~Chapter 131~
Watching the two talk, Richard was finally able to calm down a little.
Hilda held Ancia with a gentle smile and tender hands—something Richard could never imagine directed at him. To anyone who didn’t know, they looked like mother and daughter, so full of longing and affection. Their light chatter flowed naturally, and the months apart felt like nothing.
They kept talking, hand in hand, until the light outside dimmed. Then Hilda noticed Ancia’s body swaying with fatigue.
“Oh dear, you should have taken a nap. I forgot.”
“It’s okay. Lately I keep getting sleepy,” Ancia said.
“When you’re with child, your body changes a lot. If drowsiness comes, you must sleep.”
At Hilda’s look, Anna came over to help. Although Ancia could walk alone, she clung to Hilda’s hand as they went to the bed.
“Mother, I still have so much to tell you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to go…”
“My child. You know I’ll come whenever I can to see you.”
But the distance was so far.
It felt wrong to ask Hilda to stay a few more days with Richard watching. He would never allow Hilda and Ancia to meet out of his sight. Several times, aides had rushed to him with urgent papers; the fact he’d allowed this much was already a concession.
“Mother.”
“Yes, my child?”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Me too, Ancia. Let’s keep in touch through the comm crystal from now on.”
At “comm crystal,” Ancia’s sleepy eyes brightened.
“Is that really okay?”
“Of course.”
“But everything we say gets reported to the palace.”
“So what? What problem is there if the palace hears our simple conversations?”
At her mother’s boldness, Ancia realized it didn’t matter—as long as they weren’t sending the Duke’s secrets, palace monitoring meant nothing.
“So, Ancia, show me your face there from time to time.”
“Yes, I will.”
They kept chatting even after she lay down, but their voices slowly dwindled.
Ancia knew she should be grateful for Hilda staying this long, yet she tried to fight sleep because once she slept, she wouldn’t see her mother anymore.
Hilda soothed her, stroking her and kissing her forehead with the instinctive tenderness of a mother with a small child. The room warmed with the affection in her every gesture.
Ancia’s eyelids drooped, then closed; she fell asleep.
Even after she slept, Hilda held her hand for a long time, gazing at it, then kissed the back of it with reluctance and stood. Eyes reddening, she whispered to the maids in the room:
“Please take good care of our Ancia—the Duchess. You’re doing well already, but still.”
It was the greeting of a countess used to treating servants as people.
Hilda looked around the room once more, took in Ancia’s sleeping face one last time, then saw Richard standing by the door and wiped her expression blank.
She offered a formal farewell and began descending the stairs. The spiral made her sigh with dizziness.
Imprisonment… that mad duke… she thought.
But anything she said now, Richard would twist into “Are you doing this for Nathan?” and sneer. It wasn’t time yet. Even if blame must be laid, it should wait until after the child was born.
Besides, the belly she had seen and felt was far too small for five or six months.
She didn’t suspect Ancia and Nathan like Richard did. Instead, it tore open a terrible old wound Hilda had tried to bury.
In truth, the story she told Ancia earlier had been out of order. It wasn’t about Nathan—it was about her second pregnancy.
Back then, not knowing she was pregnant, Hilda had foolishly joined winter training. She grew abnormally fatigued, fell ill after returning home, and only after weeks did she rise from bed and learn she was pregnant.
Her belly was flat, yet it was already past four months. Only in the fifth month did it swell slightly—so different from when she carried Nathan. The child was born before term and was too small.
The tiny baby, no more than a blood-red bundle, lived less than a few hours and was gone.
My daughter, whom I had longed for so much…
Hilda remembered tumbling through the cold, not even knowing a child was in her belly. She wept for days, unable to swallow even a sip of water from guilt. If the wet nurse hadn’t come holding Nathan, Hilda might have remained trapped in that guilt far longer.
She couldn’t tell such a story to Ancia, who was effectively confined. She hid the bad and mixed truth with gentle lies to comfort her.
