“B-Baron Bensweed will be looking for this child! It’s true!”

Ann gasped and screamed. Her words were half lies and half truth.

“Wh-when that happens, you won’t be safe.”

The shovel stopped. Ann didn’t miss that. It was behavior unlike her usual self. But she’d been acting unlike herself ever since she saw the limp boy.

“I-if you spare me, I won’t say anything about you. Even if they ask, I’ll answer favorably.”

“Really?”

One of the boys said. The boy standing beside him asked, “You believe that?” Ann flared up and shouted until the veins bulged in her neck.

“L-look at what this child is wearing. It’s different from us. He’s really a noble.”

Ann brushed away the dirt and pointed at the boy’s ruffled shirt, stained crimson with blood. His outfit truly was different from theirs. The boys recalled when they first saw the child. It was yesterday morning. The child who ran into Oliver had been extremely arrogant.

Pale pearl-colored skin without a scratch, a plump face. Blonde hair that curled like wool. Vivid violet eyes they’d never seen anywhere… At first, they’d thought he was a girl. With elegant eyelashes and red lips beneath a high nose bridge…

Everything about the boy was splendid and simultaneously so foreign it could never mix with Bluebilt.

Oliver and David hadn’t acted out impulsively for no reason. The boy they’d encountered on that street stood out all alone, like he’d come from another world.

“Hey.”

The boy who’d been glaring at Ann, displeased that the boy had dropped his shovel, gave him a shove. But that urging no longer worked. The boy who agreed with Ann’s outcry extended his hand to Ann in the pit.

Ann barely made it out of the pit. The boy gripping the shovel cried out in surprise, asking what he was doing. But the boy who’d entered the pit heard nothing. He carried the blood-soaked boy on his back and emerged from the pit in one go.

“If someone’s gonna die, you can die yourself.”

“What?”

“You saw it too, yesterday morning. How fancy this guy’s outfit was. Even to me and that b*stard Oliver who don’t know anything, he was wearing something impressive. I don’t know who his parents are, but they’ll comb through Bluebilt Village soon enough. With a whole swarm of police.”

“……”

“Oliver might not fear the police, but he’s just a dog bone in front of a deployed riot squad.”

The boy muttered coldly. Whether agreeing with his words, the boy who’d been blocking him threw down the shovel and turned around. 

Ann sighed. She looked at the child on the boy’s back. He still showed no response.

* * *

Prince Lennox of the Kingdom of Las Palmada was a boy who turned eight this year. As the only son of the King and Queen, he was famous in court for his temperament—so perverse and capricious that everyone clicked their tongues.

If he’d been as lacking as he was difficult, the King would have seriously reconsidered his position as heir, but Lennox was as brilliant and clever as he was ill-tempered.

“No. Today I’m definitely going riding with Yvonne.”

“However, Her Majesty the Queen, to the ladies of the salon…”

“No. I’m not going.”

“Your Highness.”

“This is Mother’s fault. If she wanted to summon me to the salon to be treated like a monkey, she should have at least told me yesterday!”

Lennox shouted and glared at the attendant. The attendant who met his gaze broke into a cold sweat and swallowed a sigh. Treated like a monkey…

The Prince was far too willful. Though he was born noble and accustomed to commanding everything at his fingertips, it wasn’t right to defy even his mother or father’s orders. 

But the Queen indulged everything because her son was too precious.

Whenever the Prince threw unreasonable tantrums, she gave in and tried to calm him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand. The Prince had lost his older siblings in succession before he was even born. 

Two of them, no less. The attendant remembered the young princes with features strikingly similar to Lennox.

Though not as much as the Prince before him, they’d been pretty children with delicate features, resembling the King who was called more beautiful than his Queen. 

After losing both children, the Queen spent quite a long time in a daze. If not for her sense of responsibility and duty as Queen to continue the line, she would never have returned to daily life.

“Her Majesty doesn’t intend to have you treated like a monkey. Besides, today Countess Altuart went to visit Lady Moranden’s wife who is ill.”

“Bring her here.”

“Your Highness.”

