Chapter 117: Everything Is As It Should Be [2]
Because of the conversation she had with the noblewomen at the party today, Lucia looked back on her memories from the dream, that she had forgotten for several months. The dream memories that Lucia called another future, had already changed a lot in reality.
In order to sort out her jumbled childhood memories, Lucia sent someone to the village where she grew up and found out a few facts.
Rossa, whom she played around with when she was young, had grown up and was about to marry a neighborhood youth. And the more surprising fact was that the tree at the village entrance that they used to play around on, only had a stump left.
Apparently, many years ago, when Lucia was about five years old, the tree was struck by lightning and burnt hideously black, so it was chopped off. Since there was no tree to climb on in the first place, Lucia's accident when she was a child did not happen.
Lucia believed that the future had split from the moment the village tree was struck by lightning. There was a future that had changed but there was also a future that was still flowing the same way. This could be seen in the case of the King pushing for the marriages of the princesses.
Lucia had lightly asked a noblewoman, who was well-informed in high society rumors, about the news of the Countess of Matin.
[They divorced a few months ago, that is, earlier this year. I heard the Countess was going down to the west, where her family's home is.][1]
Lucia felt shocked out of her wits; it was as if she had been hit in the back of her head. The reason why Lucia got married to Count Matin wasn't because their conditions matched specifically, but because Lucia was the oldest princess in the palace.
Now that Lucia was gone, the oldest princess, although younger than Lucia, would marry Count Matin. It was a case where her terrible future was being shifted onto another person's head.
His arm, which was wrapped around her waist, tightened around her. He turned his body slightly to the side, meeting Lucia's eyes for a moment, then he kissed the corner of her eyes.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" (Hugo)
Hugo had been listening to her as she gave small sighs from time to time, unable to sleep. He thought she was worrying about a child, so he also couldn't sleep and was panicking. He knew he had to talk with her about the issue of a child, but he was deeply worried about what extent he had to talk about it.
"What about you?" (Lucia)
"You keep sighing beside me."
"Did I do that? I'll be quiet now. Go to sleep."
"What is it? Are you worried about something?"
'Does it have to do with a child?' The words hovered in his mouth.
"…Do you know that His Majesty plans to marry off the princesses of the late king?"
When Hugo heard the unrelated words coming out of her mouth, his tense nerves lost their energy.
"Mm, I've heard." (Hugo)
While she hesitated as if picking what to say, Hugo waited without urging her.
"Today, I heard that the Countess of Matin had gotten divorced."
"Matin?"
"You probably don't know it. It's not a family that people usually talk about."
"Were you close with her?"
"…I just know her a little bit."
Lucia was not the type to tell Hugo every little bit of gossip in the social circle. Which is why Hugo thought that she was quite close with the Countess, seeing as she had brought up someone else's private affairs.
Lucia lifted her head as she lay, leaning on his shoulder. She stretched out her hand and cupped his face. As she felt his skin and body temperature through her palm, she once again confirmed that this was not a dream.
Once in a while, Lucia grew afraid that everything would be a dream. The days she spent peacefully and happily in his shade seemed unreal.
"…What?"
Hugo took her hand off his face and kissed her palm. Then he gently stroked her forehead and swept a hand through her hair.
Lucia liked his affectionate touch. She took his big hand and rubbed her face against it. Because her spoiled act seemed somewhat sad, Hugo suddenly felt anxious.
"What's wrong?"
"Please do something to prevent Count Matin from marrying the princess of the late king."
Lucia couldn't just let it pass and act like she knew nothing. If one of her half-sisters whose face she had never even seen, were to take her place and experience everything she had seen in her dream, Lucia felt like she would feel guilty for a lifetime.
"I know how strange I sound right now. She's my half-sister whose name I don't even know, but I can't act like I cannot see the obvious misfortune ahead. I cannot let her marry that person. That man… beats his wife. And he does things even worse than that."
"Vivian."
Hugo tightly hugged her trembling figure.
