Obviously, It's My Child - Chapter 130
Katya changed into simple outdoor clothes and opened the safe.
Inside was the record left by Marvin Schneider on the day he died. Marvin had been the Secretary of the Crown Prince’s Palace. So this was effectively the record of the Crown Prince’s last day.
And it was something the Empress had been searching for all along.
‘I intended to use it as a safeguard against the Empress, but…’
She thought that if the secret was revealed, it would be due to the Empress’s betrayal.
She hadn’t told anyone. Thomas knew, but even he didn’t learn it from Katya’s own words.
Only three people in the world knew this secret: herself, Thomas, and the Empress. Augusta and Stefan were merely the Empress’s pawns.
She hadn’t anticipated that the Klausener household would find out.
And as soon as the Empress learned of it, she used Iris to blackmail her.
Asking to bring the thing she had been asking for a long time.
‘I can’t trust the Empress. But now that I’ve made an enemy of Klausener, I have no other choice…!’
The only way to save Iris was this.
Gritting her teeth, Katya slipped through a secret passage into the night.
* * *
Count Schneider woke up the next afternoon.
Instead of returning home, he headed straight to Duke Klausener’s residence.
The mansion was very quiet. The Duke and Duchess had already left for their honeymoon.
“I didn’t come to meet Duke Erich but to see Miss Lina.”
He said so to Maximilian, who came out to greet the guest on behalf of the host.
Maximilian replied with a stony expression.
“The Duchess’s instruction was to prioritize Miss Lina’s feelings above all else.”
“Did you convey my wish to visit her? Just tell her. Allow me just a moment to see her face and have even a brief conversation.”
“Count, Miss Lina also needs time.”
Count Schneider couldn’t argue with that.
“Return home, wash up, talk with your family, and contact us again when you’re more composed. Meeting in your current state is unlikely to result in a good conversation.”
Count Schneider clenched his fist and bit his lip.
His eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard. He seemed to have aged 10 years in a single day. Maximilian looked at him with a sympathetic gaze.
“Just one thing… please tell me one thing.”
The Count asked earnestly.
“When did Duke Erich… come to know of this matter?”
“I hope you don’t misunderstand. Miss Lina came here the day after the incident at the opera house. I personally fetched her, so I’m certain.”
Maximilian continued.
“We discovered her true identity much later. Initially, she wasn’t sheltered here because of her relation to you, Count, but because Miss Lina had nowhere else to go.”
“Nowhere else to go?”
“She worked as a maid at the theater. That night, she saved the Duchess, and in return, the Duchess took her in as a gesture of gratitude.”
“A maid…?”
“I heard she has been working as a maid for the theater since she was six.”
Count Schneider staggered in shock.
His daughter had lived as a laborer?
He had never even imagined such a thing. He believed that she would live comfortably even as a commoner.
Evangeline was a successful singer. There should have been a considerable inheritance.
“How could this happen?”
“Please return home, Count. Once you’re more settled, we will contact you first with any news from Miss Lina.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
Count Schneider wobbled as he turned to leave.
Upon returning home, a tense atmosphere enveloped the place.
“Father, you’re late.”
His eldest son, Robert, had come to meet him at the entrance.
Count Schneider waved it off as if it was nothing and headed straight for the boudoirs.
“Where is Katya?”
He had to ask.
Had she really betrayed him? No, betrayal wasn’t the right word. If all this was true, Katya had been lying to him from the start.
But he still had to ask. Whether she had killed his lover and abandoned his daughter.
Whose daughter is Iris really?
He dreaded the answer, but Katya was his wife of 17 years.
Robert spoke up.
“I had been waiting for Father for that very reason.”
“Why?”
“Madam Katya is missing. The last time she was seen was when she was consoling the crying Iris last night.”
“Ah, Iris.”
The Count sighed. He had forgotten about Iris. He remembered her clinging to his arm last night, begging him to go back.
How could he face that child now?
“Father, I heard a disturbing rumor this morning.”
“Not, not now. Don’t say anything. What could be her fault? She was only six years old when she came here.”
“Father, you shouldn’t speak about it so lightly. Is the rumor true? If it is, it would bring shame to our family.”
“Later, later we’ll talk. I need to rest.”
Count Schneider spoke laboriously and turned towards the bedroom.
“Dad.”
A voice called from behind. Count Schneider stopped in his tracks.
“Are you back?”
Iris’s voice trembled. She seemed either scared and tearful.
Perhaps it was both. Iris was a delicate and tearful child.
In the past, he would have comforted her. He thought he should do the same now.
This wasn’t Iris’s fault. She was also a daughter he raised for 17 years.
But as he comforted Iris, dried her tears, and held and protected her, his real daughter, born of Evangeline, had probably been working her hands raw.
From as young as six years old. As a laborer in the theater.
With that thought, Count Schneider just couldn’t turn away.
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