IHMEB - Chapter 191 < A Baby Who Looks Like Her >


“Send a search party. She couldn’t have gotten far.”

The moment she saw Kaian, Madame Repel unconsciously tapped the wall with her palm.

“Duke. Duke.”

Hearing her voice, he stopped and looked back as he tried to leave the room. The red eyes shining clearly in the darkness sensitively scanned the room again.

Madame Repel quickly pulled the lock on the inside of the wall and crawled out of her hiding place, holding the baby.

Her back and knees were aching from sitting in an uncomfortable crouching position the whole time, but it was nothing compared to her current state where she felt relieved to be alive.

“Duke Temnes.”

“...Nanny?”

Kaian also spent a considerable amount of time in the palace when he was young.

Madame Repel was the nanny to Queen Sylvia and her mother, Madame Elise. Even after she was too old to play the role of a wet mother, everyone considered her the nanny of Valquiterre.

“Ugh. Ugh.”

Madame Lepel, who had been suffering greatly, began to cry.

“...Where is the baby?”

When Kaian asked, Madame Lepel showed him what she had wrapped in her arms like a silkworm cocoon.

“Here she is.”

When he couldn’t even accept it, she carefully unwrapped the swaddle.

In case the baby woke up and cried if there was a sudden attack and a loud noise, Madame Lepel covered the baby’s ears with dough every night, fearing that her weak plan to hide in a hiding place and save her life would be in vain.

Thanks to this, the baby, who didn’t know the noise, slept like an angel with a pretty face that anyone could see.

“Ah...”

Kaian stared at the red hair with a shocked expression.

At that moment, Madame Lepel’s heart skipped a beat again.

Successor identification.

‘I forgot that!’

Among the babies born, those who did not have the family color that everyone would look up to were disposed of. Madame Lepel, the royal nanny, knew this better than anyone else.

Didn't a Prince be born in the royal family during the generation when the twin Princesses were born?

No. There were two more male babies born with brown hair, but they disappeared.

'Ah. The baby...'

'Calm down, Your Majesty. '

'It's my fault. They have brown hair. Aah.'


The Queen, who could not give birth to the golden hair and blue eyes that everyone would admire, was always depressed, drowning in self-reproach. She had several miscarriages, and after giving birth to the twin Princesses she had longed for, her health declined and she passed away six months later.

'When I think about that time, I can still hear the sound of her crying.'

Then, Sylvia succeeded the deceased King Hobert and ascended to the throne. This time, she was young and healthy, and she had a good marriage with the Grand Duke of Luxen, so she expected a smooth successor, but she did not have a child at all.

Madame Repel was originally the Queen's maid. Then she became the nanny for the children she gave birth to, and she raised the Princesses with sincerity, but Sylvia's inability to conceive became another worry for Madame Repel.

'Isn't the probability too low?'

While waiting for her menstruation to be late and finally have a precious child, Sylvia finally said seriously after seeing bloodstains on her bed one morning.

'Even if I have many children, it's not like I can have such a baby right away. It was so difficult to even have a baby.'

Madame Repel dared to comfort the noble Queen as she combed Queen Sylvia's long lemon-blonde hair as she sat in front of the mirror.

'I guess Your Majesty anxiously waiting for a greater baby to come.'

'That would be nice, but when will I be able to see him next...?'


It wasn't long ago that Grand Duke Luxen returned from his month-long stay in Oberon as the Queen's husband.

As they each ruled their own countries, Queen Silvia had to pray to the heavens for the smooth running of the countries, wondering when she would meet Grand Duke Luxen again.

'I can't lose this baby like that.'

What did hair color and eye color mean? Since they were born, they had the right to live their own lives.

Who could arbitrarily cut that off, saying that it was flawed and didn't meet the standards?

When she sent away the baby that had made the Queen cry when she was young.

When Queen Silvia was worried about not being able to have a child. Madame Lepel had seen and experienced it all firsthand, so now that she was this old, her resentment against it had grown even stronger.

This baby should not have been born in the history of Temnes.

Both the hair color and the eye color resembled her mother from Vermont.

If the baby had been born to the successor of Vermont, the lord would have feasted on wine and meat throughout the entire territory, but the baby was born in Temnes.

'Ah. Oh my.'

Madame Repel felt like she had avoided the fox and met the tiger. The baby should have been well-fed if she had just eaten, slept, and pooped, and she should have heard good praise, but it was pitiful that the baby's life was hanging on the edge of a sword every day.

