Her inquiring thought was cut off by Mr Jerkings’s voice

  “My Lady” he called out

  “Mr Jerkings?” Veronique responded in surprise not having noticed the butler arrival, her curious gaze fell on the young maid accompanying him.

  She looked like she was barely of age, she had blonde hair and blue eyes.

  “I have selected for you a personal aide” the head butler had said pointing towards this new face “This is Miss Lucia” he presented her then added with a hint of reluctance and shame “She’s a little inexperienced but hard working”

  “Let me guess she’s the only one that took the job?” Veronique had become a little more aware in the last few hours of her position “I kind of figured that I don’t have a good standing in the household” she said out aloud her conclusion to confirm if she was indeed right and didn’t get the wrong idea.

  “…well…” Mr Jerkings wavering to answer told her anything she needed to know.

  “Don’t bother about it, it is as it is and I only need her to chaperon me around” Veronique decided to get right to the point

  “Lucia, right?” she addressed the maid

  “Y-yes Lady Veronique?” Lucia seemed almost fearful of her, or maybe she was just shy or felt awkward about being ordered around by a child.

  “Take me to the library” Veronique really needed to get this particular task done today, which remembered her why it turned even more urgent than before and gave her another reason to freak out since there was another problem she had to deal with immediately or else the Duke seemed more then willing to throw Mos and Bos off to the streets in the best case scenario.

  “…oh, Mr Jerkings I almost forgot” she turned to the butler, almost fanatically.

  “What is it my Lady?” Mr Jerkings asked

  “Father ordered me to join Rhea’s lessons with the old hag” Veronique said coming to the realization that she had no idea where and when those lessons were held.

  “Excuse me?” Mr Jerkings said in a scolding tone, making Veronique realize that she had not been acting formal.

  ‘I hate this bullshit, but I got to do it for the pups’ she thought, biting down a series of curses.

  “Ops…sorry slip of tongue I meant Miss Hawkings” Veronique tried to brush off her displeasure and added “Anyway, I don’t know where or when those lessons are”

  “I will have a schedule delivered by the day” Mr Jerkings said, not looking impressed but secretly appreciating the effort even if it wasn’t up to standard by any means possible.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It was still one big improvement from before.

  ‘the Duke must have noticed and jumped on the opportunity’ the butler thought full of admiration for the man, his face didn’t betray any of this emotion as it was expected…Veronique’s face on the contrary looked like a constipated donkey.

  “Miss Lucia make sure Lady Veronique attends those lessons” Mr Jerkings said utterly serious

  “Y-yes!” Lucia was quick to agree, she might be a commoner and just started working for the Aurelia family a couple of weeks ago, but even she knows nobles weren’t supposed to speak that way for make those kind of…expressions and along with what she heard about Lady Veronique…

  Well in short neither Lucia or Mr Jerkings were sure she would actually attend those lessons, but they both knew how vital they were for her.

  “I am not that much of a fool” Veronique caught on the fact they weren’t trusting her to go to the old hag’s lessons despite being ordered by the Duke in person.

  “Never mind” she ended up adding as she was meet with a double stare.

  “Lucia, take me to the library, bye Mr Jerkings” Veronique ended up saying, knowing she was just losing precious time by trying to argue “I am sure you got better things to do”

  ‘I hope the new maid won’t make a mess.’ Mr Jerkings thought wishing one of the senior maids had accepted.

  He could have appointed one anyway, but they were all so hateful towards Lady Veronique he feared that would do more harm than good.

  Miss Lucia seemed the quite and meek kind, so that could compliment the fiery temperament of Lady Veronique…and the Lady seemed out of the phase of throwing hot pots of tea at people.

  More malleable than before, those dogs really worked some magic on her.

  The Duchess had been right in her judgment, some extra responsibility did knock some sense in Lady Veronique.

  -

  Meanwhile somehow Veronique and Lucia ended up in a part of the garden, unknown to both of them

  “Are you sure you know where we are going?” Veronique asked feeling dubious of her guide as they passed the same bush twice.

  “I-I t-think so” Lucia didn’t sound so sure.

  “uh, I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t need to go to the library today” Veronique pointed out “I don’t know when I will have the chance when I will start my lessons with the old Hag” she added with a sense of urgency and feeling a bit embarrassed that she needed to guided around since she lived here.

  She really has no room to complain, Lucia was a new maid of course she doesn’t know how to navigate the place yet.

  “I-I will go ask for directions” Lucia responded her head whipping all around as she started running in the garden looking for someone, which looked a bit funny from Veronique’s point of view since there were at the least twenty moving corpses all around them and the maid passed through some of them.

  Veronique’s eyes glided on them wondering what would happen if she asked them for directions, well given that they were part her psyche they probably wouldn’t know even if they could talk and probably all she would accomplish was getting labeled as insane, which was never a good thing.

  Thinking about it, it was a good thing the Dead don’t talk, she would have an harder time ignoring her if they did.

  Ew one of them got both of its eyeballs hanging out of its sockets, she never liked eye things it was the one thing that make her a bit squeamish even if it was only for a moment.

  Oh, the way they move and keep clashing with each other reminds her of a somewhat dangerous childhood toy that could injure your wrist if you weren’t careful and went too fast.

  It made such a satisfying clicking noise.

  My sweet little angel had chewed it up a little as a pup.

  Good times! Wish I snapped more photos…dang it was shame she won’t be able to do that with Mos and Bos.

  She highly doubted they could stay still for a portrait or there was anything better then a black and white photography.

  Hopefully it was not the kind that needed people to stay still for a long period of time.

  What was she doing again? Oh right she better follow Lucia before she got lost sight of her and got lost in the garden on top of it.