Hermina kept a tight lid on today’s events with her handmaidens. In particular, she made sure that her husband wouldn’t find out.
The day after tomorrow, that man said he would have something to talk about, but what the hell does he want?
Hermina shuddered at the thought of meeting him.
“Madam, you don’t look well.”
“Eh-, yeah…”
She cursed her bad luck. How could she have met him again by accident?
She had never met him before, not even at a night party or when she went to the Marquis’ house to meet her sister.
Anyway, she had to go home and think of a countermeasure.
Hermina let out a deep sigh and looked at the city reddened by the sunset that she could see from the carriage window as they returned home.
She was restlessly waiting for her husband to come home when she received a letter from work.
When she opened it, she found that there had been a problem with the letter and she read, “Unfortunately, we are unable to return home today.”
When she read the letter, she was relieved.
Maybe her husband would find out about her hiding something from him sooner or later. So, she was glad that they didn’t have to see each other today.
Hermina ordered a nearby maid to prepare a gift for her husband.
“Bread and cheese, smoked meat, pickled leafy greens, wine, and apples. Prepare it immediately. Also, take some refreshments to the knight who delivered the letter.”
“As you wish.”
While they were preparing the food, Hermina was writing a letter to her husband.
As they were short on time, she wrote, “I am sincerely looking forward to your return”. However, she didn’t think she would be waiting for her husband’s return that fervently, so she put a new one in the envelope with the words, “It’s still cold, so please get warm and sleep”.
Hermina thanked the knight for his labors and asked him to take a gift and a letter with him.
Then, she bathed her daughter.
She seemed to be in a good mood today and was able to finish the bath relatively smoothly.
Quickly wiping her body and dressing her so that she wouldn’t catch a cold, she went straight to her bedroom.
“Lyrie, let’s go to bed with your mother~”
Hermina rocked her to sleep.
At two months old, she had recently started to cackle and laugh.
It was a relief to hold her warm, good-smelling body in her arms. Once again, she felt precious and grateful for her child’s presence.
She sat on the edge of her bunk and looked down at her daughter.
Seeing her eyes light up, she realized that if she didn’t sleep, it would be a long-term battle.
She would be the final weapon. She sang a lullaby from her sister Corianna’s direct line. Before she could get to the chorus, her daughter fell asleep.
She put her daughter down on the infant bed and asked the nanny who was waiting by to take care of her for the night.
Hermina was kind of tired after everything that happened today, so she decided to sleep.
◇ ◇ ◇
The next day.
Hermina made a plan for tomorrow.
After much deliberation, she decided to arm herself and go out. Naturally, she didn’t mean to arm herself in the sense of dressing up like a noble lady, but a real armament.
She ordered the maidservant to prepare men’s clothing and a sword.
She thought she would be able to meet her husband, as she had regained more composure than yesterday. But, today, in the evening, she received a letter from him again. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be able to come home again today.
What kind of problem could have happened? Anyway, she decided to write back to her husband again today.
Hermina commanded the butler who was by her side to make some bread with meat and vegetables for today’s offering.
She hoped that he would eat some meat and get through his work in good spirits.
She was glad he hadn’t come home yesterday, but she was feeling slightly heartbroken if he continued to be away for more than two days.
She thought it was a strange state of mind for her husband to be away from home, even though she’d been fine with him being away from home until now.
Today, she wrote honestly, “I am sincerely looking forward to your return”.
The knight who brought Hermina the letter was going to have dinner with her.
She tried asking him to eat with her, but he said it was a terrible idea. Thus, he refused.
She looked kind of frightened. Her husband wasn’t bullying her, was he? Hermina asked him, but the answer was no.
She felt sorry for forcing him to do so, so she made him eat dinner by himself.
On the appointed day, Hermina was fully armed. She wore a navy blue jacket with a stuffed collar, black pants, and boots. She put her husband’s sword, which he had told her she could use it at any time, in her waist belt.
With her maidservant in tow, she headed for the coffee shop she had visited two days ago.
The shop was apparently once built as a social gathering place for the nobility. However, because of its location at the end of the shopping district, it didn’t attract many people. Hermina heard that it was converted to a coffee shop.
Even though it was converted from a social hall to a coffee shop, one thing they all had in common was that people didn’t come to the coffee shop because of its bad location.
The man was already in the empty shop.
He sat on his haunches and stared at Hermina as she arrived.
“What are you wearing?”
“I’m ready for a duel.”
“I’m not going to fight you.”
“Yes. We haven’t even done the due process.”
In this country, it is customary to write a letter of honor before a duel, tie it to an arrow, and deliver it to the opponent.
When Hermina was a little girl, she once sent a letter of honor to this man to challenge him to a duel.
“I thought I was going to die from the arrow you sent me.”
“You’re overreacting.”
He had just fallen asleep leaning against a tree and shot an arrow that stabbed above his head.
Hermina was the best archer in the family. The other day, though, she lost a match with my husband.
“You’re a cocky one,”
“Not as much as you.”
They stared at each other in silence for a long time.
”Don’t … look down on me like you’re so high and mighty. Sit there.”
“I’ve got this face.”
“You’re not some pretty girl.”
“I don’t need you to think I’m pretty.”
It seemed like this was going to go on forever, so Hermina sat back in the chair and hurried him to get down to business.
“So, what’s the story?”
She asked, the man straightened his posture then asked with a serious face.
