I'm Only a Stepmother, But my Daughter is Just so Cute

CHAPTER 7

It was Blanche. A peek over my shoulder revealed her standing in the hallway with a maid by her side. Tears welled up in my eyes again at the sight of her, as she happened to be wearing the same pink dress the doll had on.

I didn't want to cry in front of Blanche so I surreptitiously wiped away my tears. "Have you been well, Blanche?"

"Yes, Lady Abigail. But um, that is...?" Blanche was looking at what was left of the doll in my hands. At first glance, one could barely tell that it had, at one point, been a rabbit. Now it was a mere shadow of its former glory.

"That is..." What should I say? I hesitated for a moment before trying to pass it off as casually as I could. "I wanted to give you a small doll, but I messed up a little and the cotton appears to have gone everywhere."

It was an obvious lie. The doll had clearly been destroyed by some sort of a sharp object. Not only that, Sabelian was right behind me, sword in hand. It would've been the easiest thing in the world to say: "Your total son-of-a-bitch dad here was the one who destroyed your present!", but I held the words back. No matter how I felt, I didn't want her to see her parents fighting even if she knew there was no love between them..

Blanche's gaze drifted over to Sabelian for a second before focusing back on my hands. She then wrapped her tiny hands around mine. "I have a maid who's very good at sewing. She'll put it back together in no time." She smiled, trying to console me before carefully taking the scraps away from my hands. Her small hands could only hold so many so I placed the remainder into the box beside me. "Thank you, Lady Abigail. I'll treasure it."

Ah, I feel like crying again. I had to look up the to ceiling to keep anything from leaking out. How was such an angel begat from human trash like him? The man's previous wife must've been the incarnation of Buddha himself.

Despite wanting to spend a little more time with Blanche, it was more imperative to get away from Sabelian at the moment. Standing up, I lowered my head in an approximation of a nod in his general direction and quickly made my escape. I all but ran back across the hallway.

The moment I set my foot down on the staircase, the tears I had been holding back simply overflowed. Damn it, I hadn't planned on crying. But... Blanche accepted my present today, right? She held my hand, too. She said thank you as well. And... And....

Certainly, a good many wonderful things had happened today, but despite knowing that, my tears wouldn't stop flowing. I could only hide behind a nearby pillar and covered my face with my hands.

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He looked at the scrap of pink cloth from the doll's dress that was in his hand, then placed it down on the table. It was just a piece of cloth no bigger than a fingernail, but Sabelian couldn't take his eyes off of it for some reason.

"Is there something worrying you, Your Majesty?" He glanced up at the owner of the voice. It was none other than his aide, Millard. The man had seemingly appeared out of thin air next to him before he even realized it.

"It's nothing." A strange look crossed Millard's face when Sabelian said that. If there was truly nothing going on, for what other reason had the king been making a face resembling that of a philosopher deep in thought, with a scrap of cloth in his hand, no less.

His expression as remote as ever, Sabelian suddenly spoke... "How's Queen Abigail nowadays? What kind of rumors are there about her?"

Millard found himself unexpectedly surprised by this. Sabelian, showing interest in that Abigail? He responded in a low voice, "According to my sources, she seems to have stopped harassing all the maids. She also appears to be visiting Princess Blanche quite often."