Chapter 116.2 (1/2)

(3)

Hugo was sleeping but because of the body moving around next to him, he woke up. When he saw Lucia sitting up on the bed, he was surprised and sat up.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“…”

Hugo inwardly thought to himself, ‘Well, you slept so much during the day, makes sense sleep won’t come.’

It had been three weeks since the day she was diagnosed as pregnant and the time Lucia spent asleep had increased. She slept almost all day. She slept early in the evening, woke up late in the morning and also took a nap in the afternoon. It was a lifestyle drowning in sleep as if she was getting a lifetime of sleep in advance.

These days, Hugo had barely seen anything but his wife’s sleeping face.

“Is there something I can do?”

“It’s not only that I can’t sleep, I keep thinking of food…”

“What do you want to eat? If you tell Jerome, he’ll get it ready for you soon.”

“I told him, but he said he couldn’t get it.”

A food that Jerome couldn’t prepare. Hugo had a slightly ominous foreboding.

“What is it?”

“Green grapes.”

“…”

Spring had only just arrived. The winds outside were still chilly. Grapevines were yet to sprout proper leaves.

“You can’t get it either?” (Lucia)

Hugo was confident that he could comb through the entire world to find anything she wanted. However, no matter how talented he was, he did not have the ability to make fruits that had not sprouted yet. Deep down in the south, there was a country with warm climate but now wasn’t the harvesting season for grapes.

However, Hugo just couldn’t say no to his wife, who was looking at him with clear eyes full of expectation. So, he bluffed and said.

“…I’ll look for it.”

“Whoa.”

She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him, and as Hugo wrapped his arms around her in embrace, he broke out in cold sweat.

‘Damn, I’m in trouble now.’

* * *

Kwiz heard from the Queen that the Duchess seemed to be pregnant. After hearing that, he learnt that the Duchess had stopped her activities outside and guessed that she must indeed be pregnant.

However, even though he met with the Duke of Taran almost everyday, the Duke of Taran didn’t seem to have any intention of telling him the good news and it had almost been a month. At this rate, it seemed like he would only be told of the pregnancy after the child was born.

Kwiz lightly brought up the subject first.

“Gong, this king heard that you will be becoming a father soon.”

“It has been a long time since I became a father.”

“I heard you would be seeing a second child.”

“…Yes.”

“Some people, really. You have to tell good news like this quickly. Congratulations. The Duchess is doing well?”

“Yes. There are no big issues.”

“I’m glad to hear that. When the Queen was pregnant with the princess, she couldn’t eat properly so she suffered a lot. They say such symptoms are common if the baby is female, how is the Duchess faring?”

“She isn’t troubled too much.”

“I guess the child is gentle like the Duchess. I wonder if it will be a boy like you, Gong, or a girl like the Duchess. You know, this king made a bet on it with my adjutant. I bet it would be a boy. This king believes in you, Gong.”

It would seem that Kwiz had terrible luck in gambling. As Hugo looked at Kwiz who was guffawing loudly, he inwardly muttered to himself, ‘It is a girl’.

He thought that the yet-to-be-born child should definitely resemble his wife. Otherwise, it wasn’t worthwhile to go through all this trouble.

Hugo roughly ignored it when the King boasted and gushed about the princess’ loveliness whenever he had the chance. His thought process was, ‘What does the loveliness of someone else’s child have to do with me?’. In fact, he was going through agony before his own child was born.

One month had passed. It was only just a month, but one month was really a long time. There were still six to seven months left until the child was born. This situation was like standing on a narrow ridge, with an abyss of darkness at your front and back, and the gloomy prospects make you unable to go forward or backwards.

Lucia’s morning sickness was not severe enough to make her refuse food. Although she refused meals with strong smells, she usually ate quite well.

The doctor had said several times that it was fortunate that she wasn’t like some mothers who had almost nothing but water during their pregnancy term and slimmed down drastically after giving birth.

Hugo agreed wholeheartedly. He felt like if he watched his wife suffer from morning sickness that made her throw up everything and not eat properly, he might dislike the child.

However, nothing in the world was easy. Lucia’s morning sickness was light, but her nerves were relatively sharp.