Vol 2 Chapter 7 – A Personal Maid’s Service【Vol 2 – Personal Maid = Mistress!?】

A night had passed.

Not that anything beyond kissing could happen with Flora before the wedding ceremony.

For now, we were simply engaged. Nothing more.

I’d been given a guest room in the royal castle, and I’d slept there alone.

Morning light spilled through the window, and I opened my eyes. The luxurious canopied bed was deep and plush — I’d slept better than I had in years.

Flora had told me I didn’t have to do anything.

And she was right. There was nothing I could do, and no way back to my old world.

I decided to take it easy.

After years at a black-company, working myself half to death, sleeping in a little surely wasn’t a crime.

That thought had barely settled when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I called.

A young woman in a maid’s uniform stepped into the room.

She was young — probably not too far from Flora’s age, I guessed.

Her most striking features were her pale chestnut hair and cool gray eyes.

Where Flora radiated brightness and warmth, this woman carried herself with a composed, almost reserved elegance. Beautiful in a completely different way.

That said, her figure surpassed even Flora’s. Even beneath the maid’s uniform, the generous curves of her chest were impossible to miss — full and soft in a way that tested the fabric — and the swell of her hips was equally striking.

She placed a hand to her chest and inclined her head in a graceful bow. The motion sent a ripple through her figure that I caught for exactly one moment before I looked away.

One moment. I was fairly sure she hadn’t noticed.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Iris.”

“Oh — nice to meet you…”

“I have been appointed as your personal maid, Kazuki-sama. From this day forward, I will attend to your every need. Please do not hesitate to give me any order you wish.”

“Thank you. I’m in your hands, Iris-san.”

A polite smile touched her composed features.

“I am a maid, so there is no need for honorifics. Please simply call me Iris.”

“Ah — right, of course. Iris, then.”

This was a society of social rank, and I was about to become Emperor by way of marrying an Imperial Princess. Old habits from Japan were going to get me in trouble. An Emperor using formal language with a maid would probably unsettle her more than anything.

“Your bath has been prepared.”

“Oh — right. I was thinking about sleeping in, but I suppose morning baths are the custom here…”

There was probably some kind of ritual involved — purifying the body, changing into imperial attire, that sort of thing.

Iris’s expression softened slightly.

“Of course, if Kazuki-sama wishes to sleep in, there is no difficulty with that whatsoever.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It was Her Highness Princess Flora herself who promised you that you may do nothing and live exactly as you please. If that is so, then seeing to it that Kazuki-sama’s every wish is fulfilled is my duty as your maid.”

“I see. Thank you. But since the bath’s already been drawn, I’ll take it.”

Someone else had prepared a bath for me. That alone felt like the height of luxury.

I made my way toward it with a little more spring in my step than I’d expected.

As it turned out, the guest room came with its own private bath adjoining the suite — separate from whatever grand bathing hall the castle had elsewhere.

The castle of an Emperor, I thought. Of course it does.

I undressed and stepped in.

The bath was spectacular — marble walls, a deep soaking tub filled to the brim with steaming water.

What surprised me most was a fixture along the wall that functioned almost exactly like a showerhead. It seemed to run on magic, but the result was familiar and entirely welcome.

I was rinsing off beneath it when the door to the bathroom opened.

“Excuse me.”

It was Iris.

Except she wasn’t wearing her maid uniform.

She had a single bath towel wrapped around herself. Barely.

I panicked. I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

“I-Iris-san — what are you doing?”

She tilted her head, apparently puzzled by the question.

“I’ve come to wash your back.”

“No, but — you can’t just do that for a man you barely know — that’s not something anyone normally—”

“I have received direct instructions from Her Highness Princess Flora to attend to Kazuki-sama in every capacity.”

“Still—”

“If I fail to carry out my duties, I expect Princess Flora will be quite displeased with me.”

She said it with a certain theatrical helplessness that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing.

I gave in.

If I refused outright, it would probably make things genuinely difficult for Iris.

I settled onto the low bath stool. Iris took her place behind me.

And then something soft pressed against my back.

That sensation…

Iris was pressing her chest against me.

“I-Iris!?”

“My, I was told that gentlemen find this method of washing quite enjoyable.”

“You’re not wrong, but you’re also completely wrong—”

She had applied something — bath oil, or a soap of some kind — directly to her chest. The towel was gone. As she moved, the slick warmth shifted against my back, and the sensation was—

Ah… mm…

Her warm breath brushed across my ear.