The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 229

229. Melanie’s Lips

March 15, 2023

Rinel’s words froze Roxana, whose face had been flushed with anger.

“Are you… really… remembering…?”

Roxana’s voice trembled slightly.

“Not clearly, but I vaguely recall the situation back then.”

“!”

“I think all my memories will return soon.”

He replied with a hopeful voice.

“Oh, that’s… a relief.”

Contrary to her words, Roxana’s expression was that of someone who had heard devastating news.

After my lips became his dessert, everyone coincidentally started eating dessert, and the servants discreetly brought warm tea.

The temperature inside the banquet hall was as extreme as Rinel and me.

Roxana and the three concubines from the Aclato Duchy looked as if they had witnessed an affair, their faces turning red and blue, but the existing concubines had eyes that watched someone else’s romance.

Moreover, there was almost no envy or jealousy in their gazes.

I tried to guess the reason in my own way.

Catherine occasionally enjoyed secret meetings with Count Ethan, Rosie harbored feelings for Prince Norton, and Melanie seemed to have given up on the Emperor’s love.

And Pesilini… well, she was still engrossed in the food.

Although the reasons differed for each of them, the existing concubines didn’t seem to take this situation very seriously.

Or maybe they were calm because they had already witnessed it once.

Suddenly, a sound of retching was heard inside the banquet hall.

“Ugh… ugh!”

Pesilini, who had been eating food in a hurry, choked and repeatedly coughed and retched, hitting her chest with her fist.

“Tsk, take your time. No one’s going to steal it from you.”

Melanie patted Pesilini’s back and clicked her tongue, and Rosie quickly handed Pesilini some water.

“Pesilini, did you eat something spoiled?”

Rinel asked with a worried tone.

Pesilini shook her head, covering her mouth with her hand, looking flustered.

“No, Your Majesty.”

“How discourteous when His Majesty is here?”

The atmosphere turned cold in an instant at Roxana’s sharp tone.

“Empress. Pesilini didn’t do it on purpose, and it seems like she just choked a little while enjoying the food you prepared. Don’t scold her too much.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

At his soothing words, Roxana lowered her gaze slightly and closed her mouth.

I watched Roxana’s eyes secretly rolling towards Pesilini.

He started eating a piece of cake that was right in front of him.

Under the table, his knees brushed against mine several times.

Then he put his hand on my thigh.

It seemed like there would be no heat gathering in my stomach until tonight.

“Now, I must get up.”

He got up, saying that he had the last political affairs meeting left.

Everyone stood up from their seats with regretful expressions to see him off.

***

The concubines saw Rinel off in the lobby and then greeted Roxana.

“Pesilini, I need to see you for a moment.”

Just as everyone was about to scatter towards the carriages they had come in, Roxana stopped Pesilini.

She looked back at Roxana with a bewildered expression.

“Are you talking about me?”

“Yes.”

Roxana scanned Pesilini up and down with a displeased look.

“What’s going on…?”

Pesilini asked Roxana with a frightened face.

“I saw that you seemed to have indigestion earlier. My personal physician has been residing in the Empress’s Palace for some time now. Get a checkup before you leave.”

“Yes?! Ah, no, Your Majesty! I just choked for a moment because I ate the food too quickly… It’s, it’s not even indigestion!”

Pesilini stepped back in horror.

Something… both of them are strange?

Roxana, who was unusually overly kind, was strange, and Pesilini, who could have just accepted the favor, was also strange, jumping up and down and waving her hands as if she were being dragged to the guillotine.

“Isn’t it my duty as Empress to take care of the health of the concubines? Don’t refuse and follow me. The examination will be done in the reception room.”

Roxana spat out the words as if giving an order, then turned around and went up the stairs first.

“Don’t be too nervous. You’re just getting a checkup, that’s all.”

Rosie stroked Pesilini’s back, who had turned pale, and reassured her.

“Yeah, what could happen?”

Catherine, who was usually cold, spoke to her, perhaps because Pesilini’s expression looked so pitiful.

