Saving My Bias from Mishaps (2)
After a moment of shock, Abel hurriedly tied the handkerchief back around my wrist.
Seeing Abel’s tiny hands make such nimble movements made me so pleased.
Unlike me, he seemed pretty shocked by what he had just seen.
It was a natural reaction.
Anyone would be shocked to see a person walking around with their guts exposed, after all.
“W-why aren’t you hiding this?”
“It’s not that I’m not hiding it.
It’s that I can’t.
I simply don’t know how to hide it.
I think His Grace is also displeased about this.”
“Ah!
But then, that’s… that’s not your fault.
Please don’t feel sad.”
“Thank you.
You’re amazing, Childe Louvremont.
You’ve already learned how to hide your core long ago, right?
I’m told most people learn when they’re over 10 years old, but you are a prodigy after all.”
“What?!
A prodigy…?
No, I’m no such thing.
And being unable to hide this doesn’t make you a fool either.
So really… don’t feel so blue about it.”
With a glum look on his face, Abel fiddled with the tip of the handkerchief tied around my wrist.
“But you… you worry me a little.
You shouldn’t tell anyone about a weakness like this.”
“But you’re not just anyone, Childe.”
“Oh….”
Abel’s eyes widened in surprise, and his face immediately blushed red.
“I-I see….”
I smiled as Abel squirmed and fidgeted in embarrassment.
Soon, he nodded with a look of earnest determination.
“I promise I will protect you at all costs, Lady Heathcliff.
So that you won’t be in danger.”
Oh.
My.
God.
Not only did Abel thank me for my gift last time, but he even offered to protect me this time.
I was deeply moved by this unexpected triumph.
It’s not every day that male lead says he wants protects you, you know?
So I got a bit choked up but fortunately managed to control myself in time.
“Thank you, Childe Louvremont.”
* * *
While Aisha and Abel were happily enjoying their time together, Anne recalled the request she had received from the grim-looking Aisha the previous evening after Aisha returned from dinner with Count and Countess Gasfelle.
“Anne, could you try and become close with the maids here?
I’m so clueless about the atmosphere here, and there’s something I’d like you to find out for me.”
“What would you like to know?”
“I want to know how the subjects and employees of the duchy treat Abel.
I’d like to know if they are abusing him or looking down on him.
And to what extent.”
For Aisha to make such a request immediately after returning from dinner with the Counts….
Anne figured something must have happened but didn’t ask the details.
Aisha even gave Anne a bunch of moderately priced jewelry she’d brought with her to the North.
“Use these if you need to.
You should know there’s nothing more reliable than money when it comes to getting information.
I’m sure you’ve picked up on that while you’ve been working with me.”
Anne, being the clever maid she was, had already tried to befriend some of the maids at the duchy even before Aisha asked her to.
However, as much as Anne strived to learn the atmosphere of the duchy, the maids too were making extra efforts not to gossip about the duchy in front of strangers like Anne. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
So, Anne hadn’t made much progress until now.
But that was before she overheard the conversation between the two maids returning to their quarters after cleaning Abel’s room, while he was out taking a walk with Aisha.
“I always knew that the countess was a terrifying woman, but I never thought she’d go this far….”
“My own feet hurt just from watching.
I can’t believe he still insisted on taking a walk after what happened.”
When Anne heard quiet voices emanating from the hallway in front of Abel’s room, she paused immediately and quickly hid behind the corner wall.
“That child is such a tough cookie.
But then I guess no child of His Grace would be average.”
“Obviously.
You think he wanted to go on that walk?
He just went to be on Lady Heathcliff’s good side.
That kid is so tenacious despite being so young.”
“Still, can the countess really bully the Childe so blatantly?
How is she going to handle it if His Grace finds out?”
“Didn’t you hear her?
She’s a very meticulous woman.
Remember how she said she wouldn’t punish him unless he asked for it?
How could the Childe protest if he agreed to such terms?”
“Makes sense….
The Childe isn’t the type who would tell on the countess to His Grace.
And should His Grace find out, there isn’t much he could do if the Childe agreed to be punished in the first place.”
“Honestly, the Louvremont family scares me….”
One of the maids, shivering and rubbing her arms, suddenly flinched in surprise.
It was because Heathcliff’s maid — Anne — who probably overheard their entire conversation, suddenly jumped out from behind the corner at the end of the hallway.
Anne approached the two maids, who were clearly startled, with a smile of reassurance.
“Looks like you’re both busy today!
You must be returning from cleaning Childe Louvremont’s room, am I right?”
