The Devilish Duke Can't Sleep

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There is no need to keep thinking over the name. The only Duke except the Duke of Santella, and the enemy who killed her parents. That was all the Duke of Luave was imprinted on Elliot.

“Why must…….”

“I know, right. Why is that man the Duke of Luave? It’s like a flower blooming on a cliff that can’t be reached. Oh well, be careful as you don’t have any immunity to His Excellency Luave, yet. No one has seen anything good when they are too immersed in His Excellency. There’s a young lady who committed suicide.”

“I…… see…….”

Elliot answered shakily, and she adjusted her face appropriately and looked away. She was still so shocked that she found out less than a minute after she was sure it was fateful love.

A wide chest that will warmly welcome her when she hugged it, a voice that will only be kind to her, a hand that will give her all the precious things in the world, a hard body that will hold her body and teach her the love of an adult. Crumbled and gone away in a short time.

However, her sense of revenge, which she had grown over the past few months, was far greater than that momentary imagination. Looking back at Kahel, he was still beautiful, but Elliot managed to get rid of her lust. Then, in her head, she tried to make up her mind.

‘I am not deceived by that skin. He’s the one who killed my parents with that face. I will make sure you pay for your sins!’

Elliot swallowed her resentment inside her as if she had become the heroine of a tragedy.

* * *

On the second day of the New Year’s ceremony, the banquet was more colorful than the first day, and the next day, all the noble houses in Ardennes were quiet until late in the morning. But in the meantime, Kahel woke up early as usual, and he had breakfast with tea and light snacks from Lena. Opposite him, as usual, Lena sat awkwardly.

“Did you change where you bought the tea leaves? It tastes good.”

He murmured, tilting the teapot himself and pouring another cup. Deprived of the job of pouring tea into her master’s teacup, Lena, restless alone, moved her butt.

“I’m, I’m sorry. It’s hard to see the empty teacup from here…….”

Lena’s stomach was burning. Since there was the former head, Damien, as well as the relatives from the Luave family, she thought she would be severely scolded as a maid who was sitting face to face with the Master and having breakfast. However, Kahel easily subdued Lena’s rebellion with his eyes and enjoyed his little leisure. In order for this leisurely time to be completed, Lena had to be opposite him, so her hesitation was rather a hindrance.

“Is the food not good for you?”

“No! It’s not like that…… Excuse me, Your Excellency! If anyone comes in like this, I’ll be in trouble. Please just let me wait by your side.”

“Now in this mansion, who else can criticize the things I have done?”

“There is the predecessor Duke and other relatives…….”

“So you mean, I’m in a position where I have to take direction from others?”

“No! No! That…… !”

“Then no problem? The tea is cooling down. Hurry up and drink it.”

Lena was wrestling with words she couldn’t even find today, and she finally let out a sigh, and she picked up the bread in front of her and bit it. As she was constantly forced to lose by Kahel’s pressure, she felt heartbroken for nothing, but the cut bread was so delicious that it brought tears to her eyes.

“Hoo…… Chef Mouchet must be a genius.”

“Mouchet must be good. He can easily win your heart with just one loaf of bread.”

“This kind of bread is not ‘just’ bread, Your Excellency! This! This is! It’s a really delicious bread!”

There must have been a more greater expression, but she couldn’t come up with it, so Lena said something stupid even for herself. She was quite shy, but when she saw Kahel shrugging his shoulders and smiling, she knew she had done nothing in vain. These days, she’s even more happy to see his smiling face.

“It’s a bread you eat every day, but it’s amazing that you are surprised every time you eat it.”

“Every time I eat bread like this, I feel that my situation has changed. When I was in the Barony, I barely got black bread…… Baron Fidelia probably wouldn’t have eaten bread like this.”

Kahel, who was tearing a piece of bread placed in front of him and shoving it into his mouth, suddenly raised his gaze and looked at Lena. Lena wasn’t too difficult to talk about her own former life.

If Lena had any secrets, she would not be able to tell about her past in such a natural way, but no matter how honest he thought she was, Lena was a mysterious lady. Because he still couldn’t figure out why his powers didn’t work, let alone how she healed the wound on her back.

“Your mother…… Where did she live beside Kerouac?”

“Yes? My mother? Well…… I couldn’t hear the details, but it seems that she lived in Ardennes. Because she told me that there were going to be fireworks at the New Year’s Celebration.”

“Really? Were there any other stories?”

“No. There wasn’t much. All she had to say about her life in Ardennes was the fireworks and the knight…… Ah! Very occasionally, she tried to make strange cookies and failed, but the name of the cookie was…… Macabon? Malaron? Anyway, it was a similar name. She laughed and said that originally, it was more round and pretty, and it was a cookie with a lot of sugar. Very occasionally, when she had extra money, she bought and saved white sugar and made it once or twice a year, but it must have been lacking in something other than white sugar. It’s my mother’s favorite snack, and she never succeeded in the end, but the failed ones were also very delicious.”

