Chapter 35

The Fourth Plan. To increase the intimacy between the father and the son. (5)

“Thank you—”

The Duke, who brought the chair which I had originally sat on before placing himself at the high table, smiled and assented after listening to Carl’s words. It was quite refreshing to see him grinning as I had mostly seen only his cold-looking usual appearance, other than his awkward and flustered appearance on bed.

“You speak quite well.”

Gellerhard said while waving the bell on his right. The jingling bell rang loudly and Carl, who was always in charge of shaking the bell while sitting on my lap, began to reach out greedily towards the bell this time as well.

Gellerhard, unlike before, kindly put what his son had wanted right into his hands. Carl smiled while shaking the bell before he put it down quietly. Even if it looked like this, that was actually a magic tool, so even if there had been no line of connection, the bell in the kitchen would have still rung itself.

“Yeah, it’s now the time to start talking and getting to know Dad.”

Carl didn’t seem to have recognized his own father, who hadn’t been home for a year and a half. The child grew up every half a year without the Duke’s presence and eventually forgot about his father, who was never there each time. In fact, I was not sure if the concept of ‘Dad’ even existed in Carl’s head in the first place.

But it should not be like that. In the original work, the Duke was a father who had neglected whether the fact that he knew about the child abuse that had been done by ‘Amanda’ towards Carl, but such a thing would never happen anymore since Amanda was now myself.

“So, I would like you to spend some time with Carl this winter.”

The first step had been to inform Carl of his father’s existence and the following plan was to improve the relationship between both Gellerhard and Carl themselves.

“Me?”

“Yes, I will help you get acquainted with Carl right away.”

I gently pressed my lips against the back of Carl’s head. The child’s head, which was covered with such soft black hair, gave off a unique sweet scent of a baby. Carl then turned his head at me as he smiled. The baby, who had been crying hard earlier, had quickly recovered and was now grinning well.

Gellerhard rested his chin against his hand as he looked at Carl and myself. As I held Carl in my arms while gazing at Gellerhard, I could instantly see the similarities between both the father and son. How much more would the child look like Gellerhard in the end? Maybe it was because I had just heard about the topic of a child from the Duchess Dowager, I suddenly became conscious for no apparent reason.

I heard a knock and the soup eventually arrived. The maid who brought the soup in began to sip a little of Gellerhard’s and mine on the spot with a small silver spoon before she immediately served the one right in front of us.

“Soup!”

“Yes~ I’m going to eat some soup~ Umm, it’s a delicious onion soup~”

As he could smell the savory aroma of the soup, Carl’s legs started waving about and eventually hit mine. Ugh, not too energetic, please. I guessed he was truly the son of a knight, then? Carl was really active.

“But, why Mandy?”

Gellerhard asked while stirring the soup once with a spoon.

“Mandy? Ah, what Carl is now using to call me?”

I raised my voice as I realized that there were some maids who hadn’t left yet and the fact that the knights’ voices could still be heard through the open door. Gellerhard furrowed his eyebrows, but he didn’t really ask why I was being polite.

“Huh.”

I slowly lifted up a spoon. The cook must have paid special attention since Gellerhard had just returned yesterday and this was the first meal right after the previous dinner. Everything seemed to make his mouth watered.

“Since my name is Amanda, my nickname becomes Mandy. And Carl calls me Mandy because it is much easier to pronounce anyway.”

The door was closed slowly as the maid softly bowed her head before walking out. As I scooped up the soup with a spoon, Carl began to part open his lips wide.

“Wait a minute, Carl. Let’s see if our Carl can eat it first.”

At my words, Carl simply licked his lips and waited. The soup that I tasted was savory and sweet. Plus, it was soft, so I thought that it would be okay for Carl to eat it. After letting the soup cool down, I put it on Carl’s lips and the child chomped it in a snap. Then, after scooping a little more soup and allowing it to cool down again, I promptly said more to Gellerhard.

“Gellerhard, if you also want to call me Mandy, please do so.”

“Is that okay?”

That thoughtless remark raised Gellerhard’s voice an octave higher. Seriously, I never knew that the husky voice of his could go up an octave like that.

“What’s wrong? Of course it is.”

“This is my first time… calling someone by their nickname—Mandy.”

What was the use of a nickname if not for calling out to someone? Gellerhard, who had all the power to ultimately change a person’s name before calling it out as he pleased, was actually asking that in an excited voice. It was simply a nickname that everyone whom I had known since childhood called me with… Gellerhard seemed to like it so much that it was his first time ever doing something like this, which made me feel rather sorry for him.

“Gellerhard? What about your nickname then?”

“It doesn’t exist.”

I guess he didn’t have any real friends… It appeared that Carl needed to develop his social skills really hard in the first place.

“What did your parents call you?”

“Son—that’s what they called me.”

“Even outside DeMancier, that’s just normal. My older brother, who currently has a big family, calls his child simply by ‘son’ as well.”

Carl kept opening his lips like a baby bird to see if the onion soup was really delicious while I continued to feed Carl’s mouth as I ate from time to time too.

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