Chapter 05…
Several months passed, and Catherine gave birth to a baby girl.
“What!? It’s not a boy?”
Apparently, those were Catherine’s first words after giving birth.
If it had been his older brother, he would have rejoiced no matter the child’s gender. He would have held the baby joyfully and thanked Catherine.
After that, when the maid tried to hand the newborn to the mother, the father suddenly reached out and snatched the baby away.
Mother was stunned, and Kevin felt the same.
Even though Kevin had officially married Catherine just a month earlier, it still felt strange for the husband to be the first to hold the baby—but for the father to do so was stranger still.
Since the Countess Carmine was the mother, shouldn’t she be the next one, after Catherine, to hold the child who would inherit their bloodline?
As always, Father’s way of thinking didn’t make sense to him.
After Kevin returned to the mansion, he’d noticed how excessively his father sided with Catherine. It was probably because she was carrying his late brother Lucio’s child—he wanted to protect her.
And that was exactly what Kevin had suspected.
“This girl will be the heir to the House of Carmine.”
If his brother were alive, the child would have inherited anyway, so Kevin had no objection to that.
But his father’s next words made his blood boil.
“Kevin, you’re being skipped. After Sheila, this girl will inherit.”
“What…? Skipped?”
The next Countess, after Mother Sheila, would be this newborn baby?
It wasn’t that he desperately wanted the title—but wasn’t this absurd?
“I accept that my brother’s daughter will become Countess. But wasn’t I supposed to act as the interim heir until then?”
That was why he had quit being a knight and returned home.
“What need is there for you to become Count? You might seize the title and refuse to pass it on.”
“Seize it? I’m also a son of the Carmine family!”
He spoke as if Kevin were an outsider trying to take over their house.
If the child grew up and claimed her rights someday, that would be understandable—but hearing his father say it now was infuriating.
His brother had taken after their mother.
Kevin resembled their father.
He had never once doubted that he was truly their parents’ child.
He knew his father preferred his brother—but he hadn’t realized it was this bad.
When he looked toward his mother, she seemed flustered and uncertain about what to say.
The baby wouldn’t be old enough to inherit the title until she turned eighteen.
That meant Mother would remain Countess for the next eighteen years.
At forty-four, she wouldn’t be able to retire until she was sixty-two.
These days, when most people live to around sixty-five, it was normal to hand over one’s title and retire by fifty or fifty-five.
Being forced to shoulder extra work for the sake of the land and its people—that he could tolerate.
But having to live under the same roof as his parents for another eighteen years—that might be the real torment.
He had always assumed that by the time Mother turned fifty, he would inherit the title and his parents would retire to the countryside—and he could endure it until then.
But now, he just wanted to run away.