"If I hadn't married you, I would…I would have probably married that person."
"Why makes you think that?"
As Lucia talked, her anger unconsciously rose as she recalled her memories in the dream and she couldn't control her heated emotions. When he hugged her tight and stroked her back, Lucia's boiling emotions slowly cooled down.
"It looks like you've talked with the Countess a lot."
"…"
"Okay. I will take care of it, so you just forget about it."
"…Really? You can…do it?"
Hugo was struck speechless by her question. She was asking him if he could do this mere thing? He could change the king if he wanted to.
"Of course. Your husband is very capable."
She gave a small laugh in his embrace. Only after, did Hugo give a sigh of relief. Her anxiety spread to him too, so he was tense.
He was annoyed at the Countess of Matin who babbled about the unpleasant details of her marriage to his wife, making her worry needlessly and he was even more annoyed at the bastard known as her husband.
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Hugo soon held a detailed investigative report on the Count of Matin in his hands. The more he read, the more unpleasant the document became and as he flipped through the increasingly unpleasant document, he clicked his tongue.
In the Count's first marriage, he got divorced after five years; in his second marriage, the wife's family took action and invalidated the marriage in about a month. And his third marriage ended in a divorce, a few months ago. And it was just a month ago that the Count made a marriage proposal to the royal family for his fourth marriage. It was not an uncommon thing for an aristocrat to get divorced, but the Count was over the top.
His official children were three sons. There was the eldest son, who was born from his first wife, and the second son, who was an extramarital child, entered into the legal registry by his first wife. His first wife seemed to have used the legal registration as a condition to get divorced. The third son was born from his recently divorced wife and there were a few more illegitimate children that the Count did not retrieve.
It was written in the report that the Count likely had a problem with his male function, due to the fact that he was promiscuous when he was younger and had not had a child for nearly a decade.
Although the man was garbage, Hugo thought there was a high chance of Kwiz accepting the bastard's marriage proposal because he offered quite the dowry.
Kwiz only acknowledged his sister from the same mother, Katherine, as his blood relation. His brothers were opponents that he wanted to kill if possible, and his sisters were deadweights eating away at the royal palace budget. When he was Crown Prince, Kwiz greatly despised the way the previous king had crapped out children all over the place.
The late king placed kingship in sight and idly watched as the princes killed each other. Rather, he thought that his children's fierce power struggles increased his influence.
For a king like Kwiz who loathed his father's debauchery, he was the type to practice moderation with women. He had only three concubines and even that was due to the need to further his interests. It was unknown what means he used but there were no children between him and his concubines.
If Kwiz were to accept the Count of Matin's proposal and push ahead with marriage, the target would be Princess Cecil, who turned eighteen this year.
'How did my wife know that he would make a marriage proposal to the royal family?'
Hugo wondered for a moment, but he didn't linger on the thought for long. This was because another thought occupied its place. Just as his wife said, if she had stayed in the palace, the princess to marry this bastard would have been her. Princess Vivian would have become the wife of this garbage.
He felt like shit. It was something that didn't happen but the mere possibility that it might have happened made him burn with icy fury.
Hugo thought carefully about how to deal with his wife's request. It was quite cumbersome to retrieve a marriage proposal that had already been sent to the royal family. Asking the king would just create another chance for the king to make demands and he didn't know what the king would ask for.
Hugo called Fabian, gave him the report and ordered him:
"Get rid of this man. I don't want him in my sight."
"Should it be complicated or simple?"
"Simple."
"Yes, sir. But about the pendant you ordered me to find previously. I apologize. I have not found it yet."
Fabian was uneasy every time he came to the ducal residence to give a report because his lord had not mentioned the pendant all this while. There was no place he didn't ask his subordinates to comb through, but he didn't even get a single clue.
"Hm? Ah, you can stop looking for that."
Hugo had forgotten to mention that they didn't need to look for the pendant anymore. But he didn't feel sorry at all for the people who had been diligently looking for it. Not knowing the exact circumstances, Fabian was just glad that he wasn't reprimanded.
