The Maid With a Child - Chapter 20

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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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20. The Lady’s Dress
What if she stayed home and only the child was brought to the Royal Palace in his hands?
“Y-yes… I… I suppose I must go.”
There was no need to actively bring about the catastrophe she could already foresee.
Racalt nodded vigorously, as if to say what an obvious thing that was.
“But… why does His Majesty suddenly wish to see the child?”
Once her shock subsided, it was time to worry about him—the one who always came calling.
Fear suddenly made its presence felt.
His Majesty? Me? Why? Everything’s been fine so far. There’s been no problem.
And he’s no ordinary person—he’s the King.
Most commoners like Adlen never even learned who the King was in their entire lives. To people of common birth, the King was a figure as distant and untouchable as the heavens themselves.
“I suppose he simply wants to see for himself.”
But Racalt, whose workplace was the Royal Palace, took it in stride.
He even thought it worked out well.
It was right around the time the child’s rapid growth had begun to grate on him.
He didn’t know when this dangerous creature might suddenly shoot up in size and tear out Tepplan’s throat, so Racalt too was eager to deal with the problem quickly.
“Hurry and get ready. Do you mean to keep His Majesty waiting?”
“Oh! No, of course not! I’ll prepare at once… but what should I wear?”
Adlen’s movements, which had been frantic, suddenly lost direction and stalled. She had no knowledge of such things and didn’t even know what to hurry toward.
“Head Butler.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve prepared something. Adlen, wear that.”
Adlen followed the Head Butler’s pointing finger with her eyes.
“Huh?!”
And at the sight of the resplendent dress unfurling before her, her mind went blank.
“I had the other servants search your wardrobe, but how is it you own only a single set of clothes? Worse than even a maid’s uniform—so I decided to lend you the late lady’s dress instead.”
“Th-th-the lady’s d-d-dress, me…?”
“Yes, it’s the most modest one she had, so don’t burden yourself too much with it.”
But the burden had already mounted well beyond her head.
“W-what if I d-damage it…?”
“It’s a dress without an owner now.”
“B-but it’s still the lady’s dress…”
Not just anyone’s—it belonged to his mother, the late Countess.
“W-wouldn’t it be better if I borrowed something from the other servants instead?”
“There’s no time.”
What was all this fuss about simply putting on a dress?
Racalt grew irritated.
To him, a dress was merely a dress.
Even if it were his mother’s keepsake, it meant nothing to him. There were no tender memories to ache over when he thought of it.
And even if there had been, the years had been long. In all that time, fighting with the Emperor’s blade had dulled his feelings until they moved not even before traces of his mother.
“Just wear it, Adlen.”
The Head Butler, watching his master’s expression, gave Adlen’s back a gentle push.
Adlen let out a hesitant sound and was ushered along with the dress into the dressing room.
“Sigh…”
In the end, she had no choice but to put it on and go out.
Though they said it was the most modest, the sensation of the fabric slipping through her fingertips was luxuriously smooth beyond measure.
She was afraid to grip it naturally lest her careless touch might tear it. If it had been kept as a keepsake, surely it was something quite precious.
Lord, the master—something as expensive as the child, even that terrified her.
A single dress like this… I couldn’t afford it even if I spent my entire life.
But the master was waiting outside.
No matter what, it was time to gather her courage.
She had always wanted to wear a dress at least once in her life, but it was supposed to be a wedding dress. Not this burdensome dress of the late lady.
Adlen began to sigh deeply and work her body into the dress.
Strangely enough, the late lady seemed to have had a figure quite similar to Adlen’s own. With no excuse to claim it didn’t fit, the dress fit perfectly.
“I… I’ve finished putting it on…”
She wanted to finish with the dress quickly, and to get through this audience at the Royal Palace quickly too.
The claim that it was a simple dress seemed to be true—it was a straightforward design she could manage alone.
As she cracked open the dressing room door and emerged, the gazes of two—no, three—men snapped toward her all at once.
“Well… I almost didn’t recognize you.”
The Head Butler was the first to offer his impression.
Adlen, flustered by embarrassment, scratched at her cheek and hurried toward the child.
“Ugh…….”
“?”
But the child hesitated and pulled her hand away.
“Young mistress?”
“Adlen?”
