Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - v1c2—please be patient, grand duke

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“Who are you— ?”

Asked Leah, who lit her eyes with curiosity despite her fear. Then the boy sparkled his jewel-like eyes.

“Kieran. I’m Kieran Bale. Leah, are you twelve years old?”

“Yeah...”

“I am 15 years old. I am three years older than you, so I must be your brother. Right?”

Kieran, sitting at an angle at the edge of the bed, stared at Leah’s eyes.

Betty admired. The eyes and hair color of the two children looked similar to each other. Noble emerald-colored eyes and honey-colored hair. Besides, they even have strangely similar features.

Lia was afraid of the tickling heart she first felt through Kieran.

The child hurried away from Kieran, who was trying to touch her cheek.

The child, who hid behind the sofa, said in a crawling voice with only his round eyes.

“Send a message to mom— I came without a word. she must be worried!”

“Oh, do you want to see your mother? Well— Betty. Lia’s mother?”

At Kieran’s question, a woman who brought the soup a while ago approached Lia with an embarrassing face.

“That’s what your mother will tell you. I was only instructed to make meals and give her a bath.”

Then Betty squatted at eye level with Lia. Lia lowered her fear to Betty’s friendly smile.

This place was full of pretty, sweet, and scented things. A place that doesn’t fit with her, who hasn’t even washed it properly. It was seen in the eyes of a child.

The child, who had been hardened like a stick for a long time, sniffs and smells my body. The smell of stinging the nose was smeared.

Lia, alternating between Kieran’s white and soft-looking shirt and my clothes, gently pulled Betty’s hem.

“That—Can I wash it?”

“Then, let’s wash first and then eat. The food just needs to be heated.”

It was when Leah nodded and got up. Kieran, who was sitting on the bed and smiling, suddenly began to cough rapidly with a pale face.

“Keep! Kolok, Kolok! Cough, Kolok! Ah, Anger!”

Kieran coughs while crouching like a bloodshot person.

“Young master!”

The attendants, who were contemplated by Betty is scream, jumped in, put a clean cloth over his mouth, and gently embraced it. Then she shouts someone’s name and runs out of the room. They all respond calmly and quickly.

Leah knew someone who was coughing like that. He was a young knight who gave me candy every time he saw me.

The knight who coughed all night to blush was a guest of his mother, but one day he died. Her mother cried a lot as she hugged the man who had died while wearing blood on the blue armor.

Leah was terrified as she recalled her memories. With tearful eyes, Lia grabbed Betty’s hem tightly.

“Is that brother dead?”

A cruel question with innocent intentions. Betty shook her head as she stroked Lia’s head.

“No, he’s not.”

“Really?”

“Okay. So should I wash it quickly? Because if you are late, you have less time to sleep.“

I had a lot of questions, but Betty didn’t tell me anything anymore.

Leah smoothly followed Betty into the room across from her. There was a bathtub with warm water. In addition, bath products and soaps that only the nobles used.

This is the first time in the bathroom, and the child who is unfamiliar with the act of washing the body looked embarrassed, rather than wondering, even with the bathtub in front of him.

Betty said, stroking the child’s head.

“From now on, I will wash here every day. So, get used to it.”

Adults don’t like kids with a lot of questions. So sometimes he would wield a leather belt or slap his cheek with a biting hand.

Lia closed her mouth and stood in front of the bathtub and took off her clothes.

The child’s body, which was laid down on the floor in a rag-like cloth, seemed to have only bones 1 eft.

The child who entered the bathtub with a sorrowful skinny body cries out to see if he is surprised by the hot water.

Betty, looking down with a gloomy expression, grabbed the soap, and wiped Leah’s body.

The child’s face shines brighter as the time peels off. The child was a mess enough to have to change the water twice.

Betty, smiling as if satisfied with her neat appearance, stole the sweat from her forehead, and woke up.

“Eh, you match your character. Now that you’ve washed it clean, let’s fill your stomach. It’s a night with so many things to do.”

This was the first time I had fried chicken with such a savory soup, soft bread, and chopped beans or vegetables.

It was different from the time when I filled my hunger with sour corn soup and grain bread that was stiff enough to hurt my mouth.

Leah thought as she walked with Betty’s hand. When I meet her, I’ll have to send her home. The child chewed over words that sounded polite.

“Madam, I brought the child.”

How long would it have been? By the time I felt my leg hurt, Betty knocked on a door.

“come in.”

It was that voice.

Beyond the door was the owner of the elegant voice that called me sitting at the door waiting for my mother.

Leah grabbed Betty’s hand and entered the room. Then, as Betty told me, she lowered her head, holding his hands together.

