Chapter 9

The door of the nursery shut with a loud bang, and the deafening noise startled the baby.

Hesper pursed her lips tightly and held the baby in her arms tighter.

It did not take long before Madam Duval’s caring voice was heard coming from downstairs. “Rickard, it’s getting late. I’m concerned about Juniper going home by herself; it's not safe. You should send her home.”

Rickard glanced outside and figured that it really was unsafe now that it was dark.

“Let’s go then.”

After both of them got into the car, Juniper asked casually, “Rickard, is Hesper…still bowing down?”

Rickard remembered that Hesper was not bowing down when he went upstairs earlier, so he figured that she would not follow his order to bow down for the rest of the night.

He said with a tinge of anger in his voice, “I can’t be bothered to know. If she wants to bring trouble upon herself, no one can save her.”

“Don’t be angry anymore…” Juniper heaved a sigh of pity, but in her heart, she was overjoyed.

Meanwhile, Hesper was planning to return to her room when Madam Duval and Sophia suddenly barged into the room.

“What do we have here? I knew that you’d act one way to Rickard’s face and another behind his back! My brother ordered you to bow down until tomorrow morning, so said you can stand up?”

“I’m not a criminal, so who are you to treat me this way?”

Hesper was about to stand upright when someone kicked at her back ferociously.

A thud was heard, and she bent over from the pain once again.

Sophia sneered with her arms crossed. “You’re asking us when you’re the one living in our house and spending our money? If you have the courage to get up, I’m going to make my brother hand the child to Juni so that she can raise him. They're going to be mother and son sooner or later anyway, so just think of it as letting them bond with each other.”

“Don’t you dare!”

Hesper was furious, her face flushing scarlet.

I’m not dead, yet the Duvals are already so keen to look for a stepmother for my child! How can such nonsense exist in this world!

“Try and see if I dare!” Sophia was completely unbothered by her remark. She said with a mocking smile, “Who do you think you are? Do you think that I’m scared of you?”

Madam Duval ridiculed Hesper from the side as well. “Hesper, it was your husband who ordered you to bow down. We’re only asking you to do as he said. If you insist on defying his order, I can only tell this incident to Mr. Duval Sr. so he can decide which side is right.”

Hesper’s entire body shivered.

Madam Duval would not do it so kindly. She was only using this tactic to trigger Mr. Duval Sr. so he would be so infuriated that his health would deteriorate. If anything bad were to happen to Mr. Duval Sr., Hesper would not be able to make peace with herself.

“Don’t startle grandfather, I’ll bow!”

Hesper shut her eyes in pain and did nothing as Madam Duval and her daughter taunted her as they liked from next to her.

Every word they said was akin to a knife that stabbed into her severely hurt heart and lashed onto her unhealed wounds over and over again. She felt so sad and furious that she wanted to die. This was all brought on to her by none other than her husband, whom she loved for so many years. It was Rickard!

If she could do it again, if only she could do it again…

But there was no redo in this world!

Rickard returned by midnight. He glanced in the direction of the nursery and found that it was pitch black. He figured that the woman had already returned to her room to rest.

He headed to the study room as he thought to himself, but he halted to a stop when he walked past Hesper’s bedroom.

The door was not shut tightly.

Hesper had never been so careless to leave her door that way. He furrowed his eyebrows and felt an ominous presentiment in his heart.

“Hesper?” he called out coldly, but no one answered him. He opened the door to find that the bedroom was pitch black and empty.

Is it possible that she's still bowing down?

Rickard glanced at the time and realized that it had already been six hours since their quarrel earlier. Could it be that she’s still so stubborn that she won’t yield?

As he was thinking, his attention was drawn to a glow coming from the side of the bed.

Rickard picked up Hesper's phone and took a glance to discover that there were more than 10 missed calls on it, all from Julian.

“Hesper, are you all right? Did something bad happen to you?”

Rickard glared at the unread text message ferociously, and his presence turned frantic instantly.

A loud bang was heard, and the phone was thrown so hard that it cracked. The highly-agitated Rickard left slamming the door in rage.

Hesper was jolted awake by loud noise in the midst of a quiet night. She tried to open her eyes with great effort but could not. It felt as if her eyelids weighed a few thousand tonnes, and her body was freezing.

“It’s freezing, it hurts…”

She muttered subconsciously like a distressed avalanche victim that no one could save and left to perish in the snow.

At last, she lost count of the time before the door of the nursery opened up slowly.

It was a concerned Wanda, who seized the opportunity while it was early in the morning to check on Hesper, only to find her collapsed on the floor, her body curled into a ball.

“Mrs. Duval, what’s going on with you?” Wanda ran to Hesper in a haste.

“It… It hurts.” Hesper’s face was ghastly pale and her entire body was drenched in cold sweat.

Wanda stretched out her hand to feel Hesper’s forehead and pulled back her arm immediately from the burning heat. “Someone, come! Mrs. Duval has a fever. Send her to the hospital, quick!”

The servants in the villa were alarmed. They came to stand around her in succession.

Rickard heard Wanda’s calling as soon as he returned from his morning run downstairs. He furrowed his eyebrows, pushed away the crowd, and walked into the nursery.

Madam Duval and Sophia were awakened by the noise as well. They scolded with stern expressions. “What’s with the clamor? Why were we awakened so early?”

Wanda held Hesper and spoke with a shaky voice, “Madam and Ms. Duval, Mrs. Duval is burning with fever.”

“Is that really serious?” Madam Duval rolled her eyes. “There are so many women in the world, yet Hesper is the only spoiled one. She’s always sick and in pain every other day. Who knows if she’s faking it!”

Hesper was barely conscious from the fever; she could not utter a word.

The more Wanda looked at Hesper, the more anxious she became. Meanwhile, Rickard arrived and took a glance at the crowd around him before he queried with a cold voice, “What happened?”

“Mr. Duval, it’s Mrs. Duval. She's come down with a high fever after bowing here all night while in her weakened state.”

Wanda hastily narrated the situation, which triggered Mrs. Duval and Sophie's anger at once.

“Don’t listen to her, Rickard. I think she’s faking her illness to go against you because she was displeased with your punishment yesterday!”

Rickard kept quiet and did not speak. He had yet to forgo yesterday’s incident. However, he could tell that Hesper did not look so good.

“How do you feel? Can you speak?”

Rickard approached her and attempted to feel her forehead, but Hesper shoved him away. “I'm not dying. You don’t need to bother yourself with me.”

The man pulled a long face. This woman is nothing but cruel to me, and there’s no telling whether she's actually flirting with another man behind my back to earn his sympathy.

“Since you’re fine, get up. Why are you lying on the floor?”

Hesper propped herself up without uttering a word, but before she could stand steadily, her knees buckled and she began to fall again.