“B-But Master never eats lunch!”

“That was in the past. He said he wants to eat now.”

Reniel replied firmly to the head maid’s words.

In truth, Reniel knew as well. Felix was very picky about meals and always skipped lunch.

But no one could verify this statement anyway.

It would be impossible for anyone to know if Reniel took the meal trolley to Felix’s room, spent some time there, and came out.

And Reniel was the only servant who could enter Felix’s room anytime.

So even if she went there, brought the tray inside, and did some chores, no one would suspect anything. Moreover, it was impossible for anyone but Reniel to check whether the master had lunch or not.

They couldn’t ask Felix himself either.

Above all, there was no head maid in this mansion.

Normally, the head maid would have a higher position, so even the head of housekeeping wouldn’t be able to assert such authority and would have to be more subdued.

For reasons unknown, Felix Le Pelique was a man who greatly disliked women.

From the rumors Reniel had heard, it was said that in the past, there were frequent incidents of spies entering as maids or lady’s maids to attempt on his life, but she didn’t know if this was true.

Anyway, for this reason, there were no lady’s maids in the duke’s household.

Apart from a few necessary maids, there were no female servants.

Unlike lady’s maids, there was a rule that maids should quickly disappear and not be seen when their master was present.

Moreover, there were hardly any servants left who had worked long in the duke’s household.

So it was obvious why they treated Reniel like a piece of meat.

They were all experienced. They had years of experience working elsewhere and years accumulated here.

However, Reniel had spent 10 years only in the Le Pelique mansion, having just turned twenty.

So from the perspective of the older servants, they resented Reniel’s unprecedented rise despite her lack of extensive experience.

“Hah, I’ll check it myself!”

“Yes, please hurry. The master dislikes waiting. When will the master’s food be ready?”

“As far as I know, there was no such order to the kitchen!”

“What are you saying? Lunch was always prepared, just not taken up, wasn’t it? It was written like that in the budget records.”

Reniel recalled the documents she had seen when taking on the duties of head butler.

“A-Ahem! Wait here!”

Reniel felt a bit uncomfortable with the head maid suddenly speaking to her casually out of embarrassment.

Even if she had just turned twenty, she had become the deputy head butler, so they should respect each other.

However, Reniel tried not to show it outwardly.

She didn’t particularly like arguing with someone in that manner. Unless it was an unreasonable situation like now.

The trolley was prepared without much wait.

Reniel opened the lids to check the food placed on the prepared trolley.

“This seems a bit low quality to serve to the master.”

“You want us to make high-quality food when we don’t know if the master will eat it or not?”

“Of course. Even if he doesn’t eat and it’s thrown away, you should make good food. He is the master of this ducal house, after all.”

Reniel spoke boldly. It was certainly true that the quality was lower compared to what was served for dinner.

“Fine. Take it as it is! The master won’t eat it anyway.”

“I told you he said he would eat.”

Reniel pretended to be troubled.

“What will you do if this causes problems? The kitchen might return to the butler’s department’s jurisdiction. Are you okay with that?”

“That won’t happen!”

The head maid said so and glared at Reniel as if she would drag her out.

Reniel thought it was enough and shrugged, saying:

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Hmph!”

The head maid didn’t believe Reniel’s words. In her five years there, her master had never asked for lunch.

She thought Reniel was lying. But she couldn’t completely ignore it either.

“What master would eat lunch with a servant! There’s a limit to lying!”

Despite scolding loudly like that, she had no choice but to prepare all the food.

Duke Le Pelique was known for his eccentric behavior and cruelty.

Everyone knew how terrifying the reality of leaving with a letter of recommendation was, which Reniel only knew through rumors. Only Reniel didn’t know.

“Yes, have a good lunch. And please prepare the meals in the main building from next time. It seems too far to carry.”

Reniel said that, then smiled brightly and pushed the trolley out.

****

At first, Reniel had planned to just briefly enter Felix’s room and leave immediately.

She only intended to make her lie a little more solid.