Lena chuckled and thought of her cute mother. The mother who put a lot of almond powder and sugar in the egg white and stirred it until her arm was about to fall off, creating a white foam. She seems to have been trying to bake meringue cookies in a pretty round shape, but each time it turned into a cone or burned on the outside, or sometimes crumbled into powder.

She spread precious raspberry jam between the two meringue cookies she made. But Lena could not forget her mother, who had a regretful expression on her face as she ate the cookie. Lena promised, when she grows up, if she makes a lot of money, she’ll buy her mother a bunch of white sugar…….

While Lena was immersed in those memories, Kahel became increasingly convinced that Lena’s mother was a noblewoman. The sweets that Lena is talking about are definitely macarons. As Kahel who likes desserts and biscuits, he knew how expensive macarons were. If her mother called it ‘the sweets she liked’, it meant that it wasn’t the only time she ate it. And if she could eat macarons a few times, she could never have been a commoner.

Besides, he’s seen Lena’s perfect waltz skills…… If Lena’s mother was of noble descent, it was only natural that she learned how to dance. Because dancing was an essential culture for the nobles.

‘Was she the daughter of a fallen noble? But she said macarons, even if she was a noble, if she was poor, she wouldn’t have been able to buy macarons…… No, she might have been wealthy and collapsed for some reason. I must find a fallen noble in Ardennes about 20 years ago.’

At the same time as that thought, he vowed to make her macarons as refreshments for the next tea time.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“My mother? He…… No, it’s Eileen.”

“Heileen?”

“No, it’s Eileen.”

Lena lied to Kahel for the first time. But she couldn’t tell even Kahel her mother’s real name. Her mother told her never to do it, no matter what. When Lena asked why she had to keep it a secret, her mother only replied, ‘you’ll find out someday when the time is right.’ She wondered when was the ‘when’ and why she had to keep it a secret, but her mother had been called ‘Eileen’ for so many years anyway, so Lena felt that it was more like her mother’s real name.

“By any chance…… Did she have a surname?”

“What? My mother was a commoner.”

“The descendants of the fallen nobles and distant relatives of the nobles are commoners, but there are cases where they keep their surname.”

“Well. She didn’t say anything like that…….”

Kahel nodded his head slightly. He didn’t expect it to be so easy for him to grasp. He mentions one more thing that bothered him as he ponders Lena’s words.

“What was the ‘talking about the knight’ that your mother said? Romance between knights and girls?”

“Yes! That’s right! She said that the knights of the great noble family were thoroughly educated in chivalry since the days of their apprenticeship and strive to learn excellent martial arts. They are truly wonderful people who risk their lives for the master they serve. That’s why noble ladies often fall in love with the knight who protects them.”

As a blush appeared on Lena’s cheek, Kahel’s hand holding the teacup stopped. If she had grown up hearing stories like romance novels from her mother since childhood, it would not have been strange for her to regard knights as her ideal type. She said that she likes ‘friendly person’, but all the men pretend to be friendly in front of women, so if a certain knight pretends to be friendly and seductive, the innocent Lena may be swept away.

Thinking about it carefully, even among the knights of the Sharden Castle, it seemed that there were those who were paying attention to Lena. This was especially the case with Hayern, who went out sledding with them. Perhaps, it was because of the guilt he felt for letting Lena get kidnapped by the Sevcheks, he was quite caring even just before Lena left the castle. Could it be that Lena had an affection for him?

“Is there a knight you like…… ?”

It’s not a big question, but somehow he was very nervous. He was belatedly worried about how he would react if he heard a shy answer of ‘yes’.

“M, m, me? No! No! How can something like me with a knight…….”

While he was happy that she answered no, the use of the word ‘something like me’ was quite annoying. No matter how many times he told her, Lena didn’t seem to realize that her position was different from what she used to be.

“Lena. My close maid shouldn’t refer to herself as ‘something like me’. That is an insult to me.”

“Ah…… ! I, I’m sorry! I don’t mean that…….”

Lena had eyes that looked like she was about to cry and was restless. She had a pitiful look on her face, but he had to warn her to never take herself lightly again.

“In the future, whenever you think of yourself as insignificant, think of whom you are serving. If you see yourself as something that cannot even be with a knight, it means that I am inferior to a count. Because the count’s maids often marry knights who are vassals of that family.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

“But that doesn’t mean you should marry a knight.”

Kahel added a small hint of his timid plea.

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