For the Lady's Wise Regression - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 5
“That’s unexpected.”
“Hmm?”
“I thought you’d put the tailor’s shop run by your mother’s friend at the top of your list.”
……
“You’re the sort who adores his mother, after all.”
……Vanessa. That insinuation is a bit much to laugh off.”
The moment he called her by name with that stiffly hardened face, her body flinched of its own accord.
It was a fear learned over the course of their marriage.
Whenever he spoke like that, a shout would follow.
“Did I do something wrong, perhaps?”
But just as she was about to spill out the anger that had been building, watching him swallow back his words so quickly left her utterly deflated.
“If I did, tell me. So I can fix it.”
Ha. She couldn’t help but laugh again.
As Calail watched Vanessa with an odd expression and forced an awkward laugh to match hers, her laughter only grew louder.
“Calail.”
“Yes, Vanessa?”
“What do you like about me?”
At her question, Calail’s face flickered with bewilderment for just a moment.
“……Out of nowhere? Do I have to answer?”
The way his hesitation hung in the air told her all she needed to know.
Even now, in this moment when he spoke of marriage, he still did not see her as ‘Vanessa’.
“Never mind. I think I know the answer without hearing it. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can marry you after all.”
Calail’s face, which had barely held onto its smile, hardened again.
She might have cowered as before, but the moment he backed down, she knew.
Calail Leonard would not dare treat Vanessa Sharoze carelessly—not yet.
And she had endured far longer than she should have before speaking these words.
“Is it because I hesitated at your question? Or is it because of Ian?”
She nearly burst into laughter again, failing to read the mood, until the name that left his lips struck the smile clean from her face.
“I happened to see you. Coming out of the Ruscliffe Duchy Residence. Your father doesn’t seem to know yet, so I covered for you, but…”
“And?”
“If your father and those around you found out that you spent a night with another man while an old lover still waits… wouldn’t they be greatly disappointed? For now, only I’ve seen it, so I’ll let it pass. But if the tail grows long enough, it might get caught.”
“Ah.”
Vanessa exhaled softly.
Yes. That was it.
She’d forgotten it had been so long, but now it came back to her.
When her father opposed her marriage to Calail Leonard and she’d run out of the house on impulse.
She couldn’t quite remember how she’d ended up drinking with Ian, but at the time, fearing Calail might misunderstand, she’d hastily accepted his proposal.
‘Right, that’s why things became awkward between Ian and me.’
And that wasn’t all.
Thinking she’d wronged Calail, she’d bent herself further still to his will.
‘I was so foolish.’
If only she’d thought more carefully about how Calail happened to witness her coming out at precisely that time.
Seeing her expression change, Calail seized the moment and spoke again.
“I didn’t bring this up to blame you. I won’t say more. Vanessa, my love—I’ll think of it as a brief indiscretion before our marriage. Come look at the dress with me today.”
With those wounded eyes and that forced smile, anyone who didn’t know better would be utterly deceived by how sincere it looked.
Yet the wish that spilled from his lips beneath that carefully composed face was utterly, sickeningly vulgar.
Watching him like that, her lips began to tremble.
“What you’re really asking is for me to marry you.”
Calail Leonard looking so desperate—it was almost a shame not to applaud such flawless acting.
If she hadn’t been in this place with all her memories intact, she would have chosen him again.
In the end, it was love that had been the problem.
Blinded by love, she hadn’t seen him clearly.
How fortunate it was, really.
To realize now that all those odd feelings she’d sensed at times were his truth bleeding through—that he simply did not love her.
In any case, because of this very matter, her past self had married Calail Leonard.
‘If only I could have gone back to an earlier time…’
Now that the word ‘marriage’ had left Calail’s lips, she had to see this through.
If she dragged her feet now, a Wedding Dress might very well arrive at the manor the next morning.
In an Empire that did not tolerate concubines or mistresses, chastity was paramount, and infidelity was regarded as a grave sin.
A noble’s honor is precisely the kind of weakness that can crumble in an instant, so he was surely convinced that witnessing her emerge from Ian’s residence today had handed him the perfect leverage.
His eyes gleamed for a moment—proof enough of it.
‘But what do I do about this? I’ve already lived through everything and come back.’
A mere scandal of infidelity hardly frightened her.
In her last life, she’d even been branded a cripple on top of the infidelity accusations, so what was there to fear now?
