For the Lady's Wise Regression - Chapter 7

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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 7
His voice fell flat and monotonous, without inflection.
It was obvious to anyone watching that Ian was looking at her with the eyes of someone forced to endure a tedious book—civility alone couldn’t mask it.
Vanessa shook her head. It would be wrong to dredge up old childhood memories and make idle conversation when his expression carried such weight.
“I’m fine with it, but you look too busy to even have time for tea.”
Of course, if he asked her to stay again, she’d pretend to resist and settle into her chair willingly enough—but she wouldn’t force it now.
She glanced at the towering pile of documents on his desk, and Ian didn’t press further.
In the awkward silence that followed, Vanessa’s mind drifted.
‘……Could it really be that small?’
He was large everywhere else—his hands gripping the fountain pen, his shoulders set wide and squared, even his feet protruding slightly beneath the table.
Callail wasn’t small by any measure, but standing beside Ian, he would look positively diminished.
‘But……he’s grown, so for it to be that small…….’
Vanessa wore a look of mock seriousness as her gaze drifted lower, settling on his hip line. Then she shook her head.
‘Never mind. What does it matter anyway—big or small?’
She lifted her eyes from his waist to his face.
Ian Ruscliffe.
Her childhood friend, though they’d had no contact since reaching adulthood—until last week, when returning to the past had turned them into lovers after a single night.
She’d thought about it repeatedly, and she was now certain of why his marriage proposal carried a No Contact Clause.
‘Could I have… thrown myself at him?’
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember doing anything with Ian that night. Her clothes had been intact.
Why did she have to return to precisely that kind of situation?
For Ian, last week was merely a week ago—but for her, it had been a happening fifteen years in the past.
And her memories of it had shattered thanks to all the alcohol she’d consumed.
She’d agreed to marry him in a panic, largely because those memories were incomplete.
Even if he’d welcomed her and held her, she wouldn’t consider that throwing herself at him.
As that thought occurred to her, Vanessa sighed softly to herself.
If he counted even the brush of her collar as contact, then surely a light embrace could be interpreted as throwing herself at him?
But she couldn’t possibly ask him here, in this moment—”Did I hold you?” or worse, “Did I touch you?”—it would only ruin the mood further.
Just then, Ian looked up. Their eyes met. Vanessa offered an awkward smile.
“I should go. Sorry for intruding.”
Ian’s eyes followed the receding figure of her back as she left without waiting for his reply.
“You don’t like me……”
Perhaps he’d recalled the way she’d asked so carefully with her small lips, because his brow furrowed slightly.
“I wish that were true.”
The Butler, having just finished steeping the tea, watched Vanessa pass and tilted his head in confusion.
“Is your conversation finished already, sir?”
“Yes.”
“A talk that ends faster than it takes to steep the tea…… Did you refuse, then?”
Ian shook his head at the Butler’s question.
“No.”
“……Pardon?”
“I said no.”
“You’re marrying her, sir?”
“……Yes.”
The Butler stood frozen with the teacup held in both hands, his mouth hanging open. Behind him, Ian rose from his seat at last and turned his gaze toward the window.
Her small head bobbed along as she walked away, growing ever smaller.
‘Vanessa Charloze.’
He remembered her eyes that day—hazy and unfocused, drunk and trembling as she looked at him.
Normally, he would have had the Butler escort her back to the Duke’s Residence and left it at that. But he hadn’t.
‘……She seemed so fragile.’
Unbecoming of a bride who would soon walk down the aisle.
Her words had come tumbling out, slurred and twisted, but they were not hard to understand.
‘Marriage,’ ‘Father’s opposition.’ Those two words alone had been enough for him to realize she was considering marriage to that man.
Duke Charloze doted on his daughter to excess, so he’d eventually give in and permit the marriage.
But her intended was Callail Leonard.
The suggestion had nearly escaped him: why not marry him instead?
He’d held her as she wept and trembled.
As he’d wrapped his arms around those quaking shoulders, he’d almost brought his lips to hers without thinking.
He’d pushed her away the moment he came to his senses.
‘Does she not remember?’
True enough. So instead of reproaching my actions, he sent letters filled with these false proposals.
But I never imagined Vanessa would approach me first with an offer of marriage.
‘I thought she actually cared for me.’
