My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 72

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

Episode 72
Chapter 8. Awakening (2)
This is the worst.
I should never resort to that pathetic trick of borrowing alcohol’s strength again.
Not if I want to avoid hearing such strange things.
“……Who is getting betrothed to whom?”
“The Young Count of Windmere and the Marquis’s daughter of Larendel…….”
“Am I still half-asleep?”
Sunlight was just pushing back the curtains. That hour when a pale gold gleam spread across the floor like licking tongues.
It was Lucius’s single sentence that shattered the silence of the Private Estate she loved.
“What are you talking about!”
“Calm down. Yes? Let’s calm down.”
Lucius tried to soothe Celia as she sprang from the bed like a fish cast ashore, gasping for breath, her eyes wide and round.
She didn’t even have time to feel her face burn at the memory of everything she’d poured out to Lucius last night.
“Why would Evandor marry that woman!”
What wretched news was this!
The tangles in her hair and the wrinkles in her nightgown hardly mattered. At this moment, Celia’s face was one ready to sink her teeth into someone.
Finally, she rose from the bed and began pacing the room.
Bare feet crossed back and forth over the cold marble. Lucius hastily removed his own slippers to offer them, but Celia only glared at the crown of his bowed head while gripping her own spinning skull.
“Are you insane?”
“Celia. Calm down.”
What could anyone do about it?
That wretched woman from Larendel and Evandor?
“Do I look calm right now!?”
Lucius had no choice but to follow her with his eyes as she cut across the room.
Celia seemed like someone with one foot already planted on a battlefield. Pace, stop, walk a few more steps, turn around again.
Finally, she suddenly lifted her head.
“This won’t do.”
“Celia?”
She hastily threw on the outer robe she’d left by the bed, tying the sash carelessly—the knot came out slightly crooked, but she had no mind for such things.
“I need to go see Evandor.”
As she turned toward the door, Lucius quietly stepped into her path.
“And what would you do there?”
“I need to know how this situation is unfolding!”
“Let me look into it first. How far the betrothal talks have progressed, who proposed first. We can move once we’ve confirmed those facts.”
He seemed composed, but his true thoughts were even harder to read than usual.
“That’s too late.”
Though his tone was soft, almost coaxing, Celia cut him off immediately.
“If Father decides, it’s done. Once Father makes up his mind, no one can overturn it. Even when we—”
She stopped there.
Realizing her mistake, Celia went rigid. She froze, trembling, then glanced sideways at Lucius, rolling only her eyes upward.
His gaze deepened, but he asked nothing.
“You have work today anyway. I’m going, so don’t try to stop me.”
Fearful he might press the matter, Celia reached out first.
She pushed him and Lucius stepped back half a pace. Without hesitation, she yanked the door open. In the hallway, servants appeared, having rushed at the commotion.
She drew in the cool morning air and shouted.
“Prepare the carriage!”
***
“Young Lady!”
Before the Main Gate of House of Brickwell.
The iron gate was crowned with intertwined ornaments that gleamed in the sunlight.
Standing beneath the razor-sharp iron bars, Celia stood out starkly against that cold landscape.
“Open the gate.”
“Ah……! Yes, understood!”
The guard fumbled, bowing in haste.
The gate, firmly shut until that moment, swung open with a ponderous sound. The threshold—which demanded bloodline, rank, and justification—accepted Celia without hesitation as a direct bloodline member.
“Young Lady!”
The Old Butler was the first to rush forward.
On the day she came into the world, his gray hair—once trembling as he hovered behind the midwife—fluttered in the breeze.
Celia crossed her arms and lowered her gaze lightly.
“At your age, you should be careful. If your knees go from running like that, does Father really cover the surgery fees?”
“My goodness… would it be just surgery fees? I’ll make sure to tuck away my severance package for the day I can’t walk anymore, so don’t you worry.”
A smile bloomed across the old man’s face, lined like ancient wood.
Celia said nothing more and flicked her hand.
“Well, that’s fortunate. More importantly, get Evandor for me. I know it’s the time when he’s sprawling in bed. Just drag him out.”
***
The door opened.
Celia, seated in the familiar Reception Room chair, lifted her head.
