Chapter: 05
“Unexpected.”
“Hmm?”
“I thought you would put the dress shop run by one of your mother’s friends as your first choice.”
“……”
“You’re a son who cares terribly about his mother, after all.”
“……Vanessa. That implication is a little difficult to laugh off.”
The moment she saw him call her name with his face stiffly hardened, her body instinctively flinched.
It was a fear she had learned throughout their married life.
Whenever he spoke with that expression on his face, shouting usually followed.
“……Did I perhaps do something wrong?”
But when she saw him stop himself from spewing out his rising anger and quickly back down, all the tension drained from her.
“If I did, tell me. So I can fix it.”
Ha-ha. Once again, she could not hold back her laughter.
Carlisle stared at Vanessa with a strange expression, then awkwardly laughed along with her, which only made Vanessa laugh even harder.
“Carlisle.”
“Yes, Barnett.”
“What do you like about me?”
For a moment, Carlisle’s face was colored with bewilderment at her question.
“……All of a sudden? Do I really have to answer?”
Seeing his tongue grow unusually sluggish, she could be certain of the opposite.
Even at this very moment, when marriage had come up in conversation, he still did not see her as ‘Vanessa.’
“Never mind. I think I already know the answer without hearing it. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can marry you after all.”
The smile Carlisle had barely managed to maintain finally disappeared, and his face stiffened again.
She might have shrunk back like before, but from the moment he backed down, she knew.
Carlisle Leonard would not be able to treat Vanessa Sharoz carelessly—not yet, anyway.
And she realized just how long she had endured before finally saying these words.
“Is it because I hesitated over your question? Or is it because of Ian?”
She almost burst out laughing again without even reading the atmosphere, but at the name that came from his mouth, the smile vanished from Vanessa’s face.
“I happened to see you…… coming out of the Ruthcliffe Ducal Residence. Your father doesn’t seem to know yet, so I made up some excuse to cover for you.”
“So?”
“If your father and the people around you found out that you left your longtime lover and spent a night with another man…… wouldn’t they be terribly disappointed? For now, I’m the only one who saw you, so I’ll let it go. But if you leave too long a trail, you might get caught.”
“Ah.”
Vanessa let out a small sigh.
Right. That was the reason.
It had been so long that she had forgotten, but thanks to him, she remembered.
Back when she had recklessly left home because her father opposed her marriage to Carlisle Leonard.
She could not clearly remember how she had ended up drinking with Ian, but at the time, afraid that Carlisle might misunderstand, she had hastily accepted his proposal.
‘That’s right. This was why things became awkward between Ian and me, too.’
And that wasn’t all.
Because she thought she had wronged Carlisle, she had gone even further and done everything he wanted.
‘I was such an idiot.’
She wished she had thought a little more deeply about how Carlisle had happened to witness her leaving at exactly that time.
Carlisle noticed the change in her expression and seemed to think this was his chance, so he spoke again.
“I didn’t bring this up to criticize you. I won’t say much. Barnett, my love. I’ll think of it as a brief moment of indiscretion before our marriage, so come with me to look at dresses today.”
The way he deliberately lifted the corners of his mouth while wearing wounded eyes was so earnest that anyone who did not know him might have been completely fooled.
The fact that he was putting on such an expression while making such an utterly materialistic demand made the corners of Vanessa’s mouth tremble.
“I’m asking you to marry me.”
Carlisle Leonard looked so desperate that Vanessa almost wanted to applaud his excellent performance. It was almost too good for her to keep to herself.
If she had not returned to this moment with all her memories intact, she would have chosen him again.
In the end, the problem had been love.
She had been blinded by love and unable to see him properly.
How fortunate.
She was glad that she had finally realized that all those strange things she had occasionally sensed were the genuine feelings he had failed to hide because he did not love her.
In any case, because of this incident, her past self had married Carlisle Leonard.
‘It would have been nice if I had returned a little further into the past…….’
Now that the word ‘marriage’ had come from Carlisle’s mouth, she had to settle this once and for all.
If she hesitated here, a wedding dress might very well arrive at the mansion the very next day.
In an empire that did not permit concubines or mistresses, chastity was considered important, and adultery was regarded as a grave offense.
It was a disgrace capable of bringing down even the lofty honor of a noble family in an instant, so after witnessing her leaving Ian’s residence today, he was clearly convinced that he had gotten hold of her weakness.
As proof, Carlisle Leonard’s eyes flashed for an instant.
‘But what can you do about that? I’ve already been through everything and returned.’
