CH 295

Chapter 295: Epilogue (5)

The path leading to the graveyard behind the mansion was filled with flowers on the sides. Igor stopped Rihannan for a moment and started to pick the flowers that had bloomed on the sides of the path. Seeing him be very concious of which ones to pick, she could easily imagine that he would have acted the same even 7 years ago. Soon, a whole bundle of flowers were in his hand. Looking at him searching for a string to tie it all together, Rihannan pulled out one of the strings holding up her hair and handed it to him.

“Tie it with this.”

Igor took the blue silk string that Rihannan gave to him, and with precision completely tied up together the bundle of flowers. He didn’t stop there, and took one of the white flowers that was blooming on the grass and handed it to Rihannan.

“As this one was the most beautiful and whole, I made sure to give this one to you directly.”

Rihannan’s face immediately became bright red. She smiled shyly and took the flower he offered. When she put it up to her nose and smelled it, it smelled sweet and wonderful to her.

Even though they have lived together for a long time, every time he does this kind of action occasionally to her, her heart would always beat heavily. Looking at his eyes even now made her feel blush coming on her cheeks and her chest beat louder. Rihannan thought that she may still be like this even after she had grown to be a hundred years old or so.

“Did you know?”

As they headed towards the graveyard once again, Rihannan asked a question to Igor and he replied.

“Know what?”

“The moment when I first started opening my heart towards you was exactly when you gave that bundle of flower to me. Seeing you make a flower bouquet with your own hands, it made me realize that you were completely different than the people I knew in the past.”

“My goodness, then I guess I should be thankful that Basil’s warning back then had turned out to be helpful for me.”

“That was Basil’s idea? I knew it… I’m a little disappointed.”

“No, wait, I didn’t mean Basil said that, but…”

Seeing him flustered and scared, Rihannan let out a laughter. Looking at the man who’s still reacting sensitively to every word she says, she smiled and held his hand tightly as they walked together.

After leaving the bouquet of flowers in front of mother’s grave, the two stood in front of the grave for a while. After a long time, Rihannan opened her mouth.

“Actually, mother liked you quite a lot back then.”

Igor turned to look at Rihannan with extremely surprised expression. It was shocking as he had never in his previous life said anything nice at all towards the Count’s wife.

“Why would she…”

“She said that even though you don’t really express yourself often, you aren’t the type to use lies to deceive people. If she really did dislike you back then, she would have never pushed me into the position of the queen even if the queen mother had ordered her to. And she also knew at the time that I was starting to fall for you romantically as well.”

Igor layed his gaze low. He had always thought that their marriage was made for political gains, and now it was proven that it was false. The more he learned about the truth of the past, the more painful his memories of the mistakes he made became to him.

“Ah, that’s right. The king of Chrichton was showing a positive reaction to you.”

Seeing that his expression was rapidly growing dark, Rihannan quickly changed the topic. Igor smiled again and gazed at Rihannan.

“Is that so? That’s good to hear.”

“In his case, to maintain a good relationship with us would be beneficial for both sides after all. His position is still unstable.”

The current king of Chrichton was someone that had been crowned as one even though he was strictly from nobles and not the royal family, something that was unprecedented. In these days where the power of the royal family still threatens his position, he had nothing to lose by being friendly and co-operative with the neighbouring country.

“I told that I will actively support Maia becoming the successor to the position of throne.”

The Chrichton visit that she had wasn’t simply just to meet with her relatives. When Rihannan arrived at Chrichton, the first thing she did was visit the royal palace, reunite with Helena who had now become the Count’s wife and met with the king of Chrichton seperately. It was to take care of all the behind the scenes work that needed to be done so that Maia will become the next successor to the throne position in the future.

In the last 7 years, it was only Maia that Igor and Rihannan raised together. Igor didn’t wish for any other children than Maia, and Rihannan did have some wish of wanting another child, but she gave it up for Maia. If a boy was to be born, Maia’s position as the successor gets more complicated.

From the beginning, the two people set up a plan to make Maia become the proper successor to the throne in the future. However, the nobles thought differently. As the king and queen are both still young, they still have plenty of chances and time to give birth to a boy later on, so they don’t need to hurry with choosing a successor already.

As Rihannan worried over this problem, Igor pushed up his plan ahead of schedule and decided to make Maia the proper successor to the throne. He didn’t want to leave it to chance where Rihannan could be troubled by thinking that she has the duty to give birth to a boy like in the past.

Awarding Maia the status as a Countess was also a part of the plan. Originally the currently empty seat of the Count of Alleshin was to be given to a male boy that Rihannan could give birth in the future, but since this was how it was going to go, she needed to inform everyone of their decision. That Maia not only has the right to succeed and claim the position of being the Countess, but also the right to the throne.

“I will make sure that Maia will never experience the tragedy that the queen mother had to go through in the past.”

With a firm voice, Rihannan balled up her hand hard into a fist.

Although the king’s position is more stronger than in the past, there were still many people that were worried about having Maia, a woman, as the queen of the country. The memories of the country where having a queen caused internal strife and civil war caused them to be much more defensive about that proposition. On top of that, if Maia were to give up her succession to the throne while Rihannan has no male child, then it would be the husband of the person that Maia marries that would end up becoming the king of the country. The nobles wanted to make sure they know that could be a possibility.