The man in the light, well-tanned, pitch-black leather armor looked like a demon from the cracks of hell.

Madame Repel felt the blood drain from her body as she watched the sword he was holding dripping blood onto the carpet.

When she tried to gently pull her hand back toward herself to give the baby to Kaian, he looked at her.

"... She looks like her."

"Yes, yes."

He glared at the baby with a cold face and asked.

"The color of the eyes too?"

Madame Repel's insides burned. But when the baby opened its eyes, there was no way to hide the fact that it was not the Red Eye of Temnes, but the Golden Eye of Vermont.

“She looks exactly like the Duchess.”

“Yes. Give it to me.”

When Kaian stood awkwardly and held out his hand, Madame Lepel handed the baby over to him with a fearful heart.

Thump. Thump.

Her heart beat anxiously as she became extremely nervous due to her age.

She was afraid that if he looked at the baby with his red eyes that seemed to burn fiercely and terribly, and if he suddenly tightened his grip and twisted it, the young thing’s life would end immediately.

She had seen too many unbearable sights to overcome her fear with a clear mind.

“What is the sex of the baby?”

“...It’s a girl.”

Kaian let out a long sigh at her answer.

“I’ll take the baby.”

Madame Lepel jumped.

“Uh, please let me go with you, Your Highness.”

“Nanny? Isn’t you someone who has never left the capital?”

Since they had known each other since they were young, Kaian remembered her well.

“I’m so attached to her. Don’t you think your baby needs the care that she's always taken care of?”

Judging from the woman’s death and the mob-like people talking, the one who had come to sell her milk for a lot of money must have died. The woman’s husband had gotten sick right before she gave birth and needed money. She had been lucky enough to receive an advance payment and send her husband to the hospital, and if she suffered for exactly one year, she would raise her own child well with the money she had saved. 

The life of the woman who had been so lucky to receive an advance payment and send her husband to the hospital had suddenly disappeared.

What is bloodline? How can so many precious lives be lost without ever blooming on the path to protecting the honor of the family?

However, having watched her entire life, she felt a strange sense of duty to protect the baby. She felt that she had to save this baby at all costs.

It was as if saving this baby would relieve the guilt she had incurred for having to ignore the fact that she was powerless and had no choice but to die.

“We should go together.”

A familiar face took her side.

'Baron Colon. You've been the butler of Rowen Castle, and you're here with the Duke.'

Compared to the wicked Count Makie, Baron Colon was a person she could feel more affection for.

She had raised Princesses as a nanny for many years in place of the Queen who died young, and he had stayed by Kaian's side as a close friend of the previous Duke of Temnes, so their lives were similar.

'He's a different person from Makie, who sticks to His Majesty Valquiterre and only satisfies his own selfish desires.'

Madame Lepel, who had decided which side to side with and appeal to, asked the man who was the real power of Rowen Castle.

"You don't need to take care of me differently. The baby was born early and saw the sun early, so it takes a lot of work."

"My lord."

Kaian nodded when Baron Colon took her side.

"Yes. Let's go together."

After making up his mind, Kaian carefully handed the baby back to Madame Lepel.

“I’ll get the carriage ready. Let’s move.”

Madame Lepel finally noticed the scene in the room.

“Eek.”

There seemed to be about five or six men in black clothes who had collapsed and died.

“Oh, and wait a minute.”

Kaian took a short knife out of his bosom and immediately walked towards the baby. Madame Lepel’s legs shook as if she were going to faint.

Square. Square.

Kaiyan came within a stone’s throw and cut off a bit of the baby’s hair that was tangled around his fingers, about the length of a fingertip.

“There must be something you need to do.”

“Huk. Huk.”

Kaian wrapped it in a handkerchief, held it, and walked out of the room. As Madame Lepel gasped for breath, Baron Colon came and supported her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Madame Lepel held the baby tightly in her arms and stepped onto the blood-soaked, soggy carpet.

***

I didn’t know what to do.

“Marrying the King? That’s ridiculous.”

I tried to calm down and think things through, but my mind seemed to be paralyzed.

The stress I felt reached its limit when I faced the Duke of Vermont, who had come to see me with a pimple.

“I can’t get married.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I found my mother. I’ll leave with her.”

But the Duke of Vermont said something unexpected.

“Is that all you have in ambition or determination?”


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