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Chapter 10
“Who is it?”
Another follower of Hallara, perhaps?
I set down the gift in my hand and stepped toward the door.
“Miss Hallara Seheve? I would like to speak with you for a moment.”
As expected, it was a man.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t wish to meet anyone I’ve had dealings with.”
I declined politely.
“There are no past ties, but the Duchess of Bloody Mary has come in person.”
Wait.
Who?
“The Duchess of Bloody Mary?”
“Yes.”
If it was her, then she was the prospective mother-in-law I had met the moment I first possessed this body.
“Please, come in.”
Whatever the reason, she wasn’t someone I could pretend not to know.
A noble lady entered through the worn door.
Was it just my imagination, or did she look a little thinner than a few days ago? Still, the pressure and dignity she exuded from head to toe were overwhelming as ever.
She looked elegant—nothing like me, who had been tramping around the market these past days and had practically turned into a country woman.
“Please, sit here.”
The man standing beside her as she sat on a shabby wooden chair gestured toward the seat opposite.
Who is he? A servant?
He looks familiar somehow.
I suppose I must have seen him back when I first possessed this body, since that was in the duke’s reception room.
“I’ll bring some tea.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
The male lead’s mother rejected my courtesy without hesitation.
I was, honestly, a little grateful. Tea was precious, and I had to save every cup.
“I came because I have something to say.”
“What would that be?”
Did she really have something left to say to me?
“If you were offended by my visit to the ducal castle the other day, I offer my formal apology. A person of such lowly status dared to forget her place and committed the grave sin of displeasing someone so noble.”
Well… I had given a pretty half-hearted apology back then.
I’d just possessed this body and was suddenly face-to-face with the male lead’s mother—it had been a life-or-death situation.
“Is that all you have to say?”
Francesca’s brow creased openly.
“I will ask you one last time. Answer carefully.”
“Yes. I know an apology may not be enough, but please forgive me.”
As expected of the mistress of a fearsome family of swordsmen.
Francesca swept her sharp gaze around the room. Then her eyes landed on the knitting I had pushed to one side of the table.
“What is that?”
“Socks. And a hat.”
She reached out and touched what I had made.
She looked at it with mild curiosity at first, but her expression soon hardened, and the tips of her fingers began to tremble.
“Hah! You intend to put something like this on a weak and precious baby?”
“…Excuse me?”
That was an unpleasant thing to say.
It wasn’t like I wanted to make them out of such rough fabric either.
“That’s enough.”
Enough of what?
“Pack your things at once.”
“…What?”
“You win.”
“…What? What did I do for there to be a win or loss…?”
So a verdict had been reached?
“You said you love my son. Very well. As you wish, I will let you be with him.”
What??
“You’re not going to claim now that those words were a lie meant to toy with me, are you?”
Francesca had prepared many questions before Carlos knocked on Hallara’s door.
But the moment she stepped inside, the rich, savory scent in the air robbed her of speech.
As the lady of a ducal house, she had lived eating every kind of refined cuisine imaginable. Yet such a fragrant, full-bodied aroma coming from the home of a mere commoner—
‘It must be something Dochev had the ducal chef prepare and bring here.’
To go to such trouble… Dochev must be utterly smitten with this woman.
Her mood darkened as she looked around the house. The suffocatingly small space contained only a few shabby, old pieces of furniture.
‘That is…’
What caught her eye were a baby’s hat and socks.
Seeing them made her all the more certain.
Hallara was indeed pregnant with Dochev’s child.
From a physician’s diagnosis to baby items—there was so much clear evidence. And yet this woman had claimed she wasn’t pregnant. What on earth was she thinking?
She couldn’t understand her intentions at all.
Still, more than that, the crude baby items drew her attention.
‘Bought at the market?’
Cheap linen had been cut, with loose threads sticking out everywhere.
But when she noticed Hallara’s reddened fingertips and the basket set nearby, she quickly realized the truth.
‘She made them herself?’
She had made the baby’s hat and socks herself.
This young woman before her eyes.
For the child in her womb.
Stitch by stitch.
As Francesca stared blankly, she felt a heavy thud in her chest.
‘I was like that once, too.’
Nikolai, Dochev, Helvern.
She had carried all three children with love in her heart.
As her belly grew, she had even tried making things for them.
‘Back then, I only wished they would be healthy.’
Yet once Dochev grew up healthy, she treated him harshly.
Perhaps she had been taking out her frustrations on him alone.
Her expectations that Dochev would become a fine knight like Nikolai.
