Why Is My Husband the Villainous Schemer! - Chapter 60

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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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Chapter 60
Despite her composed posture, her face showed she was holding back tears, which stirred my pity all the more.
Both children and adults stood waiting, hoping to see Linea blow out the candles. That was when it happened.
“Happy birthday.”
Carcel lifted Linea up as he spoke those words.
It was the only way to reach the candles atop the cake, which stood taller than Linea herself.
I spoke to Linea, who now sat in Carcel’s arms, breathing deeply.
“Make a wish, Linea—something you really want to come true—and then blow out the candles. Do you understand?”
Linea nodded with determination.
Soon the child closed her eyes tight, seeming to make her silent wish.
When Linea opened her eyes again, she took a deep breath and blew out the candles with all her might.
“They’re all out!”
“Your wish is going to come true!”
All eleven candles went out in a single breath.
Linea beamed under the shower of congratulations.
“Linea, shall we cut the cake now and share it with your friends?”
When I asked her this while she remained in Carcel’s embrace, the child at first simply nodded quietly, but then……
Slowly, ever so slowly, her expression crumbled.
The tip of her nose flushed red, and her lips began to tremble.
The child seemed to be fighting back her tears, trying to swallow them down, but they spilled onto her cheeks nonetheless.
Linea laughed while she cried.
Understanding what lay behind that heart, I silently took the child from Carcel and held her close.
Linea wrapped her arms around my neck, and gradually steadied herself under the soothing touch of my hand.
“Happy birthday, Linea. Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in your life.”
“Sniff……”
The child didn’t yet know, but Linea’s name had been registered in the Family Register under mine.
Now, legally, she was my daughter.
At those words, Linea’s shoulders shook even more.
After a long while, the child finally stopped crying and lifted her head with a small pop.
Her long lashes were tangled with moisture, and her blocked nose made her breathing wet and ragged.
“Oh dear, you look a mess,” I said playfully.
I wiped Linea’s flushed face with a handkerchief, laughing gently.
Linea was beginning to express her emotions more openly now. I felt tears threatening to spill from my own eyes.
In the past, she would have held it all in—sadness, awe, joy—fighting to suppress everything.
“Our little crybaby. Our beautiful crybaby.”
I held the child and bounced her gently while I glanced toward the assembled guests.
Though the atmosphere had grown slightly awkward at Linea’s tears, my expression encouraged everyone to lift the mood.
“Happy birthday, Linea!”
“Can’t we eat the cake now?”
To that innocent question—in the midst of everything, the child’s concern was for the cake—the adults burst into laughter.
Carcel, too, gazed down at Linea and wiped away a tear that had rolled down her plump cheek with his thumb.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Linea nodded, her speech slightly slurred from emotion.
And then, still sniffling, she picked up the knife and cut into the cake with vigor.
Applause erupted.
Even as Linea wept, the guests didn’t mind—they celebrated her freely.
A child who had always been scolded for crying finally discovered, on this day, that tears need not be a burden.
Soon, with her flushed face, Linea began to eat the cake alongside her friends.
The other children accepted her without hesitation, giggling and playing naturally with her.
“It’s beautiful to see,” Carcel murmured, leaning toward me.
I looked up at him and smiled.
“It truly is. Linea doesn’t seem afraid of the other children anymore.”
Once such an alien presence, Linea had drifted through every group of children like oil on water, never quite belonging.
She had always worried whether she looked strange standing among others.
What relieved me most was that the children had accepted her anxieties far better than I’d expected.
After that, the manor echoed constantly with the sound of laughter.
It was a day no one would ever forget—a day brimming with joy.
* * *
The birthday party had ended without incident.
But there was one more thing left to do!
“Linea, the Marquis has prepared one more gift for you.”
“But I’ve already received so much?”
“This one is different from those.”
Once the guests had departed, I led Carcel and Linea to the Drawing Room and broached the subject.
The floor was already scattered with opened presents.
Dresses for the child to wear, Shoes, Accessories, and toys—so many toys.
Enough that we wouldn’t need to buy her anything for a year.
Linea herself looked overwhelmed by the abundance.
“Come, sit here, dear. This isn’t that kind of gift.”
I sat beside Linea and drew a document from an envelope.
“What is it?”
“It’s complicated, so Mother will read it for you.”
Carcel stood behind us, gazing down with eyes full of warmth.
“Guardianship Waiver Document.”
“Guardianship?”
“Well……in short, it means your grandmother and uncle are no longer your family.”
“Then……does that mean I……”
Linea’s eyes wavered.
“……I have no family anymore?”
I shook my head with a gentle smile.
“No, Linea. Now you have a new family.”
“A new family?”
“Look at this.”
I handed her another document.
“This is an Adoption Confirmation Certificate. What name is written here for Linea?”
Linea began to read the letters slowly.
“Linea Ribandel……”
“Of the Ribandel Marquis House, yes?”
I asked playfully, and the child’s shoulders jumped.
At first, she could only stare in wonder, as if unable to believe the situation. Then she took a breath.
“So……does that mean I’m truly the daughter of Mother and the Marquis……?”
“Yes. Now Linea is legally my daughter.”
I gestured toward Carcel as I continued, “And you’re his daughter too.”
Linea took the Adoption Confirmation Certificate from my hands and sat quietly for a moment.
What could be occupying that small mind of hers?
But suddenly, Linea sprang to her feet and threw herself at me.
“Oh my!”
Without hesitation, Linea wrapped her small arms tight around my neck.
“M-Mother!”
“Yes! I’m your mother!”
Even as she had called me mother all this time, there must have been some deep shadow lingering in the depths of her heart—the fear that it could all vanish.
Dreams always wake eventually.
Linea was not a child who could accept affection with simple naïveté.
Love could shift, transfer, disappear.
She must have known that though Carcel and I acted as her parents now, parting might still come.
“M-Mother!”
“Yes, my daughter!”
“……I’m so grateful. So very grateful.”
The child went limp in my arms, repeating her thanks over and over.
I stroked Linea’s back gently.
“I’m grateful too. Thank you for calling me Mother, and for choosing me.”
Only two months.
Though the child had endured so much abuse and pain, in that brief span she had opened her heart to me.
I understood how brave that was.
Even adults run away, unwilling to risk being hurt again.
Linea soon pulled away from me and turned to face Carcel.
“M-Marquis. ……No. Father.”
“……!”
Even Carcel froze in shock at those words.
The child opened her arms to him.
At that wordless invitation, Carcel hesitated not at all and lifted Linea up.
“Thank you, Father.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for. Any father would be happy to have a daughter like you.”
I nodded vigorously in agreement. “That’s the truth.”
Before Linea, Carcel began to crumble slightly.
His expression shifted from surprise to something deeper, something aching.
He had come to understand how profound, how transcendent a child’s innocent love could be—that unguarded trust flowing toward him like a gift.
I too had felt it from Linea.
It was like a strange, miraculous reconstitution of who I was as a person.
Carcel stroked Linea’s hair and whispered.
“No matter what happens, I will protect you, Linea. As your father, with all my heart……”
His voice grew thick, and he fell silent for a moment.
Then he closed his eyes and pulled Linea close.
“Hehe.”
Linea laughed softly too.
Soon Carcel gently set Linea down on the sofa.
“How do you feel, dear?”

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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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