Chapter 10

After my conversation with Stephen, I was surprised to find myself immersed in the silence of the garden.

It was dark in the room with no lights on, and I could barely make out the face of the person in front of me, only a silhouette in the faint moonlight streaming through the window, her long skirt and single hair blurred. I wondered.

I looked around and before I knew it, the moon was full. When I returned to my room after my walk, I casually opened the sliding door and already noticed something else.

I could see her. She reacted to the sound of the door, and before I could ask who she was, she turned around first and spotted me.

Having already guessed who she was, I turned on the light with an indifferent look on my face. As the bright light poured into the room, I saw her face.

She was wearing a simple, neat navy blue dress, whitish hair, and a middle-aged ……… nanny who was wild for her age.

“Young Lady!”

The nanny called me with tears in her eyes.

Both of her eyes, full of tears, were filled with sadness, and her stiff lips quivered as she strained to hold back her tears.

When her gaze met mine, she smiled that gentle smile of normalcy. But it didn’t look good, with dark blue under her eyes and a gaunt face.

“Nanny?’

I stopped at the door and asked without approaching her.

“Miss, how is your body?”

“I’m fine now.”

I replied nonchalantly with a blank face.

Despite my cold response, the nanny looked at me with tear-filled eyes. But I already knew that those tears were not for me.

“It’s late. Did something happen today?”

At what I said, the nanny cut to the chase about her son. While she was explaining the situation to me, her tears started flowing down her cheeks. I looked up at her with an uninterested expression on my face. In fact, I already knew about the nanny’s situation from what Stephen had told me.

She said that her son, who was like a ruffian, was taken away by the security force yesterday for assault…

It hadn’t been more than a day or two since the nanny’s son had caused trouble. This time he must not be able to get out of it easily because he hit the other guy badly and had to pay a high settlement money.

The nanny must have been busy running east and west to take care of her son and get the bail money. On top of that, she must have been busy bribing and feeding the guards for the convenience of her son who was locked up in prison.

Unlike the maidservants, the nanny did not go out during working hours, and had obvious reasons to take a leave of absence.

Besides, she came to my room almost every day after my fall to spend time with me.

So I can say that she made an effort to fulfill her duty to some extent. However, when I think about the attitude my nanny showed me while I was down, I feel awkward around her.

She didn’t show the slightest sign of concern or heartache for me, even though I would be concerned and worried if our dog or cat was sick at home.

She really looked unconcerned.

However, unlike the woman of yesterday who was fine, the woman in front of me now seemed to be in real pain and distress.

I know that no matter how much you raise your child from a young age, it’s hard to have the same feelings for that child like you have for your own child.

Blood is thicker than water.

The only reason the nanny was okay with what happened to Roxana was because she was a stranger. But if something had happened to the nanny, Roxana would not be able to be as nonchalant as she was.

Roxana may appear to be a villain to others, but at least she had never used or trampled on human sincerity.

She was always taken advantage of.

She treated all people sincerely, and if she considered them to be her own people, she gave them favors regardless of their conditions. Depending on the situation, she would gladly give them what she had. However, there were many people in the world who did not appreciate the favors and took them for granted. I think it was the same with the Crown Prince, and the nanny.

The same was true for the maids. There was nothing wrong with the way Roxana treated people, but didn’t know how to read people.

“Miss?”

I pondered for a while, then came back to my senses at the sound of the nanny’s voice and raised my head. In front of me was my nanny, her brow wrinkled with a suspicious look.

“Ah…… where did you go?”

“You weren’t listening, were you?”

The nanny seemed to be offended by my reaction. However, It didn’t bother me.

“No, I heard most of it. I heard that my son was taken away by the security force.”

“ Yes, that’s right. So I went to …….”

“You must be tired.”

I said, cutting the nanny off in mid-sentence.

Actually, I didn’t need to hear what the nanny needed to say, as this had happened more than once.

‘I suppose she wants me to lend her money again.’

The nanny’s husband was a gambler and an alcoholic. He died in an accident, and the nanny’s children, like their dead father, a son who liked to gamble and a daughter who liked to go into business.

Because of the periodic accidents of these two, the nanny had always experienced financial difficulties while working as an only nanny in a prestigious family and received a considerable salary.

Since she already had a lot of debts, people around her lost trust in her, there was no one to borrow money from, and since her house was also pledged as collateral, it was impossible for the bank to give her any more loans. Taking pity on her situation, Roxana always helped her financially. However, as if to prove that human beings are not meant to be fixed, the two did not change a bit.

Helping them was like filling a bottomless jar with water. The nanny always took money from Roxana and said she would pay back the money she borrowed one day. But so far, she has never paid it back.

