My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 93

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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 93
Chapter 10. Lingering Thoughts (3)
It had been only a few nights since Celia’s rescue.
Chloe lay curled on the carpet in the center of her room, her nightgown scattered like fallen petals around her, her pale, slender fingers tracing the patterns on the floor with deliberate slowness.
“Ah, I really went and did it.”
The whisper escaped like a sigh.
Putting her hand on Celia’s carriage wheel had been pure impulse.
Contrary to Celia’s assumption, Chloe had bristled the moment she was summoned. How dare this woman who had been fortunate enough to stand at Lucius’s side presume to grant her an audience, as though bestowing a favor.
She simply couldn’t bear it, and so she’d acted.
“But who could have known that rockfall would come tumbling down?”
She pressed the edge of her thumbnail between her teeth.
The carefully painted pink chipped and cracked beneath her bite, betraying her anxiety. After gnawing at her nails for some time, she let out a long exhale.
“She must be dead.”
Of course she was. No one survived a fall from that cliff.
Early winter, snow falling. Below the cliff where beasts roamed. Unless someone wandered the ravine sleepless and crazed in search, Celia Brickwell could never return.
Then everything would be cleanly resolved.
Chloe pressed her cheek against the carpet.
“But what if, by some chance, she survived…?”
She rubbed her thumbnail with her damp lips. Unlike her trembling hands, her eyes gleamed with an odd brightness.
“It’s all right. Only I know that Lucius has lost his memory.”
If those facts came to light, if rumors spread that the sole heir of House of Windmere was unstable… the Imperial Court, the aging nobility, every gentleman of means would circle like wolves around that name.
She held that secret as though it were something precious.
A leash sweeter than love.
“Hehehehe.”
And just then, a young maid entered to clean the room.
The recently hired maid’s green eyes fixed on the blonde foreign man sprawled near the bed, and she flinched, but true to her training, she made no sound.
“Hello, are you the new girl?”
Chloe rose as though nothing had happened.
“Yes, miss.”
“Has anything arrived for me? Any letters?”
Her voice was warm as spring sunshine—quite unlike the barbaric tools scattered about the man, relics from the days of breaking in slaves.
“I’ll inquire and let you know, miss.”
Chloe found it privately galling that no letter from Lucius had come, but it didn’t matter.
‘He’s lost his memory, after all.’
As always, she lay back down, thinking of Lucius.
Life had always been tedious. So much so that she sometimes wished someone else would even breathe for her.
To young Chloe, who could muster interest in nothing, her mother had always whispered that like the princesses in fairy tales, a prince would one day appear and adorn her life with beautiful light.
The day she first saw Lucius, she understood.
He was the prince of her life.
‘He’s different from other boys.’
My prince—beautiful, noble, and perfect.
She had discovered love when he offered her his handkerchief and asked gently if she was all right. From that day on, his voice was lodged deep within her, immovable.
“I’m truly ready to devote everything to you.”
Chloe placed both hands over her heart.
Her nails dug into her skin with pressure, yet it didn’t hurt. If anything, even that pain was sweet.
“All you need do is come to me.”
The children of House of Brickwell were always obstacles to her love, but that was all right. This must be the hardship and adversity her mother spoke of.
“Ah! Or perhaps I should write to him first—!”
Chloe jerked upright, but the door flew open urgently.
“Miss—!”
“What?”
“Someone from the Imperial Court has arrived!”
Chloe’s flushed face went slowly rigid.
“The Imperial Court?”
The maid trembled at the doorway, her head bowed.
“I think you should come out for a moment.”
An ominous foreboding settled over her.
***
A reply had come from Evandor.
[ Wait a while. ]
A perfunctory letter, written as though by someone who’d learned the form from someone else.
“Wait?”
The meaning of those words became clear several days later, on a night when Lucius didn’t come home.
He’d sent word for Celia to slip out and meet him.
So she scaled the wall as she always did, avoiding watchful eyes.
“Ugh… brutally cold.”
The early winter air cut through her collar. Snow hung suspended in clouds, neither falling nor lifting, and only the musty smell of damp earth greeted her.
Once over the wall, Celia shook out her skirt roughly. In the distance, beyond where moonlight reached, a man in a dark coat stood waiting.
“Evandor.”
He lifted his head from gazing at his feet.
His face seemed paler than usual. There was something strange about how still he stood, but his gloved hands kept clenching and unclenching, the gesture catching her eye.
“Let’s walk for a bit.”
“I’d rather talk nearby.”
“I don’t like being near the Windmere estate. Let’s go farther away.”
Difficult as always.
Celia moved to stand beside her brother.
For a long time they walked in silence. Dry leaves beneath their feet made a wet, crushing sound.
“What did Father say?”
It was Celia who finally stopped and spoke.
“Is he lending you knights?”
Even if the other party was Larendel, the Marquis’s daughter, called the princess of the south, there were ways to manage if one was willing to resort to dirtier methods. She’d entertained no doubt that with just a little risk, that woman’s neck would fall into her hands.
But contrary to her expectations, Evandor stopped and answered late.
“No.”
“……Are you joking?”
At his blunt refusal, her face hardened for a moment before she extended her arm accusingly.
“I nearly died!”
His head jerked back at her sharp cry, and he raised his voice to match hers.
“Then what do you want me to do! Father said instead of you dying, we’d gain something from her family!”
……What?
The night air tunneled into her ears. Celia burned as though she’d swallowed molten metal.
“So my injury, my near death… that’s all the value it carries?”
Evandor lowered his head.
His gloved fists clenched tight. Celia watched the leather stretch taut across his knuckles, and a hollow laugh escaped her. Truly?
“Then I’m just supposed to forget revenge and stay like this?!”
How could Father be like this? Unable to fathom such news, Celia bit down on her lip.
Evandor watched her for a long time without speaking.
When Celia, overcome with anger, threw down the cloak she’d brought, his rough lips finally opened.
“No.”
Beneath the dim night light, he reclaimed a strange composure.
His hesitant mouth then gave way to a resolute voice, speaking his will.
“I’ll kidnap that woman myself.”
It was the first moment Evandor defied his father.
***
Father had chosen the family’s interests over her vengeance.
He would keep alive the woman who had harmed the eldest daughter of House of Brickwell, and weighed first what he might gain in exchange for that woman’s life.
That fact wouldn’t leave her mind. Nothing held her attention. She picked up her pen and watched only the ink blur; she turned pages and every word looked like the name Chloe Larendel.
“Ha…….”
Chloe, that creature Chloe Larendel.
She had no intention of granting her any peace through legal means.
She wanted to heap suffering upon suffering, until that woman regretted ever drawing breath.
“A woman I’d be satisfied to tear to shreds.”
Could she trust Evandor? If Father found out, he would never let it pass easily.
Celia emerged from her tangled thoughts and rose from her seat.
“Lucius was supposed to return at dawn today, wasn’t he?”
Of course she still had no intention of asking him for help.
But she needed to see his face now. Looking into those green eyes, she felt her seething rage would cool, even slightly.
Quick to act was Celia’s strength, so without hesitation she went to find him.
“Lu!”
She flung the door open and froze.
“Ah. Celia… didn’t I mention that we’d have a guest today?”
She gripped the doorknob tightly as she took in the unfamiliar noble men seated in his study—faces she’d glimpsed before but for whom she cared not a whit.

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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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