“Excuse me, Lady Pesilini. Have you really never served His Majesty?”

The moment Pesilini mustered the courage to take a step, Yulina asked accusingly.

“What do you mean?”

Pesilini stopped and looked back at Yulina.

“You were retching at the banquet hall earlier, right? You were eating well the whole time, but suddenly after His Majesty came.”

“What are you talking about now? Are you saying Lady Pesilini is pregnant or something? Hahaha!”

Melanie stared at Yulina’s face with a dumbfounded expression, then burst into sarcastic laughter,

“You don’t know our Emperor at all~”.

She hummed as if singing a song.

“I, I can’t move my feet.”

Pesilini said, gasping for breath with a trembling voice.

“Then I’ll go with you!”

Melanie said, supporting her arm, and Pesilini nodded with grateful eyes.

“That won’t do. The order is to escort only Lady Pesilini.”

Roxana’s guard, Hector, stepped forward to stop Melanie.

As the large Hector blocked Melanie’s path, Melanie tilted her head back and shouted at him.

“Get out of the way!”

“Lady Melanie, please return to your residence.”

“Ha, is it all because you’re handsome?”

…What is she suddenly saying?

Hector also looked around, startled by Melanie’s words.

But there was no handsome man around.

It wasn’t like Hector was particularly handsome either, so it was impossible to know what nonsense Melanie was talking about.

Looking at the expressions of the other concubines, everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing as me.

Hector opened his tightly closed lips and asked very carefully, as Melanie’s eyes continued to stare at him.

“Are you perhaps, talking about me?”

“Then who else is handsome here besides you? Pretending not to know when you do, you’re so arrogant!”

Melanie’s words plunged the people in the lobby into even more confusion.

“Hey, Melanie’s condition seems a bit strange too… Why don’t you let Melanie meet the Empress’s physician along with Pesilini?”

I earnestly pleaded with Hector.

Hector also had a troubled expression for a moment, but he shook his head and refused.

“I’m sorry, but the order was to escort only Lady Pesilini. As Lady Zelda said, Lady Melanie’s condition doesn’t seem normal either, so please go to your residence and call a separate palace doctor.”

Hector looked at me and spoke, then turned his gaze to Melanie and finished his words.

“Come to think of it, I think I have indigestion too? My stomach hurts too much to go to my residence. I think I should get a checkup with Lady Pesilini, so get out of the way.”

Melanie started to stubbornly insist with an angry expression.

She put her arm around Pesilini’s and pushed aside Hector’s arm, which was standing firmly in front of her.

But there was no way the sturdy Hector would move.

“This is going to be difficult!”

Hector blocked Melanie’s path again as she passed him and headed for the stairs.

“I will tell the Empress myself. Is that okay?”

“Lady, I apologize in advance, I will be rude for a moment.”

“Wh, what? What do you mean by being rude… Kyaaaa!”

Oh my god.

Hector picked up Melanie and walked towards the entrance of the Empress’s Palace.

“Oh my, what should we do! Isn’t that barbarian going to throw Lady Melanie down the stairs?”

Rosie was startled and ran out, and I and the other concubines also chased after her like arrows.

“How dare you touch my body that even His Majesty has never touched?!”

Ah, Melanie. You didn’t have to say that…

Melanie struggled in Hector’s arms, hitting his shoulders and chest with her small fists.

It was a weak resistance that was indistinguishable from hitting or massaging.

“Does being strong and having a firm body mean you can just lift people up like this!”

Melanie’s body almost rotated a full circle in Hector’s arms.

“I’ll put you down now, so stay still, or there will be an accident.”

He couldn’t find the timing to put her down because she was moving around so much, even though she didn’t have any strength in her body.

Melanie had to stand on the ground herself, but for some reason, even when he said he would put her down, she didn’t think about stepping on the ground at all.

“I have no choice. Please forgive my rudeness once again.”

“Oh my gosh? Where are you going again, you barbarian!”

