Winter Bud - Chapter 53

“Women become emotional when they get pregnant.”

“….”

“That must be why you’re having all these pointless delusions.”

“Your Majesty.”

“Do you want to come back to the palace?”

“No, no. That’s not it….”

Nanna shook her head. The Emperor pulled her closer. The scent from his broad chest was more refined than she expected. It wasn’t the same as the scent he had when they were tangled together, both naked. Nanna froze stiff in the arms of the overwhelmingly large man who could easily be called a giant.

Orestes carefully laid her back down. He raised a hand and touched her forehead. The court physician hadn’t arrived yet, but the nun who had once worked as an apothecary in a village during her younger days was well-versed in the condition of pregnant women.

She had said it seemed Nanna was pregnant. A formal diagnosis would have to come from the physician, but in her opinion, that’s what it looked like. Orestes looked down at the woman’s flat stomach and thought of the child. He hadn’t been with her many times in the Western Palace, so if she was pregnant, the child must have been conceived in the imperial palace.

‘Should I bring her back?’

If she was pregnant, maybe he could use that as an excuse to move her quarters. The Empress Dowager wouldn’t oppose it. From the start, she’d said Nanna didn’t need to be at the monastery. If they were to treat her properly as a concubine, it would be better to renovate the detached building and make that her residence instead of the monastery.

‘Slan and Stella are one thing, but Alexis is too young.’

He kept thinking of the child who cried all the time. Unlike his older siblings, the boy had inherited his birth mother’s features. His thick silver hair gleamed like polished metal, and his smooth skin was like a seashell buried in the sand. With clear sky-blue eyes like glass and twitchy lips, even Orestes sometimes found him endearing.

“I don’t think Alexis is Your Majesty’s son.”

And yet she said that boy wasn’t his. A child who crawled cluelessly across the floor, knowing nothing of the world… she said that child’s father wasn’t him.

His blood ran cold. Every child Nanna brought into the world had to be his. They had to be his seed, made from his blood. But she said that child’s father wasn’t him. And she said it with her own mouth, not someone else’s. That twisted something in him.

If anything, she should’ve been clinging to him, insisting the boy was imperial blood. But instead, she rejected him. A fury beyond description closed in around him. It was a strange kind of rage. He was on the verge of exploding with violent emotion toward the man who had dared to covet and take his woman. He barely held it back.

“Your Majesty. I really….”

“You’re carrying a child. Life in the Western Palace must be hard. You’re always so finicky, even if you don’t seem like it.”

“M-me?”

Nanna was dumbfounded. She had never, absolutely never, been like that. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have shown it in front of the Emperor. But Orestes spoke as if he didn’t care what he said, labeling her picky and sensitive.

Nanna shook her head. The Emperor’s expression hardened as he opened his mouth again.

“You’re pregnant.”

“I’m pregnant? Has the physician already examined me?”

“Do you think I wouldn’t know, with how many children I’ve fathered?”

“But….”

“A child needs a father. And you’d be better off with me by your side too, wouldn’t you?”

It was a strange thing to say. It didn’t make any sense. The Emperor had never cared for her. When she first told him she was pregnant, expecting him to be happy, he twisted his face like he’d heard something foul. He said she should’ve sent a servant to report it, and why was she wandering around in that condition?

Nanna thought it was just his mood that day. She thought once time passed, he’d accept it happily. But even after that, Orestes never once came to check on her. Not once did he even give her a token message through the chief attendant, telling her to take care of herself. The Empress Dowager sent flowers and jewels and ordered the birthing chamber to be prepared, saying there was nothing to worry about.

Still, the Emperor showed no particular concern as Nanna went through four pregnancies and deliveries. Far from being attentive, he even scolded her for eating too much when her appetite increased during pregnancy. And now… was this one going to be any different?

Nanna lowered her eyes. She wasn’t in the imperial palace or even in the detached building. She’d been cast out, and still he talked of affection and pregnancy. It didn’t make any sense. But she didn’t dare say any of it aloud. Nanna swallowed all the complaints swirling in her head and stared straight at him.

A long, slender hand stroked her pale, small face. Nanna didn’t avoid it. She didn’t want to provoke him.

Orestes recalled the situation from a little while ago. According to the nun, the man who came holding Nanna in his arms was Duke Everhardt. She said he carried Nanna in and laid her on the bed himself. As a commander who roamed the battlefield for a long time, he possessed enough medical knowledge to treat an unconscious person, so it wasn’t difficult for him to care for Nanna directly. He couldn’t understand why that turned his stomach inside out like this.

He already knew the Duke desired Nanna. Back when she was a maid, she attended to the Duke’s bed. So whenever the Duke sent for her, Nanna must’ve gone to his bedroom. She would’ve taken off her clothes and opened her legs to accept his lust.

Just like she did to him. No. Just like he did to Nanna, the Duke also must’ve grabbed her luscious breasts with veiny hands and rocked his hips like a dog. He would’ve rammed his cock in, mindless, pounding into that narrow, wet hole until she screamed.

Orestes knew too well how men went into heat, and in what way they coveted a female body. He was also familiar with Nanna’s body. He knew the taste of that white, warm body.

The Duke must’ve spilled his cum all over her pale thighs, just as he had, while biting at her neck over and over. He must’ve gripped her hair and shoved himself between her writhing legs, pouring his load like she was some trembling kitten.

He told himself it didn’t matter. That was what a woman who warmed a man’s bed was for. The Duke hadn’t been around women for a long time. Even when told to take a second wife, he just shook his head with a calm face. It wasn’t like he was living a monk’s life. It made no sense for a man not to keep even a common mistress.

“Father is no different. A man craving a woman’s body isn’t strange.”

As she sipped her iced tea, Thea’s expression was a little cutting when she mentioned that her own maid warmed her father’s bed. Her face, neat and laced with her signature cynicism, suddenly looked very much like the Duke’s. They say the eldest daughters all take after their fathers, but Thea supposedly took after her mother. When she was younger, she’d resembled her father quite a bit, but as she grew, her mother’s face began to show.

Maybe if she’d taken after her father, she would’ve been a stunning beauty. But she said she liked her current face. Probably because she’d spent her childhood yearning for the mother in the portrait. She said that whenever she missed her mother, she only had to look in the mirror.

With that, Thea tilted her head slightly and gently parted her lips.

“Just because Father sleeps with Nanna doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Mother. That’s how I see it.”

The monotonous voice rang in his ears. For that reason, Thea didn’t hate Nanna or anything. She said she didn’t resent her father. Dating, or keeping a mistress. It was unexpected as she thought he would meet a woman more fitting for his age if he were to remarry, but she said she understood in her own way.

Men usually liked women much younger than themselves.

“Besides, Nanna’s really beautiful. She has no elegant taste, but it’d be a waste to let that pretty face rot.”

Thea smiled faintly. Her smile, unwarped by bitterness, was neither bright nor dark. But Orestes couldn’t smile along as he listened to Thea’s indifferent musings.

Why? Was it because he couldn’t believe that the woman who feigned innocence like a quiet cat was the Duke’s bed warmer? Because the woman who tried to run away with her face blushed whenever she saw him was really warming the Duke’s bed?