For the Lady's Wise Regression - Chapter 77

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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 77
No expression, no emotion crossed his face.
That was Ian Ruscliffe.
The temperature in the room had shifted—entirely different from when they’d eaten dessert and called it a date.
Ian opened the drawing-room door slowly and stepped out.
The door closed with a soft click, and silence flooded in.
“……You proposed this arrangement in the first place.”
The business ventures led by Parvian in the Northern Region had sprung from the meeting of terrain and weather; they were untouchable.
Celia Go in the Western Region surpassed even the Imperial household in mineral prospecting. Touch that, and she couldn’t secure bidding rights to minerals from over half the Empire’s mapped mines.
Gardelmore in the Southern Region had earned Imperial honors for shipbuilding—a house of genuine renown.
The problem was that their sole heir, the third son, lay bedridden in his final days, but beside him stood House Lyven, a marquessate that—though lacking the reach of House Leonard—came closest to claiming a dukedom.
House Sharoze was the exception; it had no business operations to speak of.
So House Leonard poking and prodding at House Ruscliffe was inevitable.
They were the only dukedom worth testing.
But as of today, even that avenue had sealed itself shut.
So House Leonard would have to choose.
Either to keep hunting for profitable ventures as they had been, or to roll up their sleeves and carve one out themselves.
Vanessa’s eyes traced downward to Ian’s teacup, which sat half-empty, untouched.
She had planned her revenge. Preparation had gone smoothly. Until now.
But something kept catching in her throat, refusing to come out.
Even in her past life, House Ruscliffe had harbored no great ambition for power.
For reasons she couldn’t name, Ian Ruscliffe seemed not to want it.
He rarely lingered at Imperial galas—he would make an appearance and vanish.
A manor where even breathing sounded hushed. A place where footsteps barely registered. Insular, revealing nothing, offering no intelligence to the world—House Ruscliffe was a family that dwelt in silence.
Even in her past life, on those rare occasions when she’d faced him in court over the Jeongjeong Flower dispute, his presence was infrequent.
The only time he appeared in person was when she sued him.
Now she understood what had caught in her throat.
Guilt.
She had only just realized that her revenge was shaking someone’s life in her hands.
Vanessa rose from her seat.
Leaving her own teacup unfinished, just as Ian had.
She hurried from the drawing room; her footsteps, which had always been measured and even, became jagged and rushed.
She scanned the ballroom.
Ian stood in the distance. Kirious had apparently arrived; he was there with him.
Just as Vanessa moved toward them—
A hand shot out.
Someone seized her wrist and halted her stride.
“We need to talk.”
It was Calail Leonard.
It was rather ironic that he had noticed her before her own husband had.
Only then did Ian’s head turn slowly—he had been speaking to Kirious with his back to the room.
Vanessa swatted Calail’s hand away as if brushing off an insect.
“Vanessa.”
Her wrist was seized again.
“I need to tell you something.”
His tone carried something strange—not quite desperate, but unsettling.
The kind that made the skin crawl. This time Vanessa didn’t pull away; she held his gaze.
Golden-yellow hair like aged wallpaper, eyes as pale as if white pigment had been diluted in water. Beneath those irises, a film of ashen gray lay suspended.
Eyes like those of the dead.
Meeting that stare, Vanessa’s words froze.
Something was wrong. Had she ever seen eyes like that in her past life?
She searched her memory and found nothing.
Or perhaps she’d simply never encountered him often enough to remember.
She jerked her hand free with more force this time.
“Prince Leonard.”
A voice cut through—glacial, razor-sharp, flowing from Vanessa’s lips.
Thud. Thud. From a distance came footsteps, unwavering and deliberate.
Each step struck the floor with identical force and timing.
“How much longer must I tolerate your discourtesy?”
The voice was quiet.
As if resembling Ian Ruscliffe.
A tone she wasn’t aware of using.
“Don’t hold back.”
Calail spoke to Vanessa with blunt precision.
“That’s not how you usually sound.”
The way he spoke—as though he knew everything—grated against her nerves.
