IHMEB - Chapter 32 < The Scent Of A Woman>
Having An Enemy's Baby
“You should go to Rowen, Irena. If you like it, you can stay there forever.”
"Really? Are you really allowing this?”
Irena liked what the Duke of Vermont said, so she didn't know what to do.
"Yes. How can this father say two things with just one mouth?”
“Wow, father. Thank you so much!”
Irena seemed so moved that she walked around the desk to the Duke of Vermont who was sitting in his chair, knelt down on her knees, hugged his waist, and made a cute gesture.
“I thought you would never allow it.”
The Duke of Vermont smiled brightly and patted the head of his daughter, who was behaving like a little puppy.
“I don’t allow it. Have you seen this father saying empty words? Didn’t you think about it?”
The story goes back to when the Duke of Vermont returned from Rowen Castle to Valmonde Castle with thirty wagonloads of provisions.
At that time, Irena greeted the Duke of Vermont with joy, her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
'Do you have to tell me about your visit to Rowen tomorrow?'
'Yes. Let's have lunch together.'
The next day, the Duke of Vermont had to deal with a barrage of questions from Irena, with no time for food to be shoved into his mouth, throughout the lunch of his wife and three daughters.
'Do people in Rowen really go around scantily clad?'
'It was a hot day, so I was dressed in undignified clothes that revealed my body.'
'Are there really a lot of flowers in Rowen?'
'They are blooming here and there, but they are not very pretty flowers and they are blooming from weeds.'
'Is that so. I also want to see it in person, at least once.'
For Irena, who loved flowers, the Duke of Vermont even built a small greenhouse in the castle.
The transparent and thick glass was a luxury item as expensive as a diamond.
A huge amount of money was spent on building a greenhouse the size of one room, made of thick glass with a strong, unbendable cast iron frame to withstand the weight of winter snow.
Irena, who was gifted her own greenhouse, grew trees and flowers in it.
However, growing it in a lack of sunlight was inevitably different from growing it naturally in the open air.
Irena, who had grown up looking at imported flower gardens in the paintings, wanted to see such landscapes herself, something she was unable to do due to Valmonde's customs.
Vermont was the King of the North.
Simply looking at the accumulated assets, it is at a level that surpasses that of the Oberon royal family.
So much so that when his daughter was born in Vermont, she would not participate in the debutantes held in the capital's social circles.
Vermont's daughter was envied by everyone and was anxious not to have her as their wife, because there was no reason for her to travel to the capital, which took a week by carriage, to present it like a merchant introducing his goods.
Instead, when his daughter became an adult, he held a grand ball at Castle Valmonde, which the nobles called the 'Northern Debutante'. It was thought that Vermont's daughter was a dedicated debutante.
Until Vermont's daughter got married, she would never leave the castle of Valmonde, where she was so powerful.
This has been the case since the ancestors who first built the castle, and there was no reason to change it now.
The Duke of Vermont was satisfied with the fact that he did not have to give his beloved skylark away in marriage.
Even if the son-in-law he had married had not died in vain, he planned to continue the prosperity he had enjoyed with his lovely daughter and the son-in-law he raised well in someone else's home.
Of course, the atmosphere in the estate was not as good as before due to the ten-year drought, but there were signs that the drought would finally end, and with Claudel's marriage, the urgent fire could be put out, so it was only a matter of time before Valmonde regained his former glory.
However, after Irena lost her mate and became like a wild goose, his father's worries deepened.
Among the candidates for his daughter's husband, he chose the best one, but after he died, he wondered if she would have come back alive if he had chosen someone else.
Irena, who was still immature and unaware of his father's identity, persistently urged the Duke of Vermont that she wanted to go to Rowen.
‘Claudel went too. My father also visited. I want to go too, yes?'
'It's too dangerous there.'
‘What’s dangerous about the flower garden? I want to see the flowers too.'
‘There are a lot of them in the greenhouse, right? What more can I get you? Rose? How many whole trees would you like to dig up in the south?'
‘I don’t like greenhouses. I want to see the flowers blooming outside!'
After making eye contact for a while, the Duke of Vermont, tired of the flowers and Rowen, avoided his lovely daughter, and as he avoided her, he had to suffer from the agony of wanting to see Irena, who would not hurt even if he put her in his eyes.
“I am allowing it with a big heart. You must be careful.”
"Yes, father. I will never do anything dangerous.”
“You must never sneak out of the inn you are staying in at night or do anything like that. You know that if you do that, you won’t even get to Rowen, and you’ll end up back in Valmonde on the way.”
