Winter Bud - Chapter 76

“What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?”

Thea, who had finished getting ready and come out before he knew it, looked at him with cold eyes. Even though a woman dressed this splendidly was approaching, Orestes, who hadn’t sensed a thing, quickly made a displeased face. Without answering the empress’s question, he mechanically parted his lips.

“You’re beautiful.”

“I asked what you were thinking about.”

It was the moment he reached out to kiss the back of the empress’s hand. Thea looked at him with a gaze as sharp as a needle. Orestes met that gaze for a moment, then drew his hand back. If she hated even the pretense of observing etiquette, there was nothing he could do. Thea moved her feet, and he moved after her. The entire time they climbed into the court carriage together, they didn’t exchange a single word.

The Empress Dowager was born between summer and autumn. In the evenings, when the summer sun was cooling little by little, the wind was quite brisk. The empress, who usually attended her mother-in-law with devotion, tried to prepare a banquet for the Empress Dowager in the most beautiful garden of the imperial palace, but the Empress Dowager rejected the empress’s opinion, saying that driving away insects and carrying out each piece of furniture and each prop needed for the banquet into the open air would only tire the servants even more.

“Very beautiful, madam.”

Nanna glanced at the maid making a fuss, then looked at herself in the mirror. Since she couldn’t tighten a corset, she chose a chemise dress that fell naturally along the curves of her body. Her shoulders, her upper arms, all of her lacked flesh, so she was sleek and slim, with only her belly swollen.

Nanna looked over a dress that used a lot of fabric instead and had colorful embroidery. The waistline sat just below the bustline, and on the décolletage line she embroidered lavender flowers she usually liked. It was embroidery Nanna had done herself for today.

The wavy lace embroidery on the short, puffed sleeves was also something she’d worked on. The fabric itself wasn’t especially fine either, but it seemed suitable for a ball. Nanna recalled what the Empress Dowager had said when she’d visited the detached building.

“I don’t know if I should call him clever, or touching.”

“….”

“The Crown Prince is only seven. But the way he thinks of his mother doesn’t feel like a seven-year-old’s at all.”

“Your Majesty.”

“I know Jerix Rotusi.”

“Pardon?”

“I could even send a marriage proposal to him.”

“What….”

Her tense eyelids trembled. Nanna felt the muscles of her face, even the tiny downy hairs, move on their own. Her heart dropped, and a chill ran through her chest, but the Empress Dowager’s face was calm. It didn’t look like she was pressing her or threatening her. More than anything, hadn’t she said “marriage proposal”? Nanna hadn’t forgotten the promise to find her a “good match,” but sometimes she thought those words might be nothing more than a shell.

No matter how generous someone was, she was still a woman who’d rolled around naked with her son for eight years. Even now, her belly was swollen with his child, so wasn’t it strange to take care of things like a match and a family for her? But the way she spoke, opening her mouth without any roundabout phrasing even to Nanna, made it seem sincere.

“Your Majesty.”

“The Count Allegros family has a long history, and as much as that, they don’t have few bastards either.”

“….”

“Still, the current Count Allegros was a man with a fair amount of responsibility. At least, if you look at it, he didn’t move the same way my husband did.”

The Empress Dowager laughed briefly. That laugh was sharp like small shards of glass. Nanna licked her parched lips, then lowered her gaze. It seemed like she was talking about Jerix Rotusi, but she couldn’t guess at all what she was trying to say.

“Rotusi, even though he has a lowly maid as his birth mother, is a man who received strict education from his father. He has both civil and martial talent. After he came to follow Orestes, he built up a fair amount of merit on the battlefield and reached where he is now.”

The Empress Dowager’s calm voice was distinct. Nanna lifted her gaze to look at the woman. So Jerix Rotusi had noble blood, but he wasn’t a noble. Even that bloodline was only half, and though he’d received his father’s care, he couldn’t inherit the family title, and he also wasn’t a member.

But even if he was an illegitimate child, it seemed his father had a sense of responsibility, so he didn’t neglect him completely.

In the end, even if he couldn’t inherit the countship, he became an imperial guard knight, so the count also wasn’t an utterly shameless person.

