The Maid With a Child - Chapter 8

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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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8. Far Too Tempting a Poisoned Mushroom
Adlen’s eyes darted about, avoiding his gaze, clearly uncomfortable.
She had rushed over because the situation was urgent, but taking on this baby was something she simply could not do. The risk was too great.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid I cannot…….”
“Double your salary.”
Adlen’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Double?
He was offering to double her salary?
Double in name, but if it was truly double her current wages, she could accumulate what most ordinary people saved for a wedding in just one year of work.
Her resolve—unmoved by the baby’s cuteness and pitifulness, untouched by her loyalty to House Sigeliohn, unshaken by her sense of duty as a maid and her pride in accomplishing whatever she was asked—wavered.
It was far too much money to refuse outright.
“……Triple?”
Lacalte interpreted Adlen’s stunned silence as hesitation and made another offer.
“No, wait, w-w-wait a moment, sir.”
Adlen panicked, cutting him off.
Double or triple her salary. Exceedingly, excessively, tremendously tempting. Yet so tempting it seemed like a poisoned mushroom.
“It’s not that salary is the issue…… well, it is, but……”
“Then what else do you want?”
“…….”
Adlen found herself at a loss for words.
The master who had always been glacially cold had become something almost pathetic.
This was no salary negotiation. It was begging.
“Sir, why are you pushing this on me like this? Within these walls, perhaps, but if you posted a notice for a nanny, surely skilled people would flock to apply. With this kind of salary, you could hire even the finest nanny in all of Teplan?”
“No. Outsiders won’t do.”
Lacalte refused flatly, shaking his head.
She was at least grateful he hadn’t said “It has to be you”—that would have been truly suspicious. If he’d said that, she would have run whether he offered triple or thirty times her salary.
“Why not?”
It terrified her to ask “why” of her master, but she was already halfway out the door. She thought she’d earned the right to be a bit contrary.
“It’s confidential. I need as few people involved as possible. Besides, recruiting a nanny right now would be like opening the gates and inviting spies in.”
If that’s what he meant, she understood.
House Sigeliohn had several peculiar customs.
One was that the servants showed considerable loyalty to the Sigeliohn name. The other was that they were tight-lipped. As a result, the security checks on outside merchants coming and going were particularly strict.
Before everyone in the outside world began spreading word, the very fact that the baby existed within Sigeliohn would not cross the compound walls.
Adlen groaned softly, looking down at the baby. Even amid this complicated and troubling conversation between adults, the child slept peacefully, its lips moving gently.
“I’m not asking you to care for her for life. Just while things are being settled—even just a few days.”
Seeing Adlen’s conflicted expression, Lacalte continued, pressing his case.
Her heart swayed like a leaf before a storm.
Truth be told, finding new work without a letter of recommendation seemed daunting. Getting a job without one meant starting from scratch, a complete novice again. Wages would naturally plummet to the lowest level.
Regardless of experience, few households offered treatment as good as House Sigeliohn’s.
And yet, on top of already good treatment, double, triple…….
Since he said just a few days, that meant she wouldn’t be bound as a nanny forever. If it was just that……, then maybe…….
Lacalte drove the final wedge into Adlen’s wavering heart.
“If you refuse, leave now by all means.”
“So… you’re not keeping me?”
“Then you’ll find out whose hands she dies in.”
“…….”
It could be my hands. It could be the assassins of Mohrn.
Sweet as sugar came the carrot, followed by a whip that would snap her neck clean off if it fell. Either way, it was extreme.
Adlen made her decision quickly.
“J-just a few d……days, then.”
“Can you do it?”
There was only one answer. Yes. Even unto death, yes.
Watching Adlen nod her head frantically as if terrified the whip would come flying, Lacalte smiled with satisfaction.
“However many days it takes, I’ll make sure you’re paid at least triple.”
So it really is triple now?
Adlen’s mouth fell open in surprise.
“Four times?”
The misunderstanding had quadrupled.
“No, no, no! Four times! I’m grateful enough for double!”
