"Th, that's right. Since… you're the one who goes out…"
"That's true."
Tashian's gaze had left her even though he kept replying to her. He was gazing at the distant landscape his eyes could see.
She suddenly realized that maybe she had just asked him a question that would give her an excuse.
Tashian didn't talk after that and just stood. Her heart was filled with sadness at his actions.
***
It was the same as previously. Diego Miller will come and go in Duke's Mansion as if it was his, asking for food whenever necessary. Eun-woo later on got used to his shamelessness.
Eventually, whenever she found Diego's face wandering in the Mansion, she would always tell it to the Duke herself.
"My brother? It's been three days. Where is he going this time around?"
It was one morning. Eun-woo found Diego in the Duke's Dining room.
He was sitting at the table, flirting with a servant, who had bought him a bowl of stew. He patted the maid's shoulder with jokes and even giggled, as if he had known the maid for over a decade, whom he might have seen for the first time. But, he looked very natural conversing with the maid.
Eun-woo rolled her eyes, thinking that it was a talent that he had the guts to do inside the Duke's Mansion.
At that time, Diego, who found Eun-woo approaching him, twinkled his eyes and pretended to be glad.
"Aren't you my younger sibling? What brought you here?"
"What do you mean? I came here to eat. You don't come here to sleep, do you? And how about you?"
"Let's say I had been led by the delicious smell of stew. The Duke's chef, Penelope's cooking skill goes are incredible, ahhm*. I'm sure."
(TN: AHHM, part is actually just 'am', as in literal 'am', thus I decided to put some 'h' to have like the thought of him eating (?).)
Eun-woo glanced at her brother's shamelessness, who was now used to it.
After a few words of conversation with Diego, Eun-woo looked at the entrance of the Dining room. And after thinking for a while, she hinted to Diego, more like a warning.
"The duke usually eats breakfast here at this time. I'm sure he'd arrive soon...."
Even before she finished her words, Eun-woo noticed the sudden changes from Diego, who hastily wiped his mouth with a napkin and ran away in a dash. She also received an awkward greeting from the maid Diego was flirting with.
It was another day. Eun-woo visited the office on the second floor to hand Johannes the details of the supplies she and her maid will use for a month. And somewhere, I found familiar honeycomb hair wandering on the railing of the stairs leading to the third floor.
Another day was passing by again. Eun-woo went to the second floor to hand over to Johannes the expenses she had spent and her maids, in a month. And somewhere nearby, she saw a hair colored honey, fluttering with the wind, from the stairs that lead to the third floor.
Eun-woo quickly opened her mouth with joy.
"…. Older Brother?!"
"Shh!"
However, her joy was returned with his index finger on his mouth, signing her to be quiet.
He was very firm of hiding from Duke Verk, but was blind from the servant's going back and forth. In front of her Older Brother, she adjusted her expression and debated whether she would pretend to not know him.
I wondered if I should pretend to be a servant.
Eventually, she felt the need to instill normal social norms and rules on her brother and approached him then talked to him.
"... Brother, do you know that there are about five people here?"
As much as his desire was strong, his act of hiding was actually noticeable from anyone.
Why is he pretending to be so careful moving around the Duke when everyone can see him? However, Diego stands with his decision.
"Is the Duke here?"
"I think he has a lot of work these days. He was stuck in the office without going on a trip."
When Diego heard that, his smile vanished and grumbled that his plan had gone wrong. Then he saw the paper in Eun-woo's hand and asked. His eyes glinted in an instant.
"Are those about your supplies in a month?"
Eun-woo thought that he managed to recognize the small letters of the paper in her hand. He asked her for a favor in a voice that'd gently enticed his younger sister.
"It happened to be good. Elli, grant this Older Brother a wish."
"I can't."
Eun-woo, who noticed Diego's plan, cut it.
"We had used so many things. Including your expenses, I don't have to see the Duke anymore. Get the things you need to solve under your name, and don't involve me."
Diego replied with a smile at her quick refusal.
"As expected, my younger sister, you're quick to sense because you resemble me. But still can you not do me a favor?"
"Yes, I can't."
At her short answer, he groaned and asked for another different favor.
"Then never tell the Duke that I came near his office. Got it? The last time he caught my tail, I almost got kicked out naked on a rainy day. Your brother almost had that image."
"It doesn't kill a person to be kicked out naked on a rainy day."
"If you're kicked out after being hit by a duke, you could die."
Eun-woo couldn't find anything to refute his serious remark.
"Okay. If he asks, I'll keep it a secret that I saw you today."
Diego went out of the hallway, wiggling his eyebrows like someone who wouldn't come to the second floor in the future again.
It was roughly like this. After sending her brother away, Eun-woo sighed and raised her hand on the door of the office where Tashian was. Then the door creaked on its own and opened.
The butler of the owner of the Mansion, Johannes, blinked and welcomed her.
