Main Dinning Room

  “Ah of course, anyone with a brain would have figured out this little scheme, now if you excuse me I got more important things to do” Marques Mercure left with a smug smile on his face and a spring to his step completely oblivious to the insult.

  Veronique changed her stance on the matter, it was kind of funny that he didn’t even notice.

  The whole thing was made even better by the Disarmed pointing and laughing in his direction holding their sides as they were about to collapse from it, their laughter sounding like a deep grunting sound.

  Veronique had no trouble imagining them as two gentleman laughing themselves to to tears, when her silly musings were broken by Penelope lightly nudging her shoulder.

  Realizing that someone else was there the redhead rushed to a curtsy

  “Sorry! Welcome to our humble banquette Prince Leonard Lorens” of course the one time she got distracted it was before the most important guest of the day.

  It was the younger brother to the current King, a tall gentle looking man with a faint smile on his shaved face and visible laugh lines, his hair was more silver then blonde.

  He was dressed in a white suit with golden trims, the stylized tiger of his family crest proudly wore on his chest.

  ‘He’s going to keep representing the Royal family at minor events like this till the Crown Prince is older’ Veronique recapped in her head, a bit glad that she wouldn’t have to deal with that asshole.

  At the least not yet.

  “Don’t worry dear, I am not offended” the Prince had told her “and nobody quite noticed I am here, so we can keep this between ourselves” Veronique didn’t quite believe this, after all he was still a Prince

  “I am old news sweetie and bear no power, besides they all know I am too much of softy to badmouth them” he explained his position

  ‘is he saying that he’s like a ceremonial doormat?’ Veronique interpreted his words but he wasn’t finished “even if I can see you are not that nice”

  “Ehm I-” “Don’t apologize it was quite an entertaining sight, but I leave you with a warning child” he leaned down to whisper the next words “nobles are quite prideful things and are able to do terrible acts over the minimal offense, so be careful of whose toes you step on”

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  “I understand your highness” Veronique had politely said fully aware that he spoke the truth, the earlier pleasure she got from insulting Marques Mercure to his face completely turned moot.

  “It’s alright child, now I will go to sweet talk the Duke into firing whoever decided to put you in this awful dress” he winked at her and left.

  Kitchen

  “Shouldn’t the meal have started already?” Anne had said sounding worried as she precisely cut the vegetables assigned to her with ease, a big improvement over the hazard way she used to execute this task

  “The Nobles are still getting inside” Isabella had responded her, reporting what she had heard from Main Dinning room

  “But what’s taking so long?” Anne had asked her anxiety growing as their timeline got messed up

  “Most are refusing to be greeted by Lady Veronique, so it caused a delay” Isabella explained the situation

  “how are we going to serve the food fresh if we have no idea on the timing?” Anne felt a sense of dread and upcoming failure

  “Amateur” Chef Bernard had overheard their conversation and butted into it “as much as I would like to blame Lady Veronique, delays like this are common practice with noble events” then he side eyed her with disapproval “I thought with all your experience as maid you would already be aware of such thing”

  “Usually I was never assigned to the kitchens and didn’t put much thought into it” she defended herself taking offense as she took his words as an insinuation that she was incompetent

  “Then watch and learn how it’s done” he had told her completely unaffected “I won’t waste time talking to you any longer”

  “Come on Anne we still got more vegetables to chop” Elise had interrupted to coax her apprentice’s attention back to their work “Chef Bernard knows exactly what he’s doing, we got nothing to be worried about”

  Anne did as was told while keeping an eye out on how the Chef was handling the kitchen, it was only on a later at night that she would wonder to herself why it felt so important that everything went as planned.

  She had never felt this way in any of her previous assignments.

  Corridor

  Senior Maid Eva looked nervous as she clutched a bag to her chest, sweat came down her forehead as her eyes darted around for any trouble while she made her way to one of less used restrooms.

  Here she dumped the contents in one of the toilets and let the flush wash it away as she disposed of the bag in a nearby trashcan, then she left in a hurry.

  Unaware of the shadow that broke away from the wall and enlarged itself as Julius emerged from it, he opened the trashcan and tried to examine the bag sniffing at it to try to discern the contents

  ‘Is this?’ he had thought already having a guess

  “AHHH PERVERT!” a young maid had yelled out upon entering and seeing a strange man sniffing the trash in the woman’s restroom

  Julius raised his hands in a placating manner as he tried to talk his way out of trouble

  “I can explain” he had started but the maid had begun her assault, joined in by others that heard her screams, so he tried to evade them by foot but they chased him down.

  ‘I only need to get out of their sight for a moment and use my Skill to evade them’ he had thought and was almost successful in his plan, at the least he was till Julius found himself face to face with the infamous Miss Hawkings.

  Not a word had the time to come out of his mouth.

  The woman had knocked him out with a punch right on his nose.