My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 21

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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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Episode 21
Chapter 3. Upheaval (1)
Seliah dreamed of an old memory.
A dream from when she and Lucius were roughly eighteen years old.
It was a summer day when a cool breeze warmed the dew clinging to grass blades and scattered it away.
The hunting grounds lay in the Grayden Prairie region.
From afar drifted the low baying of hounds mixed with the sound of hoofbeats striking earth. Red banners fluttered in the wind, and warm sunlight flowed slowly through the assembled crowd—a peaceful afternoon.
Crack!
“Lucius Windmere.”
The air split with a heavy sound.
“You know why I’m doing this, don’t you?”
The small rabbits darting through the meadow froze in alarm at her cutting tone. Even the birds above the grassland fell silent as if their wings had folded, yet none of them could stop her fury.
Standing at the center of it all, Lucius’s head turned only slightly; his frame remained utterly still.
“I’ve no idea why. But striking me without warning?”
A red mark bloomed faintly across Lucius’s cheek.
Though he could have avoided it, he had not. Instead, he merely tilted his head the slightest degree.
“Hardly the sort of thing a lady would do, is it?”
His voice spread with crystalline clarity, like a single drop of water falling into glass.
His affected refinement had always grated on her.
“I’ve never been a lady in front of you, Lucius Windmere.”
“Then it’s a relief. I’ve never been a gentleman in front of you either, it seems.”
Their gazes locked in the empty space between them, neither yielding an inch. Lucius laid words upon that silence.
“And I’m grateful it wasn’t a fist.”
Insufferable bastard, Seliah thought, clenching her jaw hard enough to hear the grinding of her teeth.
It was the first time she had ever raised a hand to him amid all their clashes. But she could not contain herself after hearing the news. Every shred of dignity and shame had been devoured by her fury, leaving nothing but ash.
“You broke Lord Chaepler’s left leg yesterday, didn’t you?”
Her toes struck the dry earth with a soft crunch.
“You’re not going to deny knowing that, are you?”
She stepped close to him, tilting her chin up, her eyes blazing like a mountain set ablaze.
“Chaepler…?”
Lucius’s brow furrowed.
Sifting through the gaps in his memory, he soon hummed as if solving a tiresome puzzle.
“Ah, the young lord of House Palotin. The one you were rumored to be in marriage negotiations with.”
He exhaled slowly, half a beat behind.
As if considering something, Lucius’s gaze traveled down from top to bottom, raking over her with brazen thoroughness.
“If you raised your hand against me because of that man,”
His lips moved faintly as he breathed out slowly.
“I’m disappointed. Seliah Brickwell.”
Seliah bit her lip hard.
His calm eyes lingered for quite some time on her trembling mouth.
“You…”
Under the weight of his probing stare, Seliah’s voice dropped lower deliberately.
“You think I’m doing this because of some marriage prospect I barely know?”
In answer, he pressed the soles of his feet firmly to the ground, letting his silence speak.
“How many times does this make?”
She pressed down on his shoulder with slender, white fingers wrapped in thin gloves.
“I’ve tolerated your interference in my affairs more than once or twice. But surely—have you been moving so freely these days between common folk and the gentry? Do you have a lover among them? Is that why you’re so displeased that I’m conducting marriage negotiations with someone of my own rank?”
“Seliah Brickwell.”
Unlike her, who wore her emotions openly like a child, he gazed down at the small hand pressing against his shoulder with measured composure.
Lucius’s eyes narrowed sharply.
Without expression, he slowly raised his hand. His palm pressed down on the back of her hand, his fingers wrapping around each one of hers, seizing her wrist with deliberate restraint.
“At least, the people who suit me have more dignity than your would-be fiancé.”
He let silence feel like mockery, rolling each word slowly on his tongue.
“Really? Your definition of dignity is breaking the legs of your fiancées whenever you take a dislike to them?”
The knuckles of her fist whitened in his grip.
“Seliah, I’m no longer certain there’s any value in continuing this conversation.”
“I feel the same way.”
He released a sound like a sigh and let the tension drain from his hands.
Seliah wrenched her hand free with visible displeasure. The friction of skin against skin scraped sharply between them.
He lowered his gaze for a moment, staring at his open palm. Flexing and relaxing his hand, he drew a sharp breath through his lips before his eyes returned to her.
