Chapter: 03
Although he had not said the rest aloud, I think I know what he was going to say next.
‘You probably mean that you don’t think I love you.’
Vanessa slowly nodded.
“I know.”
“……If you knew, then how could you spend the night away from home just because you heard that I opposed your marriage?”
“I told you. Once I went out, I realized how miserable it was…….”
Her father looked as though he doubted she could possibly understand hardship from spending only one day away from home, but Vanessa had effectively returned after being away for more than fifteen years.
She had already regretted more than enough the thought that things might have been different if she had talked with her father a little more.
If only she had asked why he had opposed the marriage. If only there had still been someone alive with whom she could have spoken honestly. Even though she had had the chance to turn everything back, she had failed to do so.
Even when, immediately after the wedding, she had been practically confined to their newlywed home in the western region, far away from the capital where the Sharoze residence stood, she had hesitated because she lacked the courage to return to her father.
‘We’re already married, so why do you keep calling Carlisle that bastard? He isn’t so worthless that he deserves to be treated like that by Father!’
Especially because, at that time, she had just had a major argument with her father for speaking ill of Carlisle.
‘I don’t know who gave me this chance…….’
She could not let this opportunity slip away. She could not repeat everything she had gone through in her previous life.
The Marquess of Leonard family, who had crippled her and taken everything from the ducal family.
In this life, she would make sure they did not get so much as a thread of what they wanted.
No, even that would be nothing more than an exceedingly merciful punishment for them.
Even if she prevented them from taking what she had lost, how would that be any different from the present?
Yes. This time, she would take everything they possessed.
Besides, Vanessa knew exactly how the Marquess of Leonard family had accumulated their wealth and power. She had watched it all from right beside them.
So although bringing them down would be difficult, it was by no means impossible.
‘I don’t care whether it is God or the devil. If only I can sever the cursed connection between myself and that bastard, Carlisle Leonard, with my own hands.’
This much was only fitting for having been given the chance to turn back time.
Vanessa smiled more deeply as she looked at her father and bowed her head.
“Since they came looking for me, I should at least show my face.”
Carlisle Leonard.
The eldest son of the Marquess of Leonard family and the man who had been Vanessa’s husband in her previous life.
‘Carlisle, what do you like most about me?’
She remembered it as a day shortly before their wedding. At the time, the question had briefly become fashionable among the nobles of high society.
Some answered appearance, others personality. Some liked their hands, while others preferred their feet.
With all the proud answers she had heard from others still fresh in her mind, she had eagerly awaited his answer.
‘Sharoze.’
Carlisle Leonard answered as though he did not even need to think. No, he had not hesitated at all.
‘I like you because you are Sharoze.’
At the time, Vanessa had foolishly believed that he meant he liked her not for her eyes, appearance, figure, slender ankles, long fingers, or any other physical feature, but simply because she was herself.
But he truly had liked her because she was ‘Sharoze.’
She only learned much later that what he had truly loved was not Vanessa, but the Sharoze family.
He had deliberately approached her, the only child of one of the Empire’s ducal families, in order to gain power.
She had been so foolish that she did not realize the truth until she was close to death.
Fortunately, she had been given another chance.
And now it was time to repay him.
‘If you targeted my family, then in a way, that means you never wanted your own family.’
Carlisle Leonard.
I wonder what expression you will make when you realize that you cannot obtain ‘Sharoze’ and will have to live as the heir to the Leonard marquisate.
Your mother might even be pleased.
Perhaps even more than you, who are still called the Young Marquess despite being in a position to inherit because she stubbornly clings to the title of ‘Marchioness.’
If she wanted money that would never run dry, then even if her daughter-in-law were wealthy, a commoner with money would be easier to control than a noblewoman whose rank was higher than hers.
When you had obtained your title and declared that it was time to start a business, then deliberately placed that woman at your side for all to see.
‘Mother, with Vanessa here, how could there be another woman? I’m afraid I might unknowingly violate Imperial law.’
Although he pretended to be a good son who could not defy his mother’s wishes, he had still watched Vanessa’s reaction.
He had clearly been pleased.
I wonder if he still would be now.
‘Do I really have to hear that my husband is going around arm in arm with another woman outside? Considering the businesses you took from the Sharoze ducal family and the mines, you shouldn’t be treating me like this. If you love that woman so much, then divorce……!’