‘The problem is, I don’t have nearly enough time to find a bridegroom.’
If she was going to return to the past, couldn’t she have come back just a little earlier?
……No. Where else could she have arrived?
She must have returned to a point after the wedding ceremony.
Once it reached that stage, there was no way out of it.
A rumor or two hardly mattered. It would be better than her previous life, marked by infidelity and the stigma of a cripple.
Besides, if there was a reason he wanted to marry her now, it was probably…….
‘Because of the Knight Order’s founding?’
House Sharoze was the only noble house within The Empire that lacked a Knight Order composed of private soldiers.
In fact, the very first thing Calail had demanded upon marrying her was a guarantee regarding the establishment of this Knight Order.
A Knight Order made up of private soldiers prioritized the orders of individual nobles over those of the crown, making it a force unto itself.
To possess such an order meant wielding a power that even the royal family could not easily move against. For House Leonard, which coveted the Dukedom, it would have been indispensable.
The crown had legally forbidden anyone below the rank of Duke or higher from maintaining private soldiers.
But even blinded by love, she’d known that guaranteeing such a thing was dangerous.
More than that—her father was still living, and she hadn’t yet inherited his title, so she couldn’t have established a Knight Order on her own authority.
She’d refused him for that reason, but thinking back on how the Lady of House Leonard’s attitude changed afterward, it seemed that was when her displeasure had begun. That was when she’d fallen from his favor.
Could her father’s death have been because of that incident?
Now, looking back, the suspicion didn’t seem entirely baseless.
Having gathered her thoughts, Vanessa’s face twisted with anguish.
“I’m sorry, Calail.”
“……What’s there to be sorry about? It was an accident. I understand.”
The moment she saw Calail, his shoulders slumped, forcing a smile, she felt laughter bubbling up—but she caught it, barely biting her lip in time.
“About the wedding.”
“I’ll handle all the preparations. You just need to accept it.”
At his gentle tone, Vanessa felt her stomach turn.
He believed he’d caught her weakness, and he’d certainly wield it whenever he pleased.
The thought alone made her want to strike that face—but she had to hold back.
If a bomb was going to detonate anyway, now, while he was unprepared to respond, was the ideal moment.
Go ahead and do it first.
She could deal with the consequences later.
Right now, the important thing was not to marry Calail Leonard!
“Actually, I already have someone else I’m thinking of marrying. What should I do?”
“……Sharoze. That’s not funny.”
His uncomfortable expression shattered the mask of perpetual smiling that had covered his face until now.
***
Unable to steady his labored breathing, Calail left the Ruscliffe Duchy Residence empty-handed.
‘Vanessa Sharoze, you’re going to regret this.’
Even as he uttered that third-rate villain’s line.
Vanessa stomped her feet as she watched Calail’s retreating figure grow smaller, raising her middle finger at his back.
‘Would you regret it if you were in my place?’
Despite having much revenge still left to carry out, she felt a sense of relief already washing over her.
There was one small problem: the ‘marriage partner’ she’d so boldly announced didn’t actually exist.
Under imperial law, when one party outranked the other in a marriage, an enormous Dowry was required.
But that wasn’t the real issue.
She could provide the Dowry herself if needed.
The problem was…….
That everyone—her father, herself, and Calail—knew she wasn’t the type to endure a difference in station on love alone.
What if the groom was arriving by carriage for the wedding ceremony?
What? He died in a carriage accident?
That was no laughing matter for House Leonard.
And that would be the least of it.
What if the groom who appeared on the wedding day was Calail himself?
Only after Calail had disappeared from sight did Vanessa lower her finger and exhale a long sigh.
‘I really should have made some friends.’
Given her background, and the fact that Calail had been her partner at every social gathering, no one in high society doubted that she and Calail were engaged to be married.
The Marquess’s eyes were wide open and blazing, but there wasn’t a man alive who’d dare claim any sort of impropriety between them.
Vanessa groaned aloud as she mentally ran through the unmarried men of eligible age.
Were there really so few marriage prospects in The Empire?
How was it that all the unmarried ones were the type who’d bring down major catastrophes—or minor ones—in the future……?
A man with sufficient power, uninterested in marriage, destined to remain unmarried, and stubborn enough not to suddenly change his mind and pursue divorce—why was he so impossible to find?
Click, click.
Vanessa bit at her nails, then let out a small, sudden sigh.
……Wait a moment.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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