Chapter 189. What Are You Going to Do Now?
Inside the silent study.
Other than the occasional rustling of paper and the sound of a pen moving across documents,
the atmosphere was so quiet that it was suffocating, while Robin had been darting his eyes around for quite some time.
Then, his gaze quietly shifted somewhere else.
Toward his master, who had been sitting motionless at the desk for hours.
“……”
The more he thought about it, the less he could understand.
How could someone remain so consistently cold and rational?
Even Bernard, the gruff head chef, had stopped him in passing just to ask.
“So, Robin, is it true? Does the baby really look exactly like His Grace?”
That was what he had asked.
Of course, Robin was not unaware of the circumstances between Deborah and the duke before the child was born, but a child was an entirely different matter.
It was his first child, after all.
From what he had heard, the birth of a first child was an especially moving experience for both the mother and the father.
Yet the duke acted as though the newborn belonged to someone else, behaving exactly as he always had.
No, if anything, he was even quieter and more silent than before, which somehow made the atmosphere even more tense…
Instead of going to see the baby, he remained shut inside the study, buried beneath piles of paperwork, which was another thing Robin simply could not understand.
‘Well… perhaps everyone experiences those emotions differently.’
Robin tilted his head as that thought crossed his mind.
Knock. Knock.
Not long after the knock echoed through the room, the study door opened.
The moment Robin saw who had entered, he quickly stood up and bowed deeply.
“Ray.”
At the voice calling him, Raymond’s gaze, which had been fixed on the papers before him, slowly lifted.
For a brief moment, he looked puzzled at seeing Eleanor von Cheiste come to the study herself.
But only for a moment.
His expression quickly returned to normal, and he rose from his seat to approach her.
“What brings you here?”
At his question, asking why she had come all the way here, Eleanor smiled mysteriously.
Then she spoke in a calm voice.
“Well, I wanted us to have a little talk.”
After a brief silence, Raymond turned around and led her toward the sofa.
Once the two of them had taken their seats, Robin tactfully excused himself to prepare tea and quietly left the study.
“I can’t even catch a glimpse of you anymore, not even during meals.”
That was why she had come herself.
Raymond simply gave a slight nod.
“Have you… seen the baby?”
At the sudden question, Raymond’s eyebrows twitched faintly.
Watching him with worried eyes, Eleanor let out a quiet sigh.
“You should see him. He’s still your child…”
“Your child.”
It was completely different from when she had demanded to know how he could be certain the child in Deborah’s womb was truly his.
Then again, after seeing the baby, who could possibly still have such doubts?
Anyone with eyes could tell at a glance.
No one other than Raymond von Cheister. could possibly be the child’s father.
That was probably why even the woman before him had changed her attitude so quickly.
However, there was one thing she had misunderstood.
The reason Raymond refused to see the child.
She probably believed it was because of Deborah, the woman who had deceived him not once, but twice.
That the anger he felt toward Deborah had naturally extended to the child as well.
And that was why he refused to see him.
But who could possibly understand the tangled emotions within him?
Even he himself could not unravel them.
Trying to explain those feelings to someone else was impossible from the very beginning.
For that reason, Raymond chose silence.
In the end, realizing she would hear nothing from her son, Eleanor merely let out another deep sigh.
She seemed as though she was about to leave it at that.
Yet after hesitating, Eleanor opened her mouth once more.
“That child.”
“……”
“What are you planning to do with her now?”
Raymond understood immediately what that brief question meant, despite leaving the subject unspoken.
No—
he believed that this, rather than anything she had said earlier, was the true reason she had come.
Deborah’s future.
“Even if your marriage to the marquess’s daughter has fallen through, that girl is not suitable, Ray.”
She spoke firmly, as though worried his feelings might have changed.
“But we can’t simply leave the woman who gave birth to your child wandering outside as before, either…”
“……”
“I was thinking… perhaps we could provide her with a manor somewhere away from Denverer, where she could live comfortably without wanting for anything.”
