bayedsolid Chapter 380 --380
Chapter 380 --380
The rest of the day bled away with a strange, exhausting sort of quiet. By the time the final echoes of high-society gossip cleared from the grand corridors and the absolute nonsense of the ruined anniversary banquet finally drew to a close, evening had already settled heavily over the estate.
Heena sat at the ornate mahogany table in her new quarters, staring at the sheer absurdity of the dinner spread before her.
The feast was massive. There was perfectly roasted chicken glistening under a rich glaze, delicate fish seasoned with rare spices, savory ham, thick cuts of pork, and even a steaming platter of slow-braised pig trotters. Looking at the sheer volume of food, she couldn’t help but marvel at the desperate drive behind it all. It was a stark, material reminder of just how much meticulous preparation and wealth the Marquis and Marchioness had poured into their golden party, only for it to be completely dismantled in a single afternoon.
Heena curved her lips into a bright, deeply amused smile. From the moment she had dropped into this world, the food she ate had been restricted to either the humble, hearty meals at Samuel’s country estate or the quick bites she had taken upon entering the capital. Seeing the peak of aristocratic culinary luxury laid out just for her was an interesting spectacle, to say say the least.
She lifted her eyes from the roasted chicken and looked toward the heavy oak doors, where Samuel was currently standing like an immovable iron statue.
The estate administrators had technically assigned him a guard’s room located about a five-minute walk away from her suite. In terms of quality, it wasn’t nearly as abysmal as the drafty, miserable servant quarters Heena had been forced to occupy back when she first started working at Samuel’s house. It was actually quite decent by capital standards—clean and private. However, compared to the lavish luxury of her current bedroom, his assigned quarters were practically a barn, and the five-minute distance between them was an absolute eternity in Samuel’s books.
When the Head Guard and the estate servants had officially told him to stand down for the night, reassuring him that the Marquis’s personal elite would guard the young lady’s doors, Samuel had flatly refused.
"No," he had rumbled, his voice dripping with rigid, unyielding professionalism. "I am her personal guard, bound by an oath to her merchant brother. I will guard this door with my life."
He had planted himself right there, arms crossed over his chest, his iron visor down. The passing servants and estate guards had looked at him with an immense amount of awe and respect, whispering to one another about how incredibly strong, fiercely loyal, and resilient this "Roni" guy truly was.
Heena, however, just stared at him from across the room, her eyebrows twitching violently.
’Resilient? Strong?’
Please. Only she knew the absolute truth. This damn bastard was doing it entirely on purpose. He hadn’t stayed out there out of a sense of duty; he had stayed because he was a territorial, possessive wolf who absolutely refused to let a single wall—or a five-minute walk—separate him from his wife in a house full of enemies.
With a non-chalant glance toward the door, Heena casually waved her hand. "Roni, come here. Check this food and see if it is poisoned or not."
Her tone was perfectly aloof yet warm, the exact voice a benevolent master would use when issuing a routine command to a loyal servant. To anyone listening outside the door, it sounded completely natural.
Samuel, however, raised an eyebrow beneath his half-mask. He walked forward with long, measured strides, offering a slightly dramatic bow of his head. "As you command, my lady."
Without an ounce of hesitation, he reached down, picked up a succulent piece of the roasted chicken, and popped it directly into his mouth, chewing with immense satisfaction.
Heena’s jaw dropped. She stared at him in absolute disbelief, her master-servant façade fracturing in an instant. ’Are you completely crazy or what?!’
She glared at him, her voice dropping into a fierce whisper. "How can you just eat it like that? What if it actually had something in it?"
Samuel simply shrugged his broad shoulders, completely unbothered as he swallowed. "Well, my lady, it was you who explicitly told me to taste it."
"If I told you to jump into a well, would you just jump?!" Heena hissed, her eyes narrowing.
Samuel looked dead into her eyes, a thoroughly amused, wicked glint flashing in his gaze. "Well, you are my master. If you order it, then of course I will follow it to the letter."
Heena was utterly speechless at this guy’s sheer lackluster attitude and complete lack of self-preservation. She let out a heavy, defeated sigh, rolling her eyes as she pointed to the empty chair beside her. "Just sit down and eat."
Of course, she knew there was no poison in the food. Heena wasn’t an amateur; the very second the servants had laid the trays down, she had secretly ordered the System to run a comprehensive chemical scan on every single dish. She was never going to take an unnecessary risk in this house.
Samuel chuckled softly, pulling off his leather gloves and sitting down next to her. As they both started eating, he watched her dig into the chicken and pig trotters quite heartily.
A fond, teasing smile spread across his face. "Looks like you are feeling quite well and have quite the appetite, ’my lady’."
Heena froze mid-bite.
Her eyes turned dangerously dark as she slowly lowered her utensils. She fixed him with a lethal glare that promised a slow death. "You... want to repeat that?"
Samuel immediately shut his mouth, raising both of his hands in an awkward gesture of absolute surrender. "I’m just asking! I’m saying it as a joke—just a normal question between a guard and his master."
Heena pointed her fork threateningly at his face. "I am telling you right now, Samuel, if you try anything funny tonight or think about messing around, I will literally beat you into a pulp. I have way too much work to do tomorrow, and my back doesn’t need any more of your ’assistance.’"
Well, whatever Samuel’s initial plan of standing guard the entire night was, it didn’t last very long.
By the time dinner was finished, the grandmother had found out about the administrative blunder. To say the old matriarch was furious would be an understatement. She practically dragged the estate administrator out by his ears and thoroughly rebuked the trembling man right in the corridor.
"Are you completely out of your mind?!" her frail but booming voice had echoed. "If my granddaughter is in danger or gripped by fear in the middle of the night, is her personal guard supposed to run a full five minutes across the estate just to save her? What type of brainless idiots am I running this household with?!"
After weathering a hundred more sharp abuses from the matriarch, the administrator had frantically scrambled to fix his mistake. He immediately emptied out the luxurious private anteroom situated ’just’ beside Heena’s suite and handed the keys to Samuel. Thanks to the grandmother’s terrifying wrath, Samuel literally didn’t have to stand on guard outside the door all night like a common sentry anymore. He had his own adjacent room, completely connected to hers.