From the very moment Florielle came to an understanding of what she had seen her lord and the young lady of the Malverin doing......

That understanding gave way to the realization of her own true feelings.

Ever since then, Florielle still craved her lord’s touch, only this time.....

She understood that she wanted more than just those harmless touches that were endearing and comforting, but lacking any promise of something more.

Her earlier fantasies for some time in the distant future being together with her lord and starting a small family just like the one she had before and lost.....

had now transformed into a need that seemed almost primal, instinctual. And inasmuch as her fellow maidservants were not the best of people, she gained a lot of insight into what it means to be a woman from them. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

With her mother and both elder sisters out of her life, Florielle had to learn from wherever she could. And she came to an understanding and acceptance of her own urges, and what her lord means to her.....

She just has to show him that she was as much of a woman as the other young lady, and hopefully they could share something deeper, something like he’s shared with her.

But no matter how much Florielle tried to get her lord to see her that way, it always led nowhere.

And then it happened again.

This time with someone who was only staying with her lord as a guest, and they hadn’t even been that familiar with one another, at least not as familiar as she was with her lord hero.

Florielle saw the same scene repeat before her while she pretended to be asleep; she saw her lord doing to yet another young lady what she had so hoped for.

That’s when it dawned on her that she had never actually been appealing to him, at least not in that way.

She also realised she had misread his actions and taken them the wrong way, attaching them to her own greedy desires.

Florielle chided herself for trying to step beyond her station.

Her lord was a kind man who treated her so warmly because that was just the person he is; trying to force what he doesn’t want was quite selfish of her. She thought.

So Florielle decides to revert to her proper role as a maidservant and fulfill her duties diligently without causing any inconvenience to her beloved lord.

But it was easier said than done, as with every passing moment, her feelings, which she had now accepted for what it was, were threatening to spill forth whenever she was even in the vicinity of her lord.

Now his touches were no longer just comforting... it was causing her to feel things she’s only ever heard her fellow maidservants describe in passing.

So it was also a battle for her to continue doing her job diligently without giving in to her urges and throwing herself into her lord’s arms once again, and just beg him to do to her what she had seen him do to the others.

But she was able to maintain this charade.... up until today, that is.

Florielle had been busy in the middle of doing her regular day-to-day chores and taking care of her lord’s laundry, one of her now favorite activities.

It was then she noted the arrival of yet another gorgeous young lady, as she was soon subsequently invited into her lord’s cabin...

Aware of what was coming, she acted as a regular maid would and excused herself from the cabin’s premises, and went directly to the maidservant’s quarters to wait a while before returning after a few hours to conclude her duties.

Florielle then returned to her quarters to turn in for the day, jumping into her mattress in an attempt to sleep. But sleep did not come this time.

She tossed and turned several times on her mattress but couldn’t go to sleep.

She was experiencing a hurt she couldn’t bottle up this time, and she also couldn’t bring it up to the one person she had come to see as her source of solace for fear of putting him in an uncomfortable position with her raw feelings.

Florielle didn’t realize when, but she was already back in her uniform, her body, absent of her conscious thoughts, was already out of her mattress.....

And with a hand-held mana lamp, she had begun making her way towards her lord’s cabin while shedding uncontrolled tears.

Before she knew it, she was already standing in front of her lord hero, sobbing, and rather than fight it, she decided for the first time in her life to be selfish....

to be selfish for herself, and for what she wants and desires.

"You.... you did this to me!"

Zorat was lost for words as he looked curiously at his late-night guest.

He quickly went through his recent memories to see if, at some point during that evening, he had done something in particular to this young lady to warrant her appearing this broken.

But he found nothing.

Of course, he knew Florielle was going through some stuff recently, causing some drastic changes in her mannerisms, but he had planned to have a sit-down with her.

She said her condition is my fault?

I wonder how I’ve managed to hurt her so....

Hehehe... funny bunny....

Zorat has one of his investments in Florielle’s special skill, and his intuition tells him she needs to be in a well-balanced mental state as one of the prerequisites for that special skill to bloom.

So, seeing her this way was not only unacceptable for his own personal reasons, but also because, strangely enough, he had developed a fondness for the young lady.

One that apparently grants her the benefit of saying such words to him and making him second-guess his past actions if he had inadvertently hurt her.

I guess it’s time we had a little chat...

"First. Come here. Come sit down...." Zorat invited, patting the space by his mattress for Florielle to come over as he got out of his meditative pose.

Florielle slowly walked over and sat right where Zorat had indicated, and as she sat, she was a bit startled when she felt Zorat’s hand on her face, gently wiping away her lingering tears.

This caused a sweetness to blossom in her chest, with both his tender action and his touch, which she had been deprived of for quite some time now.

"There. Don’t spoil your pretty face with sad tears." Zorat added with a warm smile that caused Florielle to swoon even more as she turned to him suddenly, looking even more flustered.

She felt it was acts like this that had caused her to develop such inappropriate feelings and urges for her lord, yet he does it without realizing what he is doing to her.

Her emerald eyes glowed like rubies with lingering shine from her welling tears....

She held her lord’s gaze in a silence that stretched, looking nervously into his star-ridden eyes that sparkled with a soft smile on the corner of his face...

Florielle’s heart rate rapidly climbed as she mustered the courage to finally mutter the words she’s slowly wanted to say to him....

"Why..." she uttered with a bittersweet smile on her face, holding her lord hero’s gaze to hers.

"Why don’t you see me as a woman ?"