I Ended Up Snatching a Marriage With the Male Lead! - Chapter 82

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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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I’d rushed into a shotgun marriage with the male lead.
Episode 82

“Um, Your Grace.”
At that, Kaiden lifted his head.
Only then did he seem to register Emilia’s presence, and he made a sound.
“Why are you in my room……?”
Flinch.
Emilia hesitated as their eyes met. For some reason, Kaiden looked a bit sharper than usual.
“Oh, well…… I was wondering if you were all right.”
Beyond that, noticing his downcast gaze, Emilia faltered and gestured at his clothes.
“But I think it would be better if you removed that jacket before sleeping…….”
He frowned, then answered a beat too slowly.
“The jacket, you mean.”
“Yes.”
As Emilia nodded, he yanked off his jacket with an air of annoyance and tossed it to the floor.
“Done.”
“And, um, the cravat too.”
He sighed shortly at her words, then undid his cravat.
Though Kaiden grumbled, he obediently followed her instructions.
“Now go back to your room.”
“All right.”
She quickly nodded and turned to leave, then stopped short.
For some reason, she remembered the day she had attended the princess’s tea party—how he’d rushed back to worry over her.
“By the way, Your Grace.”
Emilia called to him carefully and crouched down in front of Kaiden.
“Did something happen?”
“Something happen……?”
Kaiden narrowed his brow as if pondering something, answering slowly.
“Yes…… it did.”
At his affirmation, Emilia’s eyes widened. So there really was something troubling him.
After a moment’s hesitation, she spoke.
“Would you mind telling me about it? I’m happy to listen.”
Then he, who had been silent, spoke in a voice even more subdued than usual.
“People I don’t know the face of disgust me, and people whose faces I do know irritate me equally.”
At his words, Emilia’s lips parted slightly.
‘……What on earth happened today to make him say something like that?’
It sounded almost like a case of misanthropy.
The butler, who had watched over him for so long, had been right to worry. His state was concerning.
Soon his voice drifted down from above her head again.
“What am I supposed to do in a situation like this?”
“……Sorry?”
At a question he would never normally ask, Emilia looked up in confusion.
Yet he seemed to genuinely need an answer, waiting patiently for her response.
‘So he ran into someone unpleasant, then?’
Emilia thought hard, then opened her mouth.
“It differs from person to person, but in my case…… spending time with good people—people I care about—helps lift my spirits.”
Including Ivan, simply being around the people of the ducal household, those I enjoy being with, made the words and actions Cedric had spoken fade naturally from my mind.
But Kaiden let out a quiet laugh.
“That’s a fine method, certainly—”
And as he gazed down at Emilia, he spoke a beat too slowly, almost murmuring.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a method I can use.”
“I see.”
At what seemed like a dismissive response, Emilia lowered her head, looking slightly dejected.
Then, from above her, came a voice tinged with something like displeasure.
“Don’t sit on the cold floor.”
“……?”
At the same moment, he lifted Emilia lightly and set her on the bed.
Emilia blinked at the sudden turn of events.
“You shouldn’t put a lady on cold floors,” he said.
His words jogged her memory of something Kaiden had mentioned before.

“I was told not to let dust touch a lady’s feet.”

Where on earth did he hear such things?
The phrase about not putting a lady on cold floors was the sort of thing one heard among commoners of the Empire. Noblewomen, after all, would never sit on the floor in the first place.
By his expression, he was certainly drunk.
“Yet you’re still being so earnest about it,” Emilia said, breaking into a laugh.
At that, Kaiden’s jaw tightened, and a suppressed sound escaped him.
“Don’t laugh.”
“Why not? Whoever told you that said a lady shouldn’t laugh? That seems rather odd to me.”
To her playful tone, his low voice returned.
“No. It’s not that.”
So saying, Kaiden braced himself on either side of her with his hands and slowly leaned in.
Pressed by the man drawing close, Emilia found herself nearly lying back.
“…….”
Startled, Emilia blinked.
“And didn’t I just tell you to go back to your room?” Kaiden murmured as a warning, his voice low.
Emilia’s shoulders gave a little flinch.
“Y-yes, I will.”
Emilia nodded, her expression bemused.
She moved to slip off the bed to comply with his request, but—
“Um, Your Grace…….”
Kaiden’s arms blocked either side of her firmly, making escape impossible.
Just as Emilia was about to ask him to move them—
Thump.
“……Your Grace?”
Emilia called out bewilderedly to the man who had collapsed onto her.
But all that came from him was the sound of deep, measured breathing.
She called to him again, but he didn’t stir.
Staring blankly at the ceiling for a moment, Emilia let out an exasperated laugh.
‘Wait, didn’t he just tell me to go back to my room?’
What was she supposed to do with a man so contradictory in word and deed?
She let out a small sigh, then frowned.
‘He’s…… so heavy…….’
The unconscious man’s body was remarkably heavy.
‘Why does he have to collapse on top of people the moment he loses consciousness……?’
Naturally, her mind drifted back to their first meeting.
He’d been unconscious then too, and had pinned her down just the same.
“This is seriously a bad habit,” Emilia said in a sulky voice, gazing at Kaiden’s sleeping face.
His brow was still furrowed.
Of course, his handsome features prevented it from being an actual flaw, but she found herself thinking his brow would look better relaxed.
‘Ah, this isn’t the time for that.’
Emilia tore her gaze away from him.
She tried to push his arms and shoulders aside and wriggle free from beneath him.
‘He’s not budging at all…….’
After grunting through a few more attempts, she finally gave up.
‘I managed to escape last time, didn’t I……?’
Come to think of it, she must have summoned some superhuman strength then, desperate to survive the immediate danger.
Unable to help it, Emilia resolved to wake Kaiden instead.
“Hey, Your Grace, Your Grace?”
Raising her voice, she called to him several more times, and Kaiden finally showed a faint reaction.
He let out a low murmur and shifted restlessly.
Emilia seized the moment to try to break free—
But her restless squirming seemed to displease him, for he suddenly pulled her closer into his embrace.
“……!”
Emilia’s eyes went wide, and she made a startled sound.
“……What—what are you doing!”
Yet Kaiden only tightened the arm wrapped around her waist.
Emilia felt her body instinctively shrink back against his strength.
‘How—how can a sleeping man have such strength!’
The more she pushed, the more he pressed her to him.
“…….”
In the end, Emilia had no choice but to settle quietly in his embrace.
Only then, seeming satisfied, did Kaiden relax his grip.
Emilia found herself at a loss for words.
‘He’s treating me like some sort of doll to cuddle while he sleeps.’
If I’d known this would happen, I should have brought all those dolls I’d made with Ivan and just tossed them into his arms instead.
Through the thin shirt, his hard body pressed against her fully.
With her eyes squeezed shut, Emilia mentally chided him inwardly.
‘And half-naked at that…….’
Then she realized it was she who had dressed him in just his thin shirt.
‘I should have left him to catch a cold for all I care.’
Either way, she accepted the reality that escape from Kaiden was impossible.
And to avoid further agitating him, she remained still within his arms.
Earnestly hoping that, as he slipped deeper into sleep, he would finally relax his grip.

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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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