The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 130

Sheila, returning to the attic she used to stay in after a long time, dropped herself onto the bed.

The room and the bed were exactly as she had left them when she went away.

She had returned to the starting point again.

‘No… had I not taken even a single step forward from the beginning?’

Just before getting into the carriage, Sheila recalled the Mario couple who had appeared from somewhere and stood at the door of the general store, watching her. Their eyes looked exactly like those of people watching a criminal being taken away.

‘No! I’m not like that…!’

For Sheila, who had always lived diligently, it was a gaze that felt unfamiliar and unbearable.

Shouting only in her mind, Sheila got into the carriage. What would be the point of explaining it anyway?

Louis had been the Young Count’s man from the beginning, and the Mario couple were people Louis had recruited.

From the start, she had been caught in a trap Cedric laid, without even realizing it, and believed she had gotten the job through her own efforts.

Thinking she was lucky, thinking she was exactly the kind of person they were looking for… all of that now felt foolish.

Hot tears streamed down Sheila’s temples as she lay there.

Cedric had told her to rest, but Sheila couldn’t fall asleep.

At the same time, she didn’t feel like finding work to do like before. It was as if there was no longer any reason to work.

As she lay there in a daze, she inevitably thought of what had happened with Duker.

‘That bastard! I should have killed him!’

In the first place, choosing Fred as her target had been unavoidable. She didn’t have that kind of money.

But the one she wanted to kill, whether it was Fred or Duker, made no difference.

Yet when she actually faced Duker, she couldn’t do anything. All she could do was get dragged away helplessly.

What would have happened if Cedric hadn’t saved her?

Owing her life to the man she was trying to run away from felt miserable. She felt pathetic and foolish for being someone who couldn’t do anything on her own.

When he told her not to work and just rest, it felt like he was treating her as a mistress, and her emotions surged, but Sheila couldn’t say anything.

Is she really his mistress now? Or a slave?

Then again, what difference did it make?

To Cedric, she was just a lowly woman to indulge his perversions.

A woman so insignificant she didn’t even deserve a proper name….

Faced with that bleak reality, Sheila closed her eyes.

Naturally, darkness filled her vision.

***

Sheila couldn’t get up. She had a high fever.

“Call a physician!”

Cedric, who gave the order to Rufus, placed his hand on Sheila’s forehead again.

“N-no… I don’t want to.”

Even with a face that looked like she was dying, Sheila clearly expressed her will.

Cedric, who had been checking her temperature, replied indifferently, “I know.”

He’d already felt several times that Sheila loathed him.

To the point that she had prepared a resignation letter before the work was even finished, her mind had been filled only with thoughts of leaving him.

Even so, Cedric still held onto a faint hope.

That at least their ‘relationship’ wasn’t something Sheila completely hated.

Whether it was because of her status as a maid or something she was born with, Sheila had tendencies of a masochist and a submissive.

In the punishment room, she followed his orders without complaint until she reached her limit, and it wasn’t just once or twice that she had gushed liquid while being struck on her ass or breasts.

‘Sheila is Master’s. Ngh!’

It was something she said during play, but there were times it felt sincere, and she would look at him with eyes full of longing.

She began to change right after Jerry came by.

‘…I’m, ngh, …Master’s.’

Even after seeing through the lie in that subtle hesitation, he’d hoped it wasn’t true, but in the end Sheila chose to run away while he wasn’t there, as if she truly loathed being in his arms.

Though she quickly took the bait.

That had been something he ordered in preparation for the worst. If she left this place, she would have to settle somewhere. Since she was serious about earning money, she would try to find work first. In that case, he thought a general store, where she had worked before, would be best.

And his prediction proved correct.

It was a relief that the woman was within the palm of his hand, but it still stung that she had tried to leave him.

‘What did I do wrong to deserve this…?’

He bought Sheila from Fred with the intention of saving her from that trash of a brother.

In fact, even after writing the sales contract, Cedric neither claimed ownership over Sheila nor intended to.

No, he had never even intended to tell her about the sale in the first place.

Cedric only wished that her hands would not be stained with blood.

Because he knew how soft-hearted she really was, despite acting bright and strong on the outside.

That woman committing a crime?

If anything, he would commit a crime himself, but Sheila was not a woman who could bear something like that.

Cedric planned to quickly finish things in Lotas, return Sheila to her place, and explain everything.

They probably wouldn’t be bound by the institution of ‘marriage,’ but even so, he would ask her to become his lover. And that he would never marry another woman for the rest of his life.

