Several days passed after that. There was no particular word from Duke Adrian. Nothing suspicious happened.

So Rosette and Lucas had forgotten about that day’s incident.

Then one day.

While the two children were lying on the floor doing coloring activities, suddenly it became noisy outside.

More precisely, Pipi, who had gone out to play, was making a loud noise.

“What’s Pipi saying?”

“She says someone is looking for me on the first floor.”

“For you? Who? Don’t tell me it’s that damned Huxley?”

“No, she says it’s an adult man and woman.”

Rosette didn’t think much of it. She thought Pipi must have misunderstood something, since there were no visitors, especially adult visitors, who would come looking for her.

‘If someone really came looking for me, Sebastian would call for me.’

But even after waiting, there was no sign of Sebastian coming to find her.

That’s when Lucas got up with a grin.

“Little one, don’t you smell something fishy?”

Rosette put her nose to her arm and sniffed.

“I took a bath today.”

“Not that kind of smell! Don’t you feel like something’s suspicious?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on.”

Lucas pulled Rosette to her feet.

“Last time, Father and Sebastian were talking about you. And today, there are people who came looking for you. Don’t you sense anything?”

“I don’t know…”

“Let’s go downstairs for now, little one. Father is out today, so this is our chance.”

Before Rosette could say “Huh?”, Lucas dragged her out of the room. As they passed through the corridor and were about to go down the stairs.

“Oh, little one.”

Lucas, who had gone down first, suddenly stopped in his tracks. Rosette, not noticing in time, bumped her nose into his back.

“Ow.”

Rosette rubbed her nose and poked Lucas’s arm, which was still not moving.

“Why did you stop?”

“Well, um…”

He raised his hand to point at the hall.

“That woman…”

Rosette peeked out from beside Lucas to look where he was pointing. There stood a man and woman who appeared to be in their 30s.

But the woman Lucas pointed at.

“She has the same pink hair as you?”

She had thick, wavy pink hair.

Pink hair was uncommon. Rosette had never seen anyone with pink hair in her entire life.

And now a woman with pink hair had come to the Adrian household.

How could such a coincidence happen? Or maybe…

While Rosette was just blinking in confusion, it happened.

The woman, who had turned her head, suddenly made eye contact with Rosette and shouted.

“There, there she is!”

Me?

Rosette pointed at herself with her finger. Lucas desperately spread his arms to shield his sister.

“Rosette! Mom, it’s Mom!”

The woman tried desperately to run over, but was blocked by the guards and couldn’t approach.

Both Rosette and Lucas focused on the word she had said.

“Mom?”

“Little one, is that your mother?”

“I don’t know. I…”

She had never seen her mother in her entire life. After all, she had been abandoned in front of an orphanage shortly after she was born.

But now this woman was saying she was her mother? What in the world was going on?

At that moment, Sebastian came out and approached the woman.

“The master is currently out. This is troublesome. Please leave.”

“Just… just let me see my Rose. Please let me see her.”

“We need the master’s permission. Now, if you’ll…”

“You won’t even let a mother meet her daughter!”

The woman, seeming to have changed her target, desperately reached out towards Rosette.

“Rose, my baby. Come here. Come to Mommy.”

She began to shed tears.

“Mommy’s sorry. Mommy was… it was too hard. But I never forgot about you, not once.”

Lucas turned to look at Rosette with a worried expression.

“Hey, little one. What are you going to do?”

But Rosette herself had no thoughts.

‘I never really thought I’d be able to meet my parents.’

When she was at the orphanage, she had missed and resented her parents at times.

But she never expected them to come looking for her. She didn’t even think they would remember her in the first place.

But one thing was clear.

‘If I meet that person here, Dad will be upset.’

From the looks of the situation, it seemed this wasn’t the first time that woman had come here. If so, Duke Adrian must have known about her existence.

Yet the fact that he hadn’t said a word to Rosette about her birth mother meant there must be some reason.

For example, if the woman’s identity was suspicious.

So she didn’t want to meet that woman here and cause trouble.

“Let’s go back inside, elder brother.”

“Huh? But she’s your mother…”

“I don’t want to meet her right now.”

Rosette spoke uncharacteristically firmly and started climbing the stairs first.

Lucas looked back at the woman making “Uh, uh?” sounds before following Rosette back to the room.

“Rose! Rosette!”

The woman’s voice echoed through the mansion, but Rosette didn’t look back.

Upon entering the room, Rosette silently opened a book. But her mind was so complicated that not a single letter registered in her eyes.

Lucas, who had been watching Rosette staring at the same page for a while now, asked cautiously.

“Hey, little one. Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“I mean about your mother. She seemed to miss you a lot.”

“I wonder.”

Rosette trailed off.

‘In the past, it was known that the child adopted by the Dallas family had pink hair and was named Rosette.’

