Chapter: 03
“Antoine!”
Calling out my younger brother’s name, I flung the door open.
The loud noise seemed to startle him, and his crying immediately stopped.
Beyond the railing of the baby crib, I met a pair of purple eyes that looked just like mine.
At the sudden appearance of his older sister, his eyes, still wet with tears, widened in surprise.
Then, as if he had recognized me, he began to sob again.
“Si-sister…?”
His pronunciation was mixed with the quick, shaky breaths unique to young children, but he had definitely called me sister.
At that moment, an indescribably hot emotion spread from my heart throughout my entire body.
“Uuu, hic. Sniff!”
“W-Wait a second, Antoine! Don’t wipe your nose on my clothes! Silk is difficult to wash!”
But right now, he was nothing more than a little baby with a runny nose, crying all over his sister’s nightgown with tears, snot, and even drool.
It was only natural.
Antoine was six years younger than me.
I had also become much younger, but a four-year-old was still a baby.
A baby, indeed. Wah.
“Are you okay?”
“Waaah… waaah! Hic, sniff…”
The black hair that should have been soft and fluffy was completely soaked with sweat and stuck to his forehead.
On top of that, his delicate skin and the area around his eyes were bright red from crying so much that it made anyone who saw him feel sorry for him.
“Where is the nanny?”
“Nanny… nannyyy—waaah!”
The moment I mentioned the nanny, the tears that had barely stopped began falling again.
Fine.
Rather than pressuring a crying child for answers, it would be faster to search for her myself.
The nanny used the room next to Antoine’s so she could take care of him whenever needed.
However, even now that I had come here, the door to the adjoining room remained tightly shut.
As if there was no one inside.
“Nanny! Is anyone there?”
No sound came from beyond the door.
Could something have happened to the nanny?
All kinds of ominous possibilities flashed before my eyes.
I shook my head vigorously to chase them away and turned the doorknob.
“It’s open…?”
Surprisingly, the door had not been locked from the beginning.
“Nanny!”
But there was no sign of the nanny anywhere inside the room.
“Antoine, where did the nanny go?”
“…Sh-she said… when I wake up… hic! She’d come back…”
“What?”
For a moment, it felt as if someone had hit me on the head.
The nanny had left a four-year-old child alone?
Antoine mumbled in a voice filled with hiccups.
“Th-the nanny said… sniff… Antoine is already four years old now… so he should… hic! Sleep alone…”
No.
Sleeping alone did not mean leaving him completely alone and disappearing.
So this was what it meant to feel dizzy from shock.
There was nothing wrong with teaching a child to sleep separately from a young age.
Especially since I could not remember the nanny’s name or appearance anymore, but I clearly remembered her strict and difficult personality.
She must have been even stricter toward Antoine.
But it was a completely different matter if there was no guardian nearby who could rush over when something happened.
Why didn’t I know about this before?
The question reached the tip of my tongue, but I forced myself to swallow it.
The person I needed to question here was the nanny who had left a child alone.
Not Antoine.
‘Mother and Father probably didn’t know about this.’
My mother, who spent most of her days lying in bed, and my father, who was often away from the mansion.
Naturally, taking care of the children became the responsibility of the nanny and servants.
Even my mother, who should have managed them, was unable to fulfill that role.
Especially since the nanny directly educated the master’s children.
The maids could not even protest if she openly used a whip instead of a simple discipline stick.
That would have been considered overstepping her authority.
As a result, unlike me, who had grown enough to take care of myself, Antoine had been completely neglected.
Why hadn’t I known?
The answer came quickly.
At this age, I did not particularly care for Antoine.
If anything, I saw him as a rival who stole away the little affection my mother could give, and as a bothersome leech who followed me around constantly.
So whether my younger brother was neglected or not, I had never even cared.
It seemed I needed to completely revise my plans.
As Adelaide stared seriously at the empty room, Antoine became frightened and watched his sister’s expression carefully.
‘After you sleep well, I’ll be right beside you.’
He had believed the nanny’s words and gone to sleep.