“Why do I do that? I never break a promise to my father.”
“Then will you make a promise to your father?”
When the Duke of Vermont held out only his little finger and thumb, Irena smiled and hooked her little finger around his, pressing her thumb against his.
“Okay?”
“Is it that good?”
"Sure. I also really wanted to travel.”
The Duke of Vermont was delighted and looked at his daughter helplessly.
‘Temnes brat. He's a guy whose hatred for Vermont knows no bounds. He got along well with Claudel. Then there is no reason why I cannot have Temnes as my son-in-law.'
The Duke of Vermont smiled happily as he watched his daughter make plans to go on a trip right away.
The atmosphere at Rowen Castle took a turn.
The reason is that Kaian, the head and Lord of Temnes, goes to Claudel's bedroom every night.
“I thought you’d get rid of the Vermont girl right away.”
Some people who expected something savory were disappointed.
“It was a marriage ordered by the King, but I didn’t think the Lord would fall apart so easily. Do you think that if Vermont and Temnes produce a successor at this point, the resentment will go away?”
Some people reacted positively, saying they knew that would happen.
“By the way, the Madame. Isn’t she pretty?”
"That's right. Looking at her with red hair, I think she's pretty.”
The young maids who couldn't take off their girlish clothes chattered.
“Is it because she's sick? She's small and thin, but she's so pretty, she looks like a fairy.”
“What a fairy. She sounds like a fairy who freezing to death in the cold wind.”
A friendly response to Claudel was met with harsh criticism from Vermont hardliners, but gradually more and more people in the castle began to think favorably of her.
“I came to see how the lunch preparations were going.”
A spirited voice echoed through the kitchen.
"Hannah!"
"You came?"
The maid who had praised Claudel as being like a fairy a little while ago immediately ran away.
“Today, the chef is making what you like.”
"Hannah. What does Hannah like? Don’t you want to eat what you used to eat at Valmonde? I heard the food is quite different.”
A maid with brown hair and brown eyes spoke calmly.
"Well. Rowalen food is also quite suitable for my taste. If you move the things that grow here to Valmonde, they will all wither and fall out. I think everyone will say that Rowen’s food is the best no matter where they go.”
"Oh."
"Sure. Rowen’s food is the best in the Kingdom.”
Hannah, who shouted praises of Rowen in the middle of Rowen Castle, easily won the favor of the maids.
Some of the people, who had been openly mocking Claudel and Hannah, were glaring at her from the corner with their arms crossed in disapproval, but the general trend of Rowen castle was leaning towards her side.
As their fondness for Claudel grew, and as they watched Kaian treat her as his wife, those who had initially so strongly expressed dislike of Vermont were losing ground.
Some of them spoke to Hannah while placing iron plates on the tray.
Also, when they found out that this maid had an angry temperament and was covering up past events and not being picky about people, people flocked to her and started asking questions about the night between the Lady and the Lord, causing an uproar, and now the people who are talking about Vermont are among themselves in the corner of the kitchen. They were in a situation where they had to play and bite their nails.
'What kind of pride is that guy?'
Hannah secretly laughed at the servants, and the maids, who were cornered and glaring at her.
When Hannah returned to the room after confirming that a hearty lunch had been prepared, the sight of Claudel sitting by the window reading a book caught her eye.
'My Lady.'
Once Herzol was completely cured, Claudel regained her former self.
Her red hair was dyed bright scarlet in the sunlight shining through thin curtains.
Her flawlessly white and immaculate face was noticeably plump and shiny, and a sparkle returned to her bright golden eyes as if shining by the grace of God.
She didn't know that Claudel was really dying from an illness. She mistakenly thought that she was just withering away from stress, thinking that she would marry Temnes and be persecuted.
When Hannah thought of that time, she felt like her blood was draining and her whole body was shaking, but in the end, Claudel was doing well and stable now. Hannah's plan to run away from Rowen Castle with Claudel was temporarily put on hold.
"Lady. It’s time for lunch.”
"Already?"
“What if you just read books all morning?”
Claudel smiled at Hannah’s words and closed the book.
“How do you do something with so much to see?”
Claudel was reading the records left by past Duchesses of Temnes.
It was written in detail about how she carried out the festival every year and how he provided relief when there was a disaster or calamity in the estate.
Since she had become the new lord's wife, Claudel would take care of everything that would happen from now on and personally record it.
“Take it easy.”
“There is no time to take it easy. It’s the fall festival right now.”
“The butler is preparing for the fall festival under orders from the Lord.”
“I should have done it.”
Claudel knew that soon after she got married, she would die.
