The Maid With a Child - Chapter 56

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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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56. A Husband at Home, a Master at Work
Being criticized, she could endure. That was simply how the world worked—you were destined to be torn apart no matter what you did.
Breathe, and they’d say you were unlucky for it. Hold your breath, and somehow that was unlucky too. Be beautiful and they resent you for it; be plain and they resent that as well. It was the way of the world.
But to fabricate outright slander? That was something else entirely.
Her master was a brilliant, beautiful man who would marry someone equally worthy. And she herself had no desire to be woven into such ridiculous gossip, to become the main character in some sordid rumor.
‘I have to set this straight!’
Adlen quivered slightly as she looked toward Racalte.
Sensing her gaze, Racalte turned to meet it.
“What is it?”
“People are saying the most ridiculous things, sir. They’ve gotten the wrong idea about our relationship…….”
“Let it be. Rumors fade naturally on their own. There’s no need to concern yourself.”
Racalte seemed genuinely unbothered by what he’d heard. He answered promptly enough when Adlen pressed him, but not with the answer she wanted to hear.
“Just fade naturally?”
Even among the servants, rumors spread like wildfire—that the two of them were meeting in the Warehouse at night, and so on. While such talk did eventually peter out, there were cases where people let go of someone they genuinely cared for because of it, or found themselves entangled with someone they didn’t even like, swept up in the moment. Rumors were merciless.
Was High Society gossip any different? It couldn’t be.
When Adlen’s expression betrayed her disbelief, Racalte drew on his memory and spoke.
“There was once a rumor that I was to marry a certain lady after we’d exchanged greetings a handful of times. Then there was another about a lady I’d danced with once, that we were meeting in secret. Both faded naturally enough when each of them announced their engagement to someone else.”
……
Sir, that’s……
It seems more like the lady took swift action to escape the rumors…….
Adlen could not bring herself to speak the truth aloud, so she clamped her mouth shut in despair.
“Well, I suppose it could happen. We’re not entirely unalike in appearance.”
“Did she catch his eye while watching the baby, or did she catch his eye and that’s why she was given the baby to mind?”
“But wouldn’t they use someone who’s actually had a child of her own to watch a child?”
“She must have had the baby when she was very young…….”
“Then she has a husband too? So it’s really true—a husband at home, a master at work?”
The words that followed crossed a line.
Adlen’s and Racalte’s eyes froze in unison.
Sitting still, saying nothing, she was becoming—bit by bit—a dissolute woman of the most outlandish sort.
Would that promise her master had made, about taking responsibility even if he killed her half to death, still hold?
Adlen found herself seriously considering whether she should kill someone.
Everywhere, people found others’ love lives the most entertaining subject. And contrary to the truth, they preferred to believe the most scandalous version. This time, she simply happened to be the most conspicuous prey.
High Society was always a pond teeming with delicious morsels. She was merely a transient, dipping her foot in this pond once before pulling it back out.
Just get through this one time. Even if there were other occasions, the King’s birthday wouldn’t come around again for a year.
If she endured this one event and lived quietly thereafter, surely it would all be forgotten in time.
So Adlen bore it, and bore it again.
But enduring alone was not enough.
“Ah, maybe I should have a try at him too?”
“Not bad. The same woman as Count Sigelion? That’s quite the honor.”
“So you’re taking her off my hands?”
“Girls like that are done for once you throw enough money at them. Everything she does is for money anyway. In the end, Count Sigelion bought her off too, didn’t he?”
At that final, outrageously vile remark, Adlen’s fists clenched tight—but Racalte was already charging forward.
“S-sir Racalte?!”
She was the one being insulted, so why was her master the one rushing out?!
There was no time to think the matter through carefully.
Adlen’s body moved faster than her thoughts.
Her master would never charge forward just to have a polite conversation. Whatever his method—breaking a neck, throwing a punch, or anything in between—he was about to act on it.