“If you have the heart for it, I want to tie that connection myself. What do you think?”

“That’s….”

Nanna stammered, then trailed off. Nothing came to mind right away about what she should say. Then the gentle eyes of the man who had been watching her came to mind, and her cheeks grew hot. Jerix Rotusi wasn’t a noble. He might’ve been in a similar position to Nanna.

Maybe that was why he watched her so closely. Her eyelashes trembled in small shakes. She thought of the man who said he’d pulled up the shriveled crops in the vegetable patch and planted turnips and carrots again. What happened to that vegetable patch?

Maybe….

They might be able to tend a new vegetable patch. So really. This time, at last, Nanna might be able to find a place where she could put down roots too. Since the Empress Dowager was speaking this directly, the emperor would also agree. Nanna’s cheeks flushed, then she bit down on her lip.

“Nanna.”

“If you say so, Your Majesty, I… I think it’s good.”

She felt her cheeks burning. With her head bowed low, it was so hard to hold back her lips from lifting. Her heart pounded. The Empress Dowager looked at her, her face flushing like a young girl’s, and let out a small laugh. Nanna squeezed her clasped hands tight.

***

With a pounding heart, Nanna looked around the ballroom. Since she didn’t have a personal letter of appointment or a title, there wasn’t a separate seat prepared for her, unlike the Empress Dowager and the imperial couple.

The gazes of the nobles attending the banquet bothered her, but Nanna tried not to mind. If she could find Jerix, she thought she might be able to stay stuck to him the entire time. The Empress Dowager said she’d asked Jerix too whether he wanted to take Nanna as his wife.

“He didn’t seem displeased either.”

Nanna recalled the Empress Dowager, who relayed Jerix’s feelings with a bright face. Her heart thumped as if someone were tickling it with a feather.

Then, suddenly, a clear voice announcing the arrival of the emperor and empress rang out. The nobles gathered in small groups turned their heads. The emperor, who appeared with the chief attendant, and the empress stood side by side on the dais and looked down at the nobles with dignity. Nanna looked at him, then turned her head slightly to avoid meeting his eyes.

Suddenly, she remembered the past. Nanna had once been Empress Consort. What’s more, it wasn’t even a short period of time she stayed in that position. As Empress Consort, she gave birth to the Crown Prince and the First Princess, and though she didn’t receive the same treatment as Thea, she still remained with that lofty title.

Even so, walking side by side with Orestes, or holding hands, or standing on the dais was very rare. No, it wasn’t even rare. Nanna had never stood on the dais like that and assisted him. Orestes, in the truest sense, didn’t acknowledge Nanna as his wife. So he didn’t even like showing her to others.

There was an event every year to celebrate the Empress Dowager’s birthday, but Nanna was never once the center of that event or its main pillar. The investiture ceremony as Empress Consort was also held very simply in one corner of the chapel, and she never even had a wedding.

Truly, because she was a woman the emperor took in to produce an heir, Nanna never even got to wear a wedding dress. With a gloomy face, Nanna kept glancing toward the dais, then turning her gaze away again and again. The emperor didn’t like long speeches. It seemed like that was because he had a disposition that hated anything verbose. This time too, he delivered only the customary words.

Then he came down from the dais and headed for the imperial seat. The Empress Dowager, who appeared at the end of the speech, sat to his left, and the empress, who had stood beside the emperor, sat to his right. Nanna glanced at them, then looked around intently to find Jerix.

The Empress Dowager definitely said Jerix would attend the ball today. Nanna also knew that guard knights from good families often attended balls. Was it only balls? If it was a knight with a fine appearance, he also attended noble ladies’ garden parties. Jerix wouldn’t be that kind of person, but if he received an order from the Empress Dowager, he would definitely attend.

Nanna smoothed down the hem of her dress for no reason as she looked around. Then, in the distance, she saw a man who looked like Jerix. With a delighted face, Nanna started to approach him, then hesitated for a moment. It was because he was warmly talking with a lady who had her hair twisted up high.

She stiffened her face slightly and turned her gaze away. She was worried a dance tune might start playing like this. It was when Nanna turned her steps to go out to the balcony and get some outside air.