My Secretly Hot Husband

Chapter 9

* * *

Letitia’s entire body was cocooned in a blanket from head to toe. She twitched, then snapped her eyes open to see an unfamiliar gray stone wall and an unfamiliar tapestry hanging upon it. For a moment, she was disconcerted. Where was she? She sat up and heard a piece of paper rustling next to her, so she reached a hand out to grab it.

“Oh.” Now it all came back to her. She remembered being lost in the corridor and accidentally entering the study, as well as everything else that happened before she received the document and returned to the room. It had been quite an eventful night.

Letitia clutched the document tightly. The Monster Lord had promised her himself that no one would make her leave the castle, so she let her shoulders relax. At the same time, her stomach grumbled and her face turned red even though she was alone.

I guess my appetite is back. She had been starving the entirety of yesterday but had barely eaten the hot soup and meat during dinner. Now she was ravenous.

“This won’t do.” Letitia climbed down from her bed to go outside and found the rest of the castle was very quiet, almost as though no one was awake yet. She caught the smell of food drifting in from somewhere and indecorously sniffed after it like a hound, finally arriving at the dining hall. She couldn’t sense anyone inside.

I just need a loaf of bread, she thought as she gingerly pushed open the doors and entered. She immediately stopped and froze in place. The dining hall, which had been deathly silent, was actually full of people. It seemed everyone had been eating their breakfast without making a sound.

As Letitia entered, they stared, wide-eyed. The lord and the soldiers were absent, but the rest of the servants were gathered, including the three old women. She was embarrassed beyond belief and felt the urge to turn around and flee.

I can’t do that, the voice in her head admonished her. Things had changed since yesterday. She now knew the truth and that the servants had been trying to treat her well despite her misunderstanding. Letitia made up her mind. She curtsied politely.

“Thank you for what you did for me yesterday,” she said, then she bravely marched into the dining hall.

The maids, servants, and guards exchanged looks, but they all seemed to finally relax, and even the captain of the guards let out a sigh of relief. The young lady they had abruptly taken in had clearly been terrified of everything in the castle to the point he pitied the young girl.

We aren’t the most affable bunch, he thought. I’m sure it all seems like a nightmare to her. That’s why he had proposed asking the staff to eat quietly so they could make themselves scarce for her sake in the morning.

However, that plan had backfired spectacularly when the young lady turned up in the dining hall, likely thinking it was empty. Then, when everyone had frozen in surprise, the girl had unexpectedly approached them first. It was touching to see her put on a brave front.

There we go. The captain of the guards relaxed and picked his fork back up.

“Please have a seat here,” a maid said as another quickly brought a tall chair. Letitia sat down. But it wasn’t over yet. She had to move on to the next step.

Letitia glanced at the Bastian, who was sitting right next to her. Though she found the nanny’s unyielding, stony face truly frightening and she couldn’t even imagine them having a conversation, she plucked up her courage and said, “The bathwater was really warm yesterday.”

Bastian stared at Letitia, then replied, “Why wouldn’t it be? We used a lot of firewood.”

When the nanny cut the hard bread on top of her plate in half, Letitia immediately lost all courage until an unexpected savior came to her rescue.

“You are so uptight!” the housekeeper Alexa bellowed. “Our lady wasn’t asking you why the water was warm.”

“What? She wasn’t?” Bastian blinked at Letitia, looking positively flabbergasted. “Then what did you mean?”

“Um, well, I just wanted to thank you for the warm water...”

“Of course it was warm. We heated it up with a lot of firewood,” Bastian repeated herself.

Alexa shook her head. “Never mind. Anyway, has your experience staying at the castle been pleasant?”

Perhaps it was because of the morning light, but the blue eyes below Alexa’s white hair didn’t look that cold at that moment. Letitia gathered up her courage. “Um, actually, I have a request. Could I get a map of the castle? I don’t want to get lost again.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any maps, so you’ll have to settle for this scary old woman showing you around.”

“Would you really do that for me?”

Alexa looked taken aback by Letitia’s delighted response. Perhaps most other people had been put off by the way Alexa spoke. In fact, a child might have burst into tears. Alexa’s icy expression wavered slightly below her swept-up white hair.

The cook, Cassaro, who had been watching from a distance, approached them as well. Though the expression on her face made her look contrary, she seemed curious.

“You’re awfully chatty today,” she said. “Do you have anything to say to me?”

Letitia glanced at the captain’s hat and the black eyepatch that the cook wore, then realized she needed to apologize for not eating the previous day’s meal. However, she couldn’t help but ask, “Were you the captain of a pirate ship?”

“No.”

So she just dresses that way?

As soon as that thought crossed her mind, Cassaro corrected her, “Anyone who called me a pirate had to walk the plank with both of their hands tied up. I’m the captain of the Valeria, and at one time, I was the ruler of the Black Sea. I’m not some small-time thief.”

“You should keep in mind that pirates all bristle without exception if you call them a pirate,” Alexa said.

Then did that mean this woman really was a former pirate? Letitia’s jaw dropped and she was so excited that she drank the milk the maids gave her in one gulp. “That’s so impressive!” she cried, earning a crooked smile from Cassaro.

It was the first time she felt like she belonged.

* * *

A new life had begun for her. Letitia now jumped out of her bed as soon as she woke and often even before the maids entered her room.

“Oh my! Good morning, my lady.”

“You’re up early again, my lady!”

After it had been decided that Letitia would be entering a contractual marriage with the lord to undo the curse, the Halstead staff had started to treat her differently and to address her as though she really were the lady of the castle. Not doing so might offend Erden, so everyone followed this rule with relish, as they were excited to serve the young mistress.

However, at the moment, it seemed their lady hadn’t even washed her face yet, which would be an issue. Letitia, on the other hand, greeted them with her face turned to the side, not wanting them to catch on to that fact.

“Hellooo...” she said, and as soon as she managed to sneakily crab-walk out of the room, she took off. The front courtyard of the castle was already buzzing with activity as the servants unloaded bundles of firewood from a wagon. Bastian, the nanny, spotted them as she passed.

“You’re so slow! Everyone out of the way!”

She pushed up her sleeves to reveal the steel-like muscles hiding under her clothes, then summarily turned the entire wagon upside down. Letitia clapped. “That’s amazing!”

Bastian glanced at her, her stern face briefly softening. The servants could not believe what they were seeing. This woman, a former warrior, had become an infantry captain upon arriving at Halstead Castle until the devils poisoned her, robbing her of both her post and full use of one leg.

After that, she baffled everyone by claiming she once dreamed of being a nanny and by taking up that very position at the castle. Alas, being a nanny wasn’t very rewarding, as the reality of the job was far from what she imagined.

Despite that, Bastian diligently continued to work without complaint until she finally came to a realization.

Yes! This is exactly what I was looking for! Letitia’s entry into her life had shocked her. The girl’s red hair shone vividly in the gray castle, her green eyes always twinkled with curiosity, her ears were always trained to listen to Bastian, and her mouth, though small, knew how to thank someone.

Most of all, she had soft hands that, once hesitant, now reached out to the older woman constantly. It had only taken days for Bastian to come to like the child, which made the nanny wonder to herself, What has gotten into me?