For her to suddenly cancel the wedding and come to me—did that mean she never did?
In any case, I was relieved not to marry that serpent, but did Vanessa understand?
The situation she now found herself in was like fleeing a fox only to stumble into a tiger’s den.
‘I left on impulse, but I had nowhere to go.’
That sullen expression was no different from when she was a child.
And therein lay the problem. He was hardly the sort to—.
Ian exhaled softly, cigar held between his fingers as it rested on the table.
“……What do you intend to do?”
“I set conditions. They’re there—read them.”
His gaze, which had followed Vanessa as she vanished into shadow, now turned to the Butler.
“Conditions? What sort of——”
The Butler’s eyes widened as he read through the text on the parchment.
“The lady accepted these terms?”
“……Yes.”
“Conditions that would appeal only to a woman sworn to become God’s servant in the Holy Kingdom?”
“……”
“Or perhaps she has a paramour, then?”
“……I don’t think so.”
The Butler looked from the parchment to his master, bewilderment plain on his face.
“……It looks to me like nothing but a proposal to live and die as unmarried companions.”
***
Dominic Freia’s Restaurant.
The Duke, her father, regarded her with mild concern as she ate while breaking into fits of quiet laughter.
“It is fortunate that you had no intention of marrying him……”
The Duke’s face brightened at Vanessa’s declaration that she would not marry Callail.
“You seem to have grown so much in just a day.”
His tone blended pride with something bittersweet—the wistful sense that his daughter had already matured so far.
Though that sentiment was quickly shattered, of course.
“Instead, I plan to marry Ian. What do you think, Father?”
The Duke’s eyes flashed with resignation—’Well, I suppose it would.’
Vanessa knew that deciding marriage in this manner was yet another form of unfilial conduct, but she could not turn back.
“Must you marry at all?”
“I already told Callail that I’m marrying Ian.”
Well, more precisely, she’d said she had another suitor.
A hook is a hook, whether it catches a nose or an ear.
“If that is your wish, then so be it. I cannot refuse you twice—not as your father.”
The Duke set down his utensils, his appetite seemingly lost at her declaration, and sighed quietly.
“But are you truly at ease? A marriage undertaken merely to keep a promise? Both hearts must be in accord for marriage to hold happiness.”
Vanessa smiled reassuringly at her father, whose face was clouded with concern.
“He’s a good man. And……you know, Ian and I are childhood friends. The order may be reversed, but marriage first, love later. That’s how it is.”
Though in truth it was closer to marriage first, revenge later.
‘If I can only avoid marrying Callail Lenard, I can marry without love any number of times.’
Vanessa swallowed the words she could not speak aloud and popped the last morsel of steak into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
“The food is delicious. Even after I marry, I’ll visit often, so let’s dine out together regularly.”
“……Yes, let’s do that.”
‘My daughter is peculiar.’
It seemed only yesterday that she’d been a wild thing.
Though that spirited nature hadn’t entirely vanished, the Duke couldn’t shake the feeling that his daughter had matured far beyond what he saw before him now.
***
Three days had passed since Vanessa proposed the contractual marriage.
The moment she saw what Ian had sent her, her mood turned sour.
Inside an expensive box that clearly cost a considerable sum lay a contract, laid out with meticulous care.
“……Isn’t the wrapping a bit excessive?”
Vanessa stared intently at the contract, both signatures boldly affixed, and let out a small sigh.
“A crippled life, or the life of a nun……”
She had essentially signed away her life as she’d sworn to live as God’s servant in the Holy Kingdom, only now to live that existence in the Empire instead.
‘At least it worked out.’
Her husband’s mother descended upon them at all hours, and what should have been the happiest season of their marriage devolved into nothing but shouting and recriminations.
Romance, dreams, all the visions she’d sketched in her imagination—they all crumbled to dust in the harsh light of reality.
Callail never touched her while his mother interfered, and all of it accumulated, layer upon layer, until finally…….
‘Even my own mother, departed as she was, became nothing but a bargaining chip in the aristocracy’s endless games.’
That she bore him no heir was not her failing—it was entirely his mother’s doing.
Looking back now, she must have wanted to avoid any complications for his future remarriage.
In any case, Vanessa could embrace this life readily enough, now that none of it would come to pass.
‘I grieve that I cannot bear a child who carries my own face—but such is life.’

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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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