A moment earlier, after bringing Ranelli into his office, Arad ordered Hampton with a strange smile.
“Tell Ivnia that I have the child with me and to come here when she’s finished.”
“Yes, my lord.”
After sending someone to deliver the message, Arad stared at Ranelli, who had suddenly become unusually quiet.
‘The child’s father.’
When he heard Hartland say that he wasn’t the child’s father either, he suddenly imagined the child looking at him and calling him father.
Being that child’s father meant, in other words, becoming Ivnia’s husband, did it not?
Arad sat the child on the sofa and met her eyes.
“What’s your name?”
Ranelli was frightened after seeing Hartland being dragged away while shouting desperately. She wasn’t crying stubbornly, but she was blinking her wide eyes and desperately trying to hold it in.
The child mumbled in a suppressed voice.
“……Grandpa Hart…… said he’d take me…… to Mommy……”
“What are you saying?”
“……Sniff.”
Ranelli huddled up, sniffing as she watched Arad’s expression. The corners of her mouth drooped, and wrinkles formed on her chin.
“Sniff, sniff, hng……. Waaah!”
In the end, she burst into tears.
Ranelli resented Arad for chasing away Hartland, who had been kind to her. Besides, hadn’t Arad been mean to her mother before?
Her mother had told her never to follow bad people, yet she had ended up being dragged away by one.
“Why are you crying?”
When the child burst into tears, Arad frowned and tilted his head. His gaze might have looked frightening to Ranelli, but in truth, it was merely a look of bewilderment.
Arad didn’t know how to handle children. It was also his first time seeing such a young child up close.
He had thought that small children were simply quiet and cute, doll-like creatures. Weak and helpless beings without any sense of self who obediently did as they were told.
That was how he had been when he was young, too. Though he wasn’t certain since he didn’t remember it very well.
“Am I frightening you? Or is there something you don’t like?”
When Ranelli didn’t answer his question and simply kept crying, he became troubled. He tried reasoning with her calmly for the time being.
“Don’t just cry. Try to tell me so I can understand. Otherwise, how am I supposed to know what you want?”
Sitting with his arms crossed and speaking bluntly, his posture was far too unfamiliar and overbearing for a child. But Arad didn’t know how he appeared to others.
“Are you crying because you want to go to Ivnia?”
When her mother’s name was mentioned, Ranelli stopped crying and finally looked at Arad.
“……Mom?”
When the child showed interest, Arad felt slightly relieved and tried to compromise with her.
“I’ll take you to Ivnia when our conversation is over. No, Ivnia will be here soon. I sent someone to tell her that you’re here.”
He didn’t know that a frightened child wasn’t particularly rational. Naturally, for Ranelli, going to Ivnia came before having a conversation.
“I want to go to Mommy!”
“I told you. Ivnia will come when the time comes.”
To the child, that was no different from a refusal. Tears welled up in Ranelli’s eyes again.
When Ranelli, who had only just managed to stop crying, looked as though she was about to start again, Arad became anxious.
Had anyone made him this tense recently? He was used to making others nervous and anxious, but experiencing the opposite situation was a first for him.
“Don’t cry.”
“Uu…….”
“Don’t cry. Why do you keep crying?”
“Waaah……!”
“If you don’t like my proposal, I can adjust it.”
“Waaah!”
“Hampton! Are you there, Hampton?”
When Ranelli finally burst into tears, Arad called for the butler somewhat desperately. Hampton still hadn’t appeared.
Arad opened the door himself twice to check whether Hampton still hadn’t arrived. Then, when he saw Hampton coming up the stairs, he called out to him delightedly.
“Come here quickly.”
“What is the matter?”
“The child keeps crying. There must be something wrong. I think we should call a doctor.”
“Let me take a look.”
Arad watched Hampton suspiciously. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the child to stop crying, so the child surely wasn’t normal. There was no way a non-doctor like Hampton could make her stop crying……
“……Thank you, Uncle!”
She stopped crying?
Arad stared in bewilderment at Ranelli, who was sniffling as she accepted the candy Hampton had taken from his pocket and thanked him.
The butler knelt in front of Ranelli, patted her back, wiped her tears, and spoke gently with her. Then, as if by magic, the child stopped crying.
“How did you do that?”
“I told her I would take her to Ivnia shortly.”
Arad stared at Hampton as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“I said the same thing.”
Hampton couldn’t bring himself to teach his employer, “You need to smile at her,” or “Change your tone.”
“Did you try giving her something to eat? Children really like sweet foods.”
He gave Arad a suitable excuse. It wasn’t exactly a lie, either.
“Is that so?”
Having gained an epiphany, Arad patted Hampton on the shoulder. He truly was a capable butler.
Now that he knew how to approach the child, Arad decided it wouldn’t be difficult. He sent the butler to the kitchen and ordered him to bring plenty of cookies and snacks.
When he heard how much Arad was ordering, the butler clicked his tongue and tried to stop him, but Arad, who had already made a plan to win Ranelli over, wouldn’t listen.
“That much isn’t necessary……”
“I’ll decide that.”
“……Yes, as you command.”
If you planned to win someone over and bring them to your side, you had to do it properly.
If the other person was someone whose heart could be moved by gifts they liked, wouldn’t showering them with gifts be the easiest way to win them over?
Soon, Arad’s office was filled with all kinds of elaborate desserts.
Pretty finger cakes decorated with fruit, whipped cream, and flowers were arranged in different varieties. Mille-feuille layered with raspberries and custard cream, jam tarts filled with sweet jam, crispy crumpets full of little holes, and cookies packed with chocolate chips surrounded Ranelli.
