Shall I Save You, Duke? (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15

“Hah—.”

Lina, who had been diligently polishing armor while exhaling warm breath, looked around.

“I’m probably the first person ever to clean this place alone.”

Lina had been punished to clean the gallery hall by herself for breaking the Duke’s tea set.

“I thought it would end with just a scolding from the butler.”

The gallery hall, filled with generations’ worth of heirloom artworks, antiques, and portraits, was so vast it hardly felt like a single room.

After all, there was a saying that to glimpse a family’s wealth and splendor, one should look at their gallery hall.

As a founding noble house, the Permanence family’s gallery hall boasted a size and grandeur rivaling even the Imperial Palace.

Normally, cleaning this place—considered the very heart of the family—was done on a designated day by numerous servants together.

Yet Lina had been ordered to clean it alone, so naturally, it wouldn’t be finished in just one day.

She looked down at the armor she’d been fiddling with.

“Even cleaning just the floor would take days, and now they want me to polish the armor too….”

Lina gazed despairingly at the row of armors displayed along the wall, then shifted her eyes to the sparse paintings hanging on it.

“Now that I think about it, there aren’t as many paintings as I expected?”

Typically, a gallery hall would be adorned with portraits of past Dukes and other family members.

But she realized there were surprisingly few portraits displayed compared to the Permanence family’s long history.

Lina tilted her head in confusion, but quickly shook it off as she remembered the armors she hadn’t yet polished.

“This isn’t the time to be curious about that! I still have so much cleaning left to do!”

Just as Lina picked up her bucket and moved toward another suit of armor—

“Huh?”

A door she’d never seen before caught her eye.

“There’s another room here?”

She hadn’t noticed it before because the last time she’d been here, many people had been moving about.

“Do I have to clean that too…?”

As Lina hesitated about entering, Kullen’s words flashed through her mind.

[“Clean every nook and cranny—even mouse holes.”]

“Whew—. If I don’t clean this room, I’ll probably hear more complaints later.”

Not wanting to endure another scolding from Kullen, Lina grabbed her broom and stepped inside.

Despite it being midday, thick curtains covered every window, allowing not a single ray of light inside.

Relying on the faint light seeping through the doorway, Lina approached the windows.

Swish—.

As she drew back the heavy curtains, warm sunlight began streaming through the gaps.

“Finally, I can see something.”

But the room seemed untouched by anyone for ages—thick dust blanketed everything.

“I suppose I really am supposed to clean this place…?”

Brushing dust from her face, Lina began carefully surveying her surroundings.

Paintings and antiques, all covered in cloth, were piled in the corners.

“But if there are so many paintings here, why aren’t they displayed in the hall?”

Out of curiosity, Lina pulled away the dusty cloth—and an old-looking painting came into view.

“It’s a portrait?”

It depicted a man with piercing silver hair, as sharp and bright as fresh snow.

“Huh? This person…”

Though the colors had faded, the man in the painting reminded her of someone.

“The Duke? No, his hair color is different.”

As Lina examined the painting curiously, she noticed a name inscribed beneath it.

[Belige Merceden de Permanence]

“His name is the same as the Duke’s? Was he an old Duke of the Permanence family?”

It wasn’t unusual for descendants to inherit ancestral names, so the shared name wasn’t surprising. But…

“Why does he have silver hair?”

Lina recalled the Duke’s black hair. The current Duke’s raven-black locks and the silver hair in the portrait were so different they hardly seemed to belong to the same bloodline.

Usually, hair or eye color served as a family’s emblem.

Thus, the difference in hair color between the Permanence ancestors and the current Duke was highly unusual.

“At least the amber eyes are the same…”

The vivid golden eyes and the strikingly identical face seemed to confirm they shared the same bloodline.

Lina checked the other nearby paintings. Aside from those who appeared to be Duchesses, everyone else had silver hair and golden eyes.

Suddenly, she remembered the rumors the maids used to whisper about the Duke’s family curse.

[“The reason the Permanence Dukedom—the Empire’s founding noble house—has no collateral branches whatsoever is because they’re cursed by the gods…”] [“For generations, the Permanence family has only ever produced one son to inherit the title—and not a single one of them has lived past thirty. It’s rumored the previous Duke and Duchess also died because of this curse!”]

“Oh.”

Lina let out an involuntary sigh.

“Could it really be a curse…?”

The Permanence family’s emblem was the silver wolf. She’d always thought it didn’t suit the current Duke at all.

“Could his black hair… be a sign of the curse?”

Just looking at the portraits hanging outside confirmed it—everyone had black hair and golden eyes.

Now she finally understood why these paintings weren’t displayed in the hall.

‘It’s not that they chose not to hang them—it’s that they couldn’t.’

Lina’s heart sank as if doused with cold water.

“But…”

She studied the man’s face in the portrait more closely.

“Is it because he resembles the Duke? Why do I feel like this…?”

