Now that Yelena thought about it, it was plausible.
Looking back, Yelena presumed the reason behind the butler’s panic when he saw Yelena’s return was because her husband was ill.
Yelena rushed out of her bedroom. However, in front of her husband’s bedroom, she was faced with an unexpected challenge.
“I’m sorry. I was ordered not to let anyone enter.”
Yelena blinked in embarrassment at the knight blocking her husband’s bedroom door.
‘Did you… station a guard?’
Yelena had been in and out of her husband’s bedroom several times before. However, it was the first time she’d seen someone standing in front of his door like this.
‘What on earth is wrong with you?’
Yelena doubted Duke Mayhard would set up an escort if he were only slightly sick, so she began to panic.
She drew closer to the knight. “Step aside. I am the Duke’s wife.”
“I’m sorry. The Duke instructed me not to let anyone come in.”
“Aren’t I an exception? Don’t you know who the Duchess is? Get out of the way.”
“I’m sorry.”
The knight only repeatedly apologized like a parrot and continued to seem unwilling to leave the door.
Yelena frowned in frustration.
Suddenly…
She saw someone walking down the opposite hallway. The person paused as soon as they saw Yelena and the knight; it was the butler.
“Ben, you’re just in time. The Duke…”
Yelena stopped talking.
Ben had a basin of water and a towel in his hand.
“…I was going to visit him since he seemed to be sick. It looks like you’ve already made preparations. What’s wrong with him?”
Ben hesitantly answered her question. “He has a cold.”
“A cold?”
Yelena was confused for a moment.
Her husband… and a cold.
Somehow, the two seemed rather ill-matched.
‘No, that’s not important.’
In any case, once someone caught a cold, their physical and mental state would be fairly poor.
They would require the care of the people around them.
Yelena reached out her hand.
“Give it to me for now. I’ll go in and nurse him.”
“…It’s a bad cold. You’ll catch it from him, too.”
“It’s okay. I don’t catch colds as often as it might look. I don’t think I’ll get sick even if I drink ice water in the middle of winter.”
“He’s highly contagious. I’ll have to do it myself.”
“If you’re worried about it being contagious, isn’t it a greater risk for the butler than me? Ben, how old are you this year?”
Ben hesitated at Yelena’s comments.
Nevertheless, he did not back down easily.
“How can I compare the value of this old body to the Madam?”
“You do know you have more work in this castle than I do, right? If you’re sick, who’s going to do all that? Me? Don’t speak nonsense, and give it to me.”
Yelena didn’t back down either.
Their opinions were at odds.
Yelena slowly began to lose track of the situation.
It was only a question of who would take care of the sick.
‘Is such a big scuffle between us necessary?’
Between the duchess and the butler?
Ben suddenly sighed, and Yelena started to feel suspicious.
“…I’m sorry, Madam. Please forgive me for my disrespect.”
“What? What the… wait, let go of me!”
The knight suddenly held Yelena back.
In the meantime, Ben opened the door to her husband’s bedroom and went inside.
Bang.
The door closed.
Yelena’s mouth fell open, dumbfounded.
She couldn’t immediately comprehend what had just happened.
As soon as Ben entered the bedroom, the knight released Yelena and apologized once more.
“I’m sorry.”
“…”
Only then did Yelena discover one thing she had missed.
The knight was a woman.
She didn’t notice it before because the knight had short hair and was wearing armor.
“…Haah.”
A despondent breath slipped from Yelena’s lips.
The knight was not a guard but a gatekeeper.
Perhaps the guard had been tasked to stop Yelena.
‘Why?’
Yelena stood there as if her feet were nailed to the floor, stared at the closed door, and then turned away.
She felt strange, and her feelings were difficult to describe.
When she returned to her quarters, Yelena sat idly to pass the time.
‘I can’t go in, but the butler can?’
No, no.
Yelena shook her head. This was important, but there was something more important than that.
‘It’s weird no matter how hard I think about it.’
Why did he stop Yelena from entering her husband’s bedroom?
‘For fear of catching a cold?’
That’s absurd.
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