It was a sight the child had never seen in her life.
One or two cookies were one thing, but an entire table filled with desserts like this?
Ranelli was stunned with delight.
Seeing Ranelli’s eyes go wide, Arad inwardly rejoiced.
‘Easy.’
To think her mood could improve with nothing more than snacks.
He gave an arrogant smile and offered the food to Ranelli.
“Eat as much as you want. If there’s anything you don’t have enough of, you can ask for more.”
Ranelli opened her round eyes wide and looked at Arad.
With each plate of snacks being brought over, her wariness had gradually been worn down, and now almost none of it remained.
“Hee? But there’s so much!”
Ranelli held a cookie in one hand and a piece of cake in the other, chewing away.
It felt as though light was flashing inside her mouth. The sweet and tangy flavors she had never tasted before happily stimulated the child’s tongue.
There could be bread this soft and sweet! There could be food this crispy and savory! And what was this cloud-like white foam?
Ranelli was overwhelmed by the wonderful feeling she had never experienced before. Her eyes widened as she didn’t know what to do and held her head.
Amused by the child’s reaction, Arad chuckled.
“Looks like you like it. If you want something as trivial as this, I can let you eat until your stomach bursts whenever you want.”
“Really?”
“Of course. This is nothing to be surprised about. I could do anything you want. Is there something you want?”
Arad secretly hoped Ranelli would ask him to help her poor family or make her mother happy.
If not, he hoped she would throw a tantrum and insist on Ivnia to ask the duke for help.
Having tasted sweetness once, wouldn’t she want to hold onto it?
If she cried and pleaded with Ivnia like she had earlier, without stopping, even stubborn Ivnia might have no choice.
Just as Hampton had done earlier, he lowered himself to Ranelli’s eye level, gave her a kind smile, and whispered sweetly.
“I can do anything you want. It’s not difficult for me.”
Ranelli, who had stuffed enough cake into her mouth to make her cheeks puff out, stared at Arad as though entranced.
“Why are you trying to be so nice to me?”
“As I said, it’s not difficult for me.”
Ranelli’s eyes wavered in confusion.
“Really……?”
“Yes. Tell me what you want.”
Ranelli remembered the conversation she had previously had with Ivnia.
[Ranelli knows she likes kind people, but I guess the duke still doesn’t know that. Still, he allowed us to stay here, so he must be a truly kind person deep down.]
[Then why does the duke act opposite to how he feels inside?]
[Adults are usually ashamed of showing their true feelings honestly.]
[Why?]
[Being honest requires courage, but the older adults get, the less courage they have.]
Ranelli thought back on everything Arad had done so far.
‘Maybe the duke didn’t really mean to bully Grandpa Hartland.’
Did he want to play together?
Her neighborhood friend Charles had also bullied Ranelli because he wanted to play with her.
Ranelli had firmly advised Charles that if he wanted to make friends, he shouldn’t be mean to them.
After that, Charles initially ran away awkwardly, but eventually came back, apologized, and behaved properly.
Wasn’t Arad similar?
At first, Arad had only made frightening expressions, but as time passed, he began giving her delicious snacks and trying to be nice to her.
‘Mommy said I should be a generous person.’
After thinking for a moment, the child nodded seriously.
She decided to accept Arad’s offer instead of rejecting the proposal of someone who was trying to be kind by mustering his courage.
“Then, I……”
Ranelli climbed onto the sofa and leaned toward Arad.
She seemed to be trying to whisper something.
Arad hesitated awkwardly for a moment, then stiffly moved closer and held his ear out to the child.
There was an innocence about Ranelli that made her impossible to refuse.
Ranelli whispered something secret into Arad’s ear.
Arad’s expression twisted strangely.
“What?”
“Can’t you? You said you could do anything for me.”
At Ranelli’s bold words, Arad gave a hollow laugh.
After looking troubled, he let out a small sigh and called the butler, ordering him to bring something.
Hampton also wore a strange expression not much different from the one Arad had worn earlier when he heard the order.
“Can you really do it?”
Arad shrugged.
“Who knows.”
Hampton soon brought the item Arad had asked for.
And so, Arad and Ranelli put their heads together and began doing something.
While the two of them were concentrating like that for quite some time, the outside suddenly became noisy.
Ranelli perked up her ears like a rabbit and raised her head.
“Mommy?”
In the hallway, Ivnia was desperately calling Ranelli’s name.
Arad rose from his seat with a slightly hurried movement.
He could have simply ordered Hampton to let her in, but the thought that Ivnia had come looking for him caused his body to react first.
As soon as he opened the office door wide with an expectant expression, someone rushed toward him.
“You’re nothing but a moth to a flame.”
Arad looked down at Ivnia, who had thrown herself into his arms.
He could feel her weight and body heat. The texture of the thick black wool dress she was wearing felt rough.
Ivnia looked up at Arad with wide eyes.
Her eyes, reminiscent of countless blue hydrangeas blooming under the moonlight on a midsummer night, their mysterious beauty on full display, were finally looking straight at him.
“……”
“……”
The two of them remained frozen like that for a moment, as though time itself had stopped.
It was such a brief moment that to others, it would have seemed like nothing more than a momentary hesitation caused by surprise.
But the two of them clearly felt the strange sensation surrounding each other.
“S-Sorry.”
Ivnia, the first to regain her senses, flinched and pushed Arad away politely but firmly.
Arad instinctively tightened his arms and held Ivnia firmly.
He wanted her to look at him once more.
Why had he never realized before how intoxicating it was to see his own reflection in those mysterious eyes?
As though entranced, he called her.
“Ivnia.”