That was the true point of her suggestion.
She could never become the lawful duchess,
but as compensation for bearing his child, she could be provided with a life befitting that sacrifice.
In other words,
the life of a mistress.
There was nothing particularly strange or unusual about such an arrangement.
It was something commonly seen not only among noble houses but even within the royal family.
The real question was whether the woman would accept it.
A woman who had shuddered at even the thought of becoming a mistress.
No—
there was an even greater problem.
“Of course… it would be difficult to separate her from the child… but if we explain it properly and tell her she’ll be allowed to see him every three or four months… don’t you think she’d accept it?”
Those words.
No matter that the child had been born to a woman of low birth,
he still carried the blood of House Cheister.
Though he could never become the legitimate heir,
he was still the first child.
There was no way House Cheister would ever allow such a child to leave.
Just like the previous suggestion, this was nothing extraordinary.
Many women who bore the illegitimate children of nobles accepted such lives as though they were perfectly natural.
In fact, compared to the reality that many could barely see their children once a year, Eleanor’s proposal of allowing Deborah to visit every three or four months was undeniably generous.
But would Deborah—
that woman—
truly accept such an arrangement?
Would she calmly hand over her child, accept a manor far beyond her station, and live there in quiet comfort?
No.
The woman he knew would never do such a thing.
She was a woman whose life had been filled with lies, so he could promise nothing else about her.
But he was certain of that one thing.
She would rather wander the streets than trade her child for comfort.
Looking at Eleanor, who silently awaited his answer, Raymond finally spoke in a low voice.
“…I’ll think about it.”
The moment those words left his mouth, a thick vein bulged prominently along his neck.
***
“Um…”
Charlotte had just finished her usual duties and was about to turn away.
At the quiet voice calling her, she stopped halfway through turning and looked back toward the bed.
More precisely,
toward Deborah, who was sitting on it.
Meeting Charlotte’s questioning gaze, Deborah hesitated before finally speaking.
“The baby…”
Quite some time had passed since the child was born,
yet Deborah had barely spent any time with him.
Except for breastfeeding every two or three hours, Mrs. Charlotte would always take the baby away and later bring him back.
“The Dowager Duchess simply refuses to let him out of her arms. I suppose he reminds her of His Grace when he was little.”
Deborah had once thought the Dowager Duchess might even hate the child.
But after hearing Charlotte’s explanation, she could no longer resent it.
She herself desperately wanted to stay with her baby,
yet she believed the Dowager Duchess must feel the same.
So she endured it.
If she could simply wait another two or three hours,
she would at least have twenty or thirty minutes to hold him.
The strange thing was that Charlotte still had not brought the baby back, even after a long while.
It was almost time for him to be hungry again…
With growing anxiety, Deborah struggled to climb out of bed despite her weakened body.
Just then,
Charlotte opened the door and entered.
But no matter how closely Deborah searched,
the baby was nowhere to be seen.
In the end,
unable to hold back any longer, she finally asked.
Why wasn’t the baby here?
At those words, Charlotte’s expression briefly became flustered.
Seeing that reaction only made Deborah even more uneasy.
Then—
“…He’s being fed right now.”
The moment those words left Charlotte’s lips, Deborah’s expression turned strange.
Being fed?
By whom…?
Watching Deborah’s trembling golden eyes, Charlotte calmly continued.
“From now on… a wet nurse will feed the baby.”
“……”
“That’s the usual practice among noble families… so please don’t feel too hurt.”
For a fleeting moment, pity appeared in Charlotte’s usually cold eyes before disappearing again.
But Deborah did not even notice it.
As Charlotte had said, Deborah already knew that noble families commonly employed wet nurses.
But that was something reserved for children born to the lawful wife.
Hearing that her own child had been assigned a wet nurse naturally sounded strange.
It felt as though an inexplicable sense of dread had wrapped itself around her entire body.
As though foretelling the misfortune that was about to come,
Deborah’s heart began to pound with growing unease.
