Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 30

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 30

It was only natural.
Living again after one life—this time, I finally had a family. Precious people I cherished and who cherished me in return.
Sacrifice all of them for my own safety? Absurd.
Impossible. Utterly impossible.
“…wouldn’t it work? Or perhaps sister could marry a bit sooner…?”
“No.”
“Why, why not? Even if our eldest brother…?”
“No.”
“If you married into the Castrain Ducal House, we could definitely protect you!”
“Who marries for protection! It’s not even easy to divorce!”
“Brother would agree too!”
That was precisely the problem.
I exhaled sharply. No, your brother despised me so thoroughly—jealous, angry, clingy, and then causing accidents—that he would probably…
—I have finally come to understand why I viewed you as vermin until now. I am simply grateful.
A man who recites lines like that!
The stubborn type who abandons his betrothed, dances with another young debutante at her coming-out ball, and then refuses even a word of comfort to his weeping, desperate fiancée—not even the bare courtesy of an apology!
It was just then.
“What do you mean I would agree to such a thing?”
…Raymond entered the room abruptly. I stared in surprise at Bibi’s maid—a former assassin—who had opened the door without a sound.
Yet the woman regarded Bibi with her characteristic expressionless face, as if merely attending to her duties as she ought.
Bibi seized the moment, her face alight with triumph.
“Perfect timing, brother!”
“Bibi?”
“Listen! Sister said she’d absolutely take my side, but she refuses!”
……
The man’s lips, which had begun to open as if to recite some platitude about respecting another’s wishes, pressed shut again. He alternated his gaze between me and Bibi, his expression thoughtful.
What could he possibly be deliberating about? Now?
“Because if sister becomes bait, then the Castrain Ducal House is in danger too! So I thought…!”
Did she really just blurt that out to Raymond without thinking?!
Put like that, I sound like some magnanimous benefactor genuinely worried about the Ducal House! I turned to Bibi, blanching.
“Bibi! That’s—that’s not what I meant at all!”
“So if you and brother got married sooner, wouldn’t that solve it?”
What sister hawks her brother’s marriage as repayment?! Bibi, wasn’t this not your character?! Besides, we still have years before we come of age!
Regardless of my gaping shock, Raymond’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Bibi’s words.
“…That could indeed be one approach.”
“An approach?! That’s madness!”
“Though the covenant with the Imperial Family does present some complications…the Emperor will likely consent.”
“Won’t you listen to what I’m saying? I said no. I said it’s impossible. And even if I married, the Emperor has more than enough means to…”
“The Castrain Ducal House is hardly so incompetent as to fail in protecting a Duchess.”
But that’s precisely my point—I have no such value that would be worth the risk of…
I was so thoroughly exasperated that the words caught in my throat.
Protect me? Me? If I became a Duchess?
In that moment, I came to understand the original Titania’s circumstances far too well.
Yes. She threatened Bibi’s life, so she was destroyed so thoroughly, all the way to the bottom. Ignored until then like a nuisance, but once she attempted to poison precious Bibi…
So now, having saved that precious Bibi’s life, my circumstances must have reversed one hundred eighty degrees.
Yet somehow, it was both amusing and sorrowful.
So I lifted my head. With eyes of an almost crystalline gold, I looked at Raymond watching me with that strange intensity, and at Bibi, whose eyes sparkled with anticipation.
“I’m afraid I cannot trust the Ducal House, however much it may wish otherwise.”
I smiled.
Even though I had saved Bibi, I had eaten, worn, and enjoyed things thanks to their kindness—I could even have the maids punished.
It was arrogant of me to speak this way. To think I might gain a scrap of favor, strike some trifling bargain, and thus continue living. To escape the Imperial Palace and live free of them.
If the me of those days saw who I am now, I would be laughed at.
It would have been easier to forgive Prince Adrian. It wasn’t even difficult. And yet…
“Everyone knows the relationship between the current Imperial Family and the Ducal House, and everyone knows the conduct of Titania, whose arrogance and ignorance led her to obsess over her betrothed. Why would you so readily claim that I should enter the Ducal House and become its future Duchess on such certainty?”
Bibi’s gaze grew distant, her eyes lowered to the floor. I felt a pang of guilt toward her.
But toward Raymond—yes, toward Raymond, who speaks of marrying me so easily—
This was something I had to say at least once.
—Why didn’t Raymond love me best?
After nearly dying and awakening, the things the young Titania had endured pressed upon my heart with particular vividness.
That memory shone most clearly.
Never even presented at her coming-out, without a single connection outside the palace to invite her—Titania, confined within these walls like a bird raised in captivity, had grown so small.
Unable to appear anywhere save within the palace’s hosted soirées, she changed her gowns daily, painted her face so thickly that no skin showed through, and combed her hair again and again.
Like a flower wilting away. Her letters went unanswered. Yet she waited—waited—and waited still for even a single line in reply.
Though she was endlessly foolish, proud, awkward, and blindly devoted, Titania loved Raymond.
Because he was different from her—acknowledged by everyone. Because he seemed to shine. Because he was the first ‘betrothed’ she had ever known, she who had no real family.
How well-matched they seemed—such a handsome gentleman and such a lovely young lady destined to become a pair.
When had she heard this? At their first meeting?
Hearing those words, she thought she must always be beautiful for Raymond’s sake. If she were not beautiful, then surely she would lose her right to be his betrothed.
Even if her love was endlessly foolish, blind, and one-sided, it was still love. Though the heart she had cultivated was misdirected and took no proper form, it was undoubtedly real.
……
No matter how obtuse one might be, one cannot fail to perceive the true feelings of the one you love.
Perhaps that was why, that day, seeing her betrothed dance the debutante’s first dance with some other young lady, Titania had despaired.
Why didn’t Raymond…?
It meant nothing.
Seeing his gaze descend cold and dull, offering no explanation—she understood then, bone-deep.
I loved Raymond most of all, and yet…
Everything she had done until then meant nothing.
Titania had nothing, so even that foolish love was nearly all she possessed.
To negate it was to negate her entire life.
Hundreds of gowns changed, hundreds of times her face redone. New flowers arranged with each passing season, replaced again and again. Yet never once did she buy a smile.
If that were so, was not the meaning perfectly clear?
There was nothing wrong with the gowns, the makeup, or the flowers.
The problem was her.
So she wept, not caring if her makeup ran.
It didn’t matter.
Raymond—her betrothed, the one she loved—truly…
Never cared about her at all.
Perhaps that is why, at last, she lingered on the second-floor balcony, seeking to capture her mother’s attention.
Still clinging to Raymond, still craving his love, yet resigned in the deepest recesses of her heart.
For she had only ever lived as something pretty and foolish—a doll, the future lady of the Castrain Ducal House—and so she simply continued as she always had…
Yet having relinquished even the single being she had believed would show her affection, perhaps—just perhaps—she had turned her attention to her mother in a desperate sort of hope.
Though he had ignored her when she wept and pleaded with him before it came to this.
Though he had brandished a sword and threatened her when the princess who had died and awakened spoke of unknown information at tea time.
“You should be cautious.”
Raymond’s expression wavered.
Against all likelihood, he seemed disturbed. Perhaps even regretful.
Regret? How foolish. It was only the dead Titania’s dream.
She had only ever wished—just once—that her betrothed might regret losing her, that he might have regretted it unto death. That he had only then taken her hand, loved her, come to regret it too late.
A child’s dream. Endlessly selfish, blind, and foolish. Like all the dreams of the dead, forever destined to remain unfulfilled.

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