The heavy wooden door slowly closed behind Karl, cutting off the cold light outside and the young man's heavy, departing silhouette.
Earl Rochefort remained standing where he was, his deep gaze seeming to pierce through the door and fall on that young lord growing farther and farther away, his steps staggering under the sudden weight of fatherhood and responsibility.
He slowly paced to the window, to the spot where Karl had been leaning moments before, and looked out at the reinforcements of Fran City preparing to march out in orderly fashion.
The soldiers were like busy worker ants, banners snapping in the cold wind. He was about to become the commander of this army and go face the Jackals in the north.
Just now, in the office, that instant of shock, bewilderment, guilt, pain, and even the self-loathing that had nearly crushed Karl had not escaped the earl's sharp eyes, eyes that had read countless people.
Good.
The taut string in the earl's heart loosened slightly.
There was guilt. There was fear. Fear of losing Charlotte and child. That meant he could still be saved.
It meant Charlotte still carried an extremely heavy weight in his heart, heavy enough to shake the heart layered over by ambition, responsibility, and desire.
It also meant that the sudden little life called "Klein" was like a heavy weight, smashing hard onto the scales of Karl's life, leaving him unable to maintain his balance so easily, so self-deceptively, ever again.
The earl himself did not want Karl and Charlotte to break with each other completely, not only because there was already a bond of blood between them.
That little grandson named Klein was one of the Rochefort Family's hopes for the future, Charlotte's flesh and blood, and also an important bond to restrain Karl