“Just bring her. Yvonne said she’d spend time with me today!”

The Prince shouted roughly. Yvonne—that is, Countess Altuart—was the wife of Count Altuart, the King’s Guard Captain, and the Queen’s maid. 

The woman the King had long admired. No, the woman who still captivated his heart and wouldn’t let go…

She was the young Prince’s nurse and currently his literature teacher. The Prince liked her to an excessive degree. He even seemed to love and follow her more devotedly than his mother, who doted on her son and wanted to grant him anything.

He couldn’t understand it in many ways. But like father, like son—didn’t the King also favor her unusually and want to keep her close? Perhaps it could be understood in those terms.

‘Even so, it’s excessive.’

The attendant swallowed a sigh and looked down at the young boy throwing a tantrum. The woman the Prince called ‘Yvonne’ and demanded be brought to him was currently away from court at the Altuart family’s villa on the outskirts of Rosbon.

Not only could she not come immediately if the Prince commanded her presence, but even if his command were conveyed, she clearly wouldn’t comply.

“Fine. Then I’ll just go to her.”

“Your Highness, what do you…”

“Never mind. Don’t follow me!”

Lennox stormed out of his study. The attendant followed him with a twisted expression. Then Lennox, who’d been stomping down the corridor, shouted, “I said don’t follow me!” 

The attendant couldn’t pursue him further and watched him descend the stairs.

Lennox wasn’t pleased with his mother. She seemed to grant everything Lennox wanted, yet she was stubborn about what he actually wanted. 

Though she appeared affectionate, she often reversed decisions based on her mood and had a nervous streak in everything.

Though she claimed to cherish him, she rarely considered his feelings.

“Next week I’m going to spend time with Yvonne. We’ll go riding and visit the ranch too.”

Lennox had been very excited since last week. 

Next week, Yvonne would return from her family home. Having grown up in her arms since childhood, Lennox followed Yvonne devotedly. In truth, Yvonne was like a mother to him.

She’d fed and put him to sleep since he was an infant, raising him like her own child. Lennox began living as a prince apart from Yvonne when he turned five.

“Your Highness, from now on you must wash your face alone and eat alone too.”

“Even when sleeping? Do I have to sleep alone too?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about Yvonne? Where will Yvonne be?”

Lennox was a child who’d never once been apart from his nurse. Whenever he opened his eyes, his nurse was always there. Even when falling asleep, she’d stroke his hair with her gentle hands.

From the moment he started walking, he spent all day fulfilling the schedule his parents wanted. He was a child who complied with his parents’ wishes more than expected.

Even when he occasionally complained and whined, once they started coaxing him, he’d quickly smile sweetly and do anything. What Lennox wanted was one thing. To continue staying with his nurse. That one thing was enough.

His nurse didn’t need to be there every hour, every moment. But whenever Lennox wanted, she had to hold him in her arms and stroke his hair.

“I’ll be not far from Your Highness, thinking of you every day.”

Lennox’s face crumpled. He couldn’t understand. Lennox clung to her, saying it absolutely couldn’t happen.

“Is it because of Hughie? Then bring him. Let Hughie stay at the palace with us too!”

Hughie was her young son. Yvonne made a sad face. She was a woman who always kissed his cheek with a faint smile. Tears welled up in Lennox’s eyes and he punched her. Yvonne didn’t resist and took his punches. So he couldn’t punch her for long either.

“No! I won’t forgive you!”

“Your Highness…”

“Yvonne is mine! My nurse!”

Lennox burst into tears and clung to her. Yvonne, who’d been holding back tears, collapsed and hugged Lennox tightly. Lennox sobbed, telling her not to go. 

Yvonne quietly soothed Lennox. 

She wasn’t leaving for a distant foreign country or the frontier, just temporarily away to nurse her mother at her family home. So she could return anytime and stay with Lennox.

“A dignified prince doesn’t show tears.”

Slender hands stroked both his cheeks. Lennox embraced her neck. A warm rose scent came from her abundant blonde hair, nearly silver. Lennox sniffled miserably and clung to her chest. 

Yvonne patted his small back.