Winter Bud - Chapter 42

“Even so, that child has to live that way.”

“Then why don’t you bear another?”

“What?”

Nanna’s face twisted. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It felt like hell itself. Feeling the storm of emotion rising inside her, she rose from her seat. She had no intention of seeing him out. As a mere concubine, she was supposed to show respect to the Duke, father of the Empress, but she didn’t.

Even if it meant picking a fight, she had no intention of regretting it. As she turned, a long hand seized her arm. Nanna flinched in shock and looked up at him as if she’d seen an assailant.

“Nanna.”

“Let- let me go. Please….”

“Let’s leave the Western Palace.”

“No, no. Duke, please….”

Nanna struggled to pull her wrist free from his grip. She had no idea what he wanted from her, nor did she care to know. She only wanted to escape this moment, to never face him again.

Every encounter with him was humiliation. It dragged up wounds she could never forget, forcing her to relive that day over and over again. Even hearing him mention Alexis was the same. She felt tears welling up. Unable to hold back the sobs that broke from her throat, she let out a trembling moan.

“Let go of me.”

“You wanted to bear my child once, didn’t you?”

“Stop it!”

Nanna shouted. It was more of a scream than anything else. She wanted nothing to do with him in any way. At some point, he seemed to have realized this too, as he’d kept a certain distance. And yet now, he suddenly grabbed her wrist. Why… her wrist? Nanna trembled, her face contorted.

“No. I don’t want this….”

“Nanna. Calm down.”

Cold sweat drenched her until it became hard to breathe. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Nanna said no. She didn’t even know what she was rejecting anymore, and what she didn’t want. Perhaps she was only gasping in panic. Yet the Duke didn’t back away. He gripped both her cheeks, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“Calm down. Nothing’s going to happen. I won’t do anything.”

Nanna didn’t believe him. Even that gesture—his hands gripping her face—was something she could never calm down from. The Duke seemed oblivious to that.

She shook her head fiercely. “Let me go. That’s the only way I can calm down.”

“….”

Nanna spoke the words between trembling breaths. The Duke’s expression hardened at those simple words. The air turned heavy. Nanna wanted to run. Anywhere. Anywhere he couldn’t find her. Like a frightened child, she wanted to sprint away and hide. Maybe if she hid well enough, the Duke would finally give up. She thought of the days when she used to attend to him.

Those days were blurry, like a past life, and yet sometimes as vivid as yesterday. Nanna could never truly escape him. More precisely, she could never escape the humiliation, the sorrow, the shame of those moments. It hadn’t even been anything so remarkable. A nobleman sleeping with a pretty maid from his household wasn’t unusual. Nor had the Duke been cruel or violent with her.

He often seemed unwilling to acknowledge that he was sleeping with her, but even so, he was never brutal. If anything, he’d been more gentlemanly and composed than Orestes.

There had been rare times when he acted roughly toward her, but he always apologized afterward and awkwardly tried to comfort her when she was frightened. Maybe that was why she’d thought it was all right. Maybe she had simply forgotten her place. One of the maids who had caught on to their relationship had once told her she was lucky.

The maid said that serving such a noble and highborn man in bed was an incredible honor in itself. Besides, the Duke wasn’t old or repulsive enough to make the experience unbearable. He was, in fact, a remarkably handsome man. His sharp features, drawn with graceful lines, were strikingly refined, and his commanding presence radiated the true dignity of an aristocrat. His broad chest and wide shoulders, his solid frame built of well-trained muscle, were smooth and firm, without even the slightest trace of excess fat.

In short, the Duke was a captivating man in his prime, even though he had a grown, unmarried daughter. Because of his racial traits, he barely showed any signs of aging, which only made him more so. Perhaps Nanna really had been lucky.

One of the maids even told her she should try to become his mistress. Although Duke Everhardt had deeply loved his late wife, Thea’s mother, and was said never to have forgotten her, the fact that he kept Nanna as his bedmaid showed that he wasn’t entirely against the idea of taking a mistress.

Nanna stared blankly at the maid who spoke so seriously, then turned her gaze away. No matter what kind of man the Duke was, his desire terrified and disgusted her. Not because she had no feelings for him, but because she was close to Thea.

No, in truth, it was because he was the thing Nanna had envied most about Thea. Would things have been different if she hadn’t been close to her? If Thea had never told her they should live like sisters? If she hadn’t seen up close how affectionate the Duke was toward his daughter….

Looking at the Duke, she had wished she could have a kind father of her own. Like Thea had called her a sister, she wanted to be cherished by him as a daughter. That was all. She had never wanted the Duke as a man; she had wanted him as a father. But….

That could never happen. She was reminded of that every time she attended him at night. To him, she was nothing more than a vessel to vent his lust. Even if she were Thea’s age, she could never become what Thea was to him. The wretched feeling wrapped around her completely. Nanna looked up at him, pain tearing through her heart.

“I’ll make you come back.”

Startled, Nanna lifted her head. He looked down at her with all traces of humiliation erased from his face. Nanna lowered her gaze, and tears fell. Her lips trembled as she searched for something to say.

“Even if I refuse?”

“When have you ever wanted me?”

“…You never had those feelings for me either, Duke. You’ve always loved your late wife.”

“I did.”

“So I….”

“And you wanted me to be your foster father.”

Nanna raised her head, tracing his face in confusion. The Duke let out a short, humorless laugh. The way he laughed made it clear he was mocking her. Nanna felt her face burn.

He was laughing at her now, for having ever wanted him as a father. It was shocking enough that he even knew, but what hurt most was realizing that her longing had been so foolish it was worth mocking.

Nanna’s eyes twitched and quivered. Frozen, she couldn’t even blink as she finally forced her lips apart.

“Not anymore. I don’t feel that way anymore. So please….”

“You’ve insulted me at every moment.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“I’ve never disrespected you.”

“….”

“I truly served you with all my heart. Just like when I served Lady Thea….”

“You were jealous of my daughter, weren’t you?” he replied monotonously.

Nana clenched her jaw, her lips tightly sealed. She shook her head violently. His face remained indifferent, unbelieving. Nanna’s tears spilled endlessly as she swallowed her sobs. She barely managed to part her trembling lips.

“…It’s true. But Lady Thea was still precious to me. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Should she be grateful to Thea for that? No, she shouldn’t think that way. Nanna wiped away her tears. Just as the Duke had said, she was jealous of Thea. She envied what Thea had. She had wished Thea could share even a little of it with her. But what she wanted had never been something that could be shared. That fleeting jealousy and inferiority crumbled and faded away. A fiancé or a father were not things one could divide.

In fact, she had envied not the noble and handsome fiancé, but the presence of a kind father even more. Thea’s father had loved his late wife so deeply that he never remarried another woman. He knew his frail daughter could never become his heir, and yet he still did so. How could he not cherish the daughter of the woman he had loved so dearly?

Having endured her father’s curses and kicks every day, Nanna had learned from the Everhardt father and daughter that a father could, in this world, be kind to his daughter.