As a result, she was not at all interested in the affairs of the estate or the affairs of the Duchess, but since the great Lord had saved her, she was struggling to take care of them as if her feet were on fire.
'Cute, really. Why are you working so hard?'
Hannah thought Claudel's sincerity was her charm.
In any case, she was so glad that her beloved Lady, whom Hannah loved so much, was back as lively as before, and she was glad that she had sworn allegiance to Temnes, for ten of them were thanks to Kaian. Hannah praised him.
“Even if you don’t do that, My Lord still cares for you. You can learn it slowly and start next year.”
“The Duke is a good person. He probably doesn’t notice someone like me.”
“What are you talking about? How pretty and smart My Lady is. My Lord doesn’t know if you’re smart yet because you haven’t had the chance, but I’m sure he knows that you’re pretty.”
“What are you talking about? Hannah, I'm not pretty. Irena is pretty.”
Claudel often said this after receiving a telegram that Irena was visiting Rowen not long ago.
It was as if she thought that if Kaian saw Irena, he would fall in love with her.
Looking at Claudel like that, Hannah sighed inwardly.
Objectively, both Irena and Claudel were beautiful, but Irena's beauty and Claudel's charm were quite different.
If Irena had the beauty and aura of a typical noble lady, Claudel was noticeably different.
Whether the reason was because she was not raised as an aristocrat when she was young, or because Claudel was just born with her unique charm, she couldn't pinpoint.
Hannah was confident that people who saw her for the first time would definitely think that Claudel was much prettier.
However, since she was the biological daughter of the Duke of Vermont, the Lord of the castle of Valmonde, everyone in the castle praised Irena's beauty and did not speak a word about Claudel, so it seemed that Claudel did not know how pretty she was.
Even Claudel seemed to have been brainwashed because she lived her life saying that Irena was pretty.
She didn't live to see a beautiful woman, so she got the answer just by seeing Kaian come to her bedroom every night.
“My Lord will come soon. I’ll bring you a meal.”
What can Hannah say?
Irena liked what the Duke of Vermont said, so she didn't know what to do.
"Yes. How can this father say two things with just one mouth?”
“Wow, father. Thank you so much!”
Irena seemed so moved that she walked around the desk to the Duke of Vermont who was sitting in his chair, knelt down on her knees, hugged his waist, and made a cute gesture.
“I thought you would never allow it.”
The Duke of Vermont smiled brightly and patted the head of his daughter, who was behaving like a little puppy.
“I don’t allow it. Have you seen this father saying empty words? Didn’t you think about it?”
The story goes back to when the Duke of Vermont returned from Rowen Castle to Valmonde Castle with thirty wagonloads of provisions.
At that time, Irena greeted the Duke of Vermont with joy, her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
'Do you have to tell me about your visit to Rowen tomorrow?'
'Yes. Let's have lunch together.'
The next day, the Duke of Vermont had to deal with a barrage of questions from Irena, with no time for food to be shoved into his mouth, throughout the lunch of his wife and three daughters.
'Do people in Rowen really go around scantily clad?'
'It was a hot day, so I was dressed in undignified clothes that revealed my body.'
'Are there really a lot of flowers in Rowen?'
'They are blooming here and there, but they are not very pretty flowers and they are blooming from weeds.'
'Is that so. I also want to see it in person, at least once.'
For Irena, who loved flowers, the Duke of Vermont even built a small greenhouse in the castle.
The transparent and thick glass was a luxury item as expensive as a diamond.
A huge amount of money was spent on building a greenhouse the size of one room, made of thick glass with a strong, unbendable cast iron frame to withstand the weight of winter snow.
Irena, who was gifted her own greenhouse, grew trees and flowers in it.
However, growing it in a lack of sunlight was inevitably different from growing it naturally in the open air.
Irena, who had grown up looking at imported flower gardens in the paintings, wanted to see such landscapes herself, something she was unable to do due to Valmonde's customs.
Vermont was the King of the North.
Simply looking at the accumulated assets, it is at a level that surpasses that of the Oberon royal family.
So much so that when his daughter was born in Vermont, she would not participate in the debutantes held in the capital's social circles.
Vermont's daughter was envied by everyone and was anxious not to have her as their wife, because there was no reason for her to travel to the capital, which took a week by carriage, to present it like a merchant introducing his goods.
Instead, when his daughter became an adult, he held a grand ball at Castle Valmonde, which the nobles called the 'Northern Debutante'. It was thought that Vermont's daughter was a dedicated debutante.
