A Stepmother's Marchen

Chapter 39

The knights began to exchange glances, looking oddly bewildered.

“No, I, young grace! The madam has ordered me not to let anyone enter this place…!” Robert’s voice was really dimly blurred.

The old butler was now trying to avoid my reproachful gaze by giving me an ever more sad and begging look.

Of course, there must have been a limit to Robert’s attempts to stop him, but why the hell did he come here?!

The little wolf, who I had no idea why he came so far ahead of the scheduled time, held a glass of juice in one hand and held a huge cookie that must have been given by the maids in his mouth, but shouted, “You! I warned you clearly last time…… Damn it, wait a minute, let me eat this.”

Amazingly, Nora, who took the giant cookie in one bite and swallowed it, strode straight toward us. Then he shouted, “Didn’t I tell you not to approach this girl?!”

Lucas seemed to have come to his senses while I was embarrassed.

He soon leapt to his feet and faced the young boy with dignity.

…… Despite the age difference, the two were of similar physique, so there was nothing to be proud about.

“Wow, a young boy who never spilled blood is trying to get into adults’ business?! She’s my sister!”

“Adults’ business? These days, the poop bag is piled high, huh? Have you forgotten the warning? Don’t think about her, don’t even dream about her!”

“Hey, this little boy, how dare he stand next to my sister…”

“Have you been a fool since you were born, or did you want to be like that?”

The young boy, who uttered these words, carefully put down the juice glass on the table where the teacup was spilled

Then, with a sudden and rough force that didn’t match his sloppy movement, he lifted his legs and kicked Lucas’ abdomen, making him fall on the floor and groan in pain.

“Are you alright? Are you sick? Your voice is so low, bastard!”

“Argh!”

“Lucas!”

My mother, who ran straight to her son screaming, glared at me. Even though it was the same eyes as mine, I couldn’t imagine that my eyes could be that ugly.

“Yeah….. and now you even brought a young seed? I don’t think it’s good to have the knights talking about you sitting in the marquis…”

“This aunt is horrible. Why aren’t the knights doing their job?”

The loyal knights now looked at the young boy with very spectacular looks. It was then that I caught the young boy’s arm, who came to another person’s house and acted recklessly.

“Young Nurembert, your grace?”

The young Nurember, or Nora, just stared at my face with those deep blue eyes without a response for a moment, and then finally said, “It’s just Nora.”

……I have nothing to say. Anyway, I’m embarrassed by what happened last time, but I can’t believe he showed up in such a situation again.

As I sighed in grief, Robert stood up and made quick gestures toward the knights.

The two no longer made any noise while the knights dragged them out. No, they couldn’t say anything even if they wanted to.

“Hey, if you get caught one more time, you’ll be skinned alive. Put that in your ugly head!”

Until the end, our knights’ fierce eyes poured on the threatening growling young boy. Somehow I didn’t like that much.

“Well, adults these days can’t understand what one says…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, madam… Are you all right?”

“…… I’m alright. You made it ahead of schedule. I’m sorry you had to see such a thing.”

“Why are you apologizing to me? I was setting an example.”

What do these kids eat to make others speechless?

As I raised my head, trying to calm my burning cheeks, there were those fresh autumn sky blue eyes gazing at my face. It was like our first meeting.

“Are they really your family?”

I smiled bitterly and shook my head, “Not anymore.”

“Well, I’m glad you made up your mind…”

“Well, your grace. I’m sorry about what happened last time, but could you please just ignore what happened today as well?”

“It’s Nora. And don’t worry. Who am I going to tell?”

The young man scratched his head and responded coolly, he was different from the rebellious image I saw in the Duke’s residence earlier.

Which was his true side?

“Oh, but why does my mother want me to meet you? She mentioned the speech class.”

Well, I guess that was the excuse the weak Duchess came up with to coax her son. On the contrary, I think I should learn such a thing too, right?

“Well, it’s pretty obvious how my mother’s thinking works, but I don’t like being tied up like that. So I don’t want you to be close to me at my mother’s request.”

Oh, really? It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand. Well, that could be the case from that perspective.

“Well, that’s not necessarily because of the Duchess’ request. I’ve only been close to her for a short time, and most of all, I wanted to thank his grace for keeping silent about what happened last time.”

As I spoke with a smile, the blue eyes stared in mine suspiciously. But my words were sincere to some extent.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Nora?”

“…Okay. Then Nora, if you don’t want to talk to me, I can’t help it. But whenever you desire to, you’re free to come.”

There was a moment of silence. I was thinking about the boy’s future that I know while he stared at me with piercing blue eyes.

Let’s see, he became a knight on the same day as Jeremy, so next year, he’ll be a knight… Then, afterwards, Jeremy entered the Imperial Palace Guard, but where did he go… ?

“You don’t have to talk to me with honorifics, it’s uncomfortable.”

“Anyway, I’ll think about it and decide. You look tired today, so you’d better just rest. But, if they ever annoy you again, feel free to contact me…”

“Do you like chocolate?”

“Huh, do you have some?”

So Nora left the house after eating all the special chocolate that we bought from the southern part of the country. It was fortunate that there were plenty of other snacks left for the children.

While the young boy was leaving the house with a high spirit, the knights kept staring at him. It looked as if they were staring at a wolf cub crawling into a lion’s den without its owner.