But to snap back at him for presuming to know her would require denying how much time she’d spent with Calail Leonard, damn it all.
He would know what her natural tone sounded like.
“……Five minutes. That’s all I need. Can you spare that?”
His voice was desperate—achingly so.
It was difficult to believe those words had come from Calail Leonard at all.
Vanessa’s eyes wavered at the sound of them.
He saw it.
Calail’s mouth curved upward slightly, and this time he grasped her wrist with deliberate care.
Slowly, so as not to alarm her.
This time there was no resistance.
At that sight, the heel-clicks that had drawn close behind Vanessa stopped abruptly.
Ian Ruscliffe stood directly at her back, solid and still.
His golden eyes flicked once to Vanessa’s wrist, and then to Calail, who held it as carefully as one might handle something on the verge of shattering.
“Calail Leonard.”
His tone was utterly quiet.
Beneath that level voice, something roiled—displeasure, undeniable and raw.
“Has House Leonard’s understanding of Etiquette degraded so far that it no longer comprehends what it means under Imperial law to make advances toward a married woman?”
The implication was sharp: *baseborn trash.*
It was as though a spear had materialized in the heart of the hall and been driven home.
It was the first time Ian had leveled something approaching condemnation at anyone.
“Calail!”
From across the room, the Marchioness Leonard rose abruptly from her conversation with the noblewomen, calling out to her son.
The shock was evident enough that even from this distance, the color had drained from her face.
It was as though the son were dismantling from below everything the mother had so carefully built.
Yet Calail Leonard himself didn’t so much as blink.
“Just one minute. You can’t spare even that?”
He was relentless.
Either he knew what place this was, or from the moment she didn’t pull her wrist away, he’d decided they were alone.
Click-click-click. Hurried footsteps approached.
With each stride closer, another layer of the Marchioness Leonard’s composure stripped away.
She brought her fan down with precise force across Calail’s hand, then bowed deeply.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace. My son has committed a grave breach of conduct. I humbly ask your forbearance…….”
The apology that fell from the Marchioness’s lips was blunt in a way that seemed impossible for her to utter.
“I am not so foolish as to excuse my son’s romantic feelings in this setting. I shall ensure his Discipline is thorough…….”
“Discipline.”
A quiet voice threaded through with displeasure echoed across the room.
“At this point, I suspect Discipline is precisely what’s required, rather than mere education.”
The word *Discipline*—a rebuke—made the Marchioness’s grip on her fan tighten.
Throughout it all, Calail Leonard gazed at Vanessa with stubborn intensity.
His reddened hand unmarked, untouched—gray-tinged eyes steady and fixed.
As though nothing in this room mattered if only he achieved his aim.
“Why.”
It was not a question.
He was asking for a reason again.
“That excuse—it hardly qualifies as anything but a pretense, doesn’t it.”
His tone was one of absolute certainty: that Calail Leonard still hadn’t forgotten Vanessa Sharoze was not an excuse but a pretense.
“Answer me.”
Ian’s gold eyes fixed on Calail Leonard’s dull gaze.
“Is the five minutes you need for Vanessa, or for House Sharoze?”
At those words, Calail Leonard’s reddened hand trembled.
The question was whether he needed her as a former lover, or as house speaking to house.
If the former, his romantic feelings might pass as excuse; if the latter, it crossed the line into doubting House Leonard’s very standards of Etiquette.
The silence stretched on.
This was not the atmosphere that should precede the opening of a banquet.
At that moment, the sound of a door opening echoed from the highest level of the hall.
There were only two people in The Empire who could emerge from there.
Tap. Tap.
With each step that struck the floor, weight settled into the rhythm of the footfall.
From the highest point, gazing down upon the lowest, the Emperor of the Decart Empire revealed himself.
“That’s rather excessive for a greeting we receive every year.”
Behind the Emperor, Tesse emerged. The Third Princess stood quietly at his side.
Silence descended as heavily as the Emperor’s footsteps.
“Show proper etiquette.”

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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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