Only when Adlen called out did the child blink and look at her properly—or rather, it seemed she didn’t recognize her. Just as the Head Butler had said.
“Do I really look that different?”
If she’d known this would happen, she should have checked herself in a mirror before leaving. It wasn’t because she looked strange, surely.
Adlen belatedly felt through her hair and body here and there, checking her appearance. But there was no way to tell anything by touch.
The last person left to judge her was her master.
For the whole day at the Royal Palace, it would be her master beside her. If her master said it was fine, then it was fine.
“Master, am I… all right?”
Adlen turned to Racalt, her eyes brimming with concern.
Racalt was already looking at her. Sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed and arms folded, he didn’t move a muscle.
He stared at her in silence for a long moment without answering, then finally finished his deliberation and slowly opened his mouth.
Adlen, who had been watching only his lips, tensed up and swallowed hard.
“……Was that dress always like that?”
“Pardon?”
But his appraisal was nothing she had expected.
It wasn’t even really an appraisal.
The Head Butler was equally bewildered and turned to Racalt.
“Pardon me, sir? Is there something wrong with the Dress? It looks perfectly fine to my eye…….”
Wondering if perhaps there was a storage issue, the Head Butler approached Adlen and inspected her carefully. But there was nothing wrong with how it was worn, and the Dress itself was immaculate.
“That’s the plainest one she has, isn’t it?”
“Pardon? Well…… yes, sir. Though I should say, it’s a Dress she only wore when visiting places like shops, not for parties or such occasions…….”
Racalt had spent almost no time with his mother. So there was no way for him to know which Dress she wore and when.
Rather, the Head Butler remembered more accurately.
“Your mother’s taste was quite elaborate, it seems.”
“Pardon? I wouldn’t say it was particularly…….”
The Head Butler didn’t catch the hidden meaning in Racalt’s remark and fluttered helplessly.
What on earth was he saying about the Dress?
Was he saying it was too elaborate in a good way, or a bad way? But objectively, that Dress was not elaborate at all.
Adlen, too, was fretting nervously, wondering if something was wrong after all.
The Head Butler looked her over once more, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, carefully and thoroughly.
Even on second inspection, it was simply Adlen in a plain Dress.
“……Does it look too elaborate, sir?”
He decided to ask the master directly about his preference, and the answer came without hesitation.
“Yes. Add some jewels to that and she could attend a party just as is.”
“…….”
Then the Head Butler finally understood what the problem was.
It was his master’s eyes that were the problem.
Having spent so long on the Battlefield, he had clearly forgotten how elaborate an ordinary noble woman’s Dress could be.
Well, on the Battlefield, they say any woman wearing a skirt looks like a woman.
It was certainly not because Adlen had a strikingly elaborate appearance.
‘Oh dear, our master…….’
If his warped aesthetic sense extended to being generous about women’s appearances, that would be terrible.
Such a catastrophic loss of Sigelion’s pride—that handsome face disappearing in just two generations—must not come to pass.
To restore his master’s deranged sense of beauty, the Head Butler steeled his resolve.
“If I may say so, sir, that level of dress is something even a young lady from a wealthy commoner’s household might wear—not necessarily nobility.”
“……Is that so?”
At the Head Butler’s words, Racalt narrowed his eyes and examined Adlen even more closely.
Would their master’s aesthetic sense truly recover so quickly? Both Adlen and the Head Butler waited with bated breath, tensed and anxious.
Soon enough, Racalt nodded as if he understood.
“Ah, now I see what you mean, Head Butler.”
“You do, sir?!”
“Yes, it certainly isn’t elaborate.”
“Indeed, it is not!”
“It’s lovely.”
“?!”
The Head Butler and Adlen were simultaneously struck speechless with alarm.
Among them, only Racalt stubbornly held to his own opinion.
“It was beautiful and looked splendid. Now that I think about it, Adlen was quite lovely.”
……
……
Neither of them could say anything.
They could feel all too clearly that their master harbored no ulterior motive. And that was precisely why words failed them.
She felt as though she’d been seduced by the century’s greatest libertine—except he hadn’t seduced her at all.
Was it his ambition, then, to conquer High Society next after the Battlefield?
The Head Butler gently set aside the worry he’d briefly harbored about his successor’s appearance.

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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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