The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 289
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Side Story. Kanaelle and Adrian ⑶
“Let go! Let go of this!”
“I thought you were being docile-!”
Kanaelle grabbed a decorative item from the nightstand and struck Ricardo’s head with it.
“Argh!”
Ricardo clutched his forehead and stepped back.
Kanaelle rushed out of the bedroom and hooked a candlestick from the wall onto the door handle.
“Open the door! You crazy woman! You can’t keep the door closed!”
Soon, banging sounds began coming from beyond the door.
Seeing cracks forming in the wooden door handle, Kanaelle turned and began running.
Marriage, they said. Honeymoon, they said.
She had already told the servants working at the manor to return to their quarters early and rest.
If the commotion continued, someone would come out to check, but what Kanaelle feared was this immediate moment.
“Kanaele Victor! Stop right there!”
Just as she turned the corner, the bedroom door opened.
Kanaelle hurriedly descended the stairs and fell to the floor with three steps remaining.
When she got up, blood was flowing from her knee.
“Kanaele Victor! Come on, let’s just talk!”
She didn’t stop and ran outside the manor.
As soon as she stepped out, the garden that her father had personally hired gardeners to beautifully arrange greeted her.
“…Ha.”
Tears welled up again.
Running away from her husband wasn’t just because she was afraid of what that man might do to her.
It was because she was ashamed and embarrassed of herself for only now facing that man’s true nature.
Ricardo Heyton was poor, but he was the second son of a prestigious marquis family.
All his brothers held important positions in the Imperial Court, and even the branch family members were famous in various fields.
Kanaelle had thought Ricardo was quiet but honest, awkward at expressing himself but warm-hearted.
No.
She had been making hasty judgments.
“Kanaelle! Kanaele Victor!”
Kanaelle hid behind the bushes while listening to Ricardo’s voice.
She planned to catch a carriage to Victor’s Town House once her husband moved away.
But her vision kept blurring from the continuously flowing tears.
“Ha… Kanaelle. Fine. I think I got too excited. Let’s not do this and solve it through conversation. This makes me look like such a terrible guy.”
From a distance, Ricardo pleaded in a softened voice.
Still, her violently beating heart showed no signs of calming down.
‘Why am I like this, so foolishly.’
The empty chair came to mind.
That seat from this afternoon, where the food placed in front hadn’t been touched.
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
I shouldn’t have sent Adrian a wedding invitation.
She thought that if she got married as quickly as possible, if she acted more cruelly and harshly, that child would also overcome it and rise up.
She thought he would realize that everything he was desperately clinging to now was just a momentary whim, a passing emotion.
“Kanaelle! I said I’m sorry! Please, let’s just talk!”
Kanaelle finally collapsed completely where she sat.
Tears dripped onto the dark night’s lawn.
“Kanaelle. There’s no tree that can live without sunlight.”
Those were words Adrian had said two years ago.
Looking back, Adrian had always been consistent.
Since he was seven years old, he said he would marry her, and he habitually muttered that he would stay by her side for life.
When Adrian could no longer be called a child, Kanaelle felt it too.
The meaning contained in Adrian’s words.
‘But how could such a thing be possible.’
Kanaelle was someone who remembered even the moment Adrian was born.
So she pushed him away.
“Adrian, I’m the person who raised you.”
“I know.”
“I’m like your parent. I’m like your family, like your sister, you know?”
But Adrian spoke with eyes that showed not an inch of wavering.
“But you’re not, are you?”
“…What?”
“In the end, you’re not my parent or my sister. We’re strangers with not a drop of blood shared between us.”
Hearing those words, her heart sank.
Adrian at that time was already an adult who didn’t need a guardian.
That child was already doing well in his role as Duke Hunt, as an Imperial Noble of the Empire.
‘Since I had finished raising him, since I had been his support until he grew up as promised. It was really time to let him go.’
For some reason, Kanaelle found the Hunt Ducal Family, where she lived with Adrian, to feel peaceful.
It was so warm and comfortable that she almost had the illusion that place had originally been her home.
“Kanaelle! Come out here!”
So she searched for a husband even more desperately.
She felt that if she stayed like this, something really terrible would happen.
Adrian came looking for her several times saying they should talk, but she turned away.
She finally met him again a month ago when all the wedding preparations were being finalized.
That day Adrian said.
That he would give up.
That he would give up on his own, so she should stop getting married as if running away.
That it was okay if it wasn’t him, but she should meet a good husband, not just anyone.
She curled up her body.
It was she who had sent Adrian a wedding invitation after all that.
“