Chapter 37
I wondered what on earth that superior royal bloodline was made of.
If Princess April hadn’t sniffled earlier, I might have mistaken her for a doll.
Her long, glossy black hair, her bright green eyes, her fair skin, and her round, rosy cheeks—so plump I wanted to gently bite them.
I felt my nostrils flare in admiration and quickly covered my face with a napkin.
“What… are you doing?”
Isaiah, sitting across from me, asked as he watched me hide behind the napkin.
I slowly lowered it and met two pairs of green eyes.
“Wow.”
That admiring sound slipped out before I could stop it. I thought I heard Isaiah stifle a laugh, but I didn’t have time to care about that.
Would Kaylen’s future child look like this too?
They said she was his half-sister, but they looked so alike that I kept staring at Kaylen, then April, then Kaylen again.
“O-older brother.”
Maybe my staring made her uncomfortable—April’s eyes started to fill with tears again.
“Ah, I won’t look! Yes! I won’t look! Right! Where is Princess April? Haha! I can’t see her!”
I hurriedly turned my head left and right, pretending she wasn’t there.
“Pfft. Khh. Kk.”
Isaiah tried hard to hold back his laughter. He bit his lower lip and lowered his head, but he couldn’t hide his shaking shoulders.
“Sigh.”
Kaylen sighed and lifted April from her chair, placing her on his lap. He patted her shoulder and pointed at me.
“Say hello, April. This is Elliana Rudd—no, Elliana Lampert.”
I stared at Isaiah, who was still trying to hold back laughter. Seeing his bright red face made me bite my lip to hide my confusion.
To greet April properly, I needed to look at her—but what if she cried again? Frozen, unable to do anything, I just stared straight ahead.
But the thing that confused me most was Kaylen.
I didn’t know he could make such a gentle sound with his voice.
“W-who is she?”
Her voice was extremely small. Encouraged by her question, I slowly moved my eyes to the side.
Princess April held tightly onto Kaylen’s sleeve, glancing at me with a mix of curiosity and caution.
Yikes.
Without realizing it, I slightly turned my head away. For a brief moment our eyes met, and I quickly turned my head to the opposite side, fiddling nervously with the handle of the dinner knife.
“Well…”
Kaylen trailed off awkwardly. At that moment, Isaiah stepped in.
“She’s Brother Kaylen’s wife.”
“W-wife?”
“Yes! They had their wedding a month ago, and now Lord Kaylen and Lady Elliana are husband and wife!”
April looked very curious about who I was. Maybe her curiosity won over her shyness because she looked at Isaiah and asked:
“Hu-husband and wife… what’s that?”
“Husband and wife means this: a man and a woman meet, promise before God to stay together forever, live in the same house, eat together, and sleep in the same—ow!”
Isaiah suddenly bent down with a pained expression, disappearing under the table. When he came back up, his face was redder than ever.
“Friend… that doesn’t mean you can kick my leg…”
With his teeth clenched, Isaiah complained that a friend shouldn’t kick him like that. It must have really hurt.
Kaylen didn’t spare Isaiah even a glance. Instead, he poked April’s chubby cheek with his finger.
“We’ll be seeing each other often so—”
“T-together!”
Kaylen didn’t finish.
Princess April suddenly shouted and raised her voice even more.
“Together! April too! Together! H-husband and wife! April too! April wants to be husband and wife!”
At those words, Isaiah—who was rubbing his shin—looked up. I also turned to the princess.
“April.”
Even Kaylen looked shocked. He glared briefly at Isaiah, then opened his mouth to calm April down, but—
“April wants to be husband and wife too!”
Her determined little face was… damn it. She was too cute!
I felt my nostrils flare again at the cuteness. Then Princess April suddenly jumped off Kaylen’s lap.
What followed shocked all of us—Kaylen, Isaiah, and me.
“A-April together. O-okay?”
She walked up to me and grabbed the hem of my dress tightly, looking up with hopeful eyes. Without meaning to, I nodded.
“Yes! Husband and wife!”
And so, Kaylen, Princess April, and I became husband and wife.
“You said she was shy?”
I asked as I looked at the cute, pretty angel lying on her belly in the warmest part of my office early in the morning.
“I—I’ve never seen the Princess act like this either…”
Leah, April’s nanny, laughed awkwardly while glancing at the princess, who was focusing on drawing something on paper.
Because Isaiah blabbered nonsense, April misunderstood the meaning of “husband and wife,” and thanks to that, all her walls of caution collapsed in an instant.
Should I call that lucky?
“Together… together…”
After dinner, April began to nod sleepily, and as she left the dining room in Leah’s arms, she mumbled softly.
And the moment she woke up early in the morning, she stormed into my office in her pajamas shouting “Together!”
Leah begged her to get dressed, then fed her breakfast, but afterward April came back—and decided she preferred my office over Kaylen’s. She unpacked her things here.
Watching her happily drawing with crayons she brought, I couldn’t help but smile.
“Mia. Please check if we have a small desk and chair suitable for the Princess.”
“Yes, my lady.”
April’s occasional giggles and sweet little voice as she talked to Leah felt like medicine for my soul.
And that’s how I started sharing my office with my five-year-old sister-in-law.
Sharing the office with the princess, I learned a few things.
April liked Kaylen much more than I expected, she was good at drawing, and though her speech was clumsy, she was smart.
She was also a picky eater—she loved sweets, especially lemon-flavored candy. She scared easily, but in some cases, she was braver than Isaiah.
In short, she was a bundle of charm. A living lemon candy.
Winterford Castle had long been without children, and April—overflowing with cuteness—became a sudden superstar.
But April herself didn’t like that attention.
If she happened to meet servants while walking in the hallway, she’d hide behind Leah’s skirt or press her face to the wall until she could be alone again.
Still, at least she didn’t cry anymore.
This was a victory we achieved only after a full week since she arrived at Winterford.
Time moved fast after April came to Winterford. Work piled up like mountains, and unexpected guests kept visiting, making every day hectic. Before I knew it, the end of December was approaching.
If we were in the capital, this would be the season filled with endless parties and gatherings celebrating the year’s end.
“No matter how poor we are, we should at least hold a year-end party, right?”
Holding the plan I prepared, I headed to Kaylen’s office.
His office was full of people.
April was running late today, so I guessed she had stopped here first.
Isaiah, who had been lying on the long sofa reading, jumped to his feet when I walked in.
“What is it?”
“Good morning.”
As always, Kaylen skipped greetings and went straight to business, so I greeted him first. April, who was clinging to his leg, saw me and raised her hand high.
“Goo’ mornin’!”
Every time April visited the office, I greeted her with, “Good morning, Princess.” She learned it quickly.
My smart, adorable little sister-in-law—today she looked extra cute as she ran toward me and grabbed my skirt.
“Pway—play!”
“…Pardon?”
“Ewi! Pway! Play!”
She looked up at me with sparkling green eyes.
Unfair! This was unfair.
With that cute face, how could I refuse?
The game was already lost from the start.
Come to think of it, she had been holding back for a long time. Children should be able to play outside, but because of the harsh snowstorms, even walking in the halls required heavy winter gear.
The only places April could play were the small room we prepared and our two offices.
She must have been frustrated. But she never whined or threw tantrums, so I assumed she was fine. I was wrong.
I looked at the year-end party documents in my hands, then at April holding my skirt and looking up at me with shining eyes.
Then Isaiah, who had been standing in the middle unsure of what to do, finally spoke.
