<12>
One thing was certain: that “young miss” seemed far removed from someone as tough and stubborn as Seymour.
However, Seymour no longer appeared willing to entertain any more small talk.
As the bell struck midnight, Seymour rose from his seat and picked up his outer coat.
“Where are you going, Your Grace?”
“The child will be asleep soon, so I should head back to the company. Why ask something so obvious?”
Seymour had always pushed his body to the limit and then forcibly knocked himself out with alcohol.
But now that there was a child present and he couldn’t drink, he figured he might as well go back to work.
“Didn’t Madam tell you to stay at the mansion for a while?”
“She said to stay at the mansion ‘today.’ The bell has rung, so that’s over now.”
Since midnight had passed and the day had changed, there was no longer any need to follow Madam Hayworth’s instruction.
Axel was astonished by this groundbreaking calculation.
“But… what if the young miss looks for you in the morning?”
“Why would the child look for me? She has people to take care of her.”
Seymour frowned, showing his confusion.
He suddenly recalled what had happened earlier in the day.
“Yes! I’m not expecting anything.”
“I didn’t come here to be favored by the Duke, so don’t worry!”
The child’s words had been so innocent that they were almost incomprehensible.
Seymour felt a faint tug at his heart for a moment, but he quickly shook it off.
“With so many people around her, why would she come looking for someone she barely knows? There’s no way that would happen.”
Since the child herself had said she had no expectations, there was no need for him to worry.
She had probably only come because she was tempted by the prospect of receiving sponsorship from a noble family.
Seymour, with his coat draped over his arm, frowned as he grasped the doorknob.
“Stop talking nonsense and make sure you’re not late in the morning—”
Knock knock.
At that moment, a knock interrupted his words.
The sound was too small to belong to a servant.
Moreover, it came from a noticeably low position.
Could it be?
When Seymour flung the door open, a small shadow bounced into view.
“I knew you’d be here, Duke!”
Unlike earlier in the day, the child was now wearing silk lace pajamas.
Caught off guard, Seymour unconsciously furrowed his brows.
“Why are you here? Did you wander around alone?”
“Yes! I’m really good at finding my way on my own. I read in a book that in noble mansions, the study is always on the top floor.”
“No, that’s not what I—”
The Somerset ducal residence was a mansion befitting the word “grand.”
If a child got lost in a place like this, it might become truly difficult to find her.
But it was too late at night to explain all of that in detail.
Seymour frowned for a moment, unsure what to say, then cut straight to the point.
“…So why exactly did you come looking for me?”
“To keep my promise.”
“Promise?”
“Yes!”
Rowena nodded vigorously with a bright “hehe” laugh.
The reason Rowena had wandered through the mansion in search of Seymour — at an hour when even adults would be fast asleep — was simple.
“I promised to give you a goodnight kiss!”
“…”
Axel Portman, Seymour’s most loyal and closest vassal, later recalled that day like this:
The truly frightening thing about children is not their stubbornness.
It’s precisely because adult common sense does not apply to them…
* * *
In the end, Seymour unwittingly experienced the full power of the “goodnight kiss.”
At first, he had planned to humor the child just enough to receive the kiss and send her back.
But the standards for a “goodnight kiss” turned out to be far stricter than Seymour had imagined.
“Hey, not here! Goodnight kisses are supposed to be done in bed. Come on, let’s go to your bedroom, Duke.”
“But do you even know the way back from my bedroom to yours?”
“Huh? I hadn’t thought that far…”
“…”
Seymour repeated to himself about five times that scolding the child would only hurt his own throat before finally arriving at his bedroom.
However, his ordeal did not end upon reaching the bedroom.
“Okay, lie down!”
“…”
Seymour’s original plan had been to lie on the bed casually, finish whatever this goodnight or good-evening kiss was, then call someone to take the child away.
But the child seemed to have different ideas.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have insisted on getting him into bed.
The moment Seymour lay down, Rowena’s eyes sparkled as she asked,
“How is it, Duke? Are you feeling sleepy yet?”
“…No. Is that important?”
“Of course it is! Goodnight kisses are supposed to be given right before falling asleep.”
Why on earth?
“Don’t you even know that, Duke?”
“…”
Apparently, he didn’t.
Seymour, who had never acted spoiled even as a young child and had certainly never dealt with children, found Rowena’s theory of goodnight kisses rather confusing.
But Rowena was resolute.
“It’s okay if you don’t know! I’ll teach you.”
“…So how long do I have to keep doing this?”
“Huh? Until you fall asleep, of course. You came here to sleep, didn’t you?”
“Shouldn’t you be the one sleeping?”
“I already slept after my bath earlier. So I’m not sleepy at all!”
Seymour squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Airi.’
Why on earth did you put the child to bed so early and cause this mess?
But blaming Airi was meaningless.
What fault did Airi have?
She had simply put the child to sleep when she started nodding off from exhaustion.
Strictly speaking, he should have scolded the child and sent her back, but Seymour couldn’t do that.
He understood the chain of responsibility well.
In any case, he was the child’s guardian.
It was also his responsibility to take care of her so such situations wouldn’t arise.
In the end, this entire situation was Seymour’s fault for leaving the child in the care of the maids and washing his hands of it.
‘So I can’t blame the child either.’
He wanted nothing more than to leave for the company right now and not return to the mansion, but Rowena was, after all, the child Freya had entrusted to him.
If the child Freya had left in his care wandered around at night like this, got lost, and ended up trapped somewhere?
‘I’d lose my mind.’
It meant that for the time being, he would have no choice but to return home every night and make sure the child was asleep.
Once the conclusion was reached, Seymour raised his exhausted body.
If things continued like this, he could clearly see a future of arguing with the child until sunrise.
“I understand what you’re saying for now. But I can’t sleep right now. So let’s do the goodnight kiss starting tomorrow.”
“But you look tired, Duke. Why can’t you sleep? You have to sleep well to grow tall and become a great person.”
The child was remarkably clever and sensible.
Perhaps a little too much…
Seymour briefly pondered whether he should inform her that he was already more than tall enough, then decided to answer the core question.
“…I can’t sleep because I’m not sleepy.”
“Ah!”
Rowena nodded as if she finally understood, then rummaged around and pulled something out.
Its identity was
“So I brought this. I’ll read the book to you!”
the classic masterpiece <Why Did the Princess Eat the Poisoned Apple?>.
“Layla used to say a lot that she couldn’t sleep, but when I read to her, she would fall asleep right away. I’m the best reader among the girls.”
“Who’s Layla?”
“She’s my little sister from Townsend. She just turned five recently.”
“…”
Now he was being treated like a five-year-old.
When Seymour was at a loss for words from sheer disbelief, Rowena opened the book and began reading clearly and distinctly.
“Once upon a time, in a certain kingdom, there lived a princess who loved apples very, very much…”
As Rowena claimed, her reading skills were top-notch.
Seymour might not have known, but Townsend periodically held public reading sessions to encourage adoption, so the children had been learning to read aloud from a young age.
Before long, Rowena was so immersed in reading that the book completely hid her face.
Seymour watched the child with tired eyes, then let out a sigh and closed them.
Lying down made the fatigue pressing on his body all the more evident, even if sleep didn’t come.
‘Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I lay down with a clear mind.’
Whenever he closed his eyes doing nothing, that day always came back to him.
The day Rose and his brother’s family all died at once.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
