The Maid With a Child - Chapter 63

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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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63. A Battle Among Adults
“Master, couldn’t you come along to the Jellent Family party with me……?”
“What?”
The condition Adlen had finally settled on was completely unexpected.
He might have understood if she’d demanded he stay out of sight entirely, or that he walk the main road five times with another woman at his side, but this?
Attending together? Wouldn’t that be the surest way to turn speculation into certainty?
Racalte tilted his head, unable to divine her intention.
“It’s possible that not only the Baby’s parents or guardians might attend. Siblings could come too…….”
“And then?”
“If you could just show a little interest in one of them — someone respectable — in front of everyone…….”
…….
In other words, she was asking him to openly flirt with another woman in public.
The requests just kept getting stranger.
She was an insufferably presumptuous maid.
“You don’t know how relentlessly a rumor about a woman can stick, do you?”
If she were simply being impertinent, he could dismiss her. But Adlen had struck at something deeper — pity.
Racalte had never possessed pity. If he had, he would not have survived this long. His life had simply been what he himself had carved from necessity.
Yet he found he could not ignore pity for Adlen. To dismiss her and then feel his own heart grow heavy — that was no dismissal at all.
Her request was neither impossible nor grandiose. It was small enough that closing his eyes and granting it would amount to saving one person from something, and he could bear that much.
“……This time only.”
And so he relented.
“Yes! Yes, thank you so much, Master!”
Her joy was so bright that he had no chance to regret the concession.
* * *
But Racalte was not a god.
There were situations beyond his control.
“Honey, where did you put Yunia’s diapers?”
“Have you seen my husband? He’s gone out for a cigarette again!”
“My goodness, it’s grown so much already? Oh dear……soon enough there’ll be talk of marriage.”
This was why Experience mattered.
Neither of them had known that the Baby’s birthday gathering was a family affair.
Had Adlen come alone, it would have been disastrous.
But Racalte’s presence transformed it into disaster of a different kind.
“Well, the two of you came together, how lovely…….”
“I heard rumors that you two were married in secret. Is it true?”
There were no women present who would simper or play coy. Every woman in attendance was a married mother.
Adlen was the only unwed person in the room.
The appearance of the sole unmarried pair seized everyone’s attention at once. Rumors about them had already spread far and wide; there was no avoiding it.
“No.”
Racalte denied their curiosity flatly.
“Come now, you needn’t be coy. How could your heart not turn, spending every day beside such a lovely young lady?”
Racalte glanced back at Adlen.
She had summoned the stylists from before and prepared herself with care, and she was beautiful, as always.
But beauty alone did not move him to want anything. He shook his head.
“I believe affection is properly shared only between those who have agreed to pursue shared long-term objectives together.”
That is, between those whose interests align such that marriage becomes a matter of mutual accord.
At Racalte’s words, the women exchanged glances before breaking into warm laughter.
He frowned. It had not been meant as a joke.
“But then it wouldn’t be affection at all!”
“It usually works the other way around, my lord. The heart moves first, and then we scramble to make the arrangements fit.”
Noble marriages happened young, and these women — lecturing him as though he were beneath them — were all younger than Racalte himself.
“I see.”
And so he did not truly listen to them.
The thoughts of those whose life’s purpose was marriage and family could not help but differ from his own.
‘But Adlen?’
Then his thoughts turned in that direction.
Racalte hesitated.
He had always assumed that the noble life was lived as he lived it. Yet here, before his eyes, these nobles — and Adlen, a mere maid — were saying the same thing.
‘Was this the universal way?’
It was a moment when the measure he had held all his life began to crack.
The family’s honor and profit came first—not the heart?
Racalte found himself adrift in confusion.
Meanwhile, the arrows turned toward Adlen.
“So what about Adlen?”
The gathered nobles had already learned her name and were calling her with easy familiarity.
Adlen was taken aback by their friendly approach.
She’d expected gossip at worst, perhaps isolation at best. This casual warmth was entirely unexpected.
“I’m sorry—what do you mean?”
“Count Sigeliun’s companion.”
“Why would Racalte….”
“He may seem frightening from a distance, but surely there’s something different about him up close?”
“He’s frightening up close too.”
There was no need to fabricate an answer.
Adlen simply spoke the truth.
“Ah…….”
“I see…….”
One voice offered sharp denial; another confirmed he was frightening. A dry wind seemed to pass through the room.
Those who’d been probing half in jest fell silent, embarrassed, and turned their gazes elsewhere.
Today’s invitation to the Crown Prince of Moern had not been meant to unearth the truth about these two.
“I want the red-and-gold one with the blue trim!”
“I want the yellow one!”
“I want the red-and-gold too!”
The real purpose was to draw the Crown Prince of Moern into their circle and naturally cultivate his favor.
A hostage, yes—but one of royal blood. So long as Moern remained on the map, that bloodline’s value would not diminish.
The nobles interpreted the King’s public presentation of him in countless ways.
‘His status as Crown Prince of Moern has been recognized and maintained.’
‘Even a puppet king may ascend the throne.’
‘His marriage will surely be arranged with a Teplan family.’
Whether or not the Moern royal bloodline held great significance, moving in accordance with the King’s will would bring them considerable gain.
If the King wished the Crown Prince to enter Teplan’s society, they were obliged to welcome him.
Those with daughters among their children calculated even further ahead.
“Havel!”
“I want Havel!”
“Me too!”
But there existed a world of pure childhood that no adult calculation could penetrate.
Children began gathering around Havel, clamoring for attention.
The children assembled today were much the same age. Their desires were simpler than the complex machinations of adults—and all the clearer for it.
“Havel is mine!”
“He’s mine!”
“No, he’s mine!”
Children were ruthlessly honest judges of beauty.
The hesitant children from before now shrieked their claims to possess Havel.
Havel was a beautiful child in the eyes of both adults and children alike.
But there was only one Havel, and far too many children who wanted him. Competition ignited in an instant.
When children’s quarrels caught fire, they became fiercely vicious.
“Move over!”
“He’s mine!”
The children pushed and shoved and scrambled over one another.
To the eyes of the adults, it looked like nothing more than adorable tumbling. They all watched with smiles.
“You—get away!”
Then an accident unfolded that drained the blood from every adult face.
The children clinging to Havel were girls. Naturally, the boys found themselves excluded.
A child’s jealousy was no weaker than an adult’s—if anything, stronger. One boy kicked Havel hard across the back.
!
Havel was not the sort of child to take a blow lying down.
He wheeled on his attacker, caught both his legs, and slammed him to the ground.
“Oh no!”
Adlen leaped to her feet and rushed toward the children.
She could not stand by and watch any longer. If this continued, there would be a real disaster.
“Are you all right? And this young one too—are you hurt?”
Only Adlen rushed to gather the two infants.
“Waaah!”
The Baby, struck hard by Havel, burst into tears.
Adlen broke into a cold sweat, searching with her eyes for the child’s parents.
Then a couple approached from that direction.
A chill cut sharply across their faces.
Now the battle belonged to the adults.

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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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