The Knight's Mysterious Maid-Chapter 486: The answer (2)

"I cannot decide on the paint. Should we just take one of every colour? We’ll have enough to use another time," Annalise said as she was stuck on what to pick. "Pick what you think we will need, Lydia. You are the artist among us."

"How many?" Lydia asked as she didn’t know how much money they had to spend. "Three?"

"No. As many as you want. It doesn’t matter if it is twenty and pick out the brushes that you like," Annalise replied.

Annalise gave up on being the one to decide what they needed and left the shopping to Lydia. She stood beside Rafael who was also clueless.

"Are you alright? Much better from last night and this morning?" Rafael questioned, taking this time to know more about what Annalise was feeling.

"I am fine like I said last night and this morning. My body is just playing tricks on me because we know for certain that I am pregnant. My being sick must all be in my head last night because I am fine," Annalise said, folding her arms as she watched Lydia. "It’s not like I was sick a few times during our trip here and kept it a secret."

"It was nothing I couldn’t put up with and I didn’t want you worrying about me, but yes I should have told you and I will tell whenever I am not feeling like myself. No secrets," Annalise promised.

"Let’s see how long that will last with you claiming that you are fine all the time. It’s okay to need someone’s help," Rafael said.

He knew that Annalise could take care of herself and she knew that he was well aware of that. She didn’t need to try proving that she was strong enough to take care of herself and no one had to worry about her.

"I might overreact when you look like you need some rest, but it is because I care for you. If you hide what you are feeling and suddenly you don’t want to eat, it will just worry me more. Let me do my part in caring for you. We’ll have plenty of days to have fun so put resting first," Rafael said, hoping this time Annalise would listen. "You are stubborn."

"I am," Annalise agreed. "It’s hard to show that sometimes I might need help. I don’t want anyone to think they always have to be watching out to help me so when I can take care of myself, I want to. I will be more honest when I am not well. I promise."

"You should because what you are feeling is only going to get worse," Rafael said, looking away from Lydia to Annalise. He read through what the doctor had written for them to get prepared for. "We should buy a few books."

"Not right now when there are so many people watching," Annalise replied.

"Why are you caring about the stares all of a sudden?" Rafael asked.

"I want to enjoy the secrets we have among us. Being able to walk around without someone finding out something about us. I can’t hide the engagement, but I would like to hide for a little longer that we are expecting. I’m not in the mood to deal with questions or even strangers I don’t know circling me to congratulate us. Sometimes it feels good to blend in," Annalise answered.

It was something she missed about just being a maid in the past. Walking around and no one paying any attention to you.

"I can send for someone to buy the books in secret and buy their silence. Money will help us keep our secret a little longer though I fear we won’t have much money with how much paint she is putting on the counter," Rafael said, now noticing the growing stack of paint. "Do we need that much?"

Annalise shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea. Why didn’t we just ask the owner instead of leaving it to Lydia? I see now why we should have waited until Lydia was with us to buy her gifts. We could have saved a lot of money if we knew that paint would have been what she wanted a lot of. That is enough," Annalise said, stopping Lydia before she could buy out all the paint.

"We already have the bedtime books so after this, we will make a quick stop at the orphanage. The other children must be missing you," said Annalise.

"Have this delivered to my home," Rafael instructed the owner. "And the canvas?"

"I will have them made to the size you requested and delivered along with the paint. Thank you for coming to us for your materials," the owner said, trying not to rub his hands at the sight of coins Rafael was putting down on the counter. He had to thank the little girl for running around and bringing everything she touched.

A little bit more and he would have taken an early day off since he had sold more than enough for the day.

"Time to go," Annalise said, holding Lydia’s hand. "We’ll come back to the market another day."

Rafael walked ahead of Annalise and Lydia to get the door for them. "Keep your eyes out for the carriage," he said since they had gotten off early and didn’t know where it was parked among the other carriages.

"This should be fun. We get to walk around a little more to look for the carriage. Let’s play a game of who can find it first," Annalise suggested.

Lydia was determined to win and started to look around for the carriage as soon as they exited the shop. She felt that it was a little unfair because a few tall people were blocking her sight.

Around ten minutes later, Lydia was the one to spot the carriage and they were on their way back to the orphanage to learn of Thelma’s answer.

Rafael was confident they would be taking Lydia home with them again. Lydia was eager to stay with them and they had not given any answer or failed to care for Lydia last night to lead Thelma to believing they weren’t ready.

Should there be some reason Thelma wanted to wait longer to give her answer, it was fine with Rafael. They could wait a little longer as it was a decision that would greatly affect Lydia’s life.

Lydia was no longer worried about them going back to the orphanage since she would be telling the caretakers that she wanted to stay with Rafael and Annalise. If the caretakers missed her, she could visit them.

She couldn’t wait to go back to her room to play with Annalise and then help Rafael with cooking in the evening. They were still to do their drawing contest and Annalise had promised to let her ride a horse.

Annalise also seemed to be sick so Lydia wanted to be around to care for her. There was much they had to do so Thelma had to let her stay with the two. She had proven that she could be fun and useless.

"Orphanage," Lydia said, pointing to it. The other children were outside playing as usual. She would miss the tree she played around so she had to say goodbye to it and the birds that sometimes built their homes there.