The Knight's Mysterious Maid-Chapter 478: Stay with you (1)

"That was the last of my questions, but the test is not over yet. I will let you take her for one day so that you may see what you are in for. I rather you have her for one day and see that it is a lot of work to care for her than you take her far away and realise what you are getting yourself into. It is up to you when you want to start the day," Thelma said, giving them full control.

They could take their time with deciding because there was a lot they needed to plan before taking Lydia. A room appropriate for Lydia to use needed to be prepared first of all.

Thelma wished to avoid a problem she saw recently where because the child was adopted, parents thought it was fine to decide they wanted to adopt one day, not through caring for the child, realise it was hard, and then wanted to adopt another child they thought would be easier to take in.

This was not like shopping for the right dress where you could take one and bring it back when it didn’t look as you wanted when you got home so returned to exchange it for another. The children had feelings too. Something many liked to ignore.

"Then, could we take her with us now on our way back home and bring her back around this time?" Annalise asked, ready to take Lydia with them.

They had most of what they needed thanks to how impulsive they were with buying everything they thought Lydia would like. They had dresses and toys Lydia could use. They still had food left over from their trip to prepare a meal tonight.

Well, Rafael would be cooking since Annalise didn’t want to start her cooking now when she had not practised and Lydia not want to take another bite.

Tomorrow they were going to get more food so Lydia could join them for the small trip to the market.

"I admire your eagerness, but don’t you want more time to prepare?" Thelma questioned, double-checking that this was what they wanted to do today. "There is no rush in taking her tonight or tomorrow."

"I understand that it sounds quick, but I have been preparing for this moment since I thought of adopting her. If Rafael is alright with it, I would like to start this test tonight," Annalise said, waiting for Rafael’s answer because he had to be ready to do it with her.

If Rafael wanted more time, Annalise could wait until he thought he was ready.

Before giving an answer, Rafael thought about which room in the house they could give to Lydia and how fast he could get it prepared for her to use.

As of right now, everything they bought for Lydia had been placed by the door as they were too busy to sort it out with the doctor coming and then having to return to the orphanage for the test.

If Annalise were to keep Lydia busy, he could prepare the room quickly and then get started on dinner. It was all possible as long as he and Annalise worked together.

"We can take her now," Rafael answered.

"Well, that is surprising, but it is good to see how confident you are. Don’t worry about trying too hard to be perfect. You are new at this. This is just to show how much work it is to care for a child," Thelma said as she put away the papers with her notes so no one could interfere with them.

"You cannot just walk away when you feel overwhelmed. At any point if you want to bring her back, please do not continue to struggle and just bring her back," Thelma said as they shouldn’t push themselves too much.

"When we let potential parents take children home, we tend not to say the word adopt around them or let them know that it has anything to do with them getting a family. We normally say that they are going off to play. It is just to avoid them getting excited about being adopted, and it doesn’t happen in the end," Thelma explained.

She knew that children were smart and were going to guess what was happening, but she continued to not let them know that they were in the middle of being adopted.

"The older children understand it early and try their best to behave so they are adopted, but the younger ones like Lydia will just be happy to be going somewhere else to play so she might not understand. I will let you know after speaking to Lydia tomorrow if you will be able to adopt her. I must also speak with the other caretakers," Thelma said.

There wasn’t much left to do other than to watch Rafael and Annalise with Lydia. Thanks to them playing around today she got to witness their interaction with Lydia. How Lydia had bonded with them so fast and was speaking to them while she was quite silent with anyone else who tried to get near her.

Annalise wanted the day to go by slowly so she could thoroughly enjoy caring for Lydia away from the orphanage for the first time, but at the same time, she wanted the day to go by fast so she would have her answer to if they would get to adopt Lydia.

There was only one thing about this test which concerned Annalise.

"How do you stop anyone with bad intentions from running off with the child during this time?" Annalise asked, worried that this might have a bad ending one day.

A day was plenty of time for someone to sneak out of town with the child and never bring them back.

Thelma had also thought about this and it was why she worked so closely with the court and guards. "The court and town guards will be sent a message before the two of you leave. The guards will send someone to keep watch to make sure you do not leave. They have been doing a good job helping us to make sure no children are taken."

"The plan is to have a room built here for couples like yourself to spend the night here and help us care for the child. We are waiting for money from the palace to move forward," Thelma said as they didn’t have money to spare for it yet.

It would save them from having to ask the town guards to keep an eye on the couple and child.

"In the past, one of the caretakers would go along with the couple to watch how they are with the child, but it is only four of us now, and I cannot send off anyone to leave the orphanage right now when we have our hands full, so we are relying on the guards," Thelma furthered explained.

She was waiting for anyone to come to offer their time helping to look after the children, cooking food, or washing.

"The money promised to us will come soon so should you ever want to adopt again, you will have to stay here. I will get Lydia for you and let her get a few of her things. She should be done with washing up for dinner right now. Do you want to join us for dinner?" Thelma extended the invitation since there was plenty of food to go around.

"If you don’t mind, after giving the children their gifts, we would like to head back before it gets late," Annalise said, turning down the invitation.

"I understand. Please wait here," Thelma said, going to the door as she needed to get someone to help pack for Lydia and send off the message to the guards. Her mind was more than halfway made up to help the two become parents.