Winter Bud - Chapter 67

“Better to just clear her out of your sight entirely.”

“Mother.”

“That’s what restraint is.”

His mother’s tone was very firm. There wasn’t even a trace of backing down, and she didn’t soften her expression either. Even though Nanna had once been his wife, she was calling the act of holding her an “affair.” It was something he couldn’t agree with. Nanna had once been his Empress Consort, and now she was his concubine. Even if her status had been lowered, a concubine was one kind of wife.

And yet his mother said that cherishing that woman was an “affair.” She said it meant betraying his lawful wife and making her a fool. When it was good to have many babies in the imperial family, when she told him to have as many descendants as possible…. Back then, she told him to take a concubine.

Now she was saying those things, and it was strange.

“Nanna is the woman I keep at my side for that purpose. The duke offered her for that purpose as well.”

“If you truly had no feelings, I would have left it alone as well.”

“What feelings are you saying I have?”

Orestes hardened his face sharply. But his mother didn’t say anything more. She seemed unwilling to keep telling a grown son, no, a son who was fully grown and even had children, what to do and what not to do. Still, she told him to look back on himself to the end.

Instead of twisting his expression, he bit down hard on his lip. He wished he could dismiss his mother’s nagging as nothing but “nagging,” but lately he was aware that there was a problem with his behavior. So… everything had gone too far.

He’d known from the beginning that what he did to Nanna was excessive. He said she bothered him even though she had done nothing wrong, and he called every little thing the already introverted woman did unpleasant, making her shrink back. His mother pointed it out even then. She said everything he did to Nanna was too much, that he was overly sensitive.

Back then, she scraped at his nerves by telling him not to suffocate Nanna, and now it seemed she didn’t like that he was cherishing her and keeping her close.

“…How are you feeling?”

“Thanks to your concern, I’m comfortable.”

“I heard you can’t eat well.”

“…It’ll get better as time passes.”

Nanna answered quietly, her gaze lowered. He restrained the urge to reach out and check whether even her face had grown thinner. His mother said that even feeling that urge itself was not right.

She said that feeling itself was a betrayal toward Thea, and that it meant he wasn’t keeping this woman simply out of necessity. He couldn’t accept it, but he also found the urge itself unpleasant. Put another way, every feeling he had toward the woman before him was too complex and changeable.

Sometimes she felt lovely, sometimes he was angry.

Sometimes it felt like he simply felt lust, but there were times he also felt pity.

A woman who had no reaction to him and was consistently afraid of him felt stifled, and he wanted her to feel the same lust and impulses toward him.

And he wanted her reddened face to always stay the same.

That she liked him.

To dare to like her master’s man…. He liked a woman who was burning with longing toward a man she couldn’t even look up at.

“As you heard from the Empress Dowager, after you give birth, you’ll live outside the palace.”

“…Yes.”

Nanna was obedient. She didn’t look like she would complain. She didn’t even bring up the children who would be left behind. What position the child in her womb would grow up in. It was a little different from before she’d been driven to the Western Palace.

And Orestes didn’t like that. Nanna’s obedient face as well…. In truth, he thought she would cling to him even a little. He thought that the whole time they walked through the corridor leading to the detached building. He thought she would look at him with moist eyes like before.

If she did that, he thought he would go easy on her a little. He was going to say that abandoning the children’s birth mother like this, now of all times, wasn’t right. Life outside the palace, a new household…. Didn’t that make no sense? Even considering Thea, Nanna was a woman who had once lived as his Empress Consort. That time wasn’t short either. It was a full eight years.

But for a woman like that to remarry…. With who, exactly?

Who was Nanna going to remarry? Even if she lived outside the palace, finding her a new husband was ridiculous. How could you lay a fox cub in the place where a lion had lain?

More than anything, Nanna liked him. For a long time, he’d lived in that woman’s heart. Even while she served the duke, her feelings toward him wouldn’t have changed. So there was no way Nanna could accept a man who wasn’t him. And yet….

“Still, if you don’t want it, you can continue to stay in the palace.”

He stared at Nanna for a moment and then spoke in a low voice. He meant to tell her there was no need if she was only accepting it out of fear. He also didn’t want to force Nanna. Nanna was a woman with strong maternal love, and she could never live apart from the children. The child in her womb was the same. Leaving the palace behind with such a newborn baby wouldn’t be easy.

“Nanna.”

“…That’s not it.”

“….”

“I’m someone who doesn’t fit in at court, so it’s right for me to live outside the palace.”

Nanna, who had been lowering her gaze with both hands neatly folded, lifted her head. Orestes looked at the woman’s clear face. Nanna’s lips twitched as if she were choosing her words, then she whispered, “It’s true.”

“You mean it?”

“…Yes.”

“….”

“Her Majesty the Empress has recovered, so there’s no reason for me to remain at court. Her Majesty also finds me uncomfortable, and….”

“What about the children?”

“….”

“If you leave the palace, you’ll never meet the children for the rest of your life. Slan and Stella. Even Alexis, all of them. I won’t leave the child in your womb with you either.”

Orestes spat it out, syllable by syllable, as if chewing them up. The muscles at the corners of his mouth twisted crudely. Nanna stared at the man as his face turned fierce in an instant. She hadn’t failed to think of it, but the Emperor somehow looked angry.

“That….”

“No matter how much you beg, I won’t let you see them. You can’t come back. Is that still fine?”

“….”

“The children are young, so they’ll forget you quickly. There are no portraits of you in the palace, so even if they want to see you, they won’t be able to recall you. Longing will become only your burden. Is that still fine? Aren’t you afraid of that?”

Nanna stared at him. The Emperor was badly twisted. She didn’t know why, but he was very angry, and his attitude right now looked more like he was frightening and threatening Nanna. Even though there was no reason for him to. As if Nanna was the one who wanted to stay in the palace…. But there really was no reason she had to.

Was he using Nanna as a target to vent his anger? Maybe he was. The Emperor had always held her while he was angry. He usually looked for Nanna when he was in a bad mood. Very occasionally, there were days when he was in a good mood, but those were, quite literally, very rare.

But even on those pleasant days, he didn’t show her a cheerful side. He always found fault, and then reproached her as if she was lacking and didn’t know her place. To the point that he would get angry and say that even Nanna liking him was an act of not knowing her place.

At times like that, Nanna couldn’t say anything. She could only quietly swallow the violence and anger he wielded…. But it wasn’t easy. It was sad that even the feeling of liking him became something to be condemned. It was horrible that he’d found out, and it hurt that he trampled those feelings. But since it wasn’t exactly wrong, Nanna kept her mouth shut.

As he said, Nanna had dared to hold in her heart a man she must not desire. Even so, this wasn’t how she wanted to face him like this. Separate from liking him, she didn’t want to have him as a man. Liking him was only liking him. Just because you like someone doesn’t mean everyone develops a desire to possess them.

Nanna was like that too. She also didn’t expect anything from him. She didn’t wish for it, and she didn’t desire it. So she couldn’t agree with the words, ‘How dare you covet me?’

“Answer me.”

“…It’s sad, but I think parting is something you inevitably have to go through, so there’s nothing to be done.”

“What?”

“Slan is a clever child, so maybe he’ll remember me and miss me…. But if forgetting me is what will make that child happy, I don’t want to leave behind even a small trace.”