“My son, what brings you here to your mom first.”

“Mom, I’m in big trouble.”

“Why, what’s wrong. Just tell me. Mom will take care of it.”

Ippolito hesitated before speaking, gauging Lucrezia’s reaction. Even for the doting mother Lucrezia, this seemed like a hard ‘coocoo’ to swallow.

“Well… You see…”

“It’s okay. Trust your mom and tell her.”

“…Malleta is pregnant.”

Lucrezia roared with a volume that could cause a landslide, drawn from deep within her belly.

“What did you say?!”

“Mom, Malleta’s pregnant. Please, do something.”

In normal circumstances, it would be proper to ask her son ‘what do you want to do’ but it was clear from the fact that Ippolito had come here that he did not want to take responsibility.

“Oh, this child!”

Lucrezia hit her son’s back, who was at least a head and a half taller than her.

Thwack!

Even Ippolito, knowing that he was in the wrong, silently took the blow without showing any signs of pain.

“You always play around and I knew this would happen!”

“Ah, I understand, but please do something!”

Looking at Ippolito, who was on the verge of tears, Lucrezia scolded him.

“You! Straighten your shoulders! Be confident! It’s not like a man to be like this.”

Ippolito was confused by his mother’s words. One moment she was scolding him for being in the wrong, and the next she was telling him to hold his head high as if he had done nothing wrong.

However, Lucrezia didn’t care and straightened her son’s crumpled outerwear and his back that she had just hit. It seemed like her touch, tinged with anger, was still punishing her son.

“If you live as a man, this can happen! Don’t walk around cowering for no reason!”

It was quite an exceptional childrearing technique.

Despite this, she called her new confidant maid, Loretta, to take care of Ippolito, who was huddled on the sofa in her room. Loretta wasn’t someone she had kept around for as long as Giada, but she was from the same hometown of Taranto.

“Loretta! Bring the butler Nicolo! No, I will go to Nicolo right now.”

Lucrezia rummaged around the room for a bribe to give to Nicolo.

Most of the coins in the bag she pulled out from the dresser were Florence silver coins and only a few ducat gold coins were left. With a grimace, Lucrezia pulled out Isabella’s pink sapphire tiara that she had hidden deep in her closet.

“Loretta. Take this to the pawnshop in the afternoon and exchange it for ducat gold coins.”

Lucrezia had decided to use her last remaining gold coins to get her son out of trouble with the moneygrubbing maid. Her eldest son was her lifeline and inexplicably, the last love of her life.

Ippolito had to meet a gentle and wealthy girl who, while not of royal blood, was an only daughter from a good, old noble family.

Becoming a great noble by gaining territory through marriage and blending into the San Carlo society was the set fate of her son. She could not accept anything else.

While Lucrezia was having a discussion with butler Nicolo, Ippolito restlessly twisted his body on the sofa.

It was only after a good 3040 minutes that Lucrezia returned, and upon seeing his mother return to the room, Ippolito sprang up from the sofa like a fish out of water and asked her.

“Mom, what happened?”

“I took care of it.”

As she took off the gown she had been wearing over her clothes and placed it on the sofa, Lucrezia gave her son a stern look. She was ready to scold Ippolito in a motherly manner that was rarely seen.

However, the content of the lecture was a bit strange.

“You see, as a man, you might play around a bit. You might even have a child while doing so, that kind of thing. But.”

Seeing his mother’s unusually stern face, Ippolito flinched and retracted his neck into his shoulders like a turtle.

“You mustn’t do that before getting married.”

At first glance it seemed normal, but it was subtly off.

“You don’t plan to get married while things are up in the air, right?”

“Th, that’s right.”

“Who would marry a man who already has a child out of wedlock? A sane and welleducated noblewoman wouldn’t make such a choice.”

Ippolito swallowed his saliva. He had no title or domain to inherit. Unless he received his fatherinlaw’s through his wife, he would become a commoner after his father’s death.

“Once you’re married, you can do as you please. If a child is born, would the girl run away to her parents’ home? After that, you can do as you please. But until then, be careful!”

Even with Ippolito’s level of ethical consciousness, the talk was convincing. He nodded his head.

“This time, Mom took care of it for you. There won’t be a next time!”

Only then did Ippolito seem relieved and he let out a snicker. His laughter appeared as an innocent smile spreading across his face in Lucrezia’s eyes. He clung to his mother in a way that didn’t match his size.

“Ah, Mom, there’s no one like Mom. I am Mom’s son, Mom is the best.”

While shaking Lucrezia’s arm, Ippolito asked nonchalantly.

“Mom, what did you do with her? Did you throw her in the Tiber?”

Lucrezia’s complexion turned pale.

“Son?”

“Why?”

“You really……She’s the woman who carried your child. How can you be so cruel.”

Lucrezia scolded as if she had never killed a servant before.

Although she had dealt with her son’s carelessness and ruined the life of a precious daughter from another house, strangely enough, this time Lucrezia didn’t even think about killing Maletta.

The situation sparked sympathy in Lucrezia, who knew no one but herself, as it overlapped with what she had experienced in the past.

Today’s events reminded Lucrezia of her younger days when she had to sail a boat full of young life to the Gwangmok Stream to meet Cardinal De Mare, no, then Cardinal Simon.

Being abandoned by a man while carrying a young life in her belly and looking for a place to stay for two bodies, no, for one body, was so hard and strenuous. That memory brought about a rare moment of compassion in Lucrezia.

Lucrezia was rather proud of her own kindness.

However, Lucrezia’s rare, somewhat good deed was shattered by Ippolito’s next words.

“Mom. She knows too much. She heard that Arabella has a different father.”

“What?!”