Igor embraced Rihannan with one arm. While stroking her round shoulder quietly, he whispered.

“Do not worry. Such a thing will never ever happen.”

Rihannan nodded while leaning onto his body. Ironically, the person who supported the movement to make Maia the successor to the throne was the queen mother herself. Although she grew her son with ruthlessness and cold attitude, for Maia her granddaughter she gave endless amount of love and affection.

The Queen Mother actually was wishing the hardest that Maia would not end up walking the same path as she did in the past. For Maia, she would actively help out as much as she could and always give honest consuling and advices to her. It was the Queen Mother who put up the recommendation where before Igor announces the successor to the throne officially, it would be best to make sure they would receive support from neighbouring countries as well before he announces it. She mentioned that having the support of Chrichton would make sure that people will consider what happened in the past and guarantee that a treason could not happen in the future.

Whether the saying ‘All wounds heal with time’ is true or whether its Rihannan watching the Queen Mother be specially affectionate towards Maia, Rihannan’s hatred and contempt that she had for the Queen Mother slowly became lessened over time. Although all the villaineous people in the previous life is now dead or received their punishment, the Queen Mother was just spending the latter half of her life lesuirely. Perhaps the reason why the Queen Mother was able to avoid going down the path of tragedy that had happened in the past was because she didn’t lose the second chance she was given.

“Let us go now. Maia could be looking for us.”

As the sun set and the winds started blowing, Rihannan grabbed and pulled on Igor. They were not sure when they’ll be able to come here again once they leave this time. Rihannan gave her final farewell before leaving.

Telling her, ‘Mother, I am living a happy life.’.

“I don’t ever regret it.”

They had almost reached the mansion after coming down the hill when Rihannan suddenly said those words to Igor. He stopped his walk and gazed at her, and Rihnanna laughed.

“I said so in the past, didn’t I? My mother loved my father every single day of her life, so even if she hated him or loved him, she would always be happiest if he is by her side. I’m the same as well.”

Rihannan knew that Igor always has a guilty concious about what had happened in the previous life. She wished for him to no longer blame himself for what happened.

“Although many things occured after I had married you, but I don’t regret even a little bit being by your side. I always wanted to tell you this one day.”

Igor kept his gaze on Rihannan, with his eyes still filled with sense of guilt and regret.

“Even though you had experienced death because of me?”

“And the person who had revived me after my death was you as well. And in the first place, that wasn’t your fault. You also had to pay heavy price for what you’ve done after all.”

Igor had confessed to her some time in the past that the three years of his life after Rihannan had died from poison in his previous life was like h*ll for him every day. He wished he could have just died in a battlefield instead.

Therefore she decided that in this life, it would be best for her to live a longer life than him. If dying together was impossible, she wanted to send Igor earlier so that he wouldn’t end up experiencing the same torment and pain he experienced in the past.

“If you never met me in the first place, you probably would have had a much more relaxing life. As a wife of someone who loves you, as a mother.”

“But I probably wouldn’t be as happy as I am right now. And I’d rather much prefer living by the side of people I love.”

Igor finally smiled and looked at Rihannan. His face expression was filled with happiness.

“I love you.”

Igor whispered to her as he wrapped his palms around Rihannan’s cheeks.

“Every moment that you were away from me, I desperately wanted to say these words to you.”

Rihannan’s two eyes arced heavily. She also obviously gave back the world’s most sweetest words to him as well.

“I love you as well, Igor.”

Both their lips pressed together, and mixture of hot breath was exchanged. As opposed to Igor when he was calmly kissing Rihannan on the lips back in the past at the port, this time he was intensely swallowing and sucking her lips. But just this kind of kiss wasn’t enough. There was no way his desire for her that had built up through the days she was gone from Arundel would be fully satisfied with only this. His mind was completely filled with desire to push his member inside of her deepest and hottest place of her body.

“… I want to embrace you right now.”

Hurried words spilt out from his mouth between heavy breaths. Igor’s purple eyes were already burning with desire as they locked onto Rihannan. Rihannan knew just how much he made her hot and bothered. And she also knew very well just how many times in a row he will make her reach extreme ecstacy over and over if she had let him.

Rihannan desperately wanted him as well. She wanted to make love to him right away. Enough to allow him even if he were to just push her onto the grassy land on her feet and do it right away.

“Please make love with me, Igor.”

Hearing those words, Igor immediately lifted up Rihannan and held her close. Rihannan held the single flower that he gave to her in her hand which were wrapped around Igor’s neck. As they walked into the mansion, they endlessly kept kissing each other.

“I will make sure you won’t be able to sleep tonight. We’ll take care of your travel fatigue later in the palace when we return.”

Hearing his threat, Rihannan let out a loud laughter.

“Are you saying that you’ll let me sleep without bothering me once I arrive at the palace?”

“Well… I’ll have to think about it then…”

From far away, a sound of a dog barking rang out. And then feint sounds of a girl yelling out for her mother and father was heard as well. If it was like any other time they would have immediately came out and greeted their daughter, but just for this time they avoided being spotted by their daughter as much as they could.

Right now, it was time to make hot love together.

The End.