Evandor stood leaning against the door frame at an angle, grinning. Two of his shirt buttons were undone from the top, and a languid shadow fell beneath his broad collarbones.
He smiled as he rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand, as though rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“What brings you here, Sister?”
Watching Evandor’s lazily curved lips, Celia crossed her legs and let her foot dangle.
“As you said, I’m still ‘of House of Brickwell.’ So there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to come and go in my own home, is there?”
Evandor pushed off from the doorframe. As he approached, his shirt tails hung loosely from his waist. He swept back his hair with his fingertips and smiled, his brow furrowed.
“So. What is it you want to say? Ah, there’s no need to ask why you came, is there? You must have heard about my betrothal.”
Sitting across from her, he hooked his arm over the sofa’s backrest and tilted his head.
“How convenient that you already know why I came. So, you’re really going to marry that mad woman from House of Larendel?”
Celia pressed her palm against the table and rose.
Her movement made Evandor’s head follow upward.
“Yeah, that’s how it’s turned out.”
“Don’t you know what kind of woman Chloe is?”
“I know well enough. Better than you do, probably.”
A strange gloss flickered in his eyes.
Beneath the skillful tone lay a handful of exasperation and simmering rage, made no effort to conceal.
“You said yourself she’s pretty but eccentric. That there’s something strange about her, here, here.”
Evandor touched his temple.
The corners of his mouth that had been angled up unpleasantly had long since fallen.
Before Claire took issue with Celia, the Evandor of ages past had approached Claire. It was evidence of where the father’s shameful womanizing—which Evandor could not respect—came from.
But Chloe was the only woman from whom Evandor, whose nature made him reluctant to let go once fixed on something, had recoiled in disgust.
“That woman is a fanatic of Lucius.”
His gaze slid downward and then rose again.
“She and that brain-broken Lucius deserve each other.”
Evandor lifted his chin as though to say ‘see how ridiculous,’ and Celia maintained her cold expression deliberately. His eyes grew chill at the sight.
“And yet you’re going to marry that woman?”
Evandor’s expression turned savage for a moment.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaced. The muscle in his forearms was clearly defined.
“Sister. You still don’t understand why I’m angry?”
Celia’s brow moved subtly.
“Chloe isn’t the one who initiated the betrothal proposal. She isn’t trying to approach me with some hidden agenda.”
“How can you be sure—”
“Because Father is the one who initiated it.”
Silence fell.
Evandor tilted his head back and let out a hollow laugh, while Celia, struggling to process words she didn’t understand, reacted a beat too late.
“……What?”
“Right now, there’s no better match for us than House of Larendel. And Larendel’s marquis is thrilled to send me his daughter who’s so mad she won’t even betrothed and just chases after some married man’s coattails.”
He gestured into the air as if sketching calculations with his fingertips.
“Do you know why Father suddenly wants to marry me off?”
“…….”
“Even though you’ve elevated House of Brickwell by leaking Windmere’s intelligence, Windmere’s position is actually rising through you, who bears the Brickwell name.”
The cold warning hidden beneath his casual words was enough to stiffen the once-angry Celia.
Evandor’s eyes flashed.
“He told me to seduce that man and make Windmere yours. When did he ever ask me to fall for Lucius Windmere and play at some pathetic love game?”
“That’s not what—!”
“If it’s not!”
Evandor rose from his seat with a raised voice.
The sofa slid backward with a dull scraping sound.
“Then why are you doing nothing!”
Evandor’s shoulders heaved as he trembled with anger, so much like Celia when she raged that she could easily gauge how furious he was now.
“Logistics Commission Documents are one thing, but other than when you drove out that bastard child last time, you’ve sent no word at all!”
“Evandor Brickwell!”
“Can you even claim to be of House of Brickwell acting like this!”
Celia bit her lip. The full lip quickly drained of color.
Evandor pressed his face close. Blue eyes tangled with disappointment, exasperation, and the last of his hopes, reflected the two of them like a mirror.
“Choose. Us, or that damned Lucius of Windmere.”

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