Winter Bud - Chapter 70

“Why?”

“H-h, hic, ugh…. The Empress Dowager, the Empress Dowager said she’d find me a g-good match.”

“….”

“So I’m not going back to the ducal residence.”

“Is that so?”

Nanna sniffled again and again. Sermione only asked back with an expressionless face. Nanna pushed at his thick chest, trying to put distance between them. She didn’t want to be subjected to something like that by Sermione again. The reason she’d thought the same thing wouldn’t repeat even after it happened was because he’d been drunk then.

Because he said he regretted it, that it was nothing more than an accident, and that she should accept it that way. So Nanna decided to accept it that way. The problem was that the two of them had been in the same space then, and that the duke had no other woman…. He’d committed an unforgivable act, but out of guilt toward Thea, Nanna tried to cover up the incident.

If it hadn’t been for Alexis, there would’ve been no reason to revisit that matter at all. Still, she tried to think of it separately. The baby wasn’t at fault. Alexis truly wasn’t at fault. When she held such a gentle, lovable child, her gloomy heart settled down.

Nanna thought all the babies in the world were angels’ gifts. The gentlest and most lovable in the world…. So everything was fine. If only it wasn’t Sermione. If only it wasn’t this man, Nanna’s world could be fine.

“L-let go. Please let go.”

“I’m curious about the man who’ll become your husband. It’d be good if I could know in advance.”

It was a gloomy voice. At the chill, her knees trembled. Nanna looked up at him with a face that had been hit by a cold draft. A slanted smile hung on a face handsome enough to be called outstanding. Nanna stared at him with a crumbling face and felt dizzy. When she shook her head and panted with short breaths, red lips dug into the back of her neck.

“…What a pity.”

The man who pressed his lips to her tender skin murmured faintly. Nanna shuddered and struck his shoulder. But Sermione didn’t back away. She felt suffocated, as if her vision were spinning. 

She was afraid Sermione would lose his reason again. Afraid he would again wear a face of regret and put the word “accident” in his mouth. It was dreadful that to him, to toy with her, to rape her, was nothing more than a foolish accident.

It might have been something he could cover up as if it were nothing, but not for Nanna. After that, Nanna came to avoid every male, every single male. For months, even holding young Slan properly had been uncomfortable. So what about Orestes, who was supposed to share a bed with her regularly, when she couldn’t even hold her beloved son?

“N-no. I don’t want it. Stop….”

“I’m going to kill that man for sure. Nanna.”

It was a neat, upright statement. Nanna’s shoulders shook as she went deathly pale. Green eyes, where strange madness had sprouted, stared intently at her. Like a snake coiled up…. Nanna tried not to stagger and collapse. But she couldn’t help the strength draining from below her knees.

Sturdy arms held her as if supporting her. She wanted to run, but she was utterly drained and couldn’t put strength into her legs, so Nanna had no choice but to stare at the man as if she would faint.

“I’m going to take you back.”

“….”

“Don’t cry.”

A hand in a white glove wiped Nanna’s cheek. Only then did Nanna realize she was crying. She wished she would pass out. Because she didn’t want to hear anything Sermione said. With her drenched face, Nanna’s lips trembled in tiny shakes, and she shook her head. The duke traced Nanna’s soft lips and whispered low.

“Let’s go to Aldermort with Alexis.”

Aldermort was the Everhardt family’s territory. The family’s main castle, the ‘Rock of Aldermort,’ was built around the time the Old Empire was founded, and it was their main stage of activity until the Everhardt family and some of the vassals moved their base to the capital.

Sermione, too, had spent his childhood in Aldermort, and afterward he lived going back and forth between the capital and Leaxos, the family’s second territory, a wealthy southern port city where the collateral relatives were staying.

“Nanna.”

He called Nanna earnestly. Nanna, blinking her wet eyes weakly, couldn’t overcome that distant feeling and only stayed in his arms. No matter what the duke said, her mind was empty and couldn’t function properly. So he was telling her to leave the capital…. As if everything would be solved just by doing that.

