Chapter 134

It was an odd question.

There was no reason for her to suddenly be curious about Iona’s age.

Despite feeling perplexed, Iona answered honestly.

“I just turned twenty.”

“Twenty, twenty…”

The Empress mulled over Iona’s response in a subdued voice.

Just as Iona was about to ask the reason for this strange reaction, the Empress raised her head, which had been slightly bowed, and looked directly at her.

Then, as if to clear the air of the strange tension, she quickly clarified the situation.

“Since you’ve been coming and going from the palace since you were very young, it’s hard to believe that you are already of marriageable age. How swiftly time flows like water.”

Her tongue was too smooth. Her flawless explanation felt all the more contrived because of it.

Feeling an inexplicable tension, Iona stood frozen in place for a moment.

However, it was not her place to ask what her true intentions were, and it seemed the Empress had no intention of revealing more of her thoughts.

After a long moment of locking eyes with Iona, the Empress soon drew a line between them with a brisk farewell.

“You may leave now.”

It was an unbelievably polite voice for a dismissal.

***

“That was a foolish thought.”

After Iona left and the room fell silent, Rosalia murmured quietly, almost inaudibly.

The reason she had called Iona today, as she had mentioned to the person herself, was to suggest that she leave the capital.

The decision was simple.

She had judged that the other party was a hindrance to Richard.

It was a fact that she had long been aware of her son’s special affection for his knight.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Richard had been quite cautious in his actions until now.

He had not rashly reached out to the other, and had positioned his visible affection as stemming from the trust towards his subordinate.

Thus, Rosalia could turn a blind eye to the emotions brewing unseen.

After all, she thought there was no need to press her son, who was trying not to cause trouble as it was.

Richard had even made the resolute decision to marry off the woman he admired to another man.

‘But that was the problem.’

After the marriage negotiations began, Richard had changed.

Driven by jealousy, he couldn’t control his emotions and repeatedly acted impulsively.

At first, when Richard punished Florence by declaring his engagement to her void, Rosalia had tried to turn a blind eye to her son’s misconduct.

But when Richard came to her, determined to deal with Count Modrov, she could no longer ignore the situation.

‘It was clear he intended to set that girl up as the head.’

Richard argued that the mine incident was an opportunity to clean up the royal family’s numerous embarrassments, but his true desired outcome was something else.

It was obvious who would benefit from eliminating Count Modrov and his heir.

Knowing his motives, the Empress helped with Hayden’s situation because it was something she too had long desired.

However, separate from that, she needed to take action regarding her son.

If left alone, Richard was bound to continue messing things up driven by his emotions.

‘To think he would hand over titles just to impress a woman, if swayed properly, he might even sell the country next.’

Rosalia couldn’t help but let out a scoff of disbelief.

What was it about that stoic knight that had bewitched her son, who had been indifferent from a young age, to lose his senses?

This was only the second time she had seen Richard show interest in someone.

Perhaps that’s why.

Unintentionally, she recalled Teresa, the first object of his interest.

After Teresa was confined to her palace, Rosalia often visited her under the pretext of keeping her company.

In truth, it was to monitor Teresa’s mouth and manage the information circulating within the palace, but Teresa, unaware of the underlying reasons, warmly welcomed these visits from her sister-in-law.

For Teresa, confined as she was, the news Rosalia brought was like rain in a drought.

Thus, Rosalia managed to maintain a good relationship with Teresa until her death, unlike with Hayden.

Of course, it required considerable effort to sustain a relationship with the broken Teresa.

Outstanding acting skills necessary to deceive her completely were just a bonus.

Rosalia wept, regretting having arranged the meeting between Hayden and Teresa, and the naive Teresa eventually accepted her sister-in-law’s apology.

Even she, who was close to Hayden, believed in him wholeheartedly, so why would it have been any different for Rosalia?

It was a naive and foolish misconception.

Every time Rosalia saw Teresa smiling at her, she inwardly mocked her foolishness, kindness, and misguided trust in people.

For Rosalia, visiting Teresa felt like reaffirming a victory.

The interactions between Rosalia and Teresa actually became more frequent after her confinement than before, and often, Rosalia’s son Richard would also join in.

Teresa welcomed Richard’s visits as well.

Though a noble prince, Richard had always behaved maturely from a young age, but Teresa not only tolerated his occasional childish mischief—she seemed to delight in it.

No, when he acted up, she would look at him longingly, as if he were the child she had lost.

And then, habitually, she would say to him:

“If my daughter were alive, you would have made a great older brother.”

Her words, heavily pressed with emotion, revealed much. After realizing Hayden’s betrayal, that was the only way she could express her feelings.

Whenever Teresa wrote about her child on paper, Rosalia was seized by a strange emotion.

Voices and everything else were what Teresa had lost because of her.

Even though Rosalia had not intended for things to turn out quite so badly.

In truth, Rosalia had not wanted Teresa to be ruined to this extent.

She simply wanted to prevent Teresa from succeeding to the throne.

Originally, Rosalia had no intention of killing the child.

However, the Emperor had taken the newborn from his daughter’s arms and erased its very existence.

Rosalia had hoped that Teresa would continue to dream of an unattainable love.

But Hayden, concerned for his well-being, had cruelly revealed the harsh truth to her.

As a result, Teresa had become a completely different person.

Even though she still laughed and seemed joyful, there was always a deep sadness lurking within her.

Rosalia knew through her maids that Teresa sometimes cried for no reason at all.

And that the startled maids would ask if she was alright, only to find her startlingly wiping her wet cheeks.

“I don’t think I would have gotten along with a kid so younger than me.”

“But you should get along with your sibling, for my sake at least.”

To Richard’s indifferent reply, Teresa pinched his cheek, pretending to be slighted.

She was mature enough not to show her grief over losing her child in front of the children.

Within that peaceful atmosphere, it almost felt as if all the misfortunes that had befallen Teresa could be overcome.

‘But she couldn’t.’

Rosalia swallowed a bitter laugh and looked down at the teacup left behind by a guest.

Hayden had said that Teresa had spirited away the child and sent it to him.

Though Teresa acted in front of Rosalia and Richard as if the child had died, in reality, her offspring was alive and breathing somewhere, location unknown.

Her deep despair likely stemmed from the possibility that she might never see her child again.

Thinking this, Rosalia couldn’t bring herself to reach out and harm the child.

She resolved to bury the existence of the child, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The suspicion had arisen when she saw the illegitimate child Count Modrov had acquired around the same time.

‘But the age doesn’t match.’

Only just twenty years old, the birth year was incorrect.

She had scrutinized Iona’s face, hoping perhaps, but she couldn’t find Teresa in her.

Nor did she seem to particularly resemble Count Modrov, purportedly her father.

“Perhaps she takes after her worthless mother.”

Muttering to herself in self-mockery, Rosalia tried hard to dismiss the ridiculous suspicions from her mind.

Imagining Iona’s unknown biological mother, who must have looked very different from Teresa, Rosalia murmured almost like a sigh.

“I wish she would just go to the dukedom and never step foot in the capital again.”

--- End Of The Chapter ----

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