The Knight's Mysterious Maid-Chapter 215: Jealousy (1)

"How long do you plan to lay on top of me?" Rafael asked, keeping his hold on Annalise’s waist. He didn’t mind how they were now, but he figured Annalise would want to get up to clear this up with his mother.

Annalise rested her head on Rafael’s chest. She wanted to get up, but then it meant she had to face Beatrice and all her assumptions. She hoped that somehow if she stayed quiet, Beatrice would forget what she saw.

"Please," Annalise pleaded with him to do something about his mother. She didn’t want Beatrice to get the wrong idea, but right now, she could not face her to tell her that she misunderstood why her son’s maid was lying on top of him in the garden.

Annalise wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings to know if Wendy and Siena had joined Beatrice to see her as she was with Rafael right now. What was with Beatrice’s timing? First seeing Annalise eating his breakfast and now this.

"Mother," Rafael said, motioning with his right hand for her to go away.

Beatrice continued to back Rafael and Annalise since she didn’t want to see them doing anything. "I just want to make it clear that I was not stalking the two of you. Wendy thought she made you angry and sent me out here to see. That is all," she explained.

"Good. You can leave now," Rafael replied. He needed her gone before Annalise would poke a hole through him since she was poking at his chest with a finger right now.

"You don’t need to come inside, but please, anywhere other than the garden. You know how much she loves her garden, Rafael. Goodbye," Beatrice said, hurrying back toward the house so the two of them could get back to what they were doing.

The children were so much different these days to be doing something in the garden in the middle of the day.

Annalise slowly lifted her head after hearing Beatrice walk away from them. "Is this fun for you?" She questioned Rafael since he was smiling ear to ear. How could he be smiling at a time like this? "Your mother will think that you were trying to do something with your maid in the garden."

"I will explain it to her. She would not be able to hold her curiosity for long and ask me what we were doing. You should also know that my mother knows me better than to think we were doing the act to give her grandchildren right here. She must think that we were just kissing," Rafael said to reassure her.

As much as his mother wanted him with Annalise, she would have yelled if she thought they were about to make love. She would be worried about someone else catching them and Annalise ruined.

"That doesn’t make me feel any better. Can you please let go of me so I can get up?" Annalise asked, trying to free herself from his grip on her waist.

Knocking him over didn’t seem too great now that she couldn’t get out of his hold.

"Do you want more people to walk by and get the wrong idea about what we are doing on the ground together? Oh, pretty," Annalise said, leaning closer to Rafael’s face. "There is a small spider in your hair. He must be living in one of the leaves and we disturbed him."

Rafael let go of Annalise’s waist so she could get off him and get rid of whatever was in his hair.

"I knew that would work," Annalise grinned, rolling off of Rafael before they could cause a scandal. "There really is a spider in your head so you should shake it. Sit still and I will get everything out of your hair. It is my fault that you fell."

Rafael sat up and shook his head as Annalise said. These days, there were more spiders than he liked around him.

"When I am finished, you need to go back inside so the lady doesn’t feel like she made you angry. I have a feeling you didn’t go inside because you didn’t want to speak to the young lady," Annalise said, getting on her knees to get a good look at what was in his hair. "I don’t blame you. Before being your maid, I didn’t think there was much pressure on men to wed."

"No one seems to think that if you marry late you won’t be able to have children. It is easy to blame your poor wife. You have wealth and a title so there is no need to act quickly to secure a good partner who will take care of you and your children. Though I’ve heard the maids speak of a man in town trying to wed quickly because he lost all of his money gambling."

"It is more common than you think. There are plenty of men who are desperate to marry wealthy young women to get out of debt. Or looking to marry because they need to raise their status. Some of them just hide it well that they don’t have money," said Rafael.

Annalise suddenly had the answer to Rafael’s problem. "Why don’t you spread a rumour that there is no money in your name? It will get a look of mothers to turn their daughter’s attention from you to someone else."

"Who would believe that the commander of the Callahan knights is without money? Even if I were to be a man who gambles, I still receive some money from the palace frequently. It is not only my wealth that women are after. It is my ties to the king. King Tobias doesn’t allow many to get close to him for an audience," Rafael said, looking over his shoulder at Annalise being focused on cleaning his hair.

"Is getting close to the king so important that someone would marry you when you have no money? The way all of you think confuses me. I start to understand something, but then you say something to make me have to understand it all over again. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if titles just disappeared?" Annalise questioned, feeling like titles made the people here kind of crazy.

There weren’t any titles at home. Her father was just known as the leader and everyone addressed each other by their names. There wasn’t a day Annalise could recall everyone calling her father leader when they saw him. The town was one big family with a few relatives you didn’t like, but there was no one to stick their noses in the air.

"It wouldn’t matter if titles were to disappear because the kingdom would turn to focusing on money. My advice is for you to continue to be confused about titles. To know more means you have to be around people with titles and it is too dangerous," Rafael said.

Annalise pulled a piece of grass out of his hair. "I was going to say that means I would need to stay away from you, but you don’t see knight as a title worth mentioning amongst dukes and lords. You are just Rafael Callahan. If only it were that simple."

"Because you wouldn’t second guess wanting to be courted by me?"

"Yes," Annalise answered honestly. "You will get hurt in the future if you continue to have feelings for me. I am flattered. I appreciate the compliments and gifts, but one day it will change. I cannot tell you why," she added before he could ask. "Please stop liking me because I don’t want to think about the future. It doesn’t feel good when the look someone gives you changes."

Annalise heard tales of how people on this side reacted when they would come across her people who ventured around the kingdom. How their friendly ways quickly changed. She did not want to experience it with Rafael or his parents who had been kind.

"I won’t-"

"You will!" Annalise disagreed. "It is inevitable because it always happens."