Winter Bud - Chapter 61

“His Highness the Prince seems very tired.”

“He’s missing his mother.”

“Oh dear….”

The noblewoman trailed off, seemingly quite flustered by Thea mentioning the birth mother so casually.

“Still, if the Empress holds him, won’t he cry a little less?”

The flustered noblewoman tried to hand the baby over to Thea. Thea looked at the baby, who had started crying while sucking on his fingers, then shook her head.

“He knows I’m not his real mother.”

“Even so, Your Majesty is still the Prince’s Empress Mother.”

“What can I do if I’m not? I don’t have a single child I gave birth to.”

Thea recited indifferently. The expressions of the noblewomen darkened rapidly in their confusion. Thea did not notice. Because it was the truth. Thea could not bear children. Even if she had restored her body through ‘sleep,’ it was the same.

The court physician, well-versed in alchemy, said that because of ‘sleep,’ her womb wouldn’t function properly. Not only her womb, but the functions of her other organs would also have declined. He said it would take a great deal of effort and time to restore them. But in the end, her womb would probably never recover.

She would likely never have children for the rest of her life. Recovery required time, and a woman’s fertility inevitably declined as time passed. And besides, Orestes….

“My children are your children.”

“Do you really think so?”

“They call you Empress Mother. Thea, that means you’re their mother.”

“They didn’t look like that at all. Orestes, those children miss their mother.”

Thea gave a crooked smile. Orestes, who had finally shared a bed with her after a long time, truly seemed to regard the children Nanna bore as Thea’s children. Thea also thought that those children should call her Empress Mother. That she was their mother. That was better for them as well. But hearing it spoken from Orestes’s own mouth felt different.

It felt as if he was saying he would have more children with Nanna in the future. There was no reason to stop that, and since it was an ‘obligation,’ it was an unavoidable situation, but what was Thea supposed to say?

“When you say that, it really feels like you don’t love me anymore.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t drive Nanna away.”

“That’s because that woman is necessary.”

“…Yes. Necessary.”

Thea lowered her gaze. Yes. Rather than opening her eyes to find another woman beside him, this might actually be better. If Nanna were sent away even now, the Empress Dowager would try to fill that position again. Because Thea could not function normally. So she had no choice but to agree with Orestes’s words.

And yet, it felt like his heart was elsewhere. That was why, looking at her husband who couldn’t become aroused like this, Thea was seized by a very fundamental doubt.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t hold you.”

“…I’m tired today.”

She watched the man remove his clothes, then put his robe back on. The man’s hands, which kissed Thea’s round shoulders a few times before grasping her breast, were quite tense. They were not insincere, but merely cautious, like a man unfamiliar with a woman’s body, and she felt no sexual desire at all.

Did he do the same with Nanna? What kind of look did he entwine his legs with that woman in? It wouldn’t be the same as with her. Thinking that, she wanted to stop. But she grew curious about how far the man before her could go.

Thea watched what he was doing.

Wearing a translucent chemise, she was slowly laid down on the bed by the man who had been pressing his lips to her neck and chest, and he spread her legs. Thea watched what he was doing. Even though he’d kissed her several times, the thing hanging between his groin stayed the same.

Thea grabbed it with her hand. Orestes flinched, then lifted his head slightly. Their eyes met. Thea parted her lips.

“Why aren’t you reacting at all?”

It was a low question. Along with a faint chill, humiliation pricked at her, but she didn’t show it. Orestes sat up with his naked body. Thea stared at him, then parted her lips.

“Should I call Nanna?”

“….”

“Do you want to do it with the three of us?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It seems like you’ll need that woman.”

Thea gave a crooked smile. Orestes stared at her, then turned his head away. Thea thought of what he’d said.

To regard the children Nanna bore as her children.

Her eyelashes trembled slightly. After pressing her lips together, she raised her gaze.

“Do you love Nanna?”

“Do I look like I love that woman?”

“If that’s not it, then what is it?”

“The only one I love is you.”

Orestes had no hesitation. So he had no hesitation when whispering love and confessing. Thea stared at him, then reached out her arms. The man who’d been looking at her embraced her without hesitating. She buried her face in his broad chest.

A large hand stroked her round head. The gentle touch went on endlessly. Thea asked him to kiss her. Orestes stared into her clear green eyes, then grabbed her chin. Soon, soft lips covered hers. His warm breath soothed her, heavy and damp.

She opened her eyes. She looked deeply into her husband’s handsome face. Beneath thick, straight eyebrows, deep-set eye sockets and the bridge of his nose were connected in a graceful seam. Thea lightly traced that line with her fingertips. The man who had been touched by Nanna’s hands for the past eight years remained the same, as if he’d never once given another woman a glance. She dropped her voice softly.

“Tell me.”

“…What?”

“What is Nanna to you?”

“….”

“If you don’t love that woman….”

“That’s not love.”

She chewed on the neatly cut-off words and lifted her gaze. Her husband and that maid had four children. More precisely, three children. Of those, one had died, and two became Thea’s children. Even if she couldn’t accept it, there were moments when she had to accept it.

Thea wasn’t foolish enough not to know that. In truth, guarding the position of empress with a body like this could also be called greed. And yet….

“Then what is it?”

“I love only you.”

His solid body pulled her into an embrace. Thea lay on arms long and thick like ropes and nestled against her rocklike husband’s chest. The husband who said he loved only her was clearly no different from before she fell asleep. Thea closed her eyes and bit her lip. Long hands combed through her soft hair. Even that touch was exactly as she remembered, and it felt strange.

So perhaps she even had such a thought.

Maybe Orestes had never loved me even once.

So it wasn’t that there was no affection. But….

“Don’t love Nanna.”

“….”

“With her, just do that.”

Thea lifted her head. Their gazes tangled. The man’s eyes, which she thought would be muddy, were clear. Thea looked at him without looking away. Suddenly, the moment they first met came to mind. She had thought he was a corpse abandoned in the field.

He was only letting out shallow breaths, wounded so deeply she didn’t think he could survive. But Orestes survived, and after that, the two of them had only ever had each other. It was time with no gap for Nanna to wedge herself into. It was perfectly hers, and it was something that couldn’t be taken from her. So….

“Go to sleep.”

A calm hand pulled the blanket up for her. Thea closed her eyes as she watched him whisper.

***

The pumpkins she’d planted in the vegetable patch were dead. With a gloomy face, Nanna looked at the wilted leaves. Sister Raphaella said they seemed to have died because the summer sun was too harsh. She could dig them up with a hand trowel and plant them again, but she felt down for no reason and turned her steps away.

She thought she could tend it well. Not just the vegetable patch, but life here. Since she’d moved her dwelling anyway, she thought she should do well. Even if it was a palace that had been abandoned, Nanna felt like she could live well. But….

“How about planting carrots? Or turnips or peas would be fine, too.”

It was an unfamiliar voice. Nanna looked up at the man who had followed behind her at some point. His pleasant face was neat and cheerful. Nanna stopped and stared at him blankly, then lowered her gaze. A knight assigned to the Western Palace for security, was it? She couldn’t remember well.