Her disappointment when his power failed to awaken.
She had vented her own greed on that child.
But this girl…?
Francesca looked at Hallara.
Rumors said she was a selfish seductress obsessed with money.
But then and now, there was not a trace of such malice to be found.
‘I see why she hid it.’
Francesca understood.
No—this was a feeling any mother would know.
‘Obviously she’d have her child taken away. She must have wanted to give birth in secret and live together with the baby, raising it in her arms with love.’
The answer was clear.
Perhaps she was sincere.
About Dochev, and about this child.
Hadn’t Hallara even said herself that she liked him?
Then why, after boldly coming to the ducal castle and requesting a private audience with the duchess, did she later hide the child’s existence?
‘After seeing the castle in person, she must have thought she wouldn’t survive there.’
That feeling—Francesca knew it well enough.
She herself had been born into a noble family and raised under strict discipline, yet she had struggled for years under the oppressive presence of the Bloody Mary house.
A commoner wouldn’t be ignorant of such things.
Francesca dropped the baby socks and hat she’d been holding as if flinging them aside.
But these… to dare use these…!
“You’re trying to put something like this on our baby!”
Her true feelings burst out before she could stop herself.
Making them by hand was commendable, but Dochev’s child would soon be her grandchild.
No matter how extravagantly she dressed the baby in precious things, it would never be enough.
“…Pardon?”
Hallara’s eyes widened.
Seeing her hastily put the items away, she must have realized her mistake as well.
As if hiding them now would make the pregnancy disappear.
‘It’s already been exposed anyway.’
Fine—hide it.
If word got out that she’d become pregnant before entering the family, that alone would be a scandal.
If they both pretended ignorance, if Hallara pretended there was no child, it would actually benefit Francesca.
“Come to the estate. Since you’re the only one who claims to like my son, I’ll allow it.”
Come to the ducal castle? What did that even mean?
Was I failing to grasp the context here?
“Wait a moment, Duchess. Is this really something that can be decided just because I say I like him…?”
“Enough of your rambling. We’ve already prepared everything on our end. Just bring yourself.”
“…What?”
She spoke as if my intentions didn’t matter at all.
What kind of person is she?!
“You said you like my son. Then come and live there.”
Even if her son was a scoundrel, would she really let him marry a commoner so easily?
“No matter what… I’m a commoner.”
Back then, it had just been an excuse to escape the situation. I had absolutely no intention of getting involved with Dochev and dying alongside him.
I didn’t even know what Dochev looked like.
All I wanted was to run my little business here.
The Bloody Mary family may fall, but the people of the territory don’t die.
For commoners like us, only the name of our lord changes—nothing else.
That was the sole advantage of possessing a commoner’s body.
“Didn’t you clearly say you liked our son?”
“Well, yes, but…”
If I said no here, she looked like she might kill me.
“It’s better than having my son waste away alone.”
“…Excuse me?”
What is this?
This is different from the original story.
In the original, Hallara was scorned because she was a commoner.
True, she’d shown up pregnant before marriage and demanded money, so it was hard to look on her kindly—but fundamentally, she was despised because she was a commoner.
“Are you saying you don’t want to?”
Francesca asked with a stern look.
It wasn’t a ‘How dare someone like you reject our family?’ expression.
It was more like, ‘Are you playing games with my son and me?’
Terrifying.
These were people who could really kill someone.
‘Should I say it’s too much pressure? That I want to stay a fan from afar?’
As I hesitated, unsure what to say, Francesca snapped in a voice lowered to the extreme.
“So it wasn’t a lie that you spent a night with my second son.”
Good thing I hesitated.
If I’d babbled about fandom or anything like that, I might have lost my head.
“I came already knowing everything, so don’t think you can gloss it over.”
“…Ah.”
I had nothing to say.
I’d only read what Hallara said in the original story—I never knew what things had really been like between Hallara and Dochev.
“What if I keep my head down and live quietly…?”
“I understand your feelings, but that won’t do.”
What exactly do you understand?
You don’t know that I possessed this body.
You don’t know your family will be destroyed.
You don’t know that if this continues, you and I will both die tangled up with Dochev.
You know none of that.
Unable to explain my circumstances, frustration welled up inside me.
“Isn’t there some other way?”
“No. Not once I know.”
She left no room for compromise.
“What if I create a new identity and leave?”
That was the best solution my brain could come up with.
I really, truly didn’t want to die in that family.
Even if Francesca slapped me and screamed that anyone would do!
