Winter Bud - Side Story 2

Sermione (2)

If he hadn’t ordered that child to be killed. What would it have been like if that small blood tie had been breathing softly between Nanna and him? Every time he saw a small child toddling about before his eyes, he thought of Nanna.

More precisely, he thought of the child Nanna had carried. He couldn’t endure it, thinking of that child whose sex he never knew and whose face he couldn’t imagine. He wanted to make Nanna pregnant again, to have her hold his child.

In truth, it was something he could do at any time now. Yes. Now….

“Let’s go back.”

He parted his lips gently. Nanna didn’t respond. Ignoring the gazes of Thea and the court attendants, he rose and approached the slender woman. As if she had not expected him to come closer, she flinched, then staggered back a step.

Sermione lightly bit his full lower lip. Then, before she could move again, he grasped her gently sloping shoulders and looked down at her with a heavy gaze.

“I will treat you kindly.”

“….”

“I won’t hurt you.”

He wouldn’t frighten her. He wouldn’t make her uncomfortable even in the slightest. He intended to make her trust him, to feel at ease with him, to recognize him as a man. That was how he planned to have her. If a child was born, it felt like he could do it.

Wasn’t it the same in the last life? When Alexis was born, the way she looked at him changed a little. Even if she didn’t grow comfortable, when something unpleasant seemed likely to happen concerning the child, she came to him. At the same time, the way she would say that the child’s father was the Emperor to the end felt detestable.

But he could understand it. At that time, Nanna carried his child while she was the Empress Consort. So it was only right that, for the sake of the child, she insisted that the legal father was the Emperor. But from now on, it would be different.

The child Nanna would carry would be his. Both biologically and legally….

“W-what do you mean…?”

Nanna glanced at him as if she couldn’t understand. Her clear eyes were already glistening with tears. That pure face was lovely. He wanted to crush the woman, trembling like a wildflower, in his arms. He quietly wiped away the tears sliding down her small face.

“This time, I won’t lose you.”

“…Yes?”

Nanna lifted her head with a blank expression. It was the face of someone who knew nothing. Sermione smiled beautifully.

***

Nanna was in a daze. She couldn’t believe any of it. The Duke didn’t cling to the matter for long. Then again, asking his daughter to give up a single maid was not something that required much persistence. Though Thea cherished Nanna, it was only ever as a “maid.”

Thea had any number of ladies-in-waiting she could converse with. And there would be no one more capable than her nanny when it came to attending to her closely and carefully in private matters. So there were plenty of people who could replace Nanna’s place.

Even so, Nanna couldn’t understand Thea cutting her off and casting her out as if slicing away rotten flesh. Trembling, she was overcome with a sense of betrayal and disappointment. She couldn’t understand why Thea was abandoning her like this.

When she begged to be cast aside, saying she wanted to live on her own, Thea told her to stay by her side.

“Nanna. Stop crying.”

Like a tragic heroine from a play, Nanna ran to her quarters and buried her face in the bed.

A maid who pitied her said, “Isn’t it a good thing, if you think about it? You never got along that well with the other ladies-in-waiting who serve Her Majesty the Empress anyway.”

“Hic, hic… ugh….”

The maid spoke to Nanna, who was crying without pause. It wasn’t wrong. Nanna didn’t get along with Thea’s other highborn ladies-in-waiting. If anything, they were the ones who ostracized her. Until now, Thea had repeatedly mediated between them and Nanna, and in front of her, they at least restrained themselves. But that couldn’t last forever.

‘Maybe she grew tired of that and decided to cast me away. I don’t know. I’m the problem. She must think everything will be fine if she just sends me back.’

Nanna tried to understand Thea. Even so, she couldn’t stop the tears of betrayal. More than anything, she was afraid of the Duke of Everhardt. If she were simply being sent somewhere else, that would be one thing. If she had made a mistake and they said they no longer wanted her as a maid, if they were casting her out of the palace, that would be better.

But she was being sent back to the Duke of Everhardt’s residence. She didn’t know what work she would be made to do there, but she didn’t believe the Duke would keep her as an ordinary maid.

‘What if I have to live as a bedchamber maid again… receiving that man every night….’

She was afraid. She felt suffocated. Nanna didn’t want that. She thought it was all over now….

“Nanna.”

“Just leave me alone!”

Nanna shouted. She didn’t want to hear anything. No one would understand her feelings anyway. The maid who tried to comfort her recoiled in surprise and pulled back her hand. Nanna lay facedown and cried like a child.

***

She was afraid of how everything could change with a single word from the Duke. Nanna looked around at the maids from the Duke’s residence, who were busily packing her belongings. She wasn’t a noble-born lady-in-waiting, only a maid who had received some favor from her mistress, so it would have been fine for her to pack alone. She couldn’t understand why the Duke’s household maids had come all the way to her quarters.

After all, when she left the Duke’s residence with Thea, she had packed her things herself. And yet….

“I can do it myself.”

Nanna said uneasily to the maid folding her negligee and placing it into a bag. But the maid did not listen. From the voice that said, “Just leave it,” she could sense that they too were not particularly willing to carry out this order. Nanna, her face faintly flushed, watched them anxiously as they worked.

Even after everything was packed and the carriage to take Nanna to the Duke’s residence was prepared, Thea didn’t come to see her. Nanna, who thought there would at least be a brief farewell, was quite shocked. She couldn’t believe Thea was cutting her off like this, and she hadn’t expected there would not even be a send-off.

‘No. Lady Thea… no, Her Majesty the Empress must be very busy. Especially today, there’s a charity event outside the palace….’

From the morning, there had been a charity event with noblewomen. It was an event held together with a monastery for orphans who lost their parents during the founding war. Nanna understood that Thea must be preoccupied, with her first public event approaching.

What was there to say about a mere maid like her returning to her family home? It was a place she could reach as soon as she set out anyway…. Nanna bit her lip to hide her lingering disappointment. Then she put on a small bonnet and climbed into the carriage.

The Duke’s residence was not far. That was because the Duke of Everhardt was the Emperor’s father-in-law and a man of considerable power. It was not as grand as Aldermort, the family’s main seat, but the Everhardt townhouse in the capital was still quite imposing. It stood on the eastern side of the Bel Urun River, where the palace was located.

A place that, in itself, symbolized authority and power. Yet when Nanna stepped down from the carriage, her face was gloomy. With her hands neatly clasped, she looked at the butler waiting for her in front of the carriage.

The elderly butler wore his usual indifferent expression. Just like when Nanna had stood in front of the Duke’s bedroom door in a negligee to serve him, just like then, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and it made it hard to breathe.

Lowering her head slightly, Nanna followed the old man inside without hearing a single word of “welcome back.” He personally showed her to her room. But rather than a “room,” it was a space that would be better described as “quarters” or even a “bedchamber,” so beautiful was it.

“Here….”

“There’s no need to be surprised. It’s only a guest room that’s been prepared.”

“Even so, it’s more than I deserve.”

Nanna shook her head. The room was excessively luxurious. Unlike the servants’ quarters, the ceiling was high, and the chandelier in the center, though simpler than those in the palace, was still quite splendid. Sunlight poured brightly into the bedroom, which was decorated overall in refined pastel beige tones. The four-poster bed on the left and the layers of piled cushions made it look like the bedroom of a noble young lady.