Winter Bud - Chapter 48

“Your Grace, Your Grace. Please stop…. If, if there are marks left….”

“Why?”

“Th-they’ll see.”

“Who will?”

“Well. P-people. And if, if Lady Thea sees….”

“What about Thea seeing?”

“Your Grace.”

Nanna sniffled. He seemed angry. Was it because she had dared to bring up Thea? His green eyes were cold and sharp like splinters of metal. Nanna looked at him the way one might touch a shard of steel with their fingertips, then lowered her gaze. The Duke, who had been leaving faint marks on the back of her neck, moved his lips to her full breasts.

It was strange. He had said he didn’t want a child…. He had said it was a child he hadn’t permitted, yet he kissed her breasts swollen from pregnancy with such care. She wondered where all his usual plainness and dryness had gone. Nanna looked at him with a gloomy expression, then felt despair wash over her as she watched him swallow her nipple.

***

After that, Nanna became a little strange. Thea had said so, and Nanna herself thought the same. She became more timid than usual and spoke less. Thea wore a worried expression, but Nanna couldn’t meet her eyes directly.

The Duke only watched Nanna quietly, as if studying her. Sometimes Nanna recalled the words she had whispered whenever she lay with him. That Thea would find out. That if he left marks like hickeys, Thea too would learn what was going on between them.

At those words, the Duke had glared at her with a face that seemed to ask what any of that had to do with anything. Nanna found that strange. Wasn’t he having her abort the child because of Thea? Because he feared disappointing his precious only daughter if she found out. No one in the world would be happy about having an illegitimate half-sibling. But the Duke only said, ‘Why?’

“You said you’re going to Hevillie to see my grandaunt?”

“Yes? Ah. Yes. I-it turned out that way.”

“Originally, I should be the one going….”

“…No. That’s not true.”

Nanna shook her head. A short while later, the Duke truly did introduce her to a physician. It was a middle-aged woman who worked as both a physician and a midwife near the territory. He summoned the woman and had her examine Nanna right in front of him. Nanna had no idea why he was involved in this at all. He had said the baby would be aborted anyway. He had said it wasn’t needed….

The woman said that Nanna’s child seemed to be a little over three months old. That this was the point when her belly would start to show, so it would be best to perform the procedure as soon as possible. She seemed to have already been told what needed to be done by the Duke. Nanna glanced at him with a devastated look, then lowered her eyes. It seemed his decision hadn’t changed.

“Thank you, Nanna.”

“Yes?”

“It’s actually someone I should be looking after myself. But you’re going in my stead.”

Thea said this while gripping Nanna’s hand tightly. It had been decided under the Duke’s orders that Nanna would go to Hevillie to visit Thea’s grandaunt. Thea’s grandaunt, the Countess of Coneville, was an elderly woman nearing seventy and had been very close to Thea’s mother. Because of that, she had worried endlessly for Thea, who had been frail since childhood, and often sent various medicinal herbs and treats.

She was said to be in poor health these days. Because of her age, Thea should have visited her personally, but since this was a time when remnants of the Old Empire still lingered, the political situation was changing day by day. They said a civil war could possibly break out again. Because of that, it was necessary to be cautious about the Everhardt heiress, the future empress, leaving the territory.

Nanna actually wasn’t leaving the territory either. She was only going to receive the procedure in an area near the territory where the Duke’s authority still reached. It was the Duke’s messenger, his attendant, who was going to Hevillie. Nanna was telling Thea a lie….

So the very fact that she was deceiving her made her uncomfortable, and she couldn’t look her in the eye. Would it have been easier if Thea had been sensitive and temperamental like other noble ladies? Thea was a good mistress. And yet….

“Have a good trip.”

“……Yes.”

“Eat good food. And get plenty of rest while you’re there.”

“Yes?”

“You haven’t seemed well lately.”

“Ah.”

“It’s the countryside, so the air will be clearer, and it’ll be better for you in many ways.”

Thea said this with a smile. Nanna, her chin tucked, looked at her and nodded. Her eyelids trembled faintly. Just then, the Emperor came looking for Thea. The moment the door opened, Nanna stepped away from Thea and pressed herself against the wall with her head bowed.

