IHMED - Chapter 9 < Sleepless Night >
Having An Enemy's Baby
“Just come out. I won’t leave you alone.”
Hannah waited anxiously for the bedroom door to open.
She always slept with Claudel at Castle de Valmonde.
When she suddenly lost her parents and younger brother in a fire, Hannah felt lucky that Claudel was still with her.
However, Claudel lost her mother and father, whom she could rely on, separately and sequentially.
She was fine when she came to Castle de Valmonde in a state of despair after a fire broke out in the village, but after her father passed away, Claudel's insomnia became so severe that she could not sleep at all on her own.
An accident is just an accident.
She wondered if the pain that was confined to Hannah for one reason was a double for Claudel, as her mother ended her life in an accident and her father ended his life by his own choice. Moreover, Evan left Claudel behind.
Things couldn't be like that at Rowan Castle.
Hannah's room was on the third floor, where the maids stayed, and Claudel's room was no longer her own.
Even Hannah had no time to lie down in the madam's bed, not knowing when the Lord might find her.
That alone was worrying, and she was appalled at the treatment Claudel received after coming to Rowan Castle.
“This can’t be happening.”
She lay in bed all night, unable to sleep due to her anger, and eventually headed to Kaian's bedroom early in the morning.
“If I continue to live unfairly like this, I will develop a fever that I never knew existed.”
Of course, the subject of the fever she was worried about was not Hannah herself, but Claudel.
She was worried about Claudel, who kept her mouth shut and said she was fine, even though she heard all kinds of noises.
Anger that is not vented outwardly lingers inside and hurts the heart.
“I have to talk to the Duke somehow. It’s so unfair.”
She deserved to throw it away, and she threw a tantrum when she saw Claudel refusing to take it off her finger, even though she now knew it wasn't even a ring.
She said there was no way Claudel would lie.
She obviously doesn't know the details, but if Claudel said she received it from him and he gave it to her, she would be correct that Kaian did it.
How could he then humiliate Claudel in front of so many people by pretending not to know?
The prestige of the mistress is preserved by her husband.
Just because of yesterday's events, it was as if Claudel had almost lost the dignity of a master who should be respected by the people who came to Rowan Castle only three days ago.
That's what made Hannah stand here.
She wants to see Claudel happy because she doesn't want to live a life of sequential neglect and destruction.
She was even thinking about taking Claudel and running away from Rowan Castle if nothing improved or resolved even after she told Kaian what was unfair to her today.
Claudel didn't eat much and as a small woman. Hannah had enough to feed her, whether she was sewing for hire or doing odd jobs in other people's homes until Hannah's hands swelled.
The salary she saved from the castle of Valmonde was enough to buy a small house in a quiet village on the outskirts.
When she did so, she was sorting out the anger that she was about to unleash on Kaian.
Creak...
She saw the bedroom door open and what came out was a woman.
Unlike Claudel, she had a voluptuous figure, with long, thick black hair and big blue eyes.
A woman who is not ashamed of who she is as a girl - because Claudel's husband, the Duke, cannot be that woman's husband - walks out of Kaian's bedroom, her hair untidy and tangled, as if she has no intention of hiding what happened last night. She walked out in disheveled attire.
Hannah, who saw that, was so embarrassed that her cheeks blushed.
"Who are you?"
As if she hadn't thought she was going to bump into someone, the woman then pulled her shawl over half of her exposed upper breast and ran her hand through her hair.
“The Duke is still sleeping.”
She had heard a rumor that the woman who came in and out of Kaian's bedroom at the Castle de Valmonde changed every day.
However, he had been resting in Claudel's bedroom for the past two days, so Hannah had forgotten about it for a moment, distracted by the antics of the maids in the castle that touched her skin.
"This is what I want to ask you. “Who are you?”
When Hannah, who appeared to be an employer, spoke with such vigor, the woman opened her eyes wide.
“As far as I know, there is only one person in Rowan Castle who can stay in the Lord’s bedroom.”
"Ah. Ha ha ha ha ha..."
The woman pointed at Hannah with her index finger, as if she had finally realized who she was.
"Alright. okay. It's you. The rumored crazy fighting cock of a flower withered by the rain.”
Hannah had never hit her woman.
However, in a shameless manner, she wanted to slap the face of the woman who suddenly referred to Claudel as a 'flower withered by the rain'.
“You still don’t know who I am.”
The woman extended her left hand to Hannah. On her hand was a ring with a large blue diamond.
But even Hanna could recognize it at a glance.
This is because when they enter the main hall of the Lord's castle, the ring worn by the Duchess is noticeable in the large portrait of the previous Duke and Duchess hanging in front.
A ring with a blue diamond large enough to cover the entire finger fixed to a simple thick band.
The late Duchess was a beautiful woman with flowing lemon-colored blonde hair, white skin, and big blue eyes.
