The Maid With a Child - Chapter 71

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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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71. The Worst Invitation
‘Why is she like that? What is she even doing?’
Having attended so many parties of various kinds, Adlen had come to believe they were all more or less the same.
The parties Adlen was invited to were mostly hosted by people eager to befriend Havel early on.
Wherever she went, the place teemed with babies, and she’d spot the same faces she’d seen before.
Only the host, venue, and concept changed slightly each time.
But this party was entirely different.
The other guests were all people she’d never seen before.
What’s more, they only stole glances at Adlen before clustering together among themselves.
Despite having been invited, she felt like an unwelcome intruder.
“Master, when will you arrive…”
The party hadn’t even started, and she already wanted to go home.
But she couldn’t leave, so she had no choice but to stand waiting, craning her neck for Master.
As she kept her eyes fixed on where the carriage would arrive, she noticed Ewin approaching in her direction.
‘Ugh.’
She barely knew this person, yet such a wave of distaste kept surging up unbidden.
Adlen rarely found herself disliking anyone without careful consideration, but this woman she truly despised. And she couldn’t even pinpoint why. She simply did.
“Miss Havel, what’s that? Wow, a duck!”
“Duck!”
“Duck, quack-quack! We’ll go for a boat ride in a little while and see the ducks too. Oh, how exciting. Right?”
Adlen used the flimsy duck as an excuse to edge slowly away from Ewin.
But Ewin was moving far more quickly.
“Oh, there you are. You m-must be thirsty, so I, I brought you something to drink.”
In the end, Adlen found herself face-to-face with Ewin at the lakeside, a short distance away.
Ewin held a cup in each hand. The contents had sloshed over the rim as she hurried over, trickling down the side of the glass.
The spilled liquid had soaked Ewin’s hand completely. She offered it forward just as it was, wet and dripping.
Adlen’s hand didn’t move readily—it looked so unpleasant.
She didn’t realize she was frowning.
“Go on, h-here.”
Ewin thrust the cup forward again.
By now, Havel had toddled off quite a distance away on her own. If Adlen didn’t get rid of this woman quickly, she wouldn’t be able to follow the child.
Adlen grudgingly accepted the damp, wet cup.
“Thank… you.”
“Oh, p-please drink it.”
“Y-yes, of course.”
She sensed Ewin wouldn’t back off unless she at least pretended to drink.
Adlen squeezed her eyes shut and brought the cup to her lips.
The moment the cup’s contents touched her mouth, Adlen jerked it away in shock.
“This is alcohol, isn’t it?!”
“What? Y-yes, why?”
“I c-can’t drink. And how could I, with the child here?”
At parties where Havel was present, alcohol was scarcely served. When it was, it was only a light aperitif, and only those who wanted it drank.
Adlen had never once tasted alcohol in her entire life.
She wasn’t particularly curious about it either—and besides, alcohol was expensive.
She had no desire to start now. Least of all from this unpleasant Ewin, not here alongside Havel.
“But, but this is my sincerity, so p-please drink it.”
“Y-yes…?”
She thought one refusal would make Ewin back down. The reason was clear enough.
Instead, Ewin stepped closer, her body pressing in, hemming Adlen in.
“Why, why are you doing this?”
An ugly premonition crawled across her skin.
She no longer even had the composure to smile it off.
But Ewin was in the same state.
“Drink it, I s-said.”
The forced smile evaporated entirely. The eyes that had feigned kindness turned sinister and cold.
“I don’t want to…”
Adlen stepped back, shielding Havel behind her body, when—
“Damn it, you b—, you won’t even take what I’m offering!”
“?!”
Harsh profanity suddenly burst forth.
Though she’d been caught up in all sorts of rumors before, this was the first time she’d heard such vulgarity thrown at her directly.
Her head rang as if struck by the words themselves.
“What gives you the right to refuse what a noble offers you! How dare you! Does His Majesty calling your name once make you think you’re someone special?!”
“Why, why are you—”
Ewin had transformed into a madwoman in an instant.
Adlen stumbled backward, all color drained from her face.
“Sigelion? That butcher boy got some money and found himself one kept woman, so now a mere maid thinks she can ignore me, does she? Does she?!”
“I, I never—”
“You, with your pretty little face, flirting with every man in sight, playing with them, and you think I wouldn’t notice? What kind of shameless creature gets airs like that!”
There was no reasoning with her. Ewin shrieked and raked her claws toward Adlen.
Adlen spun to flee, panic flooding through her, but the billowing dress tangled around her legs. In seconds, Ewin had her by the hair.
“That Sigelion won’t last long anyway. What could a butcher boy possibly offer—His Majesty will use him a few times and discard him, so you should have simply come to me when I showed interest! You should have submitted then!”
Good heavens.
She’d taken her for merely timid in other settings. But truly, no one ever knows what lies beneath another’s skin.
What alarmed her most was discovering that this woman harbored such impossible fantasies about her and her master. Was it people like this who spread those strange rumors so rampantly through society?
“Help me! Someone help!”
Adlen screamed and flailed her arms toward where the crowds had gathered.
Oh no. In her scramble to escape Ewin, she’d gone too far.
Her cries echoed uselessly across the empty lakeside.
‘Guards, guards, please!’
Yet Adlen did have an escort—one Racalte had sent with her.
From where they’d left the carriage, the knight couldn’t venture past the point where guests were gathered, so he might be watching from somewhere, or perhaps not at all.
“Agh!”
Ewin shoved Adlen to the ground.
She threw herself on top of her and pinned her down with her full weight.
Adlen clenched her teeth.
She never thought in her life she’d find herself in such a position. Yet regret wouldn’t create an escape route.
Instead, Adlen groped across the ground until her fingers closed around a large stone.
Trusting that her master would somehow make this right, she swung the stone with all her might.
“Ahhh!”
“?”
The stone hadn’t seemed to connect with anything, yet Ewin shrieked and collapsed in a heap.
Adlen’s eyes fluttered open cautiously.
A tall shadow loomed before her, and she caught her breath.
Could it be a knight, or her master?
That thought flickered through her mind in the instant.
But the figure standing before her, the one who’d struck Ewin down, was a masked stranger.
“General Kias…?”
The masked man she’d seen before.
Though his black garments were subtly different, his bearing was unmistakable.
The masked man didn’t answer, but it might as well have been a confirmation.
“You… the maid from that time?”
The masked man’s body went rigid, as if startled by something.
Adlen had no idea why, so she simply stared back at him blankly.
With the sun at his back, his face lay in deep shadow. Even his eyes, the only part not hidden by the mask, were invisible, leaving his expression unreadable.
“You…”
“My baby?!”
Tucked against Kias’s side was Havel.
Adlen went pale.
Yet she didn’t reach out her arms toward the child.
Not after learning Kias’s true identity and his connection to the baby.
At Adlen’s hesitation, Kias let out a short laugh beneath his mask.
“Are you repaying me for saving your life before? Were you just going to let me take him quietly?”
“…That wasn’t the plan… but my baby…”
Wouldn’t the child be far happier if she returned him to his family now?
That thought came to her in that brief moment.
“Wahhhhh! Adlen!”
But Havel thrashed and began to wail.
“My baby!”
At that single cry, Adlen’s entire resolve shattered.
Not all families lived in harmony and happiness, just because they shared blood.
Havel’s family was no exception. But who would raise him without using him for politics, thinking only of his happiness?
No one knew.
“No! Don’t!”
Adlen clung to Kias’s leg, hanging on desperately.
“The baby is crying! That means you’re not him either!”

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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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