanor, she was barely holding her breath. You’ve only come back to say that there’s no hope of showing her to anyone.”
The maid pointed to a small table next to the bed.
There were two candles on the table.
A small flame was dancing in one candle, but only a thin smoke was rising from the end of the wick.
“And around the same time, you asked me to prepare a candle.”
I recognized the identity of the candle at once.
“Candle of the Temple….”
The maid nodded.
“Your candle in the temple was actually exchanged for mine.”
I stood up as firm as I could and brushed the grass off my pants.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d show up from behind.”
Cardan raised his eyebrows.
“Why don’t you tell me why you called me out so loudly? I even gave you a vacation.”
“Haha. That’s the same reason why Your Majesty is hanging around the duchy’s backyard at night.”
Cardan’s straight brow was slightly wrinkled, but I ignored it and brought it to the point.
“As you know, I haven’t had a good memory for months.”
I smiled broadly as if delivering good news.
“I only remembered the contract today.”
Life seeped into Cardan’s eyes that’s staring at me.
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