‘No, that won’t do!’
Whatever might be forgiven in childhood, an adult—and the strongest general in all of Teplan, no less—striking an ordinary person would not be a simple matter to overlook.
‘Then!’
Her master had said he could protect her, no matter what. And now, Adlen trusted him absolutely.
As she ran, she spotted a table with bottles of beverages on it. Without a second thought, Adlen seized one of them.
“Aaaaah!”
Her first time striking another person became the moment she was dressed in her finest and bore the gaze of the most eyes in her entire life.
Crash!
The Glass Bottle that Adlen swung came down on the man’s head before her master’s fist could reach him.
“Aaaagh!”
As the glass shattered into fragments, the sound and sensation of the man’s head breaking filled the air alongside it.
Adlen stood frozen in the wake of the swing, trembling at the visceral violence she felt in her fingertips.
“Ah…… Adlen?”
Racalte froze.
The Baby froze.
Everyone froze.
As though time itself had stopped, silence descended upon the Party Hall.
Only the king could command such a thing—to silence an entire room in an instant. Yet Adlen had just done it.
“I, I, the insult, I, I c-cannot bear this!”
Adlen cried out, trembling violently.
Her breath came steep and shallow, flooded with terror, and by some cruel coincidence, sounded as though she was seething with rage.
“Ah, ah, ah…….”
No one at the Royal Palace’s Party Hall could have imagined such a thing occurring.
Even the man who had been struck stood dazed, incapable of speech.
Just as everyone had turned to stone, blood trickled down from the man’s forehead.
A sharp intake of breath.
Blood. Spilled.
She had thought herself grown accustomed to blood by now, but the knowledge that it came from her own hand struck with doubled force.
Adlen could bear the tension, the shock, the terror no longer. She lost consciousness.
Not intentional—but it was precisely the sort of delicate exit a refined lady might make.
* * *
The sensation against her back felt strange.
It was not the floor. Nor was it the finest bedding her master had purchased for her.
Then what on earth could this be?
Half-awake, half-dreaming, Adlen wondered.
It was firm yet soft. Warm as well. And it held her close with a snug, enveloping pressure.
“It seems she’s coming to.”
The voice of a stranger.
Adlen furrowed her brow and exhaled sharply.
“Hah……!”
The moment she opened her eyes, bright light stabbed through them.
“Are you conscious now, miss?”
“……Yes……?”
Strangers were looking down at her.
Her mind was already reeling; this only scattered it further.
“Adlen.”
Then a weighty voice rolled through her body, anchoring her thoughts.
Ah. It was her master.
The moment those strange faces had crowded her vision, her body had gone rigid with alarm—but at the sound of his voice, all that tension melted away.
His voice seemed gruff at first, yet held a hidden softness. The pronunciation was smooth, the tone warm.
Whenever she heard her master’s voice, her heart grew calm.
“Master…….”
Adlen called out softly to Racalte and turned her head.
Racalte met her eyes and nodded—a look that said, I’m here, so rest easy.
Only then did Adlen’s mind fully clear, and she took stock of her situation calmly.
“How did I…….”
“You saw blood and fainted. I brought you straight to the Rest Room.”
“Ah.”
So she fainted at the sight of blood spilled by her own hand—this was the first time she’d learned this about herself.
“……. And that man…….”
Racalte drew his brows together and looked at her.
“Why worry about that bastard?”
“It’s not about worrying for him. It’s about worrying for myself…….”
Fear came flooding back belatedly.
Adlen choked, swallowing tears.
“You said you’d take responsibility for whoever I struck. So… I’ll be all right, won’t I?”
At last Racalte smoothed the furrow from his brow and let out a quiet laugh.
“His Majesty himself said you handled it perfectly.”
“Really, truly?”
And yet she was merely a servant; he was a distinguished nobleman invited to the king’s birthday gala.
No matter how they assured her it was all right, she hadn’t dared hope it truly was.

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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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