So the nanny knew that those words were a lie, and Roxana should have known it too. Of course, Roxana didn’t care.

The Duke’s fortune was inconspicuously overflowing, even if she had spent it that way, Roxana had spared no expense in helping her nanny.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

“You came to see me this late, something must be bothering you.”

“What? Oh….Yes.”

The nanny answered in a sullen voice. There was a small sense of anticipation in her black, dead gaze.

“Never mind, you may take your leave until the business is well settled. I’m sure you came here because you were concerned about me, right?”

“…?”

“…even though people were making a big deal about it, that the nanny didn’t care about me…”

The nanny’s face stiffened quickly.

“My goodness, who would dare…? Who is talking such nonsense?”

The nanny said in an frustrated voice as her face turned red. At first glance, she looked like someone who was insulted and angry, but when I saw her eyes flicker, she was embarrassed because I had hit the target.

I said in a gentle voice to comfort her.

“Don’t mind them. I don’t mind those words either. Ah, what to do? I’m still not feeling well and I think I need to go to bed.”

“Oh.”

The nanny sighed softly.

But she did not move.

“Well, have a safe trip home.”

The nanny hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth.

But what she said was different than what I expected.

“Miss, I heard Laura was let go.”

“Yes.”

I nodded nonchalantly at her words.

“Laura worked for Lady for a long time. But to let her go so suddenly? I’m sure people will talk.”

“Thank you for your concern. However, it is my authority to hire and fire the servants of the mansion, not the nanny’s to interfere.”

“…!”

After I finished speaking and headed to bed, I spoke to Annie, leaving the nanny as she was.

“Nanny doesn’t look well.”

I said coldly, keeping my gaze fixed on Annie.

The nanny’s complexion became colder and colder at the obvious order to leave. Annie looked at me and the nanny then approached the nanny with a troubled look on her face. When she gently grasped the nanny’s arm, the nanny’s face distorted as if she was insulted, and she sharply shook Annie’s hand off.

“Nanny looks very tired, Annie will give you a hand.”

This much, surely, would have conveyed its meaning.

The nanny immediately looked at me with a pained expression on her face as if she wanted to ask for help.

I looked at her and Annie alternately.

“I thought you weren’t feeling well because of your bad complexion, but you seem to be full of energy. That’s a relief. Looking at the nanny now, Annie, you don’t need to see her off.”

“….. …..!”

“Annie, stay in the room and take care of me.”

Annie looked at me and said in a small voice, “Yes,” and went to get a tub of water.

“Nanny, shouldn’t you get going? I thought you had a bad problem at home to take care of. You don’t want to lose all that effort you made the last few days, do you?”

The nanny paced heavily, perhaps because she couldn’t find any more excuse to hold on any longer.

Her feet must be heavy if she had come to borrow money and was leaving without being able to solve anything. The money the nanny borrowed almost every two months was more than her salary. That money could have been donated to relief work for the poor that flooded the city, or to a nursery school. It was money.

It could help hundreds of people, it could be used to save dozens of lives, and this time the son of the nanny who had caused the problem again was a criminal who had already been jailed and released several times.

The charges were varied.

Business obstruction, assault, theft, even fraud….

The nanny always talked about her children as if they were the most unfortunate in the world and rationalized their mistakes.

From what I was told, the nanny’s husband died when the children were very young, and he was a violent father.

He drank and gambled and spent all the family’s money and vented his anger at losing money to his family. After her husband died in an accident and left a huge debt behind, she had to leave her children and go to work.

Because of this, the nanny said that she could not watch her children’s education and nurturing, and it always left her with a sense of guilt in her heart. But even with the influence of a father who was an alcoholic in a poor family, everyone was like that, the nanny’s son may have been a victim at one time, but now he was a strict perpetrator.

As if to prove that people are not meant to be fixed, he had already been helped by others, many times, but nothing changed.

Even though he was pardoned, he sinned again. No matter how big the Duke’s fortune was, it was a waste of it to be used to satisfy the vanity of someone who was not of his bloodline and to release a criminal who had not the slightest room for improvement.

“Young lady, just so you know, don’t take this the wrong way. I was forced to leave yesterday because of a really urgent matter.”

The nanny told me as she stood in front of the door before leaving the room.

“I understand. That’s why I told you. Have a nice vacation. I hope things will work out with your son.”

I flashed a formal smile at her.

Her face grew even firmer.

“You don’t have to worry about your return date. I’m sure you’ll be exhausted once the job is settled, so go ahead and rest. I’m not a child anymore, so you don’t have to be with me every day.”

“…!”