It had been their first wedding anniversary.
The Sharoze ducal family’s fortune that Carlisle had squandered through several failed businesses was beyond counting.
And that was not all. The knights’ order established under the Sharoze ducal family’s name was constantly damaging the family’s reputation.
Unable to bear watching Carlisle grow close to a merchant’s daughter despite all that, Vanessa had finally said something.
Before she could finish speaking, the sound of high heels came from outside the room, as though someone were about to burst through the door.
Smack!
Before she could even see who it was, a thunderous crack rang out.
‘You! How dare you speak like that to your husband, whom you should revere? Do you understand what marriage means under Imperial law, yet you dare speak of divorce? After ruining my son’s marriage, did you really think you could live comfortably!’
Vanessa blankly held her cheek where she had been struck as the words rained down on her like blades.
‘Just because you have a little money, you think you can say anything you want to your husband. Carlisle! Are you saying you put up with this kind of disrespect whenever I’m not around? What is so extraordinary about a wife helping her husband with his business that you have to act like this……!’
‘Calm down, Mother. Vanessa must have made a mistake. Vanessa. I’ll pretend I never heard you mention divorce, so apologize.’
That day, something inside Vanessa snapped.
From then on, she began to regret marrying him.
But regret changed nothing. Everything had already been ruined beyond repair.
‘It’s your birthday. I’m sorry we spent our first anniversary like that. I also told my mother not to come to the mansion anymore. It wasn’t because I had any other feelings for that woman. You know that. She was someone my mother introduced to me for business, and I couldn’t exactly refuse, so all I did was have dinner with her a few times.’
Even after six months had passed, Carlisle’s excuse, offered as a belated apology, did nothing to move her heart.
‘You said you wanted to visit the Fideulo resort, remember? It happens to be rose season, so how about we go on a date for the first time in a while? I’d like you to wear the shoes I bought you.’
Foolishly, those words seemed to soften her heart a little.
Because he still remembered the place she had casually mentioned at the beginning of their marriage.
Perhaps because she foolishly thought that he had loved her from the beginning, and still loved her.
Was that why it happened?
‘Carlisle! If you’re going somewhere, shouldn’t you at least tell me? Ardellian has been waiting for two hours already……!’
Or perhaps she had been wrong to climb the stairs wearing the high heels Carlisle had given her, while ignoring her mother-in-law’s nagging on such a pleasant day, even though the woman had inevitably brought up the merchant’s daughter again.
‘You……! How dare you walk away while an elder is speaking to you!’
Tap.
It had been almost like an accident.
No, the hand that had brushed against her and then moved away had been Carlisle’s, so perhaps it had been intentional.
He had always found it difficult to defy his mother.
Carlisle, who had been climbing the stairs ahead of her, suddenly turned around. The momentum sent Vanessa tumbling down.
But even after seeing her falling, he did not catch her.
Neither Carlisle nor the Marchioness of Leonard.
Even when Vanessa reached out her hand as she fell, Carlisle merely watched it.
‘Vanessa—!’
Crack!
The horrible sound of her leg breaking rang out.
Only then did Carlisle scream.
He had not even opened his mouth when she was falling.
‘Call a physician right now! Hurry!’
From that day onward, she became a lame wife.
‘You should never have married her off there.’
That was how Vanessa reunited with her father, with whom she had nearly severed ties after marrying Carlisle Leonard.
Even when his daughter had practically handed over all of the family’s wealth to some worthless man, and even when she was mocked because the Sharoze Duke was supposedly not someone who chose not to do business but someone incapable of doing it, her father had never contacted her.
Yet that day, for the first time, her father shed tears when he saw his daughter’s crippled leg.
But Vanessa could not bring herself to return to her father.
She had not only gone against her father’s wishes and married him, but had also nearly lost the entire family fortune. She could not possibly return to him now with nothing but herself.
So, even if she could not reclaim everything, she stayed at the marquisate because she wanted to recover at least some of what she had lost.
If only she had known that even that would end with her being falsely accused of having an affair with Ian Ruscliffe simply because she had exchanged a single conversation with him, divorced without receiving even a single penny, and stripped of her title as well.
‘If I had known, I would have at least tried to do something before I died.’
