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Chapter 13
“What?”
“W-What do you mean by that?”
At my question, the man grinned as if he were teasing me. The sight of him looked so ridiculously dazzling that for a moment, I forgot what to say.
“I can’t tell you that. Think about me a lot and try considering it yourself.”
“Considering what?!”
“Marriage with me, of course. A lady needs time to think, doesn’t she?”
Think about it, my foot…
Ugh, whatever. First I’ll go back and send Elouise an express letter demanding to know what the hell is going on.
Maybe—just maybe—it’s all some terrible prank by someone pretending to be my little sister.
I staggered to my feet and thanked him.
“Still… thank you for willingly taking care of the child my sister sent, even though it must have been so sudden.”
“Well, that’s what surprises are, aren’t they? You wake up and suddenly find one sitting in front of your door.”
The man shrugged as if it were nothing at all.
Now that I thought about it, I had caused him trouble in so many ways. Apparently, it had already been three days since the little boy had knocked on the gates of the ducal estate. He could have formally protested to the Bartoli Marquisate immediately, but he hadn’t.
And during those three days—even on the very first day the child arrived!—I had run into him several times, yet he never once mentioned the child to me. Probably because he knew I wasn’t in a position to raise a child…
Come to think of it, if the child had been brought directly to my house while I was engaged to Arnold, then in the absolute worst-case scenario my father might have gleefully pushed ahead with my marriage to Arnold anyway.
Ugh. Absolutely not.
Thinking about it now, maybe sending the child to the Glentino ducal house had actually been the better choice for me too.
Though it would’ve been even better if she hadn’t sent him in the first place.
“Then… should I think about whether or not I’ll marry Your Grace and contact you afterward? And… what should we do about Arne?”
Since the child had supposedly come looking for me, I wondered whether I ought to take him with me.
The man quickly caught on and nodded.
“We’ll continue taking care of Arne here for the time being, so contact me again after you’ve decided.”
“Yes. Thank you for your generosity.”
‘How am I ever supposed to repay this debt?’
Not just emotionally, but financially too. I let out a small sigh. Suddenly having a little child dropped into the household must have created all sorts of expenses. And if they billed all of that to the Marquisate…
Well, when that happened, I’d have to ask Bambi how to win big at gambling dens or something. Somehow it felt like Bambi would know.
When Owen and I stepped outside, Arne—who had been playing with toys in the garden—immediately lifted his head.
The moment our eyes met, his face lit up with a bright smile. He hopped down from the chair his feet hadn’t even reached and ran toward me.
“Mom!”
Ah… I gave up now.
I bent down and caught the child in my arms as he ran to me.
“Were you bored, Arne?”
“Butler Martin played with me a lot!”
That must’ve been the butler’s name.
Carefully, I asked,
“Arne, have you seen me before? Can I ask why you thought I was your mother?”
Wasn’t it strange for a child who had never seen me before to cling to me while calling me his mother?
The boy’s eyes sparkled brightly as he answered.
“Aunt Ellie told me! She said Mommy’s hair is the color of strawberries mixed with bananas, and her eyes are a clear sky-blue color, and she’s so pretty you’d recognize her right away.”
Wow, this kid sure knows how to judge people. …No, wait!
“Aunt Ellie” obviously meant Elouise.
What kind of nonsense has that little troublemaker been telling him?!
Feeling uneasy, I asked another question.
“Did Aunt Ellie tell you to come here to the Glentino ducal townhouse with this letter?”
“Yes! I came by ship and carriage! Some misters protected me. There were lots of boxes on the ship, and there was one box just my size, so I stayed inside it and fell asleep. Then the misters woke me up after we arrived.”
Arne answered innocently, but what he said was anything but innocent.
A ship?! If there were lots of boxes, that meant it was a cargo ship, not a passenger one. No matter how you looked at it, none of this was normal!
Where on earth had this child come from?
Arne continued cheerfully.
