My husband left late last night just as he had put his son to sleep for the very first time and I work up to him completely stewing in his only fury and pacing around with a happy little Hana in his arms who couldn't feel her father's wrath yet. I had to practically wrestle her out of his hands which she really did not appreciate and she started to scream her little head off until her father forced himself to calm down and started rocking her again in his arms. "Husband? What is wrong with you?" "What should we do wife? This village has been compromised for sure, but your brother is once again turning a blind eye in his old age…" "Old age? He is middle-aged, as are you…" "You know exactly what I mean! What is thinking?" "Husband please calm down! It is not as if we can all just pack up today and move somewhere else!" "And just what on earth is taking the servants so long in preparing breakfast for us! What are they thinking!" "Husband! They are not even awake yet! You were the one who woke me up yourself and…" "Why didn't you tell me wife? That my nephew had been brainwashed and essentially turned against me by that whore that I had left in the palace?" "Husband…here, watch over the twins for me whilst I make us breakfast myself and then we can talk." I really hadn't seen him this upset in a very long time, and the fact that he had my children in the palms of his hands worried me to no end, but he was still my husband and I had to give him some measure of trust that his nasty temper wouldn't end up harming us all.
"Reading and correcting ill-written memorials from the villagers all day and night long will harm your health like this husband." "Wake up that servant girl and make her take care of the twins." "She isn't laying a damned hand on my children ever again." "Then wake up her sister to do it, I pay these villagers a lot for their services for a reason and I expect what I pay for!" "Very well, and I expect this situation to be sorted out within the week." "What about my nephew wife?" "What about him? What can be done now? Especially after the way that you treated him the entire time?" "I had plans for him that has now gone to naught!" "So maybe you can make new plans for him in the future; you will not always get what you want husband, and it is time that you learnt what that meant." "That isn't true for you." "I always wait for the right time and you are the most impatient man that I had ever met in my entire life." "You know how much I…." "Scheme as you breathe? Yes, but since you hadn't considered how you treated him in the past, maybe it is best for you to make new plans after all with him. He will eventually learn of that woman's true colours and by the time that happens, he will know that he had nobody else to rely on but you, husband."
"My Lord? Forgive me, but here I have this embroidery piece in my hands…" "And? What about it! Can't you see that I am having a very serious conversation with mat wife over here! Get out of here and just look after the twins! Go on!" "Husband, you must calm down! And…wait, what is that on the floor? Is that a lotus print? From shoes? Who on earth in this household…" "Forgive me Mistress, but it was…" "It is none of my business as to whichever gentleman caller you have in your personal time servant, just please tend to the children as agreed and stay out of my husband's sight as he is in a particular foul mood today." "And why are you holding my wife's embroidery piece in your hands? I saw her working on it since her arrival, so why were you trying to pass it off as your own work? Just what is wrong with you?" "Master…you misunderstood me…" "Husband, maybe we need to think of a change of servants here if you are unhappy with her services." "I think that you may be right; her sister is a keeper but this servant maybe put to better use elsewhere, like the embroidery house for instance." "Master! Please forgive me…!" "Make it happen wife and excuse them all now, we still have plenty to talk about." "You heard my husband; please excuse us and we will call you when we need you; you are all dismissed for the rest of the day apart from the new nanny who will watch over our children."
"…you can tell she has been bathing in cold water to gain your sympathy during this harsh winter, husband." "Not only that; she really has been inspecting the embroidery house for a while now, even before the problem with it broke out in my absence. Do you really trust her to work there, wife?" "What can one person do to an entire workhorse that needs a community of women to work it?" "Are you really ready to risk it?" "Our entire village means more than my embroidery house, even if it is the hand that feeds us here." "I shall have your sister-in-law watch over it with more security if need be." "What about my nephew wife? What on earth can I do about him now?" "Think of it this way husband; are you willing to introduce him to our children in the future? You can make your decision based on that I suppose." "I hope not, but I really cannot make that decision until the children have grown up and I scope out their personalities and goals properly…" "and you need to figure out how to break the news about your side of the family to our children when they have grown up." "I have years to do that." "You might want to focus on the evidence first; if the children turn out to be as smart as you imagine in their futures, they may find evidence against him first which could lead them to question you later." "You are thorough indeed; that is something that I have to also consider. As soon as they start walking is when I will have the twins educated, but earlier would be better." "I will see what I can do husband, but they are barely 1 years old after all and do not get your hopes too far up." "I…shall try my best wife, but I have big plans for all of the children in this village who will hopefully leave the shadow of their unfortunate parents, and that depends of the development and education of my own children and my nephews and even Bo-Geom herself." "Are you showing your true colours here? Is this how much you were relying on having a Seo woman breed your children for you?" "For goodness sake, that isn't what I meant…where are you going? Wife? Come back here right now!"
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That is exactly what he meant and he knew it and he could no longer hide from me how even more ambitious he had become when int came to our children and it was beginning to frighten me to death. How would he treat his children if they indeed turned out to be less than perfect? He wouldn't turn out to be anything like his father, right? Not after what he himself had been through…then again, he had managed to retain his father's strong ambition, so who knows what else he had inherited from him and maybe kept it a secret from me? No, we had practically been together for a decade already and maybe I was over-reacting right now, but was I ready to take on the risks? For the sake of my children and my nephews and nieces; I was going to have to stop fighting with him and remain close to him, but how could I do that with this servant spy in our midst? She was already doing everything and anything to prevent me from getting too close to him already and I still had to figure out how much knowledge she had about us before I made any final moves with her, lest she really did destroy us all…
"…quickly! There is a fire in the embroidery house!" "What! What are you talking about! There has never been a serious accident in there before!" "Take a look for yourself! A small fire broke out in the materials section where we keep all of the really expensive items!" "Can any of them be saved!" "I do not know! I heard one of the women say that we found the fire in time, but I have no idea how much damage has been done to the one place that feeds the entire village!" "The peacock feather thread is missing! It is the most important one that brings in the most silver that feeds us all!" "Wife? What is going on? What are all of the servants shouting about?" "Your servant girl has set part of the embroidery house on fire the first chance she got and she stole the small portion of expensive materials that I left behind." "So you packed up the rest because you knew that she would do something like this?" "Yes, but if you catch her now then surely we will not have wasted those materials because they are just as expensive as everything else we have in there! So go and find them!" "My Lord! We have just received word from the guards that the servant girl has forced her own sister into an unknown carriage outside of the border and she has been taken away somewhere in a state distress!" "Distress? You mean…she has been violated? Or just physically assaulted?" "It looks like the second circumstance. Whilst being loaded up in the carriage, another person recognised the woman had been tortured everywhere except for her face!" "Except for her face…she must be headed off to a brothel! That is the only explanation! Quickly husband, you must save her! And as for you, please put out the fire as soon as possible and we need to find those materials as soon as possible! And where are my children! My babies…my twins…no, nobody can find out that I have twins or they will kill them both! I need to find them!"