Cedric thought that would be more than enough to convey his sincerity. That was his own thought, before seeing her again.

It was arrogance.

The arrogance ingrained in him from being born and raised as the young master of a count’s house.

Because whatever he set out to do always went the way he intended.

But when he saw the woman suddenly run at full speed just before getting on the carriage, he had a bad feeling that this time things wouldn’t go as he expected.

He had to catch her, but he didn’t want to do something she hated and be resented.

That was why, in that moment, he couldn’t chase her at full speed.

Then when Sheila ran into Duker and ended up in danger, Cedric felt like everything was his fault.

He should have caught her no matter what.

No matter how he dressed it up, he had no intention of letting her go.

‘So even if you hate me, it doesn’t matter.’

Looking down at the woman who rejected him even while she was sick, Cedric silently placed a damp cloth on her forehead.

Each time he recalled the woman rejecting him, a part of his chest throbbed. But compared to the woman lying there in pain, it was nothing.

Knock, knock. At the sound, Cedric said, “Come in.”

A young woman with red hair and glasses entered. She was Adriana, the physician Cedric had already sought out for Sheila.

After finishing the examination, Adriana stood and said, “For now, bringing the fever down is the priority. If it goes down within two or three days, there shouldn’t be a problem, but if the high fever continues after that, we should suspect a serious illness. For now, it would be best to assign someone to keep cooling her with a damp cloth….”

“I’ll do it.”

After hearing Adriana’s explanation, Cedric sat beside Sheila again and picked up the damp cloth.

“Yes? You will…?”

Startled by the young lord’s behavior, Adriana steadied herself and spoke.

“Then I’ll leave some basic medicine here. If her condition noticeably worsens, please call me again.”

After Adriana left, only Cedric and Sheila remained in the attic.

Cedric replaced the damp cloth on her forehead, and another sigh escaped his lips.

At that moment, Sheila’s lips parted slightly.

“Hm? Do you need something? Tell me anything, Sheila.”

Cedric brought his ear close to her lips. Along with her hot breath, her strained voice reached him.

“…Go….”

“What?”

“Go… away….”

Cedric’s expression hardened at Sheila’s voice.

“Didn’t you hear what the physician said? You need someone to look after you.”

Sheila frowned and shook her head.

The woman who usually acted strong now fussed like a child.

“Stop.”

He was willing to indulge her sulking, but her head must ache, so it was a problem if she kept shaking it.

“Stop it, Sheila.”

Even so, when Sheila continued to shake her head, it was Cedric who finally raised both hands.

“Alright. I’ll call another maid. Stop it. I’ll leave.”

Only then did Sheila stop shaking her head and close her eyes.

It happened again.

The feeling of complete severance from her.

In the end, Cedric left the attic and gave an order to Rufus.

“Immediately call the maid named Mollys to take care of Sheila. And tell the head maid that from this moment on, Mollys is my personal maid, not Judith’s.”

“Um… I should have told you earlier, but the name of Miss Sheila’s fellow maid is ‘Molly.’”

Rufus, who had known Molly’s real name all along, finally confessed.

Cedric looked at Rufus as if to say, so what do you want me to do about it?

Realizing he had chosen the wrong timing to confess, Rufus hurried out to carry out the order.

***

In any case, it was a good decision to have Molly take care of Sheila.

Cedric had another matter to finish, so he had to go out.

That day, after handing Duker over to the guards, Louis, who arrived late, relayed their words.

“The guards said Miss Sheila needs to come in person once to give a statement. Otherwise, they suggested transferring Duker here.”

“I’ll go.”

Cedric replied immediately.

He couldn’t send the sick Sheila there, and he couldn’t have Duker transferred here either.

Especially bringing Duker here would mean everything would reach Bernard’s ears.

He had no intention of offering Sheila up as a sacrifice to his father, who was always looking for something to nitpick.

As Rufus nodded as if he had expected this and prepared to leave, Cedric said to him.

“You stay here.”

At Cedric’s order, Rufus’s eyes widened.

“Pardon? But if I don’t attend to you, Young Count, then who….”

“I’ll guide him.”

As Louis volunteered to attend Cedric, Cedric gave him a nod and then spoke to Rufus again.

“You stay and watch over Sheila. If her condition worsens, call the physician.”

“Yes….”

In the end, Rufus remained at the mansion.

And Cedric and Louis, less than a day after returning, headed to Wellingford once again.