The Knight's Mysterious Maid
Chapter 88: First day (1)

Chapter 88: First day (1)

"Don’t wake him up. Don’t wake him up," Annalise whispered as she slowly turned Rafael’s doorknob to go inside.

The sun was high in the sky, but she heard Rafael and the knights had a late night, so breakfast would be late. Annalise enjoyed not having to run around with everyone so early in the morning.

Annalise poked her head inside the room to get a good look at Rafael’s bed and saw him asleep on his bed with his torso exposed. Annalise eased her way inside and closed the door just as slowly as she had opened it. She wanted to get everything on her list done without waking him.

Mavis told her to open the curtains first to let some light into the room, but Annalise felt that would wake Rafael too soon. She planned to bend Mavis’s list to work for her.

Annalise began to take up the armor placed on his table and move it to where the other armor was on the shelves. She moved her thumb along the puncture marks where Rafael had been struck by something. ’He must have been training with swords instead of a wooden stick. How bold.’

One by one, she quietly moved his armor and carefully slid the shirt he must have taken off before bed off the side of the bed, where it was barely hanging on.

Annalise gulped, keeping her eyes on Rafael, who slept with one hand placed behind his head, the other thrown off to the side of the bed, his chest exposed, and the blanket covering the other half of his body. From where she stood, pulling on the shirt to get it off the bed, it looked like he was also wearing nothing on the other half of his body, but she hoped that was not the case.

Annalise sighed in relief after she got the shirt off the bed without waking him. She balled it up and took it to the basket of clothes she would give one of the other maids to wash. Annalise then proceeded to go inside the bathroom to get his bath started. Each step she took pained her that she was serving Rafael Callahan this way. The only way to get over this shame would be to one day kill him.

At the sound of the bathroom door closing, Rafael woke up. The smallest sound in his room would always make him wake up since it might be a threat.

Rafael squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again to get used to the darkness in his room. He looked at the curtains, which would have been opened by Edwin around this time. Edwin’s heavy feet would always wake him up.

Rafael found it odd that Edwin was not here yet, but then he remembered that this was now Annalise’s job. It was her first day on the job, and she was already late. Rafael sighed, deciding to stay in bed a bit longer until she arrived, but the sound of something dropping in his bathroom alerted him.

His right hand instinctively reached for the knife sitting on the table beside his bed. He considered Annalise to be here, but since he had not heard her fumbling around the room as she entered, he doubted she was there. It couldn’t have been Edwin since the butler would open the curtains before going to the bathroom.

Similar to a cat stalking its prey, Rafael quietly got up from his bed and walked to the bathroom door where more sounds could be heard as he approached. He lowered his guard when he heard the sound of water running. Unless someone had snuck into his bedroom to drown him, Annalise was inside his bathroom.

Rafael pushed open the door and just as he assumed, Annalise was on the floor, smelling the variety of soap he had placed on a shelf. "How the?" he paused, looking back out to the rest of his room. It was impossible for him not to hear that she was in there from the moment she entered.

Rafael now noticed that the room was already tidied, with his armor placed where it belonged.

"Sorry," Annalise said, getting to her feet now that Rafael was present. Why was he already awake? Had he heard the soap she dropped? "Uhm, is this how you greet your maid?" She asked, pointing to the knife in his hand.

"How long have you been in here?" Rafael asked, still in disbelief that she had been in his room without him noticing until now.

"For a few minutes, maybe? Was I supposed to wake you as soon as I came in? I thought I would get your bath started and then open the curtains to wake you up. I will wake you up first next time. Are you angry with me?" Annalise questioned him because the way he was staring at her like she had grown a second head was starting to worry her.

She could not have messed up on her first day. If she were in Rafael’s position, she would appreciate not being woken until her bath was ready.

"You should have woken me up the moment you walked into the room. Even if you were to tiptoe, you would wake me up. What are you?" Rafael inquired since it was impossible for her to be human. No one had ever gotten into this room so quietly before. Not even when he slept outside during his travels and there were attempts to end his life.

Annalise looked off to the side before looking back at Rafael, who seemed quite serious about his question. "A woman?" She answered with a smile. What else was she supposed to say? That she was a witch and flew in here on a broom.

’Me being a witch would make sense as a maid. There is always a broom near me. That would make a good story,’ Annalise nodded her head, getting lost in her thoughts.

Rafael didn’t know what answer he was looking for. It was suspicious that she had entered his room without making a sound to wake him, but what could she say to explain it other than that she was trying not to wake him?

Rafael rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was more tired than he felt and that was why he had not heard her in his room. "Forget it. I apologise for scaring you with the knife," he said, putting it behind his back to not scare her more than she might already be.

"I wasn’t scared," Annalise replied, looking away from Rafael again. She didn’t want to be rude and keep her eyes on him, even though he was wearing pants that fell to his ankles. The problem was that the pants hung too low around his waist. It was no wonder she assumed he was naked earlier.

"Then why can’t you look at me?" Rafael asked. She was looking everywhere but at him, like the bathroom was more interesting than him.

"Because you are not properly dressed and I do not want to be rude with my staring," Annalise answered.

"So you do know not to stare at men when they are not properly dressed," Rafael mused, unable to stop the smile that followed.

"I have never..." Annalise trailed off as she recalled the night he returned. "Please allow me to prepare your bath.

Rafael chuckled as he closed the door to give her some space to be embarrassed.

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