“What……?”
Lacalte’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“If men demand twice what they’re offered, they’ll ask for ten times when given five. Yet you’re offered four times your wage and want me to halve it to two?”
“I… well… it’s just that… the head maid receives double, and if I took four times that, it would be….”
They said that when a person’s greed grew too large, it brought ruin.
As a maid, Adlen knew the habits of the nobility better than anyone.
To them, who treated servants as little more than talking furniture, a promise made to a maid would hardly weigh upon their conscience.
Even if her master was different—who could say for certain? Perhaps after taking the money, she’d be silenced and disposed of with a wave of his hand.
If this entanglement reached as far as Mohrn, which was at war, then she—a commoner—had to tread carefully with every step. How many had she already seen lose their lives to greed, handing over their necks without even realizing it? A child raised without parents in the chaos of war had never known a life of ease.
Adlen swallowed hard, silently praying that her throat would remain intact even after she left this place.
“This is also a matter of House Sigeliohn’s honor.”
Lacalte emphasized the importance of this task once more to the maid who was refusing such generous wages.
“The command given by His Highness must be carried out without fail. All of that responsibility is included in the wages you receive.”
Adlen had heard the story when she first arrived at House Sigeliohn—of the Previous Count who rebuilt the family with nothing but a single sword.
That was why her master had been raised practically indoctrinated from birth to live for the sake of House Sigeliohn.
For her master, the name Sigeliohn was the reason for living, the goal itself.
The honor of House Sigeliohn.
It was a weight far heavier than four times her wages.
Adlen nodded, scarcely able to breathe.
* * *
Adlen dragged herself toward the Quarters.
Each day felt impossibly long.
Though she had gained much, what remained was nothing but a battered body and a weary spirit.
“I’m counting on you, Baby.”
Whether this child lived or died would determine whether she lived or died. If only the baby would grow healthy and strong. And if Mohrn’s affairs could somehow be resolved quickly, she might escape this childcare prison.
Adlen prayed not to the moon or the gods, but to the baby in her arms.
“Mmm….”
The baby answered with a soft coo.
The exhaustion from crying all night had finally caught up, and the child slept soundly even as Adlen’s steps rocked the small form.
“I wish the baby would sleep this well for the rest of the night, and tomorrow, and all the days after….”
“Mmm?”
“Oh, you’re awake? I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Mm-mm, ah!”
“You’re… not crying?”
She had thought the child would cry the moment it woke, but it didn’t.
The baby looked up at her with wide, bright eyes, and when their gazes met, the small face broke into a smile.
“Oh, you smiled.”
Adlen stopped in her tracks, moved to tears. The baby, who had done nothing but cry, was so beautiful when it smiled. Nothing else existed in that moment—she stood transfixed, staring at the child with a softness in her eyes.
That was when it happened.
In the corner of the corridor, in the darkness of the shadows, something moved.
“Who… who’s there?”
Adlen’s steps faltered.
Something was wrong. If it were someone who worked in the Mansion, there would be no reason to hide in the shadows.
In the span of a single day, she had witnessed so much that her mind flooded instantly with terrible imaginings.
“I’ll… I’ll scream… I’ll call my m-master…!”
“Hush.”
But before the scream could leave her lips, the blade of a sword pressed against her throat.
Adlen’s fear was no mere fantasy—it was a perfectly accurate premonition.
She caught sight of the sharp blade wavering before her eyes and drew a sharp breath.
“Hah…!”
This was not the threatening blade of her master’s sword, but a real blade that could cut her throat without hesitation.
Adlen’s frozen eyes fixed on the figure that had emerged from the darkness.
The person was wrapped entirely in black cloth, revealing nothing—nothing except for the eyes, yellow like a beast’s, gleaming even in the gloom.
Though half-obscured by shadow, the massive frame emanated a pressure equal to her master’s, crushing Adlen beneath its weight.
The yellow eyes that had been studying the frozen, motionless maid narrowed suddenly.
“You….”

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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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