And about a week later, the Count of Matin died in an accident; his carriage overturned.
* * *
Hugo informed Lucia about the death of Count Matin. Of course, he didn't say that it happened under his orders.
"I looked into handling your request and learnt that he died in an accident."
His reaction was impassive as if it was an unknown stray dog that had died. Lucia understood. To him, the Count of Matin was really nothing, his existence was even worse than a stray dog.
"…An accident?" (Lucia)
Lucia couldn't believe it. How much had she cursed him in her dream? She pleaded and begged for his death, even if she was punished for it. Maybe her desperate curses were heard and caused him to meet a miserable end by decapitation, but he was a someone that seemed like he wouldn't die from something as fleeting as a carriage accident.
Hugo wrapped his arms around her absent-minded figure, as she had fallen into deep thought.
"Is it shocking that he died?" (Hugo)
"…Shocking? Yes, perhaps…" (Lucia)
"Why?"
"For it to be that trivial…I thought he was someone that wouldn't die even if you killed him."
Hugo thought that for the standards of his innocent wife, who had lived sheltered in the palace and married him immediately after, the Count's behavior was very shocking.
When the standard was the world which was overflowing with evil, someone like Count Matin was nothing but filth clinging to the soles of one's feet. But she didn't need to know stuff like that. It was enough for her to know someone like the Count of Matin as the standard for the peak of evil.
"He's already dead. Stop thinking about it. He cannot marry anyone now, let alone the princess."
"…I see."
Suddenly realized something, Lucia wondered aloud.
"Then what will happen to the Count's household…"
"He has a son, so his son will inherit his title."
"The divorced countess has a young son."
Since the Count of Matin was dead, the future where the Matin family was exterminated after being caught up in a plot of treason would change, and the future of Bruno fleeing to a foreign country would also change.
Lucia thought the precocious Bruno missed his mother a lot, even though he didn't say it. He was still a young child who needed his mother's embrace.
Count Matin's eldest son, who was to inherit the title, did not seem like he would care and attend to his younger brother. From what she saw in her dream, they were brothers who treated each other like strangers.
"If the Countess wants, I can arrange for her son to be taken to her parent's home."
Hugo pressed down the irritation deep in his heart and spoke kindly. He didn't like it when her attention was somewhere else. He wanted all of her attention to be on him.
He didn't tell her that the Countess might not want to take her son back with her. If the Countess remarried, her son would become a burden.
And if the Countess chose her son, she could not remarry for at least ten years, until her son became an adult. There were not many cases where a noblewoman sacrificed herself for her child. The Countess was more likely to think of her well-being first, before her son's.
"Really?" (Lucia)
Can you really do that? Seeing her sparkling eyes, Hugo chuckled. His wife tended to underestimate him too much.
There were few things in this world that he could not do. Even the role of an envoy that reaped people's lives was his. Only the divine ability of reviving the dead was never his.
"So forget about it now. And don't worry about these things anymore." (Hugo)
"Okay."
She smiled sweetly as if she was shaking everything off, and finding that so pretty, Hugo bit her tender cheeks. Startled by his action, Lucia stared at him then she wrapped her arm around his neck and hugged him.
"I'm really thankful, Hugh."
"If you're thankful then give me a gift."
Lucia burst into laughter then lifted her head and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"I love you. Is this not enough?"
He hugged her tightly and whispered into her ear:
"It's more than enough."[2]
Hugo couldn't believe how much happiness this small woman brought to him. He wished there was someone to tell him if it was really okay for this to keep on being this way. He felt uneasy because it seemed like his fate, which had only been cruel to him, was suddenly acting fickle.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Sleepy_Koi_Fish
Sleepy_Koi_Fish Sigh...If only Hugh will change his mindset about having 'filthy' blood. Lucia and him will definitely become amazing parents who will treat their children with love! <3
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