Chapter 59

* * *

From early morning, everyone was busy.

Peter was one of them. As soon as he saw the sun rise, he headed straight for the office door.

Just as he was about to knock like usual to announce his arrival, Damian opened the door first.

“Come in quietly. You’ll wake her.”

“Wake her? Ah, is the young lady here?”

“No, Reina Botn.”

Reina was asleep, leaning against the long sofa. A jacket was draped over her, and it was obvious whose it was without needing to ask.

Peter glanced at Reina, then at the thick stack of books piled on the table.

Reading the question in his eyes, Damian spoke.

“Last night, Reina Botn asked to talk.”

“Reina Botn asked for a conversation? Did something happen with her daughter?”

Like Peter, Damian had also assumed that if Reina asked to talk first, it would be about Bonita.

“No. It was about something that could help the empire.”

“Help the empire…”

Peter realized that Reina had spent the entire night with Damian over her proposal. And naturally, another question arose.

“Your Grace, have you reconciled with Reina Botn?”

“Reconciled?”

“Yes. You’ve been avoiding her every time.”

“That wording feels a bit strange.”

In truth, Damian sometimes forgot, but Reina was undeniably his employee.

She was a servant of this mansion, and Damian was the master of the ducal house.

‘Every time she calls me My Lord, it snaps me back to reality.’

Peter seemed no different from Damian in that regard.

If even Damian forgot at times, how could Peter be any different.

“Ah… right.”

After a brief silence, Peter realized his words had been off.

“That’s true.”

“Then if it’s awkward, why not assign her elsewhere? Why keep her in the main mansion?”

“…”

Now Damian was the one at a loss for words.

He needed a reason to keep Reina by his side. It was a valid reason, yet somehow it felt like an excuse.

“She’s Estelle’s savior.”

“To be honest, assigning a few reliable knights as Reina’s guards would solve that.”

“She’s the one Estelle likes and follows the most.”

“If you think about the young lady’s social development, having only Reina attend to her is strange. You’ll need to hire more maids or attendants eventually, but it doesn’t seem like you plan to.”

“…”

Damian needed another excuse.

‘Why do I feel like I’m the one being interrogated.’

“Um…”

Reina shifted in her sleep at their voices.

The two grown men froze, standing still and quiet as they watched her with furrowed brows.

“…She didn’t wake up.”

“Seems so.”

She must have just been uncomfortable, because she turned slightly and fell back asleep.

Damian and Peter let out quiet sighs of relief, then suddenly wondered why they were tiptoeing around Reina in the first place.

Their eyes met. Peter spoke first.

“…Well, it’s better to let someone sleep if they’re asleep.”

“Right. You’re not supposed to bother people when they’re eating or sleeping.”

“That’s right, Your Grace.”

“Then let’s take the rest of this outside.”

It felt oddly backward.

They could have simply woken Reina and sent her to her room, or called another servant to carry her there.

Yet neither of them seemed to think of that. With solemn expressions, they nodded to each other and left the office.

Damian watched to make sure Reina was sleeping properly, then closed the door quietly, very gently, before speaking.

“I had a conversation with Reina Botn a few days ago.”

“What kind of conversation made things so awkward between you?”

“An employer and employee being too close isn’t good either.”

“You’re saying the same thing Reina Botn did.”

“It seems our values align in that regard.”

Damian handed the documents tucked under his arm to Peter and slipped his hands into his pockets.

As he naturally headed toward the outdoor garden, he spoke.

“Read those while we walk.”

“Yes.”

Calling them documents was generous. They were full of unorganized sentences, with lines crossed out and words overlapping.

Judging by the neat, almost emotionless handwriting, they were undoubtedly written by Damian.

Peter had never received something this messy from him before. They were closer to scribbles than official papers. He focused hard, deciphering each line as he read.

“She asked me to kill her.”

“Ah, I see. She asked you to kill the maid in the basement? Reina Botn has a sharper side than I thought…”

“No. She asked me to kill herself.”

“What?”

His voice cracked as he repeated it.

That alone showed how stunned he was by Damian’s words.

“What on earth happened down there?”

“So.”

“Should I call the knight who escorted Reina Botn? It was Sir Dean Peronte, right?”

“Dean Peronte.”

Damian pictured the man and shook his head.

“Reina Botn probably asked him to keep it a secret. You can’t force a knight to betray either his lady or his lord by weighing their promises.”

“You’re more considerate about these things than I expected, Your Grace.”

“More accurately, I had a feeling that knight would choose Reina Botn over me. Just a gut feeling.”

There was no point calling him if he wouldn’t get information anyway. That was Damian’s stance.

‘Even if he answered honestly, I wouldn’t feel good about it.’

So Damian chose not to summon Dean.

He continued, letting the cold winter wind brush past him.

“She must have heard some ugly speculation or words. That’s why she asked someone to kill her someday if she crossed a line.”

“I can’t imagine Reina Botn crossing any line.”

To both Damian and Peter, Reina Botn was someone far removed from greed.

And that wasn’t wrong.

That’s why Damian had been able to give her living quarters in the mansion and accommodate her in various ways without hesitation.

“Right. That’s why I thought about it for a while.”

“May I ask what you thought about?”

“About how I should kill her, if it came to that.”

“Your Grace, have you gone mad from overwork lately?”

“If questioning your lord like that makes you think I’m mad, then maybe you are.”

Damian’s hands were far from clean. Peter knew he had killed before, and more than once.

Still, hearing that Damian had seriously considered how to kill Reina was shocking.

“She asked seriously, so it was only right that I thought seriously. So I told her that if she asked me to kill her later, I’d do it.”

“You really didn’t need to be that diligent about it… but it does sound like you.”

Peter rubbed his forehead. He knew that offering such a condition practically meant Damian had no intention of granting the request.

“Reina Botn is strange.”

“Is she?”

“Yes. That’s why I secretly had her background investigated for a few days.”

“Didn’t you already investigate her before?”

Peter asked, recalling the file they already had.

“I wondered if there was something more.”

Damian frowned as he spoke.

He looked displeased.

“But only what you already found came up.”

“…”

“There was nothing beyond that.”

“Is that even possible?”

“It is, when the person is right near us.”

Damian vaguely recalled Reina’s perpetually exhausted face.

It left a distinctly unpleasant feeling.

“Everyone has some kind of desire. Someone without any is no different from the dead.”

Reina didn’t feel like someone who was truly living.

More hollow than anyone Damian had ever seen.

At least, that’s how it looked to him.

“…”

“And she even has a child.”

No matter what, people usually keep a few close connections around them.

Searching for information in a vast sea of data was easier than digging something out of a blank void.

Damian himself wasn’t someone who kept many people close, but he still had aides and administrators who supported him.

And he wasn’t truly alone.

There was the head butler, the head maid, countless servants and retainers.

And a knight order that followed his command.

‘Reina Botn has only her child.’

If asked who suited a monastery best, Reina Botn would come to mind immediately. She was the most desireless person Damian had ever met.

She left when told to leave, was dismissed when fired, and never had conflicts with others. That much was clear from the investigation.

“She feels like an empty shell.”

It was a quiet murmur, almost like talking to himself.