“Your daughter is one of your brother and sister-in-law’s quadruplets, is that correct?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I thought they were triplets, but they were born quadruplets, and you wanted a child right now, so you asked your sister-in-law, who was recovering from the birth, to adopt her.”
“Yes, but why are you asking me?
“No, I know a merchant who’s got a funny story.”
“?”
The acquaintance was apparently a merchant who had been in and out of the Saine family. Hermina asked him what would be the matte.
“Your brother-in-law told me that since the baby was born, he had ordered clothes and toys for the baby, but that he had only ordered three of each.”
“!”
“After the birth, your sister-in-law was sick for a week. In the meantime, your brother has been shopping for gifts for the baby. Three of each before you adopted the baby. If it was during this period of time, it wouldn’t be surprising if you bought four, would it?”
Hermina felt her heart skip a beat at the man’s point.
Sweat was also appearing on her forehead.
Her mind went blank and she was speechless.
She realized that she was being watched with a smirk on her face, and she inhaled and exhaled and came to her senses.
She mustn’t let him know that she was upset.
She glared at him as if he’s avenging his parents.
“Is that story true? Is that what brother-in-law told you?”
“No, I’m not checking with your brother.”
“Then why don’t you check it out? I think it would be faster.”
Hermina didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave it up to her brother-in-law, but she would have a hard time convincing him that she could do it alone. Just as she was about to apologize in her heart, he said something to drive her back.
“Well, I figured that was it, so I gave the nanny the money and asked her about it, and she said that there were three children that she had taken away from me.”
“You’re not mistaken?”
“You said you remember them well because triplets are so rare.”
Saying this and saying that. They kept arguing.
When Hermina tried to end the conversation, the man stopped her and said, “So, whose baby do you have?”
“Your child, Hermina. Whose child is it?”
“T-that’s why I’m telling you she’s Dorothea’s child!”
When the tone was strong, the man surprisingly shushed her.
But he immediately started laughing.
“Hey, what’s so funny?”
“You could easily tell by your attitude that you were lying.”
“I told you I’m not lying!”
“Don’t get mad at me. You’re not a very good liar.”
Bummer!
Why should she get told by this man?
More importantly, she must make a fool of him somehow.
”As I told you earlier about this matter, to your brother-in-law–”
“Given the connection between you and your husband, isn’t the dark-haired, blue-eyed child born … well, isn’t it the second prince’s child?”
Hearing the man’s words, Hermina felt a shock as if she had been struck by lightning in her brain.
This time, she was completely speechless.
Maybe it was only because he was a relative that she realized it, but she thought that he was a horrible man who seemed short-tempered and thoughtless.
Showing this kind of reaction, it would no longer be impossible to deceive him.
”–then I have no choice but to cut him down here!”
The woman’s expression became impatient as she tightened her grip on the hilt of her husband’s sword.
”How could that be?!”
“Now that you know the secret of me and my husband, I can’t let you live…”
“I haven’t said a threat or anything yet!”
“No questions asked!”
“—Now it’s time for the coffee and cake set!”
A moment before she was about to draw the sword, the waiter brought them what she had ordered.
Hermina stopped dead in her tracks and asked the clerk to put the cake set in front of that man. She was a little harassed.
The man looked slightly embarrassed as he was placed in front of Hermina with the strawberry cake in front of him.
“You’ve saved my life,”
“What a woman…!”
“That’s the kind of woman I am.”
The conversation ended with a thinning and quieting of the room.
Unable to bear the awkwardness anymore, Hermina spoke to the man.
“So, what do you want?”
“…”
“You’re going to make some demands in exchange for not speaking, aren’t you?”
“Ah, that’s right…”
She asked, and the man simply said what he wanted.
“–Leave your husband. Break up with your husband and I’ll keep quiet about it.”
“What did you say?”
“The answer doesn’t have to be today. I’ll see you back here in a week.”
“Wait!”
He said it then left.
“–what, what was that?”
It was a terrible situation.
She held her head in her hands and couldn’t move from the spot for a while.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
It was no longer something Hermina could hold on to about this matter alone.
She would have to talk to her husband about it right away.
She was fidgeting and waiting for him to return, but it was the errand boy who came to their house yesterday and the day before yesterday.
It seems that today, she had left him not a letter, but a message.
“It was decided at short notice that Captain Erich von Belh, and the twelve members of the squad below, left the city a few moments ago on a mission in the neighboring country in the evening. The term is ten days.”
“–Eh?”
According to the story, a group of new knights under Hermina’s husband’s jurisdiction, who had been enlisted for three days, got into trouble at a bar and caused a lot of commotion. After that, her husband couldn’t come home to deal with it.
Later, as punishment for this incident, he said he was to serve in a neighboring country.
“I will be following them. Do you have any message for Captain Belh, or anything else to give him?”
She was astonished to hear the report, but she entrusted her husband with some uninhibited words so that he would not be worried.
”Please … please take care of yourself and let me take care of the house.”
“As you wish. I’ll be sure to let him know.”
After seeing the knight off, she went to her daughter’s bedroom.
The nanny reported that she had just fallen asleep.
“Can you leave us alone for a while?”
“As you wish.”
After the bedroom door closed, she checked her daughter’s sleeping face.
Hermina put her hand close to her baby’s cheek and traced a round line to avoid touching it.
“Good night, Lyrie, have a pleasant dream.”
She said goodnight to her daughter and collapsed on her bunk.
–My husband is gone.
That fact put her in a state of abandonment.
He said that in order to keep the secret, she would have to divorce her husband.