Until Vermont's daughter got married, she would never leave the castle of Valmonde, where she was so powerful.
This has been the case since the ancestors who first built the castle, and there was no reason to change it now.
The Duke of Vermont was satisfied with the fact that he did not have to give his beloved skylark away in marriage.
Even if the son-in-law he had married had not died in vain, he planned to continue the prosperity he had enjoyed with his lovely daughter and the son-in-law he raised well in someone else's home.
Of course, the atmosphere in the estate was not as good as before due to the ten-year drought, but there were signs that the drought would finally end, and with Claudel's marriage, the urgent fire could be put out, so it was only a matter of time before Valmonde regained his former glory.
However, after Irena lost her mate and became like a wild goose, his father's worries deepened.
Among the candidates for his daughter's husband, he chose the best one, but after he died, he wondered if she would have come back alive if he had chosen someone else.
Irena, who was still immature and unaware of his father's identity, persistently urged the Duke of Vermont that she wanted to go to Rowen.
‘Claudel went too. My father also visited. I want to go too, yes?'
'It's too dangerous there.'
‘What’s dangerous about the flower garden? I want to see the flowers too.'
‘There are a lot of them in the greenhouse, right? What more can I get you? Rose? How many whole trees would you like to dig up in the south?'
‘I don’t like greenhouses. I want to see the flowers blooming outside!'
After making eye contact for a while, the Duke of Vermont, tired of the flowers and Rowen, avoided his lovely daughter, and as he avoided her, he had to suffer from the agony of wanting to see Irena, who would not hurt even if he put her in his eyes.
“I am allowing it with a big heart. You must be careful.”
"Yes, father. I will never do anything dangerous.”
“You must never sneak out of the inn you are staying in at night or do anything like that. You know that if you do that, you won’t even get to Rowen, and you’ll end up back in Valmonde on the way.”
“Why do I do that? I never break a promise to my father.”
“Then will you make a promise to your father?”
When the Duke of Vermont held out only his little finger and thumb, Irena smiled and hooked her little finger around his, pressing her thumb against his.
“Okay?”
“Is it that good?”
"Sure. I also really wanted to travel.”
The Duke of Vermont was delighted and looked at his daughter helplessly.
‘Temnes brat. He's a guy whose hatred for Vermont knows no bounds. He got along well with Claudel. Then there is no reason why I cannot have Temnes as my son-in-law.'
The Duke of Vermont smiled happily as he watched his daughter make plans to go on a trip right away.
***
The atmosphere at Rowen Castle took a turn.
The reason is that Kaian, the head and Lord of Temnes, goes to Claudel's bedroom every night.
“I thought you’d get rid of the Vermont girl right away.”
Some people who expected something savory were disappointed.
“It was a marriage ordered by the King, but I didn’t think the Lord would fall apart so easily. Do you think that if Vermont and Temnes produce a successor at this point, the resentment will go away?”
Some people reacted positively, saying they knew that would happen.
“By the way, the Madame. Isn’t she pretty?”
"That's right. Looking at her with red hair, I think she's pretty.”
The young maids who couldn't take off their girlish clothes chattered.
“Is it because she's sick? She's small and thin, but she's so pretty, she looks like a fairy.”
“What a fairy. She sounds like a fairy who freezing to death in the cold wind.”
A friendly response to Claudel was met with harsh criticism from Vermont hardliners, but gradually more and more people in the castle began to think favorably of her.
“I came to see how the lunch preparations were going.”
A spirited voice echoed through the kitchen.
"Hannah!"
"You came?"
The maid who had praised Claudel as being like a fairy a little while ago immediately ran away.
“Today, the chef is making what you like.”
"Hannah. What does Hannah like? Don’t you want to eat what you used to eat at Valmonde? I heard the food is quite different.”
A maid with brown hair and brown eyes spoke calmly.
"Well. Rowalen food is also quite suitable for my taste. If you move the things that grow here to Valmonde, they will all wither and fall out. I think everyone will say that Rowen’s food is the best no matter where they go.”
"Oh."
"Sure. Rowen’s food is the best in the Kingdom.”
Hannah, who shouted praises of Rowen in the middle of Rowen Castle, easily won the favor of the maids.
Some of the people, who had been openly mocking Claudel and Hannah, were glaring at her from the corner with their arms crossed in disapproval, but the general trend of Rowen castle was leaning towards her side.
As their fondness for Claudel grew, and as they watched Kaian treat her as his wife, those who had initially so strongly expressed dislike of Vermont were losing ground.
Some of them spoke to Hannah while placing iron plates on the tray.
