How to Avoid Becoming a Vicious Stepmother - Chapter 95

8. The Eighth Plan. To greet the new family members warmly. (4)

Gellerhard, who returned proudly, was holding the reins with only one arm while his other arm appeared rather invisible from sight. His cloak, which used to flutter majestically fast in the run, was gently wrapped around his body instead and Gellerhard’s movement seemed to be slower than usual too.

“Amanda, by any chance—just by any chance… Did Gellerhard hurt his arm?”

Duchess Dowager, who knew the brisk exchange of letters between Gellerhard and I, began to ask with a pale expression. I had never heard of it, but was it an arm injury that Gellerhard intentionally hid from me? As I shook my head, I felt my excitement at his return eventually hardened with fear instead. It was only Carl, who knew nothing at all, started to run around while waiting for his father.

Duchess Dowager and I both watched Gellerhard who approached with our stiffened faces. She squeezed my arm in hers as I wrapped my arms around hers in return. No matter how much Gellerhard tried to hide, the news of the Duke’s injury would never go unnoticed after all. As I kept on thinking so, the Duchess Dowager and I leaned against each other while waiting for him to get even closer.

Gellerhard quickly got off his horse while Carl had excitedly run towards him. As Carl clung onto him with both of his hands, Gellerhard shifted his thigh over and stroked Carl’s head. Yet his left arm remained missing still.

“Please, my son—”

The Duchess Dowager’s sorrowful heart soon flowed out. Gellerhard moved forward with Carl, who had already grown considerably, while hugging his thighs and Carl laughed out loud that it was fun. Gellerhard, who came closer, had returned with such shaggy black hair and a sparse beard as he stood before the Duchess Dowager. And his expression hardened in response.

“Mother. And Mandy.”

Finally, he took off his cloak. Fortunately, his left arm appeared to be very intact.

“Phew—”

The Duchess Dowager immediately let out a sigh of relief. On the other hand, I started to frown because I just couldn’t believe it when I saw what was in his arms.

“Gellerhard, what—or who—did you bring back?”

A child was being held in Gellerhard’s arms. It was wrapped in a wide-open cloth and tied tightly behind his back, so it appeared as if he was holding an oval-shaped ball in his arms, but they had actually been the child’s buttocks as it curled back. A child who was brought back by a husband, who had just returned straight from the battlefield. As she saw that her son’s arm was all intact, the Duchess Dowager exhaled a sigh of relief before she eventually swallowed a gulp of breath in amazement.

Just as my mind was about to become complicated, he pulled out the baby who had been all wrapped in cloth.

Gellerhard’s gauntleted hands slowly clutched onto the baby’s armpits. As if it was to show the child, he presented the child and the moment I could see the child, my breath stopped at once.

The girl had tousled dark brown hair and a purple pair of eyes that looked exactly like Gellerhard’s. She must have just turned one year old and she was a really young baby, but her breathing as well as her mouth looked very much like mine.

“Theodora!”

Carl’s voice rang out clearly. Every night, I would always recall the last moments of my child—the vivid moment of the child’s funeral—all on my own, but seeing a child who looked just like me, no, just like Theodora herself, all those moments now felt akin to a dream.

The baby didn’t cry as it looked at me blankly. The moment I met with those purple eyes, I reached out to the baby as if I was all possessed. Before I even knew it, the baby was already in my arms and Carl, who had been in Gellerhard’s arms, started to watch us with his neck all stretched out. The baby was very, absolutely like Theodora. Theodora, who grew up very little just as time passed on that day.

“Theodora is back!”

Carl shouted along with his green eyes all sparkling. Carl, who had a father who was always away from home for half a year and had yet known much about the concept of ‘death’, seemed to think that his sister had left before and finally returned—just like his father. However, the Duchess Dowager and I were definitely not as young as little Carl.

“This child…?”

His voice trembled with tension. Gellerhard stumbled out as he looked at the child in my arms before he eventually pulled out a small pouch from his chest.

“I picked her up on the battlefield. Maybe some idiot thought that one could still get through the monsters even in the middle of a war. Since there had only been this child who was left crying…”

He placed the pouch on the child’s tummy. Looking at the circular outline, it seemed that a ring was inside. The Duchess Dowager took the pouch and pulled out the contents. As expected, the ring made its presence felt right on the palm of her hand. Surprisingly, a very large golden gem gleamed and some small colored gems were scattered along the ring. It wasn’t really that pretty, to be honest. It just appeared insanely ostentatious and expensive, more like it was a ring for an identification rather than aesthetic use.

“There’s nothing else to prove her identity except for the fact that she had a ring on her hand, but I still don’t know if it’s actually a keepsake from her parents.”

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