But when he woke up, he was still alone.
The loneliness and fear became too much, and when he cried, his sister came running and comforted him.
But his sister was different from usual.
His sister had never cared even when he fell down or cried!
What had happened?
Was he dreaming?
In this unfamiliar situation he had never experienced before, Antoine’s eyes moved anxiously.
Even the sister who had just comforted him was now staring into empty space with wide-open eyes.
Was she angry with him?
Because he had not acted like the future viscount?
Because she was disappointed in him?
Antoine apologized in a voice so faint it seemed like it might disappear into the air at any moment.
“S-Sorry, Sister…”
I was wrong.
So please don’t hate me.
Okay?
You’ll scold me too, right?
Like the nanny, will you sigh deeply and say you’re disappointed in me?
“Uh… uh… waaah… don’t hate me…”
“……”
At that moment, my expression completely collapsed.
I pulled Antoine into my arms so he could not see my face.
“It’s okay. From now on, I’ll protect you.”
“Si-sister?”
“Antoine. I’m your sister. It’s only natural for an older sister to protect her younger brother.”
To young Antoine, his sister’s words were too difficult to understand.
But even if he could not understand them, he could feel them.
My sister is on my side.
Thinking that, his sister’s embrace, which had always felt distant and awkward, suddenly felt a little warmer.
“Antoine. Didn’t the nanny tell you where she went?”
Now that Antoine had calmed down somewhat, I needed to find the missing nanny first.
However, Antoine only shook his head.
‘Well, of course. There’s no idiot who would tell a child they were leaving him alone.’
But what should I do?
I had a pretty good idea where you were.
This was something that happened in my previous life.
Suddenly, the nanny was fired, and many servants, including the stable keeper, were replaced.
Back then, I did not even know the reason.
But now, I knew the circumstances all too well.
Adelaide looked at the empty floor without even a single carpet and smiled.
“Antoine. How about playing treasure hunt with your sister from now on?”
“…Treasure hunt?”
Treasure hunt was a game they had played together in the garden before.
When the happy memory came to mind, Antoine’s heavy body, soaked like wet cotton, became light again like fluffy cotton.
His eyes sparkled as if he had never cried.
“Yes. If you tap the floor tiles, they make different sounds, right? One of them should sound different. There’s a treasure hidden underneath.”
“I’ll do it!”
They say crying and laughing causes a big change in a person’s body.
Adelaide smiled inwardly.
Despite still sniffling, Antoine happily lay flat on the floor.
“If my memory is correct… it should be around here.”
“Sister! This one sounds different. This one goes knock knock, but that one goes tap tap.”
“Exactly! Amazing, Antoine!”
When I gently patted Antoine’s head, his face covered in tears and snot broke into a bright smile.
At first glance, the wooden tiles looked tightly fitted together, but upon closer inspection, there was a section that did not align properly, as if a rotten part had been replaced.
When I lifted it, a small space perfect for hiding something appeared.
And inside was the so-called ‘treasure.’
“That’s the treasure? It’s just paper?”
“Yes. It’s a very precious treasure. Let’s take it to your parents tomorrow.”
The ‘treasure’ discovered while removing the floor tiles to sell them would completely destroy the already ruined reputation of the viscount family.
But this time, it became the method to save Antoine.
So what else could it be if not a treasure?
“Mom and Dad?”
“They’ll be happy when they hear Antoine found it. And today, sleep with your sister.”
“With Sister?”
His excited voice rose so high it seemed like it would reach the ceiling.
“I want to sleep together!”
The small body that jumped into my arms no longer carried the scent of sadness and loneliness.
Instead, it smelled like the warm, sweet scent unique to babies.
Ah.
Even though he was my younger brother, he was really cute.
A child should be allowed to laugh, cry, run around, fall down, and sometimes be stubborn for no reason.
And above all, they deserved to be loved endlessly by the people they loved.
‘Antoine. Trust only this sister.’
The next day, the maid who came to wake Adelaide up screamed when she found the empty bed and collapsed onto the floor.
“Lady Adelaide has disappeared!”
