Chapter 70 - Memories(2) (1/2)

Next, Meredith went into the kitchen and told the maids to prepare Jonas' favorite dinner. They all looked up at her with shock on their faces. She knew the kind of questions they were asking.

Wasn't she meant to reprimand him, scold him? Did a son ever become too old to at least be spoken to and corrected?

Or better still, she could take him out of the castle, leave him to survive how he wanted, besides, hadn't the patriarch in a completely unprecedented move, given the house to his wife instead of the product of his son?

Meredith did not pay them any attention because she had a plan she was going to execute that very evening. What was more, it was the same evening Gwen was going to be coming over.

She would be staying in the chambers in the east wing of the castle, the side facing the edge of the sea, where she could inhale the sea wind, the refreshing, invigorating air, and where she could hear the soothing sounds of waves hitting the rocks on the shore.

It was all so very carefully calculated.

The maids scurried over to the stove, to squash the grapes, to milk the cows, etc. they had only a few hours before he returned.

Meredith could have lost a little hold on her son, but she still had a firm grip on her maternal instincts. She knew Jonas would always return home.

He definitely would today, when he had exhausted his anger by screaming into a void, or engaging in a fight to the fancy of the irresponsible girls in the kingdom. So, she knew what she would do. She would simply wait.

They made the most exquisite diner, and just as she predicted, Jonas came in through the door, smelling of alcohol. He had been drinking.

He placed his hands on Meredith's shoulders and stared at her with glazed eyes.

When he opened his mouth to speak, a belch escaped instead, and he giggled. He staggered from side to side, occasionally gripping the banister and flirting with the maids who in the presence of Meredith, righteously rejected his leering offers and turned their eyes away modestly.

”I missed you…mother…” Jonas slurred.

Meredith said nothing. She led him up the stairs, to his room. And when he laid down, she fished out a poultice from her pocket, something to make him dazed, but not drunk. He only had to lay for 30 minutes.

When he was up, Meredith made him drink a soup which she had already laced with a strong aphrodisiac. It was his favorite soup which the maids had done well to prepare. After that, she made him wait in his room.

Gwen came a few moments later. She arrived in a carriage bearing all of her belongings, scents and spices. Meredith gave her a hug as she came into the house.

The girl looked helpless and naïve. Her face was full of freckles, and her nose was large and unsettling.

Yet, she still had that magical glint in her eyes that had drawn Meredith to her when she was a kid and her hair was still red and fiery. This was what Meredith wanted.

She hugged her again, made the maids take her belongings to the prepared chambers, and told her to come down for dinner after freshening up.