CH 10

10 The Investigation Result is a S-E-C-R-E-T

“W-w-w…”

“Aah, this thing seems to be the reason for the wind just now. Anyway, sorry for the interruption. Do please continue what you were doing. Something about cleansing the evil spirit in my body, right?”

I urged the flustered aunty to continue with her nonsense. Well, she would be in great trouble if she kept on saying those nonsense, though.

“Is something the matter, aunty? Aren’t you still in the middle of purifying the evil spirit in me? Why aren’t you continuing?”

As I continued insisting, cold sweats started to appear on that aunty’s forehead. It seemed she also knew that it was a checkmate for her. Well, I suppose it’s time to stop playing around. The rest would be taken care of by father and the others.

“Dad, I’m hungry. How about we invite Mom for lunch?”

“Oh, it’s already that time, huh? Sorry for forgetting the time, Son. Serena, since this is the first time Theo invited us directly for a meal, please accompany him for a while. I’ll be there later― after I take care of my duty.”

Nice, it seems my father caught my cue.

“I understand. Well then, we’ll be waiti~ng Dad.”

“Ah, can you lend Kevin to me for a bit? I need him to do something for me for the moment.”

Eeh… so you want to make sure that anything that happened just now won’t spread outside, huh? Roger that, Dad.

“I’ll leave it to you then, Kevin.”

“Understood. Well, it can’t be helped since is the one who is asking personally.”

Despite his words, somehow, Kevin seemed pleased. Oh, well.

“Well, let’s get going, Mom. You have to leave your maid here, though, since it looks like Dad is going to need her to run an errand for him. However, it’ll be okay! Martha is coming with us to help whatever we may need. Well, it may be a bit difficult for you to adjust to someone you’re not familiar with…”

I said as I led my mother out of the room with Martha faithfully following me.

“Eh? Theodore? Owen?”

“Worry not, Serena. I’ll make sure to come later. At that time, let’s enjoy our meal together.”

Although bewildered, my mother seemed to be beginning to come to her senses, so I quickly led her out of the room and mansion altogether. When we got out, a carriage had already been prepared for us. As expected of Sebas. He worked fast.

Pushing Mother into the carriage, Martha and I followed before we departed from that mansion with the escorts. There were three escorts who would follow us this time. And one of them seemed to have gone ahead to inform the other sides of our imminent approach.

◇

“Uhm, Theodore? Mama doesn’t understand what happened back then, but what are we going to do now?”

At this moment, when we were inside the carriage, my mother had finally become fully aware and cognizant. Hence she began to ask me for an explanation over what had happened before.

“Let’s see, right now we’re going to have lunch in my mansion. By the way, mama…”

I hesitated, but this was something I really wanted to know since a while ago, so I continued.

“You said you were pregnant but then miscarried the baby before, right? Have you ever tried to visit a doctor after that?”

If she really was pregnant and then miscarried the baby, she should have gone to consult the doctor properly. However, if she didn’t go, then it might be due to that aunty and maid’s influence.

“Visit… a doctor? But… shouldn’t having a midwife around be enough for pregnancy…?”

“Dear madam, please forgive me for interrupting this conversation, but don’t you remember that you received the doctor’s examination when you were pregnant with Theodore-sama? At that time, the doctor, midwives, and the maids, all of us were there and witnessed Theodore-sama’s birth to prevent any accident. However, my apologies for being blunt Madam, this time we, the maids, heard nothing about you being pregnant or of you miscarrying the baby until I heard Theodore-sama’s question a moment ago. This was something we should’ve heard of, so we could prepare the doctors and midwives. However, for Madam to think a midwife is enough for pregnancy… dear madam, from where did you hear that a midwife is enough for this matter?”

Oohh, good job Martha! I’ll give you my cake later! I crowed in delight inwardly.

That was right. It was strange that such a happy occurrence didn’t reach my ears at all. So, the possibility that no one aside from Mother, that aunty and that maid being the only one who knew about this matter was very high. And this suspicion was proven by Mother’s following words.

“Tara and… Mira.”

“Mira is it… are you referring to the maid who used that wind magic tool before?”

“Yes… I was so stupid to believe in them. I’m sorry, Theodore.”

“Mama…”

I suppose there was no need for me to say anything more, so I simply embraced my crying mother in silence. After all, she must be blaming herself right now, but really… it was not her fault at all! The one who tried to trick her was the bad one! That’s why I really wanted her to stop blaming herself.

