Chapter 39: 39

“Are you alright?” I asked as I helped the maid, who was still on her knees, rise to her feet.

“Um, yes…”

She shakily got to her feet, but Kirsec, who was watching this, shouted, “You should be asking me that! After all, I’m the one you hit!”

This selfish prick… Weren’t you the one who shouted for me to be whipped?

I swallowed back the rising anger. As I simply ignored him, Kirsec started stomping his feet loudly.

When I kept ignoring his blatant displays of anger towards me, Kirsec tired of it first and stopped his tantrum. Yet he was still stubbornly glaring at me later, when the butler returned.

The butler’s expression was even stiffer than before he had left.

“The Grand Duke has agreed to meet with you.”

Thank goodness. To be honest, I was inwardly a little worried that the Grand Duke might just ask the butler to take care of this matter without even meeting me.

In contrast to my relief, the expressions on Kirsec and the butler strangely grew darker. With all of us in a state of nervousness, we left to meet with the Grand Duke.

“Grand Duke, the Lady Aide has arrived.”

The Grand Duke met us in the office where he worked. I didn’t know if he had already been in the office, or if he had been called in once the Duke heard what was going on, but my father was also there.

Although my father had a worried expression on his face, I felt reassured just from having him in the same room.

Apart from my father and the Grand Duke, there were other people in the office, but they appeared to only be there to assist with the Duke’s work. So even as we entered the room, they remained focussed on sorting through various documents.

Upon seeing us, the Grand Duke gestured to the chairs across from him. His table may have been chosen for the purpose of holding meetings, as it was large enough to seat eight. Greetings felt inappropriate with this current mood, so I skipped them. I sat down first and Kirsec took a seat that was slightly further away from me.

“A few moments ago, I heard quite an absurd report. Was he telling the truth?”

It might be because he had heard that his son had been struck, but the atmosphere around the Grand Duke felt a lot sterner than before.

“Although I’m not sure what explanation you might have heard, if you’re asking whether I raised my hand against your heir, then it’s the truth.”

“So you really struck Kirsec?” the Grand Duke asked in a voice thick with disbelief.

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“That’s right, father! That girl slapped me!”

That isn’t something to brag about.

Of course, Kirsec wasn’t really saying this in a bragging fashion, but I wouldn’t have thought that he’d be willing to admit to what had happened all by himself. However, I might just be thinking too much, by comparing his own natural reactions as a child to my own, distinctly unchildlike, behavior.

The Grand Duke gave Kirsec a cold look. This caused Kirsec to lose his head of steam and he ducked his head back down while biting his lips.

The Grand Duke’s gaze turned back to me. His eyes were demanding answers from me

Well if he was that curious about it, it would only be right to answer him!

“Yes. I slapped him.”

“What exactly happened?”

Without leaking any emotion, I tried to accurately convey the situation as I had seen it happen

From the maid’s mistake to the order to have her whipped, and then how I intervened.

After calmly listening to my tale, the Grand Duke finally spoke, “Fine then, setting aside the circumstances, since this confession has come from your own lips, you should understand your crime, right?”

He had always seemed so calm, so I thought that he would just play this off as some childish antics, but could I be wrong?

“Can’t you just dismiss this as a squabble between children?” I tried probing him slightly, hoping that he might just be willing to overlook my fault in this.

“Do you really think that striking my child can be passed off as child’s play?” it sounded like he was saying that, in order to protect his heir, it was impossible for him to overlook this.

“So you’re saying that punishment is unavoidable.”

“That’s right.”

Both the Grand Duke and I were exchanging our opinions as calmly as if we were just asking about each other’s day. And through this conversation, I clearly read that the Grand Duke had no intention of taking my side.

However he also didn’t seem to be even slightly angry. I didn’t know what was going on in the heart of this wily Grand Duke.

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