I Was Marked as the Grand Duke Male Lead’s Stepmother - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 19

After putting Fleur to bed, the first night shift began.

As expected, Morgan hadn’t eaten dinner. Marisselle entered the study carrying the dinner that Porel had prepared, just as she had done during the day.

“Your Grace, excuse me.”

Morgan only briefly nodded at Marisselle’s entrance before immediately turning his gaze back to the documents.

That made sense, as the pile of documents seemed to have decreased, but seeing that it wasn’t much different from what she’d seen during the day, it appeared more work had been added in the meantime.

‘He’s showing the perfect example of someone buried in work.’

Should this be called the downside of working from home?

A structure where the boundaries of work become blurred, making it impossible to finish work and causing one to work continuously.

That’s why parents raising children have such a hard time. When the space for working and resting is the same, there’s no closure and they end up working continuously.

How stressful it must be when psychological and physical boundaries between people are blurred or nonexistent.

In that regard, Morgan must be under quite a bit of stress too, even if he doesn’t show it, right?

Also, with the fate of the duchy resting in his hands, how heavy his shoulders must feel!

The more that’s the case, the better one should eat and take care of their health.

Still, perhaps because he’s a knight trained through rigorous training, his stamina seems to be good.

Seeing how fine he looks even after staying up all night working like that.

‘Is it because I have terrible stamina? That’s enviable.’

Marisselle placed the dinner on the table, just as she had done during the day.

Today’s dinner menu was meat pie, wine, and salad.

Though she wasn’t particularly fond of meat pie, this one looked quite appetizing.

The salad was the same one she had eaten with Fleur during dinner.

It had been delicious on its own, but when eaten with the sauce, the sweet and sour taste had been quite appetizing.

She naturally thought it would be perfect for a change of mood and boosting energy during the night.

“Your Grace. How about taking just 5 minutes to have a light meal?”

“Just leave it there. I’ll eat when I have time.”

Morgan answered without even looking up.

“Your Grace, you’re not someone who has time, but someone who must make time.”

Marisselle grumbled inwardly as she moved the additional pile of documents to her desk.

‘As if he’ll ever have time.’

“No matter how much a knight is trained through rigorous training, unless you’re a god, you’ll collapse if you don’t eat. So please come and eat. Also, the chewing motion will generate new energy. That will improve your work efficiency too. Therefore! I recommend eating now. The meat pie is still warm. It seems to have been freshly baked for Your Grace. Please eat it quickly.”

Marisselle’s attempt to somehow convince Morgan to eat had strangely turned into a motherly tone.

Marisselle realized her mistake.

Looking at him, he was indeed letting out a small laugh as if finding it absurd.

“Are you threatening me with food right now?”

“No, threatening? Your Grace. I’m saying all this because I’m worried about you.”

“That insolent look in your eyes.”

Oh, really.

Marisselle felt wronged.

What’s with always calling me insolent at every turn? Then what, are you telling me to give you flirtatious glances?

If I gave flirtatious glances, you’d probably scold me for that too. What exactly do you want me to do?

“…Then Your Grace, what kind of look should I have? If it’s not to be an insolent look…? Would this work?”

Saying this, Marisselle gently curved her eyes into crescents.

And she filled her eyes with the tender light one would have when looking at someone beloved, gracefully curved her lips upward, and smiled at Morgan.

Thump!

Morgan felt as if his heart had suddenly dropped for a moment.

And soon it began beating rapidly as if he were sprinting at full speed.

The moment Marisselle smiled, the surroundings instantly disappeared and only her smiling face was visible.

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut before opening them.

Then the face that had approached him disappeared, and he could see her standing in front of the desk.

Morgan was quite bewildered by the strange phenomenon he had just experienced.

Why did these strange phenomena occur so frequently when he was with Marisselle? He was confused.

‘I must have seen things because I’m hungry.’

He comforted his surprised heart like that.

“Ahem.”

He cleared his throat as if feeling awkward for no reason.

‘No, what exactly am I supposed to do? Do I really have to go that far…?’

When he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, Marisselle was mortified to death by her own behavior.

“Well. That should be enough.”

“Pardon?”

Marisselle was so surprised by the unexpected answer that her voice cracked in disbelief.

What, he wants me to smile at him like this? Really?

Such a cunning smile? When I deliberately made an exaggerated expression?

Then what was that about squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head earlier?

‘It’s really hard to make a living. This damn class society.’