Her heart had been fluttering strangely since earlier. Just as she placed a hand over her racing heart to calm it—

“Lina—.”

A voice calling her name came from outside the door. Worried someone might enter, Lina quickly covered the painting with the cloth and stepped out.

“Henry?”

Henry had somehow slipped into the gallery hall without her noticing. When he spotted Lina, he smiled.

“What are you doing here?”

As Lina emerged from the room with her cleaning tools, Henry took them from her hands.

“I heard you were cleaning this place alone, so I came to help.”

“Liar. You came because you were worried—because of yesterday.”

“Caught me.”

Henry grinned playfully.

“But did you get permission from the butler? He definitely wouldn’t have allowed it.”

After all, she’d been punished to clean alone—Kullen wouldn’t have permitted anyone else.

“Nope. I snuck in!”

“What?!”

Startled, Lina smacked Henry’s back.

“What if someone sees you?! Hurry up and leave!”

“Don’t worry. Everyone else went to clean the annex—no one’s around here.”

“Still!”

Seeing Lina’s anxious expression, Henry confidently reassured her.

“It’s fine. Who’d come here anyway?”

The gallery hall was only shown to important guests to display the family’s prestige.

Therefore, no one ever visited it otherwise.

“But what did you do to deserve cleaning this huge place all by yourself?”

“Remember when I hurt my hand last time? I broke the Duke’s teacup. Turns out it was a treasured heirloom.”

“Then you’re lucky it ended with just this punishment.”

“Well, I guess so.”

Lina gave a wry smile at Henry’s question. Then she suddenly remembered the brown jacket the Duke had trampled underfoot.

She’d gone back to look for it later, but the jacket was already gone.

Hearing it had been thrown away, she’d rushed to search the trash—but it was stained beyond cleaning and torn in several places, completely unwearable.

“Henry, about the jacket you lent me yesterday… I actually ruined it by accident while washing it. I’m sorry.”

The truth was that the Duke had thrown it in the trash, but she couldn’t say that.

She clearly remembered Henry’s worried look, fearing the Duke might dislike him even more.

“What—?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a better one later… Ah!”

But Lina stopped mid-sentence, frowning and lowering her head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Feels like something got in my eye.”

Perhaps because she’d just come out of a dusty room, her eye stung with a sharp foreign sensation.

“Ugh—. Oh, it won’t come out?”

Lina rubbed her eye, but only tears came out.

“Come here. Let me take a look.”

Unable to stand it, Henry pulled Lina closer and examined her eye.

“Hmm? Looks like dust got in. It’s bigger than I thought—just a sec.”

Holding her eyelid open and inspecting it closely, Henry brought his mouth near her eye.

“Whoosh—.”

The breath from Henry’s lips tickled around Lina’s eye.

“Oh! It’s out!”

Lina blinked rapidly and rolled her eyes.

“Thank you, Henry. Thanks to you, it’s probably….”

But Lina couldn’t finish her sentence of gratitude to Henry.

Because an unmistakable voice—one that shouldn’t have been there—sounded from the entrance, where no one was supposed to be.

★ ★ ★

“How strange today.”

Could it be because his maid wasn’t beside him right now? His previously quiet headache seemed to return.

Truthfully, Lina didn’t need to stay by his side all day.

Even the briefest brush of her presence used to clear his head for the entire day. Yet today, an unusual, unquenchable thirst persisted.

Overwhelmed by this unfamiliar discomfort, Belige tugged the bell-pull. Soon after, Kullen entered.

“You called for me, Your Grace?”

“Why are you here? Where’s Lina?”

“Lina is currently cleaning the gallery hall alone as punishment.”

“Punishment?”

Then he remembered—Kullen had mentioned Lina’s disciplinary action.

‘She injured her hand back then.’

He pictured Lina cleaning the vast gallery hall all by herself.

Even sturdy male servants would tire from cleaning such a huge space alone—yet she’d been made to do it for days on end with her injured hand.

He started to feel slightly concerned for the hardworking maid. Ever perceptive, Kullen noticed the Duke’s discomfort and asked,

“Shall I bring Lina here?”

After a brief pause, Belige rose from his seat.

“No, I’ll go myself.”

The punishment had surely been enough. Maybe he could let her rest for the day if he saw her.

With that thought, Belige quickened his pace. Just as he neared the hall, however, faint voices reached his ears.

A familiar voice he’d heard before.

‘Who is it?’

He’d clearly been told Lina was cleaning the gallery hall alone.

The unpleasant feeling he thought had vanished began rising again.

What had irritated him that day should have ended once Lina received her punishment.

‘Why…?’

By the time he reached the gallery hall entrance, two familiar figures came into view through the crack in the door.

The scene from the infirmary a few days ago flashed before his eyes again, and the sensations he’d tried so hard to ignore suddenly surged back.

And then—

The moment he saw Henry kissing Lina,

the vague shape of his emotions became crystal clear.