FRL 3

Chapter 3

Although Father hadn’t finished his sentence, she now knew what he had been about to say.

‘That he doesn’t seem to love me.’

Vanessa slowly nodded.

“I know.”

“…If you knew, then why did you stay out overnight just because I said I opposed the marriage?”

“I told you. Once I left home, I learned the hard way how difficult life is…”

Her father looked as though he couldn’t believe she had learned what hardship was from merely one day away from home.

But Vanessa had, in a sense, run away for more than fifteen years before finally returning.

She had already regretted countless times whether things might have been different if she had simply talked to her father a little more.

When there had still been someone alive she could openly discuss things with, when she still had the chance to turn everything around, she hadn’t.

Even when, immediately after the wedding, she had been taken far away from the central capital where the Charose residence stood and confined to a newlywed home in the western region, 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 that way by my father!’

At the time, she had fought bitterly with her father because he had spoken ill of Carlisle, which made things even worse.

‘I don’t know who gave me this opportunity, but…’

She couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.

She couldn’t go through everything she had suffered in her previous life all over again.

The Marquisate of Leonard had crippled her and stolen everything belonging to the ducal family.

This time, she would make sure they didn’t get so much as a single thread of what they wanted.

No, even that would be far too merciful a punishment for them.

Simply refusing to let them take what she had lost wouldn’t change anything from the present, would it?

Yes.

This time, she would take everything they possessed.

Besides, Vanessa knew exactly how the Marquisate of Leonard had accumulated its wealth and power.

She had watched everything from right beside them.

Therefore, bringing them down might be difficult, but it certainly wasn’t impossible.

‘I don’t care if it was a god or a demon. As long as I can sever my ill-fated relationship with that bastard, Carlisle Leonard, with my own hands.’

Surely, this was enough to make returning to the past worthwhile.

Vanessa smiled even more deeply at her father and gave a small bow.

“He came all this way to see me, so I suppose I should at least show my face.”

Carlisle Leonard.

The eldest son of the Marquisate of Leonard and the man who had been Vanessa’s husband in her previous life.

‘Carlisle, what do you like most about me?’

She remembered it happening one day shortly before their wedding.

At the time, the question had briefly become fashionable among the nobles of high society.

Some answered their partner’s appearance, others their personality. Some said their hands, while others said their feet.

Vanessa had eagerly waited for his answer, already keeping in her mind the proud responses everyone else had given.

‘Charose.’

Carlisle Leonard had answered as though he hadn’t needed to think about it.

No—he hadn’t hesitated at all.

‘I like you because you’re a Charose.’

At the time, Vanessa foolishly believed he meant that he loved her simply for being herself, rather than for her eyes, appearance, figure, slender ankles, long fingers, or any other physical feature.

How foolish she had been.

He really had loved her because she was a Charose.

She only learned much later that what he truly loved wasn’t Vanessa, but the House of Charose.

He had deliberately approached her because she was the sole heir of the only ducal family in the Empire with no other child.

All for the sake of obtaining power.

And foolishly, she hadn’t discovered the truth until she was nearly on her deathbed.

Fortunately, she had been given another chance.

Now it was time to repay him.

‘If you targeted my family, then in a way, that means you never wanted your own family, either.’

Carlisle Leonard.

What expression would cross your face when you realized you could never obtain a Charose, and that you would have to spend the rest of your life as the Marquis of Leonard’s heir?

Your mother might actually like that.

Even more than having you—who stubbornly clung to the title of Young Marquis despite being perfectly capable of inheriting the title—become a true marquis.

A woman who wanted an inexhaustible supply of money would probably find a wealthy commoner daughter-in-law much easier to control than a noble daughter-in-law with a higher title than hers.

The moment you inherited the title and decided it was time to go into business, you proudly placed that woman at your side.

‘Mother, how could you suggest another woman when I have Vanessa? I have to be careful not to unknowingly violate imperial law.’

You pretended to be a good son who couldn’t disobey his mother openly, all while watching my reaction.

But you were clearly pleased.

I wonder if you would feel the same way now.

‘Do I really have to hear that my husband is walking around arm in arm with another woman outside? Considering the businesses and mines you took from the Duchy of Charose, you shouldn’t be treating me like this! If you love that woman so much, then divorce—!’