Anyway, realizing that she got tricked was enough. Besides, she was a noble, someone with privilege. Thus, she had many people around her who would make their move to clean this problem up for her. And she had Father. As her husband, Father would surely take care of the aftermath of this incident, so she truly did not need to blame herself.

◇

I had lunch with my mother, distracting her from the unpleasant revelation this morning. However, I didn’t see Martha’s figure among the maids serving me this time. Since she was not there, I figured she must have gone back to Father’s mansion to give her report about the conversation in the carriage, of the duo’s crime, to him. Well, that was fine by me.

Anyway, no longer concerning myself about this matter, I dragged Mother to play Reversi with me in the afternoon. However, I won very easily since Mother’s strength was weak. Still, despite being very happy about it since I had always lost against Kevin, in the end I rigged the match in order to allow my mother to win as she was sulking from her consecutive defeats against me.

And when the time for afternoon nap arrived, I acted selfish for once and asked Mother to sleep with me. Well, it was not only for my selfish desire, but also because Mother was clearly exhausted from sleep deprivation. That’s why, aside from using this chance to sleep with her and enjoying the small benefit that came with it, it was for Mother’s sake as well.

And yes, the small benefit I was talking about was THAT. My mother’s brea*st. It really felt soft and springy. Enjoying the privilege as her son, I drifted to sleep with her.

Martha had already returned by the time we woke up from our afternoon nap, so we enjoyed the afternoon tea with her presence there. Then, I showed the result of my studies so far to my mother. And without realizing it, it was already the time for dinner.

At this time, Father had come along with Kevin, and we had dinner together. We were only enjoying a fun conversation, though, completely bereft of the topic about that aunty. Well, from this, I suppose at the very least I could have some peace of mind for now.

And just like I did with Mother, I also dragged Father to play Reversi with me after we were done with dinner. Alas, the result was completely different than when I was playing with Mother. However, since my father was a good adult – different from a certain adult named Kevin- he allowed me to win. And yes, he allowed me to win so much to the point that even I can see that he was rigging the match.

Before long, it was time for us to retire for the night, and once again I used my (currently) undefeated skill – throwing a tantrum- and asked to sleep together with Father and Mother. There was a reason behind my action. Father also looked as exhausted as Mother before. As such I decided to ask this of him and added Mother in to help her as well.

After all, in my previous life, I had read that the sleeping face and smile of one’s child was effective to soothe someone who was mentally exhausted. This was not a silly saying as I had proof from my experience, being healed so many times by my little nephew’s smiling face in my previous life when I was mentally exhausted.

Ahem, that was why I believe that my father’s mental exhaustion would be soothed by (my) angelic sleeping face.

And I was not wrong either as the next day, the two of them were much livelier than the day before. Thank goodness.

Apparently, in the afternoon, my father had already made an arrangement for my mother to receive a check up. And the result was as expected. Everything those two said about my mother being pregnant was a big fat lie. They were just using my mother’s irregular menstruation circle to fool her in thinking so.

Upon hearing the confirmation from the doctor, my mother burst into tears, realizing that she had really gotten tricked by that aunty and fake maid. Not only that, Mother also kept apologizing to Father and I, all the while blaming herself.

Both of us desperately comforted her and told her it was not her fault, though. I meant, this was a normal family problem, so we really didn’t mind. Although, do spare me from explaining the details as I didn’t really want to think about it anymore.

Anyway, after this day, Mother had started living together with me in my mansion under Father’s recommendation. Furthermore, my father had also carefully selected the maids to serve her as well. He also assigned a few of them to me as well.

From this, I could hazard a guess of what my father was doing. Most probably, he was in the middle of sweeping my mother’s mansion clean, including the employees as well.

Still, that was not the only thing that he did. He also visited my mansion every day after he was done with his job and slept with us. So, recently, the three of us would have our breakfast together, before he would go to the main mansion to fulfil his duty as the lord. Then, once his duty for the day was done, he would come back to my mansion for dinner.

It seemed the damage caused by that fake fortune teller was quite significant.

Witnessing the damage brought by that aunty made me feel very glad that I managed to uncover her trick early. Fortunately, both Father and Mother had become livelier nowadays, so I didn’t need to worry anymore.

Moreover, one week later, their faces were very bright as if someone had applied glitters on their face, and they felt like they could float away with how happy they were.

Well, looking at their face, it seemed I didn’t have to wait for too long for my brother or sister to be born.

Dammit, I’m so jealous of them! I mean, I want to find a cute girl, too! Then, I can do this and that with her!