“Open the door of the carriage that Lady Melanie came in!”

Hector went down the stairs and shouted towards the lined-up carriages.

The coachman of the carriage we came in quickly opened the carriage door at his thunderous voice.

Rosie and I hurried down the stairs.

In the meantime, Hector seemed to be carrying Melanie into the carriage and laying her on the carriage seat.

“Hector! I will never forgive you!”

“If the Empress knows about the lady’s riot, she will not forgive you either. So think carefully and act.”

Hector’s tired voice, filled with annoyance, leaked out of the carriage.

Melanie continued to pour it out on him without getting tired.

“Aaaah! I swear on the honor of my family that I will definitely repay this humiliation… Huh!”

Melanie stopped shouting and her voice suddenly stopped.

Not only that, but Hector’s voice also stopped at the same time.

Why are they suddenly doing that?

Rosie and I quickly approached the carriage.

Hector’s body, which had been halfway inside the carriage, slowly came out.

“Hey, by any chance… you didn’t strangle Melanie to death, did you?”

I gestured at the inside of the carriage and asked carefully.

Hector didn’t say anything, just bowed with a stiff expression and ran up the stairs.

“Oh, what should we do? Lady Melanie was making such a fuss that he really killed her!”

Rosie hurriedly got into the carriage.

Fortunately, Melanie was lying on the carriage seat with her eyes open, looking up at the ceiling.

“Melanie, are you okay?”

I shook her shoulder slightly and asked.

“Maybe…”

Melanie replied with a dazed expression.

“Lady, did Hector hit you too?”

“Maybe…”

She gave the same answer to Rosie’s question.

“What? Really? Where! Where did he dare to hit you?”

I forcibly pulled Melanie’s upper body up and sat her down.

“Here.”

She covered her lips with her hand.

“…You got hit on the lips?”

I asked again because the area she was hit was so absurd.

Then Melanie nodded as if she had come to her senses and started to sob.

“E, even if it was an accident… a kiss is a kiss, right?”

Melanie kept touching her lips.

Then Rosie sighed as if the ground was sinking and asked.

“What should we do… Isn’t that Lady Melanie’s first kiss?!”

“…That the other person is Roxana’s loyal dog!”

I pressed my temples and looked at Melanie with a pitiful gaze.

“Forget it because it was an accident. It’s better to forget unlucky things early.”

I gave her comfort with sincerity.

Looking at Melanie’s face again… what is it?

It was like two pomegranates were attached to both cheeks.

“Melanie, did he perhaps slap you on the cheek?”

***

“It is definitely pregnancy, Your Majesty!”

It was the fifth same examination result.

Roxana’s chin was strained.

I had suspected it since the banquet hall, but when I actually heard the news of Pesilini’s pregnancy from the physician, it was difficult to control my emotions.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. If it were the early stages of pregnancy, it wouldn’t be certain, but Lady Pesilini seems to have been pregnant for at least 3 months.”

It didn’t seem necessary to confirm it with Pesilini’s mouth.

Her expression was already telling the truth.

“Go out.”

Roxana said, staring at Pesilini as if to pierce her, and Pesilini, thinking she was talking to her, trembled and got up from the sofa.

“Physician, I’m talking about you!”

Roxana screamed, and Pesilini was startled and slumped back on the sofa.

“Yes, yes. Your Majesty. I will leave now.”

The reception room where Roxana’s physician had disappeared became as quiet as a mouse.

“Hiccup, hiccup!”

Pesilini started hiccupping in terror.

‘What should I do? If it is revealed that it is Prince Tessler’s child, I will be sentenced to death because I already have the crime of trying to assassinate Lady Zelda! Besides, I and the child will be in danger…!’

Pesilini started to think.

‘First, I have to get out of the Empress’s Palace safely!’

The deliberation was not long.

Pesilini put her hands on her stomach and raised her head.

“H, Your Majesty… Ah, I haven’t told His Majesty yet…”

“…Ha, what?!”