The Maid With a Child - Chapter 75

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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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75. The Courage to Share a Bed
“Oh! No, that won’t do, Racalte. How could you possibly—”
Adlen started back in alarm, moving to stop him.
Racalte paid her no mind and continued with his work.
“Master!”
Adlen, growing increasingly flustered, tried again to reach for the pieces.
But Racalte’s hand cut her off once more.
Her wrist was caught firmly in his grip.
Adlen fell silent, as if it were her lips, not her wrist, that had been seized.
Racalte’s hand was large enough to engulf hers entirely—her wrist, two-handed, he could hold in one.
The sight of him handling rough labor so casually with such delicate hands rankled her. Especially now that she was wearing a dress, not a servant’s uniform.
“When you’re wearing a dress, don’t move like a maid.”
It was the same reasoning as why she was to call him Racalte, not master, when others were present.
He disliked seeing her shrink into herself, groveling at the bottom rung. He wanted to see her stand straighter, more assured, her shoulders back—proud.
“But that doesn’t mean you should be doing a servant’s work—”
Yet watching Racalte crouch down, attending to menial tasks, was itself unbearable to Adlen.
The two of them stood at an impasse.
If both forbade the other from working, who was left to do it?
Just then, a knock sounded at the door.
“Forgive the intrusion. I heard porcelain break. Are you well?”
The voice belonged to a composed man.
There had been no word of anyone calling. Perhaps a passing attendant? But Adlen couldn’t move carelessly.
It could have been an operative sent by Hokulion.
The guard that had loosened over these peaceful days wound tight again. Her eyes, sharp with caution, fixed on the door—and then Racalte moved.
Without hesitation, he swept the door wide open.
“Oh—”
The person beyond froze mid-knock, hand still raised.
It was an attendant.
“Ah, porcelain has broken, I see.”
Startled at first by the sight of another door filling the frame, the attendant quickly regained his composure.
Looking past Racalte—that living doorway—into the room, he grasped the situation at once.
“I shall clean it up.”
Racalte stepped aside without protest.
Suddenly there was a third hand to do the work. Racalte folded his arms with satisfaction and leaned against the wall.
The attendant crouched before the broken porcelain and began gathering the pieces.
But then Adlen made to bend down as well. Racalte bristled, about to intervene.
“Ah, no.”
Yet the attendant was quicker, urgently staying her.
“Yes?”
“Such work is rightly my domain. Please, withdraw your hands.”
“But—”
I’m a maid too, she meant to say.
Yet the attendant paid no heed to unspoken objections, his hands moving with practiced efficiency.
Should Adlen protest, his manner promised a dozen rebuttals in return.
“You’ll be in danger there. Come here instead.”
And now her master had commanded it as well.
Adlen shuffled reluctantly to Racalte’s side.
“You must be tired holding the baby. Sit down.”
Racalte drew a nearby chair over and seated her in it.
The attendant and Racalte both treated it as the most natural thing in the world.
But Adlen felt as though she were sitting on pins.
No matter that she now wore a dress and occupied chambers granted only to nobility in the Royal Palace—she was no true lady. She was a maid.
A Royal Palace attendant carried the experience and connections of a high steward in some great house. If they had met when she was still a servant, he could have crushed her with a finger.
Adlen’s body grew rigid with discomfort.
“Going forward, please summon an attendant for such matters. Never attempt these tasks yourself.”
Before leaving, the attendant gave Adlen solemn instruction, having finished even the mopping with perfect care.
“But I’m not a lady—”
Fearful the misunderstanding would spiral beyond repair, Adlen gathered her courage and made the correction.
Yet the attendant shook his head once more.
“By His Majesty’s decree, any guest residing in the palace is a guest regardless of station. You are indeed a lady.”
“…….”
He already knew exactly who she was.
So if he still insisted she was a young lady, then she should accept it as the law of the Royal Palace and be done with it.
“A young lady, you say…….”
She’d been dragged to countless noble gatherings, yet she’d never heard herself addressed by such a title.
There were people who called her Adlen warmly enough, but it was hardly different from how one addressed a personal maid.
Yet the Attendant had treated Adlen as though she were a superior.
“The King’s favor transcends one’s station.”
Racalte thought such treatment of Adlen was only natural.
After all, he and his father had raised Sigellion to its current position precisely through that favor.
“So the King’s favor truly is extraordinary…….”
Favor was a reward that surpassed any material wealth.
But Adlen knew better.
The King did not favor her. Rather, he was cautious of her—wary that she might obstruct Racalte’s marriage prospects.
It was Racalte who favored her.
And that was enough.
Thanks to his favor, she was living a magnificent life that plain maid Adlen could never have dreamed of.
She’d never sought it, yet in abandoning the modest dreams she once held, she’d sometimes felt despair—but living this life, she found it was good.
Receiving kind and courteous treatment from everyone, seeing only beautiful things, eating only delicious things, wearing only fine clothes—the life of a proper young lady, as they said.
And now, to stay in a room of the Royal Palace itself.
Adlen gazed around the chamber with quiet contentment.
“Ah.”
Then she noticed something she’d overlooked.
“Master, there’s only one bed?”
She’d assumed there would be a servant’s chamber attached.
But the room was just one space, and the bed was just one.
Unlike the large, plush sofa she’d used at the Sigelion Estate, there was no such thing here.
Two single-seat sofas by the tea table, one narrow bench sofa by the window.
Racalte answered without much concern.
“If there’s only one bed, it’s fitting that you and the Crown Prince share it. These sofas are too narrow for two to sleep on.”
Indeed, he was generous with his favor toward her—overwhelmingly so.
Adlen swallowed tears of gratitude at such considerate treatment, almost unbelievable between master and servant.
“But what about you, Master?”
“I can use the sofa, spread bedding on the floor, or even sleep sitting. It doesn’t matter.”
“I can sleep anywhere too. Still, you should take the bed, Master…….”
She felt moved by his favor, but she couldn’t accept it thoughtlessly without objection.
Adlen politely declined his kindness.
“Not the Crown Prince.”
“That—”
“You wouldn’t expect me to sleep in the same bed as the Crown Prince, would you? That’s not practically possible.”
But Racalte rejected her refusal with an irrefutable reason.
Adlen stared at the bed, troubled.
She couldn’t ask the King for another chamber.
The two men besides her had to sleep in the bed, and one of them couldn’t sleep without her there.
The answer came quickly.
“What if we all sleep together?”
Racalte looked at Adlen.
The phrasing sounded a bit strange once she’d said it aloud. But there was no other way to put it.
It was literally about sleeping in the same bed, all three of them.
“I’ll need to put the Crown Prince to sleep anyway, so I’ll be sleeping in the bed. But surely there’s no maid who’d let her master sleep on the floor.”
It was the best solution she could devise.
“Are you certain?”
“……Now you’re making it sound even stranger. We slept together last night too, and now suddenly…….”
Adlen’s words trailed off.
Last night too? Now suddenly?
……That phrasing was even stranger.
Racalte was looking at her as though he’d finally seen how thoughtless this woman truly was.
* * *
But her nervousness before getting into bed was somehow even more strange, more, more strange than her words.
‘Master isn’t the type to do anything!’
This was certainly safe.
‘There’s nothing between Racalte and me!’
What current? You need air for a current to exist in the first place.
When it came to romantic feelings between man and woman, she was in a perfect vacuum.
‘Nothing actually happened!’
Even sharing a bed had been Racalte’s consideration for her.
His kindness in attending to her distress even as she slept left no room for misunderstanding.
‘And yet, still, but even so!’
Lying down in that bed of her own accord required courage.

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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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