He glanced at Nanna, stuck to the wall like a leech, then lifted Thea brightly into his arms. He spun her around half a turn and pressed his lips to her peach-colored cheek. Nanna watched the man and woman, who looked like they would remain beautiful forever in that shattering light.

While Nanna hid in the shadows, secretly spreading her legs for the Duke, Thea received the love of a kind father and her handsome, noble fiancé and shone brightly. Nanna pressed against the wall, holding her breath as she watched the lovers.

Her chest ached. No, it felt like her insides were twisting, rotting away. She was this miserable, but Thea, simply because she had a good father… no, because she had been born the daughter of Duke Everhardt, held everything that sparkled.

Her fiancé loved her more deeply than anything, cherished her with all his heart. Nanna wasn’t even allowed to look up at him. She had been born the daughter of a crippled drunkard, the eldest of a poor family, and nearly sold to a brothel. Wasn’t that who she was?

Would that have been better? Living by selling her body, spreading her legs for a few coins. But was this life any different from being a prostitute in a brothel? Nanna’s breath trembled in misery. Then, suddenly, she met the Emperor’s gaze again. He looked at Nanna indifferently, then turned his head.

Startled, Nanna hunched her shoulders and trembled finely. Even so, her heart raced toward him, and she stole another glance. It wasn’t because she desired him. She didn’t dare hope to become his lover like Thea. It was enough just to look at him. It would be wonderful if she could keep looking at him like this.

They sometimes looked like the beautiful lovers of old folktales. Perfect and flawless. They seemed to live in a world entirely different from the gutter Nanna lived in. That was why Thea’s man seemed even better. Because Nanna couldn’t have him. Because she must not even desire him.

She quietly turned and hurried out of Thea’s chambers. Something welled up inside her suddenly. Her eyes grew hot from the rough, scraping confusion eating away at her. Nanna bit her lip tightly and struggled to hold back her tears.

***

Cutting the child out of her belly wasn’t that difficult. Nervously, Nanna went alone to the middle-aged woman’s house and received a small glass bottle filled with a colorless, odorless liquid. The woman said she had prepared candy and told Nanna not to divide the dose but swallow it all at once. Nanna did as she said and sat at the edge of the medical bed, opening the bottle lid.

She tried not to think about anything if she could help it. That she wasn’t here to get rid of the child in her belly, but to receive some other treatment. But if she swallowed this, if she swallowed it….

“The baby will come back again. Young women your age, women of childbearing age like you, recover quickly because they’re healthy.”

Whether she was trying to comfort her, or whether she meant it was truly the truth, Nanna couldn’t tell. With a hand trembling finely, she fumbled at the glass bottle. The physician stared at her quietly.

“It’s a child the duke didn’t permit. Being born would be an unhappy thing for the baby too.”

Her voice was calm. Her gentle tone wasn’t exactly unpleasant either. Even so, Nanna grew angry. If it was a child he wouldn’t permit, if it was that kind of child, then shouldn’t he have avoided creating it in the first place?

Nanna couldn’t understand why the child had to die. Why its breath had to be cut off inside its mother’s womb before even seeing the light of the world. It was simply because its noble father refused to permit it. Even though she had promised she would never appear before him again….

Tears fell. The physician patted her shoulder gently. After crying for a long while, Nanna finally swallowed the shimmering medicine. Just as the woman had instructed, she didn’t take it in portions but swallowed it all at once. The physician parted Nanna’s plump lips and pushed the candy into her mouth.

Still crying uncontrollably, Nanna lay down on the bed with the candy in her mouth. Her lower belly slowly began to feel heavy and faintly warm. Drowsiness seemed to wash over her at the same time. When she opened her eyes again, Nanna was wearing a diaper. Even the slightest movement made blood spill endlessly. She thought something might be wrong with her womb. She feared she might never be able to have another child. She was terrified, to the point of madness, that creating a family bound by blood would be impossible.

Several days passed like that.

It was a little over a week later when Nanna returned to the ducal residence.