Chapter 656: Martha’s Morning [Bonus - ]

Chapter 656: Martha’s Morning [Bonus Chapter]

The grandfather clock in the ground-floor corridor gave a dull click as its brass gears engaged.

...It was four in the morning.

Outside, Valoria City was drowned in deep ink-wash blue, with the streetlamps along the lane glowing like dim amber pearls through the fog.

The Silverleaf residence was wrapped in silence as well as the rest of the Houses in the area.

In the ground-floor servants’ quarters, Martha opened her eyes.

’Good morning.’

For thirty-five years her body had answered the tick of clocks so it was easy for her to sit up with her bare feet already finding the woven rug.

She was still wearing the midnight-blue silk set Harper had handed out the evening before.

It was absurdly luxurious, slipping over her skin like cool river water, with tiny temperature wards sewn into the hems to keep the hardwood chill from biting her ankles.

"Forty-five thousand credits for sleepwear," she muttered, smoothing the collar by the dim glow of her nightstand lamp. "Young nobility throws gold around like it grows on elderberry bushes..."

She tied her hair back with a plain linen ribbon, slipped into soft velvet slippers and opened her door.

The hallway smelled of last night’s oxtail stew... Decades of experience in this had turned her footsteps into ghosts as she crossed the hallway without rattling anything.

’I need to prepare for everyone...’

It was what she was being paid as a maid to do, though in her honest opinion, she didn’t deserve to be paid as much as she did but Lord Silas was quite generous.

’He’s too generous for his own good...’ She thought, she had paid her late husband’s medical bills completely too and Martha could even remember the faces of the debtors when she had come to pay them arriving in her Master’s car. ’So I have my own money...’

The woman twiddled her thumbs a bit, what was she going to use her salary to do? She really didn’t know... maybe buy more maid wear?

The kitchen was cold when she walked in and three minutes later it was warm.

She lit the low burners and set a heavy copper kettle of spring water on the grate.

Short-grain pearl rice from the market province went into a bowl, and she rinsed it three times until the water ran clear, then settled it into the cast-iron steamer with a strip of dried kelp and a spoonful of toasted sesame oil.

The kitchen filled with a soft hush of steam.

’He likes the rice firm,’ she thought, tipping the lid a quarter inch to check. ’Not too firm... It should be just enough that it holds its shape when he lifts it with his spoon. My goal is to get Master to take a second bowl.’

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Her knife moved against the end-grain block in a quick hypnotic rhythm as scallions fell away into paper-thin emerald rings and ginger became fine needles as well.

Dried shiitake, plumped in warm broth, were sliced into soft ribbons.

In the stockpot, kelp and dried fish had begun to give up their flavor, and a thin ribbon of steam carried the smell of the sea up to the ceiling.

’I’ll be making my favorite today... I hope Master likes it.’

She knew the first sip of the dashi would land on a tired man at the head of the table.

He would hold the bowl in both hands without thinking while slurping and his shoulders would drop several inches, showing all of the muscles on that his handsome fac—

’Mmph... Don’t be foolish, Martha,’ she scolded herself, catching a small smile on her own face in the glass of the cupboard. ’You’re the housekeeper.’

She turned the heat down under the stock anyway and hummed.

The salmon came out next, thick coastal cuts packed in sea salt the day before with their silver skin ready to crisp.

She laid the best piece in the pan first with skin down, and listened to it hiss.

Shhhhhh!

’This is how my mornings pass most of the time...’

She stood watching the skin turn golden and crackling at the edges, and she was already picturing him pulling it apart with his chopsticks, the flesh flaking in pale pink curls, and his face doing the thing it did when he thought nobody was looking.

’I cook and then think of Master Silas’s face... and how he reacts.’

It was perverted... perhaps a bit but she wanted to cook the best, especially since he looked several years younger when he was eating something good.

’Is it bad that I want to be his maid for a very long time...?’

The tamago went into a rectangular pan one thin golden layer at a time, folded and pushed and folded again, with a little sugar and a splash of the dashi so the egg stayed soft.

The first one she slid onto a plate was for Lia and it was sweet.

’Lia likes a lot of sweet food...’

The second she made less sweet which was the way Penelope liked.

’Penelope on the other hand is in the middle and then there’s... me...’

The third she set aside for herself and quietly wrapped the best slice in a napkin to tuck onto his plate while another one was kept aside for Harper.

While the miso stock simmered, she didn’t sit still as she moved through the lower floor like the weather.

Fwip!

The drapes were drawn back exactly four inches so the pale pre-dawn could touch the parlor floor.

The sofa cushions, dented from yesterday’s figurine wars, got fluffed and squared at forty-five-degree angles.

She wiped the cedar tables, gathered the empty tea goblets, swept up the gravel by the shoe rack, and checked the temperature on the panel then she went back to the stove and tasted the miso with the back of a spoon, and frowned, and added a pinch more spice.

’Master should give me a big headpat!’

By five-thirty, the entire ground floor smelled like heaven.

She checked the brass watch pinned under her apron and it was five fifty-eight.

"...It’s time."

She wiped her hands on a dry towel, climbed the stairs without a sound, and stopped outside Lia’s room.

Rap, rap, rap!

"Lady Penelope. Little Mistress Lia." Her voice was gentle, but it carried the weight of an iron bell. "It is six o’clock... The washroom water is hot, and breakfast will be on the table in twenty minutes."

From inside, a muffled agonized groan rattled the wood.

"Five more minutes, Miss Martha," Lia’s voice croaked into a pillow. "The blankets trapped me... the world is in danger and Big Brother has to clear the rift."

"The only danger, Little Mistress," Martha answered with dry unshakable composure, "is the extra unfinished math worksheet on your desk... If your boots are not on the first floor by six-twenty, I shall have to tell Master Silas you require extra supervision after school."

