NBTC 05

Chapter 05

“Who are you?”

Adel nearly collapsed on the spot. Her legs were trembling.

Someone she hadn’t seen, hidden by the deep shade of the trees, walked forward.

Step by step, the stranger approached Adel, who stood in the sunlight.

“…I asked who you are.”

He spoke in a voice slightly sharper than before and stood before Adel.

He was a very tall man.

He had black hair as dark as the shade and wore an expensive-looking, elegant suit. The gold buttons on his suit bore intricate patterns and letters—she couldn’t tell exactly, but they seemed to be some kind of crest.

His blue eyes, looking down at her, were like a deep, endless sea. A sharp nose and jawline, and firmly set lips.

Adel stared blankly at the handsome young man before her, who looked as if he had stepped out of a painting.

“I… I am Adelheid Baden.”

“Baden?”

“Yes. I came to Heitzlinde Manor recently.”

Karl looked down at the small, blonde-haired girl trembling before him.

She must have been about ten or eleven.

A girl who didn’t even know this place was off-limits.

She was too young to be a servant, and if she were a servant’s child, she wouldn’t have been allowed in here.

“How did you get in?”

“The gate over there was open…”

Following the girl’s pointing finger, he saw the blue gate half-open.

He must have unlocked it and not closed it properly himself.

He relaxed his sharpened nerves slightly.

Karl intensely disliked being disturbed when he was in his own space or resting.

He had ridden from the train station to Heitzlinde Manor in the chauffeur’s car, but had deliberately walked the rest of the way to this blue garden.

After spending a semester amidst the noisy, insane young men of his age, he had wanted to rest for a while in his sanctuary.

On the surface, the school in Schulz appeared to be a refined and quiet academy where upper-class noble children gathered to study, but in reality, the antics of these upper-class youth were no less rowdy than those of common rabble.

“I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but didn’t you hear that this place is off-limits to anyone?”

“I’m sorry… Is this the Duchess’s garden by any chance?”

The Duchess…

She called his mother “Duchess” rather than “Madam” or “Mistress,” so she didn’t seem to be a simple servant.

Though the title system had been abolished, titles were still commonly used in practice, so his mother was indeed the Duchess, but…

“Yes. It’s my mother’s garden. And I’m using it now.”

Soon, Karl grew annoyed.

He had originally planned to come home two days later, but he no longer wanted to stay in Schulz, nor did he want to return to Heitzlinde, which would be bustling with preparations for his arrival, so he had quietly taken the train without telling anyone.

“Never mind. Go out.”

Adel bowed deeply to him, who made a dismissive gesture with one hand as if telling her to leave, and quickly slipped out through the blue garden gate.

Her heart felt as if it would leap out of her chest.

The person she had met had called the Duchess his mother. That meant the person she had just seen was Karl Clausen, as Bailey had mentioned.

Good heavens…

Adel hurried out of the garden and ran quickly.

Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears. Passing through the rose garden, the manor came into view, and her heart grew even more anxious.

Then it happened.

“Ah!”

In her haste, the toe of her shoe caught on a rock.

With a loud thud, she fell hard onto the dirt ground.

The white apron Bailey had put on her to keep her dress clean was now covered in dust.

Her stockings also had a large hole at the knee, and red blood seeped through the hole. The blood from her knee soon stained the white stocking.

Her palms were scraped too, and her hair, which she had neatly brushed for going out, was a mess.

Adel’s eyes welled up with tears.

It wasn’t just the pain—she felt ridiculous and ashamed of herself for running away in panic as if she had committed a crime.

Master Karl was, as Bailey had said, a truly handsome and refined young man.

But it was very difficult to meet those cold blue eyes, so like the Duchess’s.

It was a shame that felt as if he had seen right through her—an orphan without parents, a shameful freeloader at this manor ever since the Baden household had collapsed.

Adel had learned at the charity school that even without having done anything wrong, a person could feel cowed.

It was her fault for entering a forbidden place, but she hadn’t needed to speak so fearfully…

Where had the proud Adel, who had been so loved by her mother and father, gone?

Feeling slightly sad, she crouched under a rose bush, drew her knees up with both hands, buried her face in them, and cried.

The blue sky, the many-colored roses, and the small, blonde-haired girl remained together like a painting for a long time.

“My goodness, Miss Adel. What happened?”

Heitzlinde Manor was, quite literally, in a state of emergency; everyone was in a frenzy.

Bailey, too, had been beside herself attending to the sudden arrival of Master Karl, so she hadn’t noticed that Adel had entered her room much later than the agreed time.

Only after the young master had dismissed everyone, saying he wanted to rest, could she finally go into Adel’s room.

She had brought a late lunch of warm rolls, cold vegetable soup, pickled apples, and Scotch eggs, and entered the room to find—

Adel with her hair a mess, her apron torn, and above all, looking completely dazed.