So why did parents who never came looking before show up now?

Even if that woman was her real mother, her intentions for coming must be impure.

“If she missed me, she would have come looking earlier.”

“Huh?”

“Why did she come only now, when she never came to find me at the orphanage? It would have been easier to find me when I was at the orphanage.”

“Is that… so?”

“Yes.”

Lucas slowly inched closer to Rosette, who was still staring at her book.

“Didn’t you want to see her? I miss my mother.”

“I…”

Rosette finally closed her book.

“I’ve never seen my mom even once. How can I miss someone I’ve never seen?”

“I see?”

“Yes.”

“Mm.”

Time passed as Rosette blankly kept looking at the same page over and over, while Lucas watched his sister carefully.

About an hour later, Duke Adrian, who had heard the news, came to see the children.

“Rose, Lucas.”

“Dad.”

“Father!”

Lucas and Rosette ran over quickly. The duke spread his arms to hug both children, then picked up Rosette.

“You were reading a book, I see.”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

The duke, forcing a smile, whispered.

“Shall we talk for a moment, just you and Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Lucas, go to your room for a bit.”

Lucas went to his room without a word.

Duke Adrian sat down across from Rosette.

“I heard about what happened today from Sebastian.”

“Yes.”

Duke Adrian studied Rosette’s expression. But even he, sensitive to children’s emotions, found it difficult to read his youngest’s feelings right now.

Her face was that complicated.

After pondering for a moment, he decided to be honest.

“Actually, some people claiming to be your parents came by recently. The ones you and Lucas saw earlier.”

“…”

“Are you angry at Daddy?”

“No.”

Rosette answered without hesitation. She truly didn’t have any particular feelings towards the duke.

“You’re a smart adult, Dad. I thought you must have had a reason for doing what you did. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Duke Adrian patted his thigh. Rosette carefully sat on his leg.

“First, we needed time to investigate whether those people are your real parents. It’s been too long since you were separated, and there were no clues about your parents at all.”

“Yes.”

“Also, even if they are your birth parents, I had to consider whether it was right to let you meet them.”

“Why?”

“Well…”

Rosette asked the hesitating duke directly.

“Are you afraid they might want something from me? Like money?”

“My goodness, Rose. Who taught you to say such things?”

“It was just my own thought.”

Duke Adrian let out a small groan.

“Yes, that’s right. You’ve been getting a lot of attention since the last incident. Daddy found it very suspicious that people claiming to be your parents showed up at this particular time. I think there’s a high chance they’re not real.”

“…”

“So I wanted to ask you to wait until the investigation is complete. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

Again, there was no hesitation in her answer.

“I’m fine with that.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

He lightly kissed Rosette’s cheek and left the room.

Even after that, Rosette couldn’t turn the pages of her book for a while.

Duke Adrian read the documents handed to him by his aide with a serious face.

“Are they really mother and daughter?”

“Yes. We’d need to confirm with a genetic test to be certain, but based on the initial screening, there’s a high probability they’re related.”

“I see. You may go now.”

Duke Adrian rubbed his throbbing eyes and fell into thought.

‘What could their motive be?’

On the day when those claiming to be Rosette’s parents first came, the duke had heard the details from Sebastian.

They said that when they were young, they weren’t in a position to raise a child, so they abandoned Rosette at an orphanage. But they never forgot about Rosette and intended to take her back when their situation improved.

Recently their financial situation had improved, and when they went to the orphanage to get Rosette, they heard she had been adopted by the Adrian family, so they came here.

‘This is really giving me a headache.’

At first, Duke Adrian thought they would make financial demands. He was prepared to give them money if that was the case. After all, thanks to them, he had been able to meet the lovely Rosette.

But they wanted to take Rosette away. Moreover, they said they were planning to leave for the Kingdom of Evelyn soon.

If things went their way, Adrian would have to send Rosette to the Kingdom of Evelyn. If she at least stayed in the Empire, they could visit each other, but this would be a farewell with no promise of reunion.

Duke Adrian, who already thought of Rosette as his own daughter, tried his best to persuade them.

He said he would raise her in the Adrian household, wanting for nothing.

But they were adamant.

−We want to live together with Rosette. If you don’t send her to us, we’ll do everything we can.

That’s why he couldn’t tell Rosette about this. He was afraid that if the child had been longing for her birth parents, she might say she wanted to go with them without hesitation.

It was a cowardly method, but it was the only thing the duke could do at present.

He also needed to confirm if they were really Rosette’s birth parents.

‘But they say there’s a high probability they’re family…’

For more accurate information, they needed to use the artifact for genetic testing owned by the Imperial family.

However, it would take time to get permission, and in the meantime, those claiming to be Rosette’s parents would cause a commotion.

After pondering, Adrian made a decision.