So she arrived at Felix’s room, knocked on the door, and opened it right away.

However, inside was Felix, looking at documents, who had never been in the room during any lunchtime before.

“What is this?”

“Master…! Lunch, lunch has arrived!”

Reniel was startled upon seeing Felix but quickly composed her expression as if she had been waiting for him to eat lunch more than anyone else in the world.

“Lunch? Ah. I guess you didn’t hear. I don’t eat lunch.”

Felix would have normally told her to disappear immediately, but strangely, he couldn’t do so with Reniel.

It seemed clear that Reniel was the one beside him when he fell asleep last night.

He couldn’t remember the conversation well, but he recalled someone constantly calling him ‘Master’ and comforting him in his sleep.

He blankly stared at Reniel’s short, neatly arranged sky-blue hair.

When he saw it in his hazy state of mind, that hair seemed to have been long enough to cover her buttocks.

And because of that nonsensical thought, he thought it was more of a dream.

In the first place, the Reniel visible before his eyes had a man’s body, though thin.

The chest was flat, and the hips were small.

It was clearly different from the voluptuous and curvy body with small hands and feet that he had seen in his dream, which made him feel strange every time he held it.

And while the impression was similar, the woman’s face was rounder and more flushed.

Yet it seemed very similar…

“Do you have a younger sister?”

Felix said uncharacteristically.

“No. I’m from an orphanage, so I don’t have any family.”

Reniel answered while setting the table for lunch.

“Have you thought about finding your family?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why?”

Although Reniel had been preparing his dinner since becoming deputy head butler, today her appearance seemed particularly noticeable.

There wasn’t any particular sense of discomfort either.

“I left the orphanage when I was ten. And now at twenty, I’ve become the most successful person from the orphanage.”

“…Is that so?”

“Yes, so if they had wanted to find me, they would have done so long ago. The fact that they haven’t means they don’t want to find me, don’t you think?”

Reniel spoke nonchalantly as she finished setting the table.

Felix unconsciously moved towards the table she had prepared.

“What’s left there?”

“Ah, these are things I’ll take to my room if you finish everything, Master.”

“You mean you eat separately?”

“Of course. How could a servant eat with the master?”

Reniel smiled broadly.

She was quite surprised that the lie she had told the head maid had become true, but she was also relieved to see that Felix seemed to be in a rather good mood.

Yet her heart was pounding. He was looking at her as if testing her.

Under her eyelids, the image of her swinging a sword while dragging a bloodied Thanasis like a dog at dawn still remained.

But at the same time, the image of him, intoxicated, burrowing into her chest asking to be put to bed also remained, leaving her conflicted.

“Sit down.”

“Pardon?”

“Set your own place too.”

“…Ah, yes.”

Reniel couldn’t understand why he was giving such an order, but he was too frightening a person to refuse, so she did as he said.

The table was large anyway. Setting up Reniel’s modest meal was no trouble at all.

“Why is that all you have?”

“Well… it’s the servants’ lunch, after all.”

Reniel knew very well that the lunch of other servants in the mansion was much more abundant and delicious compared to hers, but she just said so.

“Bring your lunch from now on.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Two of each, the same as mine.”

“Pardon…?”

“And keep me company during lunch.”

He said that and elegantly picked up his fork and knife.

Felix usually felt unwell eating at this time, so he always skipped it.

But now, for some reason, swallowing food didn’t seem so difficult.

“What are you doing? Hurry and pick up your utensils.”

Reniel nodded, though bewildered by Felix’s words.

Felix somehow found the meat in front of him tiresome and didn’t want to eat it, so he cut it appropriately and handed it to Reniel.

It was also partly to check if it was poisoned.

“Open your mouth.”

He smiled, thinking that the surprised Reniel looked like a baby bird, and as he watched her nervously accept the food he gave, he had a strange illusion of holding a small creature in his hand.

He couldn’t distinguish well whether this was killing intent or curiosity.

But at that moment, seeing Reniel trembling as if afraid of him, he concluded that it must be killing intent.