Learning about Rebecca’s Family (Part 2)

"Well, we will see now that he has the power, if he will regret the way he treated you. Or maybe his intentions the whole time were completely different than what we are thinking. In either case, we will get to the bottom of it on this trip."

It seemed like Becca was hesitant to learn the truth. She sighed and muttered, "we will see…"

I wanted to quickly change the subject, so she didn't focus on the things we can't control. "How about your mother? I don't really know anything about her yet."

When thinking of her mother, Becca smiled awkwardly. "My mother and I have a complicated relationship. I know for a fact that she loves me and cares about me. However, for my entire life, she has always been very strict on me. She always wanted me to be the ideal woman and expected nothing less than perfection. We always spent a lot of time together and we even shared a lot of good moments. However, the huge expectations she had for me always felt like a weight on my shoulders. Especially when I knew that the real me was nothing like the woman my mother wanted me to be."

I put my hand on top of Becca's hand to show my support. "That must have been tough."

"It was hard. She would constantly scold me for being too stubborn. I wanted to get mad at her, but I knew she was right. If I wanted to survive in this society as smoothly as possible, I should have just conformed to the standards of the society. I was already really talented in my studies and praised that I could be a great Duchess. Everyone said my only negative trait was my stubbornness. If I got rid of that, I would be a very sought after bride. My mother was probably doing everything she could to make me a sought after bride, so I could join a good noble family and have it easy the rest of my life. However, I always fought against it. I didn't want to be trained to only be a wife. I had my own dreams and aspirations. I didn't want to be relegated to my only value coming from my relationship with a man. I think every person has their own intrinsic value and I wish my mother would understand that."

"I'm sorry you had to deal with all that pressure and stress in your childhood."

Becca shook her head. "My mother and I may have had different points of view and values, but she was kind to me a majority of the time. She would scold me while I was studying, but afterwards she would always look after me and take care of me. I know everything she did for me was because she wanted me to have the best future possible. Now that I'm not living with her and getting her constant scolding, I almost miss it a little."

I smirked at Becca, "don't go scolding our kids a ton just because you learned it from your mother! Haha"

"Of course I won't! I will let my kids do whatever they want. I want to be an open minded parent!"

"Ok, I'll be the parent to enforce punishment. It's good to be open minded, but we still need to teach them right from wrong."

Becca started cracking up laughing. "Hahaha, sorry Nick, I just can't see you being a parent who punishes their kids. You already spoil me so much. I don't you would ever scold me."

I scratched my head, "well that's because you are you…"

Becca rolled her eyes at me. "So you are saying you would be able to punish your cute little children after they give you some puppy dog eyes?"

I started to imagine my little son or daughter looked up at me with tears in their eyes…cr*p…

I released a light chuckle. "Ok, maybe I can't be a strict parent…"

Becca smirked at my quick flip flop. "Tsk tsk, I'm starting to really understand your personality Nick."

"Ok, I'll have to ask for your assistance in parenting them as a team. By the way, how is your parents relationship? Does your father have multiple wives now that he is a noble?"

"My mother is my father's only wife. Right before my father became a noble, they agreed he would never take on a second wife. However, he does have a couple of concubines he will take on business trips if he is going to be gone for a long time. My father puts a lot of importance on taking care of his family and my mother puts a lot of importance on being the ideal noble wife, so they fit each other perfectly."

"It's good that I will not have to deal with any second wives in your family. It would be weird for me to call them in-laws since I'm used to a world where no one had multiple wives."

"Yeah, multiple wives always brings drama. They will always be fighting for the favor of the husband and the children will have to fight for the chance to inherit as much of their wealth as possible. But I guess the fight for their attention is the part men love the most…disgusting."

"Luckily, neither of us have to worry about outsider second wives coming from our parents. And you don't even have to worry about in-laws at all because of my parents passing."

"Nicolas' parents were actually good people. Apparently, the former Duke had multiple illegitimate kids with his concubines, so that might come back to haunt us in the future. However, the Duke and Duchess were at least always friendly to me. They just spoiled their only son so much that he became an entitled jerk. It actually would have been nice if his parents didn't pass away and then you still took over his body. I bet his parents would have loved you."

"I'm sure they would still want their original son…this is getting a little too morbid so let's change the subject…"