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

Marisselle returned to her seat with a tearful expression.

‘Sigh, today is definitely strange.’

Morgan felt bewildered again.

Why on earth did she look cute when making that tearful expression?

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them like before, then shook his head lightly.

And this time too, he pretended to be unable to resist Marisselle’s insistence and sat down at the table where food was prepared.

He wasn’t the type to enjoy eating, and with his naturally good stamina, missing a few meals had never been a big problem.

Seeing Marisselle take care of meals like this, Porel must have asked her to do it.

Just like he had with Rino.

When Rino nagged him, he ate because he was annoyed and didn’t want to hear any more irritating words, but Marisselle was different.

When Marisselle spoke, it was bothersome but not unpleasant. He didn’t feel annoyed either.

This was his first time working in the same space as a woman.

He could have felt repulsed, but there was no such feeling.

She wasn’t just good at her job as Fleur’s governess, but was also quickly and efficiently helping with document sorting. She was being quite helpful, in other words.

Morgan looked at Marisselle, who was sitting in Rino’s seat working silently.

The calm pink dress that reminded him of their first interview, her hair half-tied back and flowing down, her slender fingers holding documents.

Though it was night and she must be tired, the rosy flush blooming on her pale skin reminded him of an elegant pink rose.

Her downcast eyes with long eyelashes created beautiful shadows, her nose of just the right height—neither too low nor too high—as if drawn, and below it her small red lips pressed together like a painting.

Then, Marisselle lowered her head as if trying to examine the documents more closely.

The purple hairpin in her hair sparkled.

It was the hairpin Morgan had given her as a gift.

‘Pretty. Next time I should give her something prettier and more expensive.’

Seeing the hairpin he had given sparkling in Marisselle’s hair, Morgan felt proud and suddenly his mood improved.

Then he focused on the documents again.

* * *

The third night of overtime work.

Seeing that the work wasn’t progressing, Marisselle decided to take some special measures of her own.

From today on, she would not only do simple sorting work, but also sort, summarize, and compare so that Morgan could see the key points and handle work immediately.

Looking at the documents, quite a few had lengthy introductions at the beginning with the main point appearing near the end.

If there were something like Post-it notes, work processing would have been much easier, but since there weren’t any, she reluctantly asked Porel.

To prepare blank paper, colored paper, and clips.

Porel, being the capable butler he was, prepared them generously.

Marisselle set aside documents that needed to be compared with previous materials.

And for other materials, she summarized them on blank paper and clipped them together with the original documents so they wouldn’t get separated.

So that Morgan could see only the key points and process them quickly.

For things that were ambiguous to summarize or that she didn’t understand well, she didn’t make major changes and only left marks indicating which line to start reading from before passing them to Morgan.

“…!”

Morgan was surprised as he looked at the documents that Marisselle had sorted and handed over.

When working with Rino, minor tasks with low priority were handled by Rino himself who would only report back, so this was his first time encountering such a work processing method.

Just separating the documents would have been helpful enough, but she was saving him even more time than what he had requested.

‘At this level, she could work as an aide without any problem…’

Could it be that Rino knew about this when he said he coveted Marisselle?

Morgan thought this even though he knew it was a ridiculous idea.

Meanwhile, as Marisselle placed a stack of organized documents on Morgan’s desk and was about to leave, Morgan stopped her in her tracks.

“Have you done document assistance work before?”

“Um… No. I haven’t.”

“Then, you came up with this method in the past few days?”

“That’s… right.”

Marisselle rolled her eyes around and answered after a pause.

Because she had done similar work a lot in her previous life, so it was ambiguous to say yes or no.

She had done a lot of document work in her past job, and perhaps because she had the knack for grasping key points and summarizing from studying for civil service exams, thinking of this work method came very naturally to her.

‘This somehow feels like Morgan is praising me for being competent?’

Marisselle’s thoughts ran ahead and she couldn’t help but grin.

“Your Highness, is there some problem…?”

“No, not at all. You’re doing the work better than expected, so it’s reducing my burden.”

‘I knew my thinking was right.’

As they say, praise makes even whales dance, and hearing the compliment made her feel good. Very much so.

“Thank you for the praise, Your Highness.”

Marisselle bowed politely and flashed a bright smile.

“…!”

Seeing Marisselle’s smiling face, Morgan’s heart began to race again.

‘This is driving me crazy. My heart keeps racing at random times, I should get a medical examination soon.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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