“And before we got on the carriage after getting off the ship, the misters gave me something like juice. After I drank it, I got sleepy again. When I opened my eyes, we’d already arrived. Then the misters told me to go in here and show them the letter.”
Now they even gave a child sleeping drugs?! To someone this young?!
Grabbing Arne by the shoulders, I hurriedly asked,
“After drinking it, did you feel sick? Like nauseous or wanting to throw up?!”
“No! It tasted good!”
“I see… And those men? Did you know them?”
“No. Aunt Ellie said they were people helping me. They left after seeing me arrive here.”
Good grief. Elouise hired mercenaries.
In a hollow voice, I replied,
“I see, Arne. You must’ve had a hard time coming all the way here.”
“No! It was really fun!”
Sob… life really is easier when you know nothing.
And after piecing together everything Arne said, I realized a new truth.
If I turned my back on this child, he would have nowhere to go.
Even in the best-case scenario, he’d end up living under the Glentino duchy or the Bartoli marquisate, surviving on everyone else’s charity. In the worst case, he’d be abandoned on the streets.
Completely unaware of the terrible thoughts going through the adult before him, Arne lowered his eyes shyly and spoke.
“I’m really happy to meet Mommy. Actually, I wanted to call you Mommy yesterday too, but Aunt Ellie said you might get surprised if I suddenly called you that. She told me to call you big sister at first, and then call you Mommy the second time we met.”
“…I see.”
Not being able to call your mother “Mom”… that was just too sad.
The child clung tightly to me, and before I knew it, I was hugging Arne back just as tightly.
‘What am I supposed to do with you?’
When I slowly raised my head, Owen was looking at me as if asking whether I could really abandon this child.
Yeah… honestly, I wasn’t confident that I could.
After finally prying Arne off me, I trudged back toward the Marquisate estate. The Duke of Glentino offered to take me back in a carriage, but I stubbornly refused. I still had to retrieve Thunderroot, after all.
In the time I hadn’t seen him, Thunderroot’s coat had become glossy and immaculate, and there was even a cute ribbon tied to his tail.
The Bartoli estate took excellent care of its horses too, but Thunderroot looked absurdly healthy and pampered.
When I told him we were going home, Thunderroot even glanced back wistfully toward the ducal estate.
‘You’re not the only one reluctant to go back. I don’t want to return to that damned house either.’
There was now a saddle placed on Thunderroot’s back—a saddle that hadn’t been there before. After stroking the beautiful horse’s mane a few times, I stepped into the stirrup and climbed onto him. My view rose higher.
I’d insisted on returning alone so I could organize my thoughts, but with every step Thunderroot took, the man’s voice from earlier echoed in my ears.
“Let’s get married.”
“Lady Bartoli deserves to have the greatest man in the world.”
“I’m a hundred times more handsome than the Crown Prince.”
“Haha…”
Yeah, it was sweet. Sweet like cotton candy, so sweet it felt unreal.
Before my regression, no one had ever treated me like I was someone precious.
The person who cherished me most had always been myself, and because of that, I constantly had to prove my own worth to myself.
That I was still an amazing person even without anyone else’s love.
But now a man I’d barely exchanged words with had suddenly appeared and shaken up my entire life.
‘Owen ta Glentino… what am I supposed to do with you?’
It didn’t feel like I’d traveled very far, but I had already arrived at the Bartoli estate.
The moment I got there, I handed Thunderroot over to Charlie, the stable keeper. Charlie looked so emotional it was as though he’d seen an angel descending from heaven.
“My lady, where in the world did you find this horse?!”
“I just… picked him up.”
I brushed it off with a vague answer.
But the moment I stepped inside the estate, the atmosphere changed completely. The cold tension in the air told me everything immediately.
Ah. The Marquis had already caused a scene.
As soon as I entered, Bessie hurried over with anxious eyes. Clutching the white apron of her maid uniform tightly in both hands, she nervously spoke.
“My lady… the master has summoned you.”
Yeah. I figured as much.
“I’ll go right away.”
And with that, I headed toward the Marquis’s office.