“…I want you.”

It was a gentle confession. Nanna slowly closed her hazy eyes, then opened them. He loosened the arms holding Nanna slightly. Nanna slid down. Instead of pulling her back up, Sermione dropped to his knees on the floor. Toward the woman who wasn’t responding, he impulsively pressed his lips to hers. Her red lips were sweet, like she’d eaten juice. Even the soft texture played a part in warming what was below.

Sermione forgot that Nanna was a woman carrying another man’s child. In truth, he also thought it didn’t matter now. No, that wasn’t true. Each time he became aware of it, it felt like his reason would be paralyzed by icy jealousy.

The woman he desired…. There was no way it could be pleasing that the woman who’d been his had carried his son-in-law’s child, again and again. In any case, that child was going to live as his daughter’s child. So Nanna was carrying his grandchild. He thought it wasn’t a proper relationship. So it had to be set right.

Because Nanna was his woman. It was right that she should become his wife. This fit the natural order better. If he hated seeing Orestes’s face, the man she had once lived with as husband and wife, if she rejected him using Thea as an excuse, then he intended to take Nanna to Aldermort and never let her out again.

If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to use his daughter as an excuse anymore. Aldermort could become Nanna’s luxurious new cage. It was also a place with plentiful supplies, so everything Nanna wanted could be achieved. Sermione wanted to be a good husband to Nanna.

Forgetting things like Thea and Orestes, and the children Nanna had borne. He wanted to spend time in a world of only the two of them. If possible, it would be good to have a few more of his children in Aldermort. He wanted to have one more daughter and one more son.

He recalled the son who’d been held in the nanny’s arms, grinning. His heart churned. Because he wanted to hold that child. Because he wanted to say he was his son….

“Nanna.”

“…No.”

Her wet voice was thin. It was as he was cupping the woman’s cheeks with both hands. A low voice rang at his ear.

“Duke.”

He turned his head. Orestes was wearing a twisted smile. The crudely gleaming golden eyes were like a fierce beast, but Sermione wasn’t shaken. He carefully supported the woman who looked like she’d lost her mind and helped her up.

“Is there any reason to hold my concubine like that?”

Orestes’s gaze landed on Nanna. Nanna didn’t look at him. This was the first time he’d seen, right before his eyes, a woman being held by another man. Like a thorny vine, a cold sensation, grotesquely tangled, was swallowing him up.

Thea’s father was swallowing Nanna’s lips. The woman who looked like she would push him away did nothing, crouched in on herself. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Even though Thea was beside him…. It felt like a massive tidal wave had covered the world, leaving only him, Nanna, and the duke in what remained.

Once his feelings began to twist, it couldn’t be controlled. He wasn’t someone who lost his mind to this extent. But with Nanna, nothing ever flowed the way it should. It was hard to respond with common sense.

But wasn’t Sermione the same?

“It’d be better to turn back for today.”

“Why?”

He turned his gaze. Stateira was expressionless in front of the scene where a father was committing adultery with her husband’s concubine. She didn’t look startled or flustered. He tried to endure the emotions that were covering him in a mess. But as he looked at Thea’s pale face, he couldn’t keep the corner of his eyes from twisting.

Your father is touching my concubine however he pleases. Your father burrowed into my woman and made her conceive….

“Nanna might be flustered.”

“You said you prepared a gift.”

“Karl.”

The calm voice flipped his insides over. Still turned away, he looked at the man and woman who were staring at each other as if they were the only two left. Nanna showed not a single movement that looked like she would get away from Sermione. He tried to move his steps, and Thea grabbed his arm.

“You can warn them later, and that’s that.”

“To whom? Your father? Or Nanna?”

“…Do you like Nanna?”

Orestes looked down at Thea for a moment, then turned his head away. Each time he closed the distance between them, it felt like the world before his eyes was being dyed black.