It had been their first wedding anniversary.

By then, the Charose family’s fortune had already suffered countless losses from several failed businesses.

And that wasn’t all.

The knights’ order Carlisle had established under the name of the Charose ducal family was constantly damaging their reputation.

Unable to tolerate watching Carlisle grow close to a merchant’s daughter despite all this, Vanessa had confronted him.

Before she could finish speaking, the sound of dress shoes came from outside the room, as though someone were deliberately stomping toward them.

Smack!

Before she could even identify who it was, a thunderous crack rang through the room.

‘How dare you speak to your husband, who is like the heavens above you, that way? Do you understand what marriage means under Imperial law, yet you dare mention divorce? After ruining my son’s marriage, you think you can continue living comfortably!’

Vanessa stood there dazed, clutching her cheek after being struck by a barrage of venomous words.

‘Just because you have some money, you think you can say anything to your husband! Carlisle! Are you being treated with this kind of disrespect whenever I’m not around? What’s so extraordinary about a wife helping her husband’s business that she thinks she can—!’

‘Calm down, Mother. Vanessa must have made a mistake. Vanessa, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you mention divorce, so apologize.’

That day, Vanessa heard something snap inside her heart.

From that moment on, she began regretting marrying him.

But regret changed nothing.

Everything had already been destroyed beyond repair.

‘It’s your birthday. I’m sorry we spent our first anniversary like that. And I’ve told Mother not to come to the residence anymore. It wasn’t because I had any other feelings for that woman, either. You know that. She was someone Mother introduced to me for business purposes, so I couldn’t exactly refuse her. We only had dinner together a few times.’

Half a year later, Carlisle offered that excuse as a belated apology.

But Vanessa’s heart no longer moved at his words.

‘You said you wanted to visit Fideullo Resort. It’s rose season there right now, 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 had softened her heart a little.

Because he still remembered a place she had casually mentioned early in their marriage.

Because she had foolishly thought that perhaps he had loved her from the beginning and still loved her.

Perhaps that was why what happened next had occurred.

‘Carlisle! If you’re going somewhere, shouldn’t you at least tell me? Ardellian has been waiting for you for two hours already…!’

Or perhaps it was her own fault for climbing the stairs in the high heels Carlisle had given her as a gift, while enduring her mother-in-law’s incessant nagging about that merchant’s daughter on what should have been a happy day.

‘You…! How dare you rudely walk away while an elder is speaking to you!’

Tap.

It had been almost an accident.

No—the hand that had brushed against her before falling away had been Carlisle’s.

Perhaps it had been intentional after all.

He had always found it difficult to defy his mother.

Carlisle’s body, which had been climbing the stairs ahead of her, suddenly turned around.

Vanessa fell backward from the momentum.

But even though he saw her falling, he didn’t reach out to catch her.

Neither Carlisle nor the Marchioness of Leonard.

Even when Vanessa desperately stretched out her hand as she fell, Carlisle merely watched it.

‘Vanessa—!’

Crack!

The horrific sound of her leg breaking echoed through the hall.

Only then did Carlisle scream.

He hadn’t even opened his mouth when she was falling.

‘Call a physician right now! Hurry!’

From that day onward, she became a crippled wife.

‘I shouldn’t have married you off to that place.’

After her marriage to Carlisle Leonard, that was how Vanessa was reunited with the father she had practically cut ties with.

Her father had barely contacted her even when she had handed over all the family’s wealth to an undeserving man, or when she had failed at every business she touched and people mocked the Duke of Charose by saying that he didn’t merely refuse to do business—he was incapable of doing it.

Yet that day, for the first time, her father shed tears when he saw his daughter’s crippled leg.

But Vanessa couldn’t bring herself to return to him.

She had defied her father’s wishes and married Carlisle, and then nearly allowed the entire family fortune to be taken from her.

She couldn’t simply go crawling back to her father now with nothing but her broken body.

So she remained at the marquisate, hoping that even if she couldn’t recover everything, she might at least reclaim a portion 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 Ruscliff merely because they had exchanged a single conversation…

If only she had known that she would be divorced without receiving even a single coin, and would even have her title taken from her…

‘I would have tried to do something. Anything. And then I could have died.’