A sudden scuffle broke out behind the door.

THUD!

"Lia, get off my arm!" Penelope’s haughty hiss came through the panels. "You knocked my glasses off the nightstand! If we are late for the academy tram, the prefect will dock our deportment marks!"

"I’m moving! I’m moving! Where’s my left sock?!"

Martha smiled to herself, folded her hands over her apron, and went back downstairs to plate the food.

At six-twenty on the dot, chaos arrived.

Penelope and Lia came tumbling down the stairs with hastily brushed hair and navy-and-gold uniforms pulled tight.

The school had other uniforms and this was a Wednesday where they had to wear the second one.

Lia was still fighting with her red necktie while Penelope was checking the brass clasps of her satchel with her posture snapping into noble stiffness the second her loafers touched the ground floor.

"Good morning, Miss Martha," Penelope said with a small, dignified nod, and slid into her seat.

"Good morning, Penelope." Martha set down a steaming bowl of rice and a piece of glazed salmon in front of her. "Mind the tea... It’s quite hot."

"It smells incredible!" Lia dropped onto her cushion like a sack of stones and grabbed her chopsticks. "I thought I was going to starve in my sleep."

"You ate four honey pastries at ten o’clock last night," Penelope noted coldly, not looking up. "Your metabolism is terrifying... You resemble a locust..."

"I’m a growing child!" Lia shot back, mouth already full. "Locusts don’t do fractions!"

The heavy floorboards of the upper landing groaned.

Two figures appeared at the top of the stairs, and the contrast between them was so absurd that Martha had to press a linen napkin to her lips to smother an unladylike snort.

Harper came down like an empress arriving to greet her court and she was radiant.

Her long violet hair spilled loose over her shoulders like crushed silk, her skin was flushed and rosy, and her eyes were wide and bright with terrifying energy.

Her violet pajama shirt with the little golden stars was unbuttoned at the collar, and she floated down the steps with both hands tucked in her pockets.

"Good morning, everyone!" she announced, in a voice like a silver bell. "What a glorious magnificent morning! The air is crisp, the birds are singing, and I feel like I could wrestle a monster into submission with my bare hands! I slept like a baby!"

Behind her, Silas was being dragged.

He looked like he’d spent eight hours strapped to the bumper of an imperial supply train.

His hair was a bird’s nest of cowlicks, his eyes were hooded and bloodshot, with deep purple shadows under them like a necromancer fresh out of a grave.

His violet silk pajama shirt had been twisted into complete ruin around his torso, and there was a suspicious damp patch on the left sleeve, ringed in teeth marks.

He came down the stairs with the stiff gait of a wooden marionette with one hand gripping the banister as though his knees might go at any moment.

"I am never," he croaked, in a voice like iron on granite, "letting you into my room again! You’re banned... Banned! Don’t come to my house again!"

Harper turned on the third step, leaned back against the banister, and looked at him with a wide unrepentant grin.

"Oh, don’t be so dramatic! You make it sound like I subjected you to some kind of torture... I was resting. Anchoring my body against your warm sturdy frame, anyway, I found the accommodations so restorative that I’ve decided to stay another four or five days."

Silas stopped on the landing, his left eye twitching with violent exhaustion.

"Go home, Harper." He dragged both hands down his face. "You have an entire house to run... Go sleep in your own bed before you dislocate my spine."

"My own bed doesn’t have an oversized Gold Core heating furnace," Harper said cheerfully, hopping down the last three steps and strutting toward the table. "And my house doesn’t have Miss Martha’s cooking... I’m a guest! Hospitality is a recognized virtue in the Sovereign Realm!"

Martha came over from the counter with two heavy stoneware trays and a serene amused smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.

"Lady Harper is welcome to stay as long as she pleases... The house has several empty suites, and a lively presence in the halls is quite refreshing." She set a steaming bowl of dashi at the empty seat beside Silas. "Please sit, Master Silas... You look as though you fought three wars before dawn."

"I fought something worse," Silas muttered, collapsing into the high-backed oak chair at the head of the table. "An Awakened koala with a vacuum attachment."

Harper stuck her tongue out at him from across the table and picked up her soup with an appreciative hum.

Silas leaned back and let out a ragged exhale that ruffled his bangs s his shoulders were knotted into iron.

Rustle!

Warm hands settled over his shoulders.

He blinked and tilted his head back.

Martha had stepped behind his chair as her face was the picture of dignified service.

’She still looks cute...’

Her chin was held high, her starched white apron was without a crease too making her look elegant then her slender experienced fingers dug into the thick muscle between his neck and collarbone.

Knead! Press! Squeeze!

His mouth fell open.

"Ngh~"

A low helpless groan of relief rumbled in his throat as the knots along his trapezius started to melt under her thumbs.

"Ah... hell. Martha, you’re an angel... A saint..."

"You carry far too much tension in your neck, Master Silas," she murmured, pitching her voice low enough that the girls bickering over the salmon didn’t catch it.

Under that calm, her heart was doing something she hadn’t given it permission to do.

Her thumbs mapped the hard muscle of his shoulders, and she nearly salivated.

’Good heavens, it’s like kneading warm bronze and that purple-haired menace chewed on his arm all night like a fruit bat... Shameless.’

Master needed to be with her and Lia... they were his family, the others could come second.

"Is the pressure acceptable, Master?"

"It’s incredible." His eyes were half closed. "If you ever leave this house, Martha, I’ll bring you back... I can’t survive without you."

She laughed and let her fingers rest on the nape of his neck for two last strokes before she withdrew.

"You exaggerate. Eat your broth while it holds the heat, Master..."