She was hardly afraid of such a petty accusation of infidelity.
In her previous life, she had even been branded both as an adulteress and as a crippled wife, so what was there to fear?
‘What should I do? There’s nowhere near enough time to find a groom right now.’
If she was going to return to the past, couldn’t she have come back just a little earlier?
……No. At least she had returned.
Imagine if she had returned after the wedding.
Then she really would have been completely trapped.
A couple of bad rumors were nothing. It was still better than her previous life, when she had been branded an adulteress and a cripple.
Besides, if there was a reason he wanted to marry her now, it was probably……
‘The founding of a knight order, right?’
The Sharoz Ducal Family was the only family in the empire that did not have a knight order composed of private soldiers.
In fact, the first thing Carlisle had demanded immediately after marrying her was a guarantee concerning the knight order he intended to establish.
A knight order made up of private soldiers followed the orders of an individual noble rather than those of the imperial family, which meant that it was a military force in its own right.
Having a knight order meant possessing military power that even the imperial family could not easily interfere with.
So for the Leonard Marquess Family, which coveted a ducal title, it must have been desperately important.
Even more so because the imperial family had legally forbidden anyone below the rank of duke from maintaining private soldiers.
But no matter how blinded by love she had been, even she knew that providing such a guarantee was dangerous.
Moreover, with her father still alive and her having yet to inherit the title, she could not establish a knight order however she pleased.
That was why she had refused.
But considering how the Marchioness Leonard’s attitude toward her changed afterward, perhaps that was when she had begun to hate her.
Could it be that her father had died because of that?
Looking back now, it did not seem like a completely unreasonable suspicion.
After sorting through her thoughts, Vanessa soon twisted her face as though in pain.
“I’m sorry, Carlisle.”
“……There’s nothing for you to apologize for. It must have been an accident. I understand.”
The moment she saw Carlisle forcing a smile with his shoulders slumped, she almost laughed. She barely managed to stop herself by biting her lips tightly.
“I mean the marriage.”
“I’ll take care of the preparations. You only have to accept.”
At his gentle tone, Vanessa felt nauseous inside.
He thought he had a weakness in his hands, so of course he would use it to his advantage as much as he could.
The mere thought made her want to slap him across the face right then and there, but she had to endure it.
If a bomb was going to explode anyway, now was the best time to do it, before she had any chance to prepare.
Just do it first.
She could find a partner later.
Right now, what mattered was not marrying that Carlisle Leonard!
“I already have someone else in mind for marriage. What should I do?”
“……Sharoz. That joke is going too far.”
At her words, delivered with an awkward expression, the smile that had covered his face like a mask throughout their conversation finally shattered.
Unable to calm his ragged breathing, Carlisle left the ducal residence without accomplishing anything.
‘Vanessa Sharoz, you’re definitely going to regret this.’
He even spat out a line straight out of a third-rate villain.
Vanessa stomped her feet and raised her middle finger at Carlisle’s retreating back.
‘Would you regret it if you were me?’
Even though she still had a long way to go before her revenge was complete, she already felt wonderfully relieved.
There was just one minor problem.
She had boldly declared that she had a ‘marriage partner,’ but she did not actually have one.
Under imperial law, when a marriage was considered unequal in status, a huge dowry was required.
But that was not important.
She could pay the dowry herself, no matter how much it was.
The problem was……
Her father knew, she knew, and Carlisle knew that she was not the kind of person who would willingly endure a difference in social status for the sake of love alone.
What if they said the groom was already on his way to the wedding in a carriage?
Oh? They said he died in a carriage accident?
That was not something the Leonard Marquess Family would simply dismiss as a joke.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
What if the groom who appeared on the wedding day turned out to be Carlisle?
Only after Carlisle had disappeared into the distance did Vanessa lower her finger and let out a deep sigh.
‘I should have made at least a few friends.’
Her background was one thing, but whenever banquets were held, Carlisle always attended as her partner, so there was no one in high society who doubted that she and Carlisle were going to marry.
With the Marquess Family watching her with their eyes wide open, there was also no man bold enough to pretend that he was in some sort of relationship with her.
Vanessa thought through the unmarried men who were currently available one by one, then let out a groan.
Were there really so few marriage prospects in the empire?
How was it that every single unmarried man seemed to be someone who would cause one incident or another in the future……!
Was there really no man who had enough power, no interest in marriage, would remain unmarried in the future, and would not suddenly change his mind and stubbornly refuse to divorce?
Crunch, crunch.
As Vanessa bit her nails, she suddenly let out a small gasp.
……Wait.
