Elliot froze.
"All orphanages are run by the Royal Family?"
"Yes, that law has been in effect for some time."
Elliot had vaguely heard about this, but he had never imagined that running one privately was actually illegal.
It was just an orphanage. Did they really need a law forbidding anyone else from opening one?
For a moment, Elliot was puzzled.
He suddenly remembered that Vanessa seemed to have mentioned that the orphanage where she had grown up had been abandoned.
She had been rather wistful about it, saying that the matron there had actually been quite kind and had taught the orphans to read and sent them to school.
Vanessa had managed to get into university partly because she was genuinely gifted, and partly because the orphanage had helped her.
It seemed that the orphanage had been abandoned because of this law.
"However..." The old butler changed tack. "It isn't particularly difficult to get around it. Almost all of the Seven Holy Bloodlines take in orphans of their own." Elliot nodded, but then something struck him as off. The Seven Holy Bloodlines all adopted orphans themselves?
There was nothing wrong with that statement alone, but Elliot knew these nobles all too well. Were they treating orphans as some kind of resource? Beside him, Flora looked rather troubled too. Clearly, she had thought of something unpleasant. She opened her mouth, unsure what to say.
But the old butler had not finished. "...Evan, for instance. He was an orphan adopted by the family."
Elliot blinked.
Evan, the taciturn guard at his side, was actually an orphan adopted by the Sterling Family?
Oh, so they adopted orphans to serve as guards and death-sworn retainers?
Elliot breathed a sigh of relief.
That was indeed an old tradition.
In his previous life, Elliot might