Also, when they found out that this maid had an angry temperament and was covering up past events and not being picky about people, people flocked to her and started asking questions about the night between the Lady and the Lord, causing an uproar, and now the people who are talking about Vermont are among themselves in the corner of the kitchen. They were in a situation where they had to play and bite their nails.
'What kind of pride is that guy?'
Hannah secretly laughed at the servants, and the maids, who were cornered and glaring at her.
When Hannah returned to the room after confirming that a hearty lunch had been prepared, the sight of Claudel sitting by the window reading a book caught her eye.
'My Lady.'
Once Herzol was completely cured, Claudel regained her former self.
Her red hair was dyed bright scarlet in the sunlight shining through thin curtains.
Her flawlessly white and immaculate face was noticeably plump and shiny, and a sparkle returned to her bright golden eyes as if shining by the grace of God.
She didn't know that Claudel was really dying from an illness. She mistakenly thought that she was just withering away from stress, thinking that she would marry Temnes and be persecuted.
When Hannah thought of that time, she felt like her blood was draining and her whole body was shaking, but in the end, Claudel was doing well and stable now. Hannah's plan to run away from Rowen Castle with Claudel was temporarily put on hold.
"Lady. It’s time for lunch.”
"Already?"
“What if you just read books all morning?”
Claudel smiled at Hannah’s words and closed the book.
“How do you do something with so much to see?”
Claudel was reading the records left by past Duchesses of Temnes.
It was written in detail about how she carried out the festival every year and how he provided relief when there was a disaster or calamity in the estate.
Since she had become the new lord's wife, Claudel would take care of everything that would happen from now on and personally record it.
“Take it easy.”
“There is no time to take it easy. It’s the fall festival right now.”
“The butler is preparing for the fall festival under orders from the Lord.”
“I should have done it.”
Claudel knew that soon after she got married, she would die.
As a result, she was not at all interested in the affairs of the estate or the affairs of the Duchess, but since the great Lord had saved her, she was struggling to take care of them as if her feet were on fire.
'Cute, really. Why are you working so hard?'
Hannah thought Claudel's sincerity was her charm.
In any case, she was so glad that her beloved Lady, whom Hannah loved so much, was back as lively as before, and she was glad that she had sworn allegiance to Temnes, for ten of them were thanks to Kaian. Hannah praised him.
“Even if you don’t do that, My Lord still cares for you. You can learn it slowly and start next year.”
“The Duke is a good person. He probably doesn’t notice someone like me.”
“What are you talking about? How pretty and smart My Lady is. My Lord doesn’t know if you’re smart yet because you haven’t had the chance, but I’m sure he knows that you’re pretty.”
“What are you talking about? Hannah, I'm not pretty. Irena is pretty.”
Claudel often said this after receiving a telegram that Irena was visiting Rowen not long ago.
It was as if she thought that if Kaian saw Irena, he would fall in love with her.
Looking at Claudel like that, Hannah sighed inwardly.
Objectively, both Irena and Claudel were beautiful, but Irena's beauty and Claudel's charm were quite different.
If Irena had the beauty and aura of a typical noble lady, Claudel was noticeably different.
Whether the reason was because she was not raised as an aristocrat when she was young, or because Claudel was just born with her unique charm, she couldn't pinpoint.
Hannah was confident that people who saw her for the first time would definitely think that Claudel was much prettier.
However, since she was the biological daughter of the Duke of Vermont, the Lord of the castle of Valmonde, everyone in the castle praised Irena's beauty and did not speak a word about Claudel, so it seemed that Claudel did not know how pretty she was.
Even Claudel seemed to have been brainwashed because she lived her life saying that Irena was pretty.
She didn't live to see a beautiful woman, so she got the answer just by seeing Kaian come to her bedroom every night.
“My Lord will come soon. I’ll bring you a meal.”
What can Hannah say?
The fact that she doesn't know she's pretty could also be part of Claudel's charm.
Kaian, who was just passing through the hallway at that time, had an uncomfortable expression on his face.
The reason was that just a moment ago he had heard the servants talking as he passed down the hallway to Claudel's room.
"Hey. Do you know what? The Madame.”
“Ma’am, why?”
“Doesn't Madame smell really good? It’s like the scent of a woman.”
***
Kaian, who was just passing through the hallway at that time, had an uncomfortable expression on his face.
The reason was that just a moment ago he had heard the servants talking as he passed down the hallway to Claudel's room.
"Hey. Do you know what? The Madame.”
“Ma’am, why?”
“Doesn't Madame smell really good? It’s like the scent of a woman.”
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