“I’m sorry. I fell down on my way back.”

Adel spoke in a small, cowed voice.

Checking Adel over quickly, her hands were a little scraped, and both knees—she must have fallen quite hard—had blood seeping through the handkerchiefs she had tied around them.

Fortunately, she had washed the wounds with clean water and bound them with handkerchiefs. Since she hadn’t applied any ointment, Bailey quickly fetched the medicine box and unwrapped the handkerchiefs.

The wounds were quite large, and Bailey frowned.

“Good heavens. You left them like this?”

“I wanted to find the medicine box, but everyone seemed so busy.”

This was all because of the young master, who had arrived at Heitzlinde two days early without notice and thrown the household into chaos.

Bailey silently disinfected the wounds and dusted them with powdered medicine.

It must have stung quite a bit as the wounds bubbled and were disinfected, but the child remained still. She neatly bandaged the wounds with gauze.

It seemed they would leave a little scarring, but fortunately, they weren’t deep compared to the large surface area.

“Still, you should have called for me. At least it’s your knees, but what if you had hurt your pretty face?”

At the words “pretty face,” Adel smiled faintly and asked.

“Master Karl has arrived, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s a very quiet and unreadable person, but I never thought he would come to the manor without any notice. Thanks to that, everyone has become incredibly busy. Don’t leave your room today. Not that you could go anywhere with those legs.”

Watching Adel lift her spoon to take some soup, Bailey clicked her tongue and gathered the soiled clothes.

As she lifted the torn apron and draped it over her left arm, Adel gasped, “Ah!” and quickly took the apron back from Bailey.

“You shouldn’t get up or move around while eating.”

“I’m sorry, I had something left in the apron pocket…”

With a rustling sound, she quickly pulled a paper bag from the apron pocket.

Bailey recognized it as the bag of snacks she had given Adel that morning.

“You didn’t eat your snack.”

“I was going to, but I couldn’t find a suitable place… May I eat it while reading after lunch?”

Seeing Adel hugging the snack bag as if it were precious, Bailey nodded, gathered the laundry, and left the room.

Thinking of the child who had gone out and played excitedly for the first time in a while, a torn dress seemed like no big deal.

Having raised six rambunctious children herself, Bailey knew that children’s clothes were like that. They get torn and holey from running around and playing.

She thought it was much better to see a child playing energetically and healthily than sitting prettily pretending to be a noblewoman with unsightly ribbons and lace.

She decided to tell Norman to have a few dresses made for the child.

The clothes she had brought were already old, and even the cleanest of them now had a hole in it as of today.

Children should run around and play, and when the new semester started in September, she would have to go to school, so she’d probably need some clothes.

Bailey quickly left the laundry in the washroom and took charge of directing and helping with the preparations for the Duke and Duchess’s evening dinner with Master Karl.

It was a hectic day.

“Karl!”

“Mother, you’ve returned?”

Daniela von Clausen hugged her only son with delight.

The Duchess had hurried home upon hearing that her precious son had returned to Heitzlinde earlier than expected.

He was the precious lifeblood that kept her going in this place where there was nothing to bring her joy.

Her son, now a grown man of eighteen, had become a young man, but he seemed largely unchanged from when he was a child.

He still had the handsome nose and deep-set eyes he’d inherited from her family.

Karl greeted his mother with a light embrace and kissed her on the cheek.

“Mother, you’ve gotten thinner. Have you been sleeping well lately?”

“I’m sleeping well. Don’t worry.”

Catching the slight furrow of Dana’s brow as she stood behind the Duchess, Karl guessed that his mother was still not sleeping properly.

His mother was a sensitive woman.

She didn’t seem to have been as bad when he was younger, but at some point, she had trouble sleeping and suffered from headaches. She had to carry calming pills with her at all times.

Like most sons, Karl didn’t want to delve too deeply into his parents’ relationship, so he only vaguely knew that things were not very good between them.

From hearing his classmates in Schulz talk, it seemed that most noble couples were like that, so he wasn’t particularly concerned.

His father was busy with business, and his mother was busy with her own life—so as long as they lived their own lives well, that was enough.

Just as Karl Grant Clausen did.

“Why did you come down without telling me? If you had sent word, I would have had everything prepared from early on.”

“I’m sorry for not informing you in advance. I wanted to rest.”

Daniela looked up at her son with pity.

Every time she saw her son, who attended boarding school and whom she met occasionally, he had grown so much taller.

His black hair, resembling his father’s, and his blue eyes, resembling her own, suited him very well.

It was no wonder the young maids at Heitzlinde blushed when they saw him.

“Karl, are you hungry? I’ll have dinner prepared a little earlier today.”

He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he nodded in agreement.

Without him, his parents had rarely dined together. Since he was home for the first time in a while, he decided to willingly participate in this time of pretending to be a loving family.

Daniela left Karl’s room with a satisfied expression on her face.