The Knight's Mysterious Maid-Chapter 477: Growing family (4)

Annalise tried to think of the last time she had cared for a child more than one night. She played with the children at home, but she never had any need to watch over them for more than a few hours at a time.

She didn’t have any siblings nor did she take any jobs watching over children when she came to this kingdom.

There was the one time she helped her mother hide the children in one house when they thought the war was going to go on for many days, but her father had returned with news that the guards were backing off.

It wouldn’t be the best answer to mention that the one time she cared for children for nearly a day had something that had to do with war.

"I have not taken care of a child for more than one night. At home, I was busy following my father’s lead because I would one day have to take care of leading our people. Rafael didn’t mention that, did he?" Annalise asked as Thelma’s reaction seemed genuine this time.

"You will be the leader. Something like a queen, I assume. That means the two of you will be busy so who will be caring for Lydia? I hope that you do not plan to have others raise her while you are away," Thelma said against this if that was what the two planned to do. She disliked seeing parents hire someone to care for their children.

It was an issue Thelma had with some of the nobles because they sometimes left their children in the hands of strangers. She witnessed it often in her job as a maid before working at the orphanage.

Lydia was a sweet child who should have her mother and father around. Thelma thought that with Rafael still being a knight, Annalise would be around in his absence to care for Lydia, but now it seemed like the two of them would be busy.

"No. The war has come to an end so I won’t be so busy that I will need someone to care for Lydia every day. Even if there are days when I must be away and need to have my mother or Beatrice watch Lydia, would that be so wrong? I would be there in the morning and at night to see Lydia. I won’t rely on anyone else to raise Lydia," Annalise promised.

If there were days she became busy with looking over matters of their land or something to do with this kingdom, Annalise didn’t think it was much of a problem to let Lydia stay with Celine for one day. Her mother was family.

Annalise had spent many days with her grandparents when her parents were busy.

For most of the time, Lydia would be with Annalise while at the border. During the day, she would be busy with learning because Annalise planned on finding her a tutor to teach her about her new home. In the future, Annalise would find someone to continue to teach Lydia about the Castro kingdom.

"Family helping you on days that you are busy is fine, but I hope you don’t get caught up in your work that you will not have time to care for Lydia on your own. Being a leader must be a lot of responsibility and there might always be someone wanting to speak to you," Thelma said.

Thelma was failing to believe Annalise would have the time needed to be with Lydia. She already knew not to expect a knight would be present all the time.

"That is why I am putting together a group of people who will be there to take some of the work off of me. I will have time to raise Lydia and Rafael will be with me when he is not away fighting to keep all of you safe," Annalise said, reminding Thelma of the reason they were so busy.

Thelma thought of Annalise as Beatrice since Beatrice was left to care for Rafael most of the time, but the difference was that Annalise had a job to do so wouldn’t always be around like Beatrice. "This is something I will have to think about longer. For now, I will move on. What do you think makes you fit to be a parent? We skipped over that question."

"We will both love and protect her," Rafael answered to give Annalise a break in taking the lead with answering. "We are both in positions where we have many people to care for. We risk our lives to keep all of them safe. It will be no different with Lydia. She will be our first child so we may stumble sometimes, but we are ready to give it our all to be better parents to her."

"I don’t think anyone can be the perfect parent. We will all have our flaws one way or the other, but it matters most that that flaw doesn’t hurt the child. We’re ready to do our best. To be patient with this new experience. To put her needs first," Annalise said, adding to Rafael’s answer.

"It sounds like you intend to live at the border. Will you be living there forever, Rafael? I need to know where I can send someone to check on Lydia to see if she is doing well," Thelma said, moving on as she was satisfied with their answers.

"I will be moving to the border along with my parents and knights. We can bring Lydia back here anytime you need to check how she is doing in our care. We would gladly make the trip back," Rafael suggested.

A three to four day trip was nothing if they needed to show that Lydia was fine in their care.

"Then that will work best for me because I don’t have anyone who might be willing to go to the border as yet. Will there be times you are at the manor you have? We can make a trip there," Thelma said so it wouldn’t always be Rafael or Annalise having to travel.

"There will be days I will visit Rafael at the manor so Lydia will be coming along with me. I can send letters days ahead so you know when to go to the manor to see Lydia," Annalise answered.

"Thank you for working with me. This wouldn’t continue for more than two months. We only need to see that no harm has come to her and she is happy. Should war continue, I would need for you to take Lydia somewhere safe," said Thelma.

It was hard to believe a war that was happening when she was a child had come to an end.

"Of course. We do it with all the children at home. No one has ever made it to our homes to get close to the children to harm them. If one of our own has ever tried to hurt someone, they are either killed, locked away, or made to leave which honestly means death. My family is well respected so no harm is ever done to us," Annalise explained.

’There is no predicting if in the future someone would want to harm your family. So far, what I am hearing sounds good," Thelma said, looking down at the notes she made.

The notes were to be kept here for any of the caretakers to read about the family wanting to take Lydia and another copy was to be sent to the court to put away to know who to go after should something happen to Lydia.

"Let us continue."