"Lady, how are you?"
"Oh, Johannes, is Lord Verk here?"
"The master entered the Imperial Palace early this morning. If you have any business related to him, please tell me. I will inform him when he returns."
"I see…"
Tashian was still busy, but he often encountered her because he stayed in the mansion these days.
Eun-woo, who liked it inwardly, smiled brightly to hide her feelings of being slightly disappointed. She handed Johannes a note in her arms.
"This is the detailed supplies in a month. I look forward to your kind cooperation again this time."
Johannes reached out to accept the note silently.
"Who have you been talking to outside the door?"
Johannes' sharp gray eyes glowed down as if penetrating her. Eun-woo received his gaze and thought that her forehead was burning with her sweats, unsure of what to say.
She murmured, wiggling her toes in her shoes.
"No.. one?"
"Lady Miller."
Johannes raised her blade-like eyebrows up. Beyond her eyes, her eyes have been questioning whether her words were really true. She seemed like a scary person.
".. Actually, my brother was there."
I don't know.
Eun-woo confessed the truth. I promised that I would keep it a secret from the Duke, but I didn't tell that I would keep it from Johannes.
Johannes, who heard that, wiggled her eyebrows noticeably. It was a big agitation for a cool-headed woman who usually had not much expression on her face.
It was Eun-Woo, who was familiar with Johannes' rejection of her brother. In fact, who would like people who break into their mansion without permission and eat without permission?
However, Eun-woo realized that Johannes' feelings for her brother were not good enough to reveal her feelings as much as she does.
She quietly tried to defend her brother, looking at the butler's countenance.
"Well… Johannes, even if my brother is like that, and I take a lot of care of him, he's not a bad guy."
It was said that the blood was thicker than water, although their veins were not mentally mixed, Eun-woo desperately tried to stand in front of the butler.
"And sometimes he does things that you don't understand, but he's genuinely not a bad person…."
"Lady Miller, I appreciate your efforts to side with your brother, but I can't fully welcome him until he regains all the tasks my master has taken on thanks to him."
Johannes answered coldly. Eun-woo opened her eyes wide to her words.
It was the first time she heard it.
"What do you mean, thanks to him, the duke is in charge of his works…?"
Johannes watched Eun-woo who had an innocent expression. She opened her mouth after a moment of thought.
"Over the past years, while Marquis Miller was traveling around the continent and enjoying the scenery, the Duke has replaced his works the Marquis was supposed to deal with."
"…What?"
Johannes, who sighed softly when she saw her, who couldn't say anything with a puzzled face, added.
"It's literally the same. Marquis Miller has entrusted all of his work to the Duke."
At the end of her words, there was some strength.
Eun-woo praised her brother's ability to make a good impression on Johannes, who is always calm and polite, sadly.
Unknowingly, she asked Johannes.
"W, wait…! Wait a minute! Then, do you mean that the Duke had replaced all the things that the Marquis should have done all this time?"
"That's right."
"How long has he been doing that?"
"It's been about more than five years."
Five years ago, it was before he was dispatched as the commander-in-chief of the Great Genova War.
Eun-woo opened her mouth wide.
"No… I can't believe it…! Why on earth...?"
Johannes grabbed a fine wrinkle between her eyebrows and said.
"Miss. The master might always have a strict and cold-hearted face, but he is a person who has a wide understanding. Of course, the Master only showed his coldness to those who deserved it and to those people who took his kindness for granted. However, there is still a soft side of him. And that is, the Miss and her Older Brother; you two."
In fact, Johannes intended to hide this fact from her until the very end. But as a butler, she was always a person who thought about it thoroughly and put into practice the way things could get better. By telling this to the Miss, Marquis Eleanor, she believed that she could come up with a new solution to the situation.
'The Duke lowered his esteemed image just for us…'
Johannes' eyes stayed on Eleanor's white neck, just thin.
It was empty now, but at a victory celebration just two weeks ago, she wore a necklace with a purple gemstone that the Duke himself declared as his possession.
The necklace was none other than a testament of a recognition of the duke's lineage, which he received on the day he first arrived at the castle as the illegitimate son of the Former Duke.
Ironically, that necklace, the only jewel in the mansion with no architect's pattern engraved, was a sign that he was the only owner of the family and an identification stone as a duke of Hellasium.
Johannes knew what the necklace meant to her Master. She remembered the first day when her master entered the Duke Castle.
An orphaned boy who seemed to collapse due to malnutrition at any moment due to malnutrition and drought. In this noble world where he had to step in anew, the only thing he could prove himself as the Duke's son, was that necklace.
'He gave it to this woman without any hesitation.'
Johannes has since accepted the owner's heart for Marquis Miss without any doubt. The Master's feelings for her were straight with only one path without leaking to the side.
(TN: Only means that the Duke's feelings for Eleanor are pure, firm and genuine.)