Chapter 283: Resolving Monika's Misunderstanding

Eventually, Monika could find no reason to remain in the workroom.

The clothes had been inspected, the few loose threads dealt with, and every garment folded. She had spent far longer over them than the task required. If she continued staring at the finished stack, someone would soon come looking for her, and she did not want to explain why an ordinary duty had taken most of the morning.

She placed Ulrich’s clothes in a basket and carried them upstairs.

It was noon. He was probably at lunch, which made this a suitable time to put everything away in his dressing room. Normally, she would have attended him at the table, unless another task required her elsewhere. Today she had purposefully allowed those other tasks to occupy her.

Fabian would be there. As Ulrich’s personal butler, he could see to whatever the Count needed during the meal.

Monika’s duties were mostly concerned with the smaller, practical details of his daily life: his clothes, his rooms, the things he expected to find ready without having to ask. In that sense, her position required less direct involvement in his affairs than Fabian’s did. The butler knew what business occupied him and what matters would require his attention next. Monika could complete much of her work without speaking to him at all.

She had simply never wanted to do it that way.

She enjoyed being near him. If she finished one duty, she usually found another that allowed her to remain useful within reach of him. She had made her work personal because caring for Ulrich mattered to her, not because every part of it demanded that she stay at his side.

Now she was using the same duties to avoid him.

When she entered his bedroom and found it empty, she let out a quiet breath of relief. The basket felt heavier than it had on the stairs, though she knew that was only the effort of carrying it while thinking about everything she had tried to put out of her mind.

She went into the adjoining dressing room and began arranging the clothes.

The shirts went where he expected them. She checked the folds again before placing each one down, keeping the collars straight and making certain no sleeve had caught beneath another garment. Waistcoats followed, then the remaining pieces. Everything had a place, and following that familiar order helped her feel less unsettled.

“What am I even being sad about?” she mumbled.

She had accepted long ago that she would never have the kind of closeness with Ulrich that she had imagined for Shana. Nothing had been promised to her. Nothing had been taken from her, either, however much it felt as though something had changed.

She did not dislike Shana.

That made the feelings harder to explain. Shana had been frightened since coming out of confinement, and Monika had wanted to help her. She still wanted to help her. Even remembering the office did not make her wish the woman had been left underground.

It was her own self-esteem that had suffered.

She had believed the distance between herself and Ulrich came from their positions. If he could apparently overlook the difference between himself and Shana, Monika no longer knew what explanation to give herself.

She put away the last shirt and straightened the stack, though it was already straight.

There was no reason to remain in the dressing room after that. She could have taken the basket downstairs and asked whether Ulrich needed her. Instead, she looked around his bedroom and decided she might as well attend to it while she was there.

It was earlier than she usually did so, but the chamber was empty. She would not interrupt him, and it was better to finish a task than stand in a corridor wondering where to go.

Monika set the basket aside and began with the bed.

She removed the linen, replaced the sheets, and fitted fresh covers over the pillows. She smoothed the bedding carefully, making sure it sat properly at the corners, then turned to the rest of the room. Surfaces were wiped, small objects put back in their places, and the floor swept even where she could see nothing that needed removing.

The chamber had not been dirty. Other maids helped keep it clean, and Ulrich was hardly careless with his belongings. Still, Monika found details to occupy her. She adjusted something on the bedside table, checked the curtains, and returned to a surface she had already wiped because she thought she might have missed a mark.

The work took an hour, then continued toward a second.

By the time she finished, there was nothing left to improve. Monika stood near the bed and looked over the room with the uncomfortable awareness that she had been thorough partly because she did not know how to meet Ulrich’s eyes.

She picked up the empty basket, intending to leave and find another duty.

Then she noticed his coat.

It had been left over a chair beside the small desk in his chamber. She went to retrieve it, expecting to hang it properly before she left, but paused with it in her hands.

The coat was familiar. She had brushed it, checked its stitching, and carried it to him often enough that she knew the weight of it without looking. It still held the faint scent she associated with him, beneath the ordinary smell of clean fabric.

Monika brought it against her chest.

She held it lightly at first, as though she were merely checking the folds. Then her grip clenched, and she lowered her face enough to recognise that familiar scent more clearly.

It reminded her of him so strongly that, for a moment, the room felt less empty.

She knew how foolish she would look if someone saw her. That did not immediately make her put it down. Holding it offered a small comfort after a morning in which every thought of him had led her back to the same painful questions.

“Lord Ulrich…” she whispered.

“Monika?”

She nearly jumped.

Her hands loosened immediately, and she turned with the coat still gathered awkwardly against her. A maid stood in the doorway.

For one instant, Monika thought it was Ulrich himself. Recognising the other woman brought relief so quickly that she had to make an effort not to show it.

“So this is where you’ve been,” the maid said. “The Count was wondering whether you were ill.”

Monika looked down at the coat, then moved to hang it.

“I was cleaning his room.”

“I can see that.” The maid glanced around the chamber. “But you are his personal maid. You should be available when he asks for you.”

“I know.”

“Otherwise, I might have to take your place myself.”

The teasing smile that followed made it clear she did not mean it seriously. She left before Monika could think of an answer, carrying on with whatever work had brought her upstairs.

Monika breathed out slowly.

At least she had not been asked why she was holding the coat like that.

But the relief soon gave way to guilt. Ulrich had asked for her. He had noticed her absence enough to wonder whether she was sick, while she had spent the morning finding excuses not to be near him.