“Hello, Madam.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The Marquis Woman sat on the sofa in a blue gown in a dress that looked like a nightgown. The rich brown hair and deep blue eyes that could not be seen when wearing the robe upside down create a precious atmosphere.

The Marquis’ wife nodded at the child’s greeting. Lia, nervous at a cold expression without laughter, stepped closer.

“It’s better to wash it off, Canilla.”

“Thank you for sharing delicious food. But I miss my mom.”

“This— .”

The Marquis’ wife, who sighed briefly, crackled her hand. It meant to come closer. Then Betty, who hasn’t spoken since entering the room, pushes her back lightly.

Lia approached the Marquis’ wife as if pushed.

The Marquis’s wife took the approaching Lia’s hand and sat down next to her. She was beautiful but scary.

In response, Lia drew her body like an erected h herbivore.

“Canilla, I’m sorry... I don’t think you can meet your mother.”

“Yeah?”

“Your mother has committed a very serious sin. Would you say she stole something very valuable?”

Lia’s eyes widened when she said she had committed a crime. The Marquis’s mouth, looking down at the child’s emerald-colored eyes, twists as if it were visible.

“Oh, Mom is not a thief!”

Tears filled up in the frightened child’s eyes, and then immediately fell.

The contempt in the eyes of the marquis’ wife staring at the hair of a child who has not yet dried.

don’t forget to read at essentialvillainess on tumbler hehe

“Lea, what your mother stole was very valuable to me. But I don’t think I can get it back. So why do not you get punished?”

“My, I’ll find it! Mom is not really a thief. We are really, really poor. Please believe. Yeah?”

“You? Hmm...”

The Marquis’ wife, who was gently rubbing the crying child’s white cheeks, shook her head at Betty.

Then Betty opens the drawer and takes out the sharp scissors, takes it, and puts it down on the table.

“Then, give me you this.”

Leah was instinctively terrified and started hiccups.

“Canillian Veil.”

It’s not my name. I wanted to correct my name as Canilia, but my lips couldn’t be removed.

“From today, if you live with the Carnilean Veil Your mom and you too. I promise you will be safe.

“Well, I’m Canelia– ?”

The Marquis’ wife quietly smiled and shook her head.

“No, starting today, you are Carnilean Veil.”

It was not a conversation that the child could understand. The blade touches Lia’s hair, trying to figure out the words of the Marquis’ wife.

“I think even short hair will go well with you.”

Before he even became aware of the goose bumps on his neck, his hair was cut off.

Betty’s short sighs were heard, but her hair, which had already been cut off by a handful, dyed gold on the gray carpet.

Lia, hardened by the shock, couldn’t say anything until all her long, greedy hair had been cut off.

Soon the awkward sound stopped.

“Betty.”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Ask someone else to clean up.- Take Leon to the room.“

The Marquis’ wife, who was sorrowed in a weary voice, puts down the scissors. Leah put her hand through my hair, which was shortened like a boy.

‘Our pretty Canelia. How can I be so greedy... . My baby.’

The voice of my mother, who brushed her hair every night and held her in her arms, floats in my ears.

Betty, approaching Lia’s side of sobbing, hugged the child. Terrified, Leah hugged Betty’s nape and buried her face.

Her hair was cut without knowing what had happened, and she was called by a strange name.

Returning to the room in Betty’s arms, Leah ran away in a corner.

Tears didn’t stop.

It wasn’t clear whether it was because of the fact that the hair had been cut off or that she might never be able to see her mother again.

All the child can do is cry out loud as much as possible.

Betty sat face to face with Lia.

“Lea, your mother is getting treatment, not punishment. The lady is not a that bad person. It’s not just, so I’m a little angry. Even so, you need to listen carefully to her words to save Laura.”

Lia, who stole her eyes with the back of her hand, looked up at her friendly voice.

“Mother’s name— . Do you know my mother?”

“Well, everybody knows. And this is also your father’s house, isn’t it?”

”... Dad?“

Betty nodded and pointed to one wall.

Only then Lia found a large portrait hung in the room. The honey-colored hair and emerald eyes of a man in a lounge suit are as vivid as alive.

‘You look the same as your father’s hair color a d eyes, Lia.’

Leah recognized at first glance who was the main character of the portrait.

The light of a light, softly lit, sinks into the child’s open eyes.

It was only then that I could see what was happening to me. That the mother stole was a person, not an object.

As I turned my head, I saw myself reflected in a dark window. Her hair is cut off and her body is so skinny that she cannot be seen as a girl.

Carnelian Bale.

Lia, chanting an unfamiliar name, buried her face between her knees.

[Please Be Patient, Grand Duke]