Although her personality was dirty, her appearance was honestly amazing, and she was so beautiful that the Duke of Temnes recognized who she was born with.
The blue diamond on her finger suited her so well that it seemed like it was her living third eye, so the portraits Hannah was seeing while walking around were quite impressive.
Perhaps the Duchess would have known that the ring looked very good on her during her lifetime.
“Remember me. My name is Antjone.”
The woman seemed to have noticed Hannah's gaze and smiled brightly.
“You recognize this ring. Kaian gave me what the Duchess had.”
Giving her mementos, usually inherited from his mother, was taken as a pledge of his chastity and that he would never cheat for the rest of his life.
“Tell this to the Lady you serve. Kaian originally promised to marry someone else. Whether he’s married or not, I’ll never set foot in Kayan’s bedroom.”
“It’s amazing. Then why are you so proud to go in and out of a man’s bedroom with your unmarried body as a virgin?”
“You are so funny. What is the importance of a pledge with your name on it? There must be a problem with your poor master who doesn’t have a piece of his heart.”
“...”
Antjone walked out of the hallway, patting her on the back and massaging her neck and shoulders as if she had had a very hard time last night.
Hannah was so angry and shocked that she was speechless for the first time.
How could it be a husband who brought another woman into his bedroom on the third day after his marriage and his wife's arrival at the estate!
"How to... My poor Lady...”
It was a total mess.
Hanna's thoughts turned towards escaping Rowan, taking Claudel with her.
***
Claudel’s bedroom was quiet.
“My Lord.”
Kaian, who had been standing all night watching the dawning light shine into the hallway, turned his head when he heard the butler's voice.
“Why are you doing this?”
"Well. I don't know."
“Are you regretting it?”
Regret?
Regret it.
This was not a word in Kaian's dictionary because everything he did was right.
"No."
“Don’t be stubborn. The fastest time to right any wrong is now.”
The butler, who had deep wrinkles under his eyes, sighed briefly.
“If you treat your wife like this, what are you going to do about training your successor? The discipline in the castle is a mess.”
The butler was right.
If Claudel, who was so ignored, ever gave birth to a child, her existence would be in jeopardy.
There was no way that a child who grew up with all kinds of contempt and bullying could become a successor that everyone looked up to like Kaian.
“It is inevitable that they will be noisy as they have never imagined that a bride from Vermont would come to the Temnes family, but the Lord must raise Madam's spirits. Then they will accept it.”
The nagging of the butler who always said the right thing was harsh today.
“Please eat inside.”
When the butler spoke, Kaian shook his head.
"No. I’ll just go today.”
The wedding banquet had been held for three days, and there was a lot of work for Kaian to take care of.
Besides, he hadn't yet decided what to say to Claudel or what he should do.
He felt like something in him would become more and more twisted if he faced her in this state, so he decided to take a step back.
“Would you like to sleep?”
"No. I will go straight to the office.”
“I will take care of you.”
The butler knew why Kaian, who had been pacing around in front of Claudel's bedroom all night without a wink of sleep, was acting like that, but he couldn't teach his Master something like that.
'The day will soon come when you will know for yourself.'
The butler did not know that the day would come when he would think over the decision of that day and feel sorry for it.
***
Claudel had a sleepless night.
“I couldn’t even sleep.”
I, who was lying on my bed covered with a blanket, woke up shivering.
“You didn’t come in the end.”
Last night, Kaian didn't come to my bedroom.
Kaian looked very upset as he turned around and told me not to make a fuss.
Then I thought he wouldn't come tonight, but since he came on the second night when he wasn't on duty at night, I thought it might be possible.
"No way... Perhaps... Still... Perhaps... Why do I think like this? He is from Temnes and I am from Vermont.”
From the beginning, I was not a person with boundaries that I could expect something from.
The two families are water and oil.
Because they were enemies that could not be mixed together.
“...I want to sleep."
When I'm having a hard time like this, it would be nice if I could just forget everything and get a good night's sleep.
I still had two nights left, and as I stayed up with my eyes open with my body throbbing at the spot where Kaian had touched me, I kept getting sadder.
“I thought so on the first day. After the night, I will never see him in the bedroom again.”
But why do I keep feeling sad and vain?
“I guess it’s because I couldn’t sleep.”
It was when I sighed deeply while rubbing my head, which was suffering from a mild headache.
“Cough. Haaaa”
As the long exhaled breath, roughly scratching my chest, touched somewhere inside my body, a pain that felt as if my lungs were being squeezed out came over him.
“Cough. Cough.”
The coughing did not stop and tormented me for a long time.
"Ha."
The warm, fishy liquid from the palm that covered my mouth ran down my wrist, dripping onto the front of my pajamas and the blanket.
I muttered after seeing that.
“... Blood.”
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