Elara's new status as a "permanent, unusual talent" instantly changed her relationship with the Alistair household, both the staff and the family.
The maids, initially suspicious, now watched her with a mixture of awe and calculation. Mrs. Petrov, the Chief of Staff, kept a respectful, cautious distance. Elara was Victor Alistair's personal project, and the seasoned staff knew better than to cross the Boss's fancy, no matter how illogical it seemed to promote a maid for polishing a table too well.
Elara, for her part, simply focused on the new assignments Victor had given her—the rooms no one else dared touch.
🌿 The Greenhouse Wing
The greenhouse, once a source of pride for Helena Alistair (the Matriarch), had fallen into ruin after she became preoccupied with the society calendar. It was a humid graveyard of wilted exotics and cracked glass.
Elara approached it like a botanist, not a maid. She didn't just clear the dead leaves; she cleaned the glass panes one by one, allowing sunlight, starved for years by grime, to flood the interior. She didn't use store-bought fertilizer; she sourced specific organic compost mixtures and spent an entire day repotting the few remaining, struggling orchids.
Her most radical decision was to replace the dead, common shrubs with hardy, rare varieties she knew could thrive in the specific microclimate of the old wing. She recalled her brief, intensely focused time working with a renowned, eccentric plant dealer who only dealt in species known for their resilience and unexpected beauty.
Within two weeks, the wing was transformed. It wasn't jungle-lush yet, but the air smelled clean, earthy, and hopeful.
Helena Alistair, swept up in a rare bout of nostalgia, decided to inspect the greenhouse herself. She stepped inside, fully prepared to be disappointed. Instead, she paused, her hand hovering near a young, vibrant Black Jade rosebush Elara had introduced.
"This is… extraordinary," Helena murmured, touching the deep, burgundy edge of a leaf. "Mrs. Petrov said a new girl was working here. Did you hire a professional gardener, Victor?"
Victor, who had grown fond of checking Elara's progress on his way to his office, smiled faintly. "No, dear. Just Elara."
Elara's success wasn't just about cleaning; it was about restoration. She fixed not just the house, but the small, neglected emotional spaces within the family.
💔 The Peacemaker
Her unexpected role as an unofficial marriage counselor between Marcus (The Married Twin) and Chloe (His Wife) also solidified.
Chloe began to seek Elara out, initially under the guise of "requiring assistance with a tricky clasp" or "needing an extra pair of hands."
"He just doesn't see me, Elara," Chloe confessed one afternoon, sitting on the edge of her perfectly made bed, tears glistening. "He sees his father's expectations, his business, everything but me."
Elara listened, folding a pristine shirt with practiced precision. Her past—being forced by her non-loving father to work as a temporary youth counselor, dealing with the raw, neglected emotions of troubled teenagers—had given her an unmatched emotional literacy.
"Ma'am, with respect," Elara said softly, her eyes on her work. "Perhaps he doesn't know where to look. When you ask him to see you, do you show him a place to stand?"
Chloe frowned. "What does that mean?"
"You ask for space, and then you criticize the way he fills it. He knows how to fight, but he doesn't know how to apologize without making it transactional," Elara explained. "Next time, tell him one specific, small thing you miss. A moment, a look, a shared joke. Not a demand for the future, just a memory of the past."
Later that week, Marcus and Chloe had another argument, but this time, it ended differently. When Marcus retreated to his study, sullen and defensive, Chloe found him. Instead of shouting, she leaned against the doorframe and simply said, "Do you remember the day we got caught in the rain in Rome, and we laughed for twenty minutes under that ridiculously small umbrella?"
Marcus, stopped mid-sentence in a frustrated email, looked up. He didn't know how to handle this gentle memory. The fight was gone. The couple didn't fix their issues instantly, but they started talking to each other, not past each other, thanks to Elara's quiet intervention. Chloe, grateful, began treating Elara less like staff and more like a cherished confidante.
🌙 The Coincidence
It was the end of Elara's fourth week. Her shift had officially ended hours ago, but she couldn't sleep. The staff quarters, though safe, were stiflingly small. She craved the wide, open air her transient childhood had allowed.
She remembered an unused service staircase marked on the old house plans. Following it led her, not to a storage room, but to the Outer Garden Rooftop Patio.
It was late, the air was cool, and the entire Alistair estate lay silent beneath her. The terrace was small, bordered by neglected climbing jasmine, and furnished with a single, old wrought-iron bench. Elara settled on the bench, pulling a thin sketchbook and a charcoal pencil from her pocket. She had learned to draw portraits on the streets of Paris for quick cash; now, she sketched simply for release.
She was engrossed, drawing the striking pattern of the moon filtering through the city smog, when she heard the soft, hesitant scrape of a door opening nearby.
She froze. She was trespassing.
A figure stepped onto the patio, dressed in dark lounge clothes. He carried a half-empty glass of amber liquid. He was tall, with the refined features typical of the Alistair lineage, but his shoulders were slumped, his posture communicating a profound loneliness.
It was one of the twin sons, but she couldn't tell which one. Julian or Marcus? She had only seen Marcus up close a few times when delivering tea, and she knew the twins were physically identical.
The man walked straight to the railing, staring out at the city lights. He looked deeply unhappy, almost fragile.
"I didn't think anyone else knew this place existed," the man murmured, not looking back, his voice low and melancholic.
Elara slipped the sketchbook closed, her heart pounding. She considered fleeing, but she sensed no threat, only isolation, mirrored in his voice.
"It's a wonderful secret," Elara whispered back, her voice barely audible.
The man turned slowly. He saw the maid in her uniform, sitting quietly on the bench. He hesitated, clearly surprised, but a moment passed where their eyes met, and in that fleeting second, Elara felt a distinct difference from the strained intensity she had witnessed in Marcus. This man's eyes held a deep, quiet sadness, like a still pond.
"Are you… one of the staff?" he asked, not with arrogance, but genuine curiosity.
"I am," Elara replied. "And you must be Julian, or Marcus Alistair."
The man smiled, a genuine, tired curve of the lips. "I am Julian," he confirmed. "And I assure you, right now, I'm the twin who wishes he could trade places with the staff."
Julian took a step closer, stopping a respectful distance away. He looked up at the vast, distant moon, and then back at the small, resilient woman sitting beneath it.
"It's a beautiful night to be lonely, isn't it?" he said, and Elara knew, in that moment, that this was the beginning of a conversation that had been waiting to happen.