“There was a reason for what I did to that man.”
Choosing his words carefully, he peeled off the glove that had touched her skin.
The leather slid across his fingertips with a sound that rang strangely clear.
“But I see no reason to explain it to you. That’s all I have to say.”
With those words, he threw the glove carelessly to the side.
“You took the slap. Be satisfied with that.”
Having finished, he turned on his heel. His black coat flared behind him as he walked away.
Seliah stood frozen, watching the direction in which he had vanished.
“Ha…!”
And that same afternoon.
Seliah’s knight drew a bow on Lucius’s servant.
Publicly, the excuse was mistaken identity during the hunt.
But Lucius could hardly have failed to understand the meaning of the deep wound that had torn the servant’s left leg.
As dusk fell.
Lucius came to find her.
More precisely, when all the lamps had been extinguished and Seliah, groping through the darkness, had missed her footing and fallen, he appeared through the dark before her.
“Seliah Brickwell.”
She pushed herself up on her hands and lifted her head.
Bathed in moonlight, Lucius walked slowly toward her and brought his shoe down on the hem of her dress. The fabric resisted as if it would tear, then crumpled smoothly beneath his weight.
“You…!”
He shifted his weight subtly, pinning her attempted rise.
“Stay still.”
Lucius lowered his upper body.
Moonlight fell along his shoulders, casting a long, deep shadow over her. That shadow covered her collarbone and chest slowly, as if it possessed substance of its own.
“Stop doing pointless things like this.”
The injured leg was the left one. Of all things.
“You broke my fiancée’s leg first, and now you’re performing gentlemanly restraint? How pathetic.”
“As you’ve never been a lady to me, I’ve no need to be a gentleman to you.”
Delicate fabric cried out as if stifled, and that cry vibrated the very air between them.
Seliah trembled, glaring up at him.
“Know your place, Seliah Brickwell.”
A vicious contempt took possession of her body.
***
Seliah awoke from the unpleasant dream slowly, opening her eyes.
Dawn light seeped through the window gaps, filling the room. The brightness made her instinctively squint.
‘Where am I?’
Her mind was a swamp.
Thought sank slowly like marsh mud, and the back of her head throbbed dully. Particularly, the pillow seemed unusually hard; her neck had stiffened from the discomfort of the night.
‘Even for a cheap inn, they shouldn’t be using stone for a pillow.’
Seliah furrowed her brow and felt the pillow’s texture with her fingertips.
It was firm and strangely warm.
“Huh?”
A premonition of dread struck, and her head turned reflexively. Her lower lashes fluttered upward as her eyes flew open.
A scene too impossible even for a dream lay before her.
Morning light poured through the gap in the curtains. A thin ray traced down his forehead and pooled above his high bridge of his nose.
“No…!”
This couldn’t be real.
How had they both ended up lying on this narrow bed, where had last night’s memories gone, every question crumbled faster than sand.
In their place, shock and panic flooded deep into her heart.
When she twisted her body, his arm draped across her abdomen stirred. His arm muscle tightened solidly, pressing her movements down with heavy weight.
“Mm.”
Disturbed from his sleep, a soft sound brushed past his lips. Seliah went rigid as if feeling a wild beast’s breath at her very ear.
His arm even shifted unconsciously, drawing her waist closer still.
“Lucius, Lucius—”
In an instant, their bodies pressed flush, and something that should not be touched made contact with her abdomen.
That which she dared not fathom its size was wedged between their bodies and—
“Wait…!”
In a silence so fragile that any breath might shatter it, her own breath caught in her chest.
She carefully lifted her head, and closed eyelids came into view.
“…”
Would pinching his nose wake him?
In the moment before her hand could reach out, sensing that something had gone terribly wrong—
Her vision spun without warning.
Two pale arms were caught fast in one of his hands, and the soft bed settled heavily behind her back.
His heavy weight pressed down across her hips, stealing her breath. Morning’s gentle shadow blanketed her, and laughed where the sun should be.
“You’ll tickle me if you move like that.”
One of her knees caught against his leg, and thin fabric slipped down below her thigh. At the same moment, her face flooded with alarm.
“Good morning, Seliah.”
Lucius tilted his weight-bearing body at an angle.
The bed sheets creased subtly, and beneath that weight, her body lay pitifully pinned.

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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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