She could tell herself that she needed time to compose her thoughts. That was true, but it did not excuse neglecting a duty she had always taken pride in fulfilling.

He had done nothing to deserve her avoidance. Even if what she believed about Shana were true, it was not her place to punish him for it by becoming difficult to find.

She put the coat away properly.

Then she took the basket and left the chamber.

After asking where Ulrich was, she learned that he had gone to his office. Monika returned the basket first, giving herself one final, ordinary task before she went to see him. Once that was done, there was no reason to delay.

She made her way along the corridor toward the office doors.

The approach brought back the previous night more vividly than she wanted. She remembered the tea cart, the moment she looked up, and the confusion that became hurt before she had properly understood what she was seeing.

This time, she stopped outside and knocked twice.

“My lord. It’s Monika.”

“Enter.”

She opened the door.

Ulrich sat behind his desk with papers before him. There was nothing unusual about the room now, yet Monika’s eyes briefly went to the place where Shana had stood. She looked away from it quickly and closed the door.

He had been writing when she entered. Normally, he would have finished the sentence, or perhaps the whole document, before addressing her or anyone. Monika knew to wait and would have been glad of those few moments.

Instead, he lowered his pen.

He looked directly at her.

She found herself unable to hold his gaze. Whatever she had planned to say on the way here became difficult to arrange, and she lowered her face before beginning.

“My lord, I wish to apologize for my behaviour yesterday.”

Her hands rested together in front of her. She kept them still with an effort.

“I left without hearing you out. That was rude, and I should not have done it.”

She waited briefly, but Ulrich said nothing.

Monika continued.

“I also apologize for this morning. I was not present to attend my duties.”

The admission was harder than the first. She had never wanted him to think that she took her position lightly. For years, she had done her best to become someone he could rely upon without having to check whether she would carry out an instruction. One morning had been enough for her to act against that effort.

She bit her lip, then made herself stop.

Perhaps the proper thing was to offer him a choice rather than expect him to overlook it. He had taken her into his household and kept her there. That did not oblige him to keep a maid who allowed her own feelings to interfere with her work.

“I—If you consider it unacceptable,” she added quietly, “I am prepared to resign.”

Only silence answered her.

“Monika.”

She raised her head at the sound of her name. Ulrich was still looking at her, and this time she made herself meet his eyes.

“Nothing happened with Shana.”

Monika blinked.

“M—My lord?”

“I am telling you that nothing happened with her last night,” he said. “I asked her to come to my office so that we could discuss the sisters. She mistook the summons for something else. I had to explain why I called her, then tell her to leave.”

For a moment, Monika could only stare.

She had prepared herself for a reprimand. After offering to resign, she had feared he might accept, or at least tell her that he expected better from someone who had served him for so long. Instead, he was explaining the very thing she had spent the morning trying not to think about.

“A misunderstanding?” she asked.

The question came out in an embarrassed stutter. He had already made himself clear, but she needed to hear him confirm it.

Ulrich gave a slight nod.

Monika felt relief so strongly that it left her almost light-headed. The ache that had followed her from the workroom to his chamber, then from his chamber to the office, began to fade. She had not realised how easily she had accepted her own conclusion until he took it away.

Nothing had happened.

Shana had misunderstood him, and Monika had walked in at the worst possible moment.

Her eyes grew wet again. This time, she could hardly account for the tears without feeling ashamed. She was standing before her lord, relieved beyond reason to learn that he had not spent the night with another woman, when the matter should never have concerned her in the first place.

Then she thought of how she had treated him since.

She had left the office without listening. She had avoided him all morning. She had wondered whether she truly knew him, while he had been attempting to explain precisely what she now learned.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “My apologies, my lord. I thought… I—”

She lowered her head, unable to finish.

Even her happiness at hearing the truth could not escape the guilt that followed it. She should have known him better. She had served him for seven years and prided herself on understanding what other people mistook in his manner. Yet one glimpse of Shana, combined with what she had learned of his relationship with Meera, had been enough to brittle that confidence.

Of course the scene had looked suspicious. Anyone entering the office at that moment might have reached the same conclusion. Monika could acknowledge that much, but it offered little comfort when she remembered that he had spoken and she had not stayed to hear him.

Ulrich exhaled inwardly.

He watched her bow her head as though she expected the explanation to be followed by punishment. The offer to resign still irritated him. She had worked herself into another unnecessary conclusion, and he had no intention of losing a loyal maid because she had failed to understand an awkward scene in his office.

With anyone else, he might have left the matter alone. People misunderstood him frequently. He did not consider himself obliged to pursue each of them and explain what had happened until they were satisfied.

Monika was different.

She had served him faithfully for seven years. Along with Fabian, she was the person closest to him within the household, familiar with the habits he seldom explained and reliable enough that he rarely had to consider whether a task would be done. Her presence had become part of the order of his life.

He disliked the thought of her carrying a false impression of him. More than that, he remembered the tears in her eyes when she left the night before.

She had not merely been startled.

Ulrich would have had to be a fool to miss what lay behind that reaction. Monika’s feelings were not entirely unknown to him, however rarely he allowed himself to consider them. He had noticed enough over the years. He had simply found it easier not to address something for which he had no clear answer.

That did not mean he wanted her to believe Shana mattered to him more than she did.

The idea was false, and leaving it uncorrected would have been needlessly cruel when a few plain words could settle it.