Seeing Ancia’s relief, Hilda quietly carried her own lie away.
Tears pricked her eyes at the memory, and she could only pray that only good things would come to Ancia.
On the way back to Nathan, who must be waiting anxiously for news, Hilda’s heart grew heavier.
Late at night.
Richard visited Ancia’s room for the first time in a while.
He had been there earlier that day, so everything looked exactly the same—even the single flower in the vase. Ancia slept soundly in the same spot.
When he entered, his gloom had been so heavy the guard at the door tensed up.
But Richard’s eyes softened when he looked at Ancia. If he could see her face and go back, he might actually sleep tonight.
Tonight, there was the faintest smile on her sleeping face. Perhaps letting her meet Hilda had been the right choice.
“Haa…”
In truth, nothing else mattered. Richard didn’t want to think anymore.
Facing Nathan in the reception room with a gentle face had cost him everything; it took all he had just to hold back the murderous urge. Reasonable conversation had been impossible. The words he blurted were worst-case thoughts, and even as he said them, they wounded him.
He felt no relief—only exhaustion from emotions burned out.
Richard wanted one thing.
Ancia’s safety. Ancia by his side.
So it was enough to look at her sleeping face and hold her hand while she slept—even if she might miss Nathan.
No, there’s no need for hypotheticals anymore.
Both Ancia and Nathan had strongly denied the thing he feared most. Most of all, Ancia made no move to leave the tower he’d locked her in. Only Richard suffered, trapped between worst and less-worst in his own mind.
Time would pass; ordinary life would return. He steadied himself: no more denial.
“Hmm?”
Deep in thought, Richard suddenly felt a soft hand clasp his fingers.
Ancia, who never woke at this hour, was looking straight at him.
He had forgotten she’d gone to sleep early tonight—his mistake. Wondering what excuse to make, Richard felt sick of himself for trying to think his way out even now.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
With his apology on his face, Ancia blinked slowly.
“I wondered why there was a chair by my pillow. Have you been coming every night?”
“…Not lately, but I wanted to. Every night.”
Not lately—that meant he had before.
Because she’d fallen asleep early, Ancia had woken at the sound of him entering.
Her feelings were complicated. She was grateful he’d allowed her to see Hilda, and yet resentful that something so natural had been made into a favor to be grateful for.
He didn’t come during the day unless necessary, but at night he came secretly. Her emotions swung.
She was happy—and also exasperated. It was suffocating that he was so cautious, yet she was glad he came in the middle of the night to see her.
It hurt that opposite feelings rose every time she faced him. She missed the time when seeing him only made her happy.
Looking down at her with a sorry expression, Richard’s face was worn. It had been almost a month since she returned to the estate, yet he only grew more haggard.
He had locked her in a tower and turned the annex upside down for perfect safety, and still he was afraid.
If she was the reason for his fear, then only she could ease it. Thinking that, her urge to comfort him outweighed her frustration.
She tugged gently on his fingers and patted the space beside the bed.
Richard, as if spellbound, lay down beside her. When he drew her into his arms, she scooted back and nestled against him with a small laugh.
Suddenly he no longer knew what he’d been so afraid of. The small, soft woman in his arms set his tangled feelings back in place.
“Ancia…”
The most precious person.
“Ancia.”
He whispered her name, stingy with even that much, as if the sound were too precious to spend.
“Welcome, my husband.”
At the unfamiliar address, Richard froze, still holding her.
Earlier that day, Hilda had noticed quickly that Ancia only called him “Duke.” She had whispered to Ancia that calling a husband that way sounded distant. If Richard had tried, he could have heard it; but he refused to listen to Hilda and buried himself in the papers his aide brought.
He didn’t want to ask, but to get his stalled mind moving again, he blurted the thing he most wondered:
“Did the Countess teach you that?”
“Do you dislike it?”
“No. I like it.”
At his quick answer, a small laugh fluttered warm across his chest.