Anne acted as if she hadn’t heard them at all, but the two maids knew better than to believe her.
They just stood there, both flustered and awkward.
Anne took a step closer to the maids.
“…It seems like Countess Gasfelle mistreated Childe Louvremont?”
“W-we know nothing.”
“Please excuse us.”
Anne stopped them as they attempted to leave in a hurry.
“Oh, come on.
No need to panic.
It’s not like anything bad will happen if I know about it.
And it’s not like you’re the ones mistreating the Childe either.
I’m just bored and super curious, that’s all!
Can’t you just tell me?”
The maids, still highly suspicious of Anne, nervously exchanged glances with each other.
At that moment, Anne grinned and pulled a small package out of her sleeve.
It was Aisha’s jewelry.
“I’ll be staying in the duchy from now on anyways, so I think it wouldn’t hurt if we became friends.
Don’t you agree?”
* * *
“So that’s what happened, huh….”
Tap, tap-
Tapping my finger on the table, I was lost in thought.
Right now, I was… angry.
Angrier than I had ever been, this life and past life combined.
“M-milady…,” Anne whispered in fear as she cautiously glanced at my face.
Aisha Heathcliff was quite a beauty, but her lack of expression often made her appear cold and unapproachable to the unknowing eye.
And now, that cold face was crumpled like a sheet of paper.
I knew how scary I was without even looking in the mirror.
Yes, I was, extremely angry.
“So, his feet were….”
You’re not feeling guilty over that, right?”
Immediately after returning to my room after my walk with Abel, I was greeted with shocking news before I even got a chance to lie down on my bed.
“It seems she punished him while using education of etiquette as an excuse.
They told me she hit him so hard that the soles of his feet were torn and bleeding.”
“They had to clean up all the blood on the floor… until the cleaning water in the bucket was bright red with his blood.”
A 10-year-old child is innocent and precious.
If they do something wrong, it is only proper to educate them with words first.
That was my belief ever since I imagined having children someday.
And to explain how I came to believe so, I’ll have to talk about my past life, no matter how squalid it may seem.
My father tended to drink, and my mother, who was our breadwinner, was under a lot of pressure and stress.
And as their only daughter, my childhood wasn’t exactly happy.
I was physically abused while growing up, and everyday meant another flurry of swear words I didn’t even know the meaning of.
Perhaps due to this childhood devoid of love, I felt the need to love and cherish someone even more.
That was probably why I became such a huge stan in the first place.
I thought that maybe if I tried my hardest, I would be loved back; that one day, they’d return my love.
Ever since I grew up, I learned to compromise with those unhappy memories.
They were still my parents, so I couldn’t live without seeing them.
And although it was only when I gave them money, they would occasionally tell me they were sorry.
A long time had passed, and I thought I’d already forgiven them.
I thought I was all right now.
But as it turned out, I was wrong.
‘By the time Abel grew up, he probably learned to push those memories aside like I did.’
But how could such memories of abuse during childhood just be buried and forgotten as if it was just a ‘thing of the past?’
Even when I grew past the point where my parents could hit me, I sometimes dreamt of my childhood.
I thought I’d already forgiven them, but the trauma of my childhood remained inside me, bottled up.
My parents abused me.
That is a fact.
Even if time passed and both my parents and I lived on with the past buried behind us, the memories of the past should not be romanticized or justified.
That was why as much as I understood Agatha Gasfelle’s history and perspective on life, I couldn’t just sit by and let her continue her abuse to a child.
It was beyond measure.
Because perhaps, the only person who can best understand and sympathize with Abel’s miserable childhood may be me.
“M-milady?
What are you planning to do?”
Anne looked at me with fear in her eyes when I sprang to my feet with an expressionless face.
“I’m going to see the countess.”
“What?!
N-no….
You must calm down, milady.
Why don’t you take a moment and think about this a little more carefully?
The countess is not your normal person….”
“So?
I’m Abel’s mother-to-be, and it won’t be long before I become the mistress of this duchy.”
His Grace clearly told me yesterday already.
It was all right for me to act the way I want.
“I’ve been misunderstanding something all this time, Anne.”
“And what could that be…?”
At this point, I’d be insane to want to mend my relationship with a child abuser.
“I just remembered that I was never good at those things.”
And by ‘those things’, I mean those kind of video games where you have to gain affection points from certain characters to reach the ending.
The kind of game I thought of the moment I met the countess.
Thinking back….
“I’ll be back.”
Perhaps it was because I didn’t have enough patience in me, but I was never successful in those kinds of games before.