21.
After finishing her morning walk, Nina returned to her room and greeted the maids waiting at the door with an awkward smile.
“Come in, I’ve been expecting you.”
“May we ask why you summoned us…?”
“I have a few favors to ask of you.”
“Favors?”
A flicker of weary resignation crossed their faces, as if to say we knew it.
She could guess well enough what had come to their minds in that instant, but there was nothing she could do about it.
It was the sort of prejudice she herself had cultivated, and the burden of it was hers to bear.
Swallowing her bitterness, she asked,
“I heard from the head maid that some of you were recently involved in a lawsuit.
Did you encounter any difficulties during the proceedings?”
Thirty minutes earlier.
After finishing her morning walk and returning to her room, Nina had asked Melanie whether there were any maids who had either gone through a trial themselves or had acquaintances with such experience.
Since it was the head maid who handled hiring and granted leave, she naturally had some knowledge of her staff’s family circumstances.
And so, the ones selected were Jessie and Yona.
As the two exchanged uneasy glances in response to her question, Nina continued.
“You may or may not know this, but at charity events, noblewomen usually lecture the common folk on the kind of knowledge you’d find in household manuals.
But that’s not the sort of topic I want to bring.”
The imperial charity event—
Held twice a year, this large-scale occasion was far more than just offering the poor a meal for lunch or dinner.
It was also meant to be a platform where the ruling class imparted knowledge that would help the lives of the ruled.
Yet, much like civil officials notorious for their out-of-touch policies, the subjects proposed by nobles—who had never truly experienced common life—were inevitably predictable.
How to maintain a harmonious household.
How to select fine tea leaves.
How to choose good ingredients, or recipes from aristocratic kitchens, and so on.
It wasn’t that such information or knowledge was entirely meaningless—but there were plenty of others who could teach it besides her.
So Nina had decided to take a different approach.
“My grandfather is the Chief Justice, and I am his granddaughter.
So I’d like to share something people are truly curious about—legal advice, or practical know-how about lawsuits.
For that, I need to understand which parts people usually struggle with when seeking counsel.”
At this unexpected request, Jessie’s expression grew conflicted as she spoke.
“If it’s something like that, we’d like to help… but the trial hasn’t actually opened yet, so…”
“You must have at least consulted a lawyer, no?”
“Well… not even that…”
“Did you not receive the complaint, then?”
“N-no, we haven’t received a complaint.
It’s more that we should be the ones filing a lawsuit, but… we don’t have the money, and honestly, the idea of consulting someone is a little frightening…”
Most of the lawyers here were elites from noble families.
In a world where status and hierarchy were sharply defined, it was only natural that commoners found the threshold of a law office forbiddingly high.
Still, to be so afraid of even seeking counsel… that’s serious.
It struck her anew just how distant a thing the law must feel to them.
“Then why don’t I help you try consulting a lawyer?”
“What?”
The two maids’ eyes went wide in surprise.
“My goal is to find out which parts people struggle with when they go for legal advice.”
Thanks to her grandfather, she had picked up bits and pieces of the law by ear, and was relatively familiar with it.
But that very background meant she could never fully understand the difficulties they faced.
That was why she needed their experience.
“We’d be grateful for your help, but… would we really be of use to you, milady?”
“You’ll be more than enough, so don’t worry about that.
And as it happens—Nina’s gaze shifted past their shoulders, to the shadow looming behind them.
“—it looks like the very person who’ll be helping us has just arrived.”
Nina’s gaze shifted past their shoulders, to the shadow looming behind them.
“Baron Somerden?”
At her call, the shadow seemed to stir for a moment—then disappeared.
“…Baron?”
What?
Wasn’t it Hoshi?
As Nina rose from her seat in puzzlement, Hoshi suddenly poked his head around the doorway.
“…Ahaha, are you finished talking?”
“If you were here, why didn’t you just come in?
What were you doing out there?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt.
I thought I’d wait until the conversation was over.”
Oh, please.
If he weren’t her husband’s closest aide, she might have been fooled—but of course he had been standing by the door, eavesdropping, suspicious that she was scheming something.
Not that she minded.
Rising without a hint of irritation, Nina said,
“Anyway, they say you should strike while the iron is hot.
Let’s go for the consultation right now.”
“B-Baron Somerden is going to help us?”
The Duke of Bayern’s aide—how, and why?
At Jessie’s bewildered question, Nina gave a crisp answer.
“He’ll be there to observe your consultation.”
He would watch how the lawyer conducted the session and how the maids responded, then identify the problem areas on her behalf.
Nina’s own face was far too recognizable, too notorious to appear unnoticed.
But Hoshi—slap on a wig, take off his glasses, and he could easily pass himself off as someone else.
As the duke’s aide, he had read countless contracts and dealt with lawyers more times than she could count.
He was more than capable of playing the role she envisioned.
***
On the way into town, Nina was able to hear the details of Jessie and Yona’s situations.
Jessie had been sending money by post to her younger brother, believing it was for the care of their elderly parents who lived far away—only to discover recently that her parents had actually passed away six months earlier.
All that time, she had been sending money in vain.
Betrayed by her brother, Jessie now wanted to reclaim what she had given.
As for Yona, her older sister had taken over a shop, but the former owner was now insisting he had never received payment, raising a shameless dispute.
To think she would encounter here the kind of stories one usually only saw in the news or on the internet.
“There’s always trash no matter where you go, isn’t that right?”
After sending Jessie, Yona, and Hoshi into the law office,
Nina sat at a coffeehouse, leisurely sipping iced tea, and muttered to herself.
When she noticed Marsha’s pointed stare, she tilted her head quizzically.
“Why?”
“It’s just… you seem to have changed a lot, madam.”
“Ah…”
“I don’t mean that in a bad way.
It’s just that before, you never paid attention to anyone but the duke.
But now…”
Marsha beamed, as if genuinely pleased by the change she saw.
Well… I really have changed, haven’t I…
In her past life, with her marriage at its worst, she had treated the staff like vermin, snapping at them and venting her rage.
Come to think of it, she had no right to say anything.
To others—and especially to her husband—she had been trash herself.
Feeling a sudden flush of embarrassment, Nina cooled her reddened cheeks with a flick of her hand and said lightly, as if it were nothing.
“I need to change too.
I can’t go on living like a wreck forever, can I?”
Even if the beginning had been a disaster, she would at least finish writing her story as Duchess of Bayern properly
—for the sake of the people who had suffered because of her.
“I think you’ve already changed a lot, madam.
As long as you don’t get hurt saving someone else again, it’d be perfect.”
“That won’t happen.
I know enough to value my own life.”
Ding.
At the sound of the doorbell, Nina turned toward the entrance.
The consultation must have finished—three figures were walking toward her.
“Thank you for waiting.”
“How did it go?”
“We went to five different offices, but…”
Hoshi cast a sidelong glance at the two, who looked utterly deflated, and then let his words trail off.
“Why stop there?”
At Nina’s question, his lips curved into a long, thin smile.
Beneath his narrow eyes, the glimmer of blue hinted at how much he was enjoying himself.
“I think I understand now why you chose this topic, madam.”
What in the world had the consultation been like, to make him react that way?
When Nina tilted her head in puzzlement, Hoshi went on.
“It would be nice to have more test cases, but I doubt they’d differ much from these two.
I’ll give you the details on the way back.”
“Very well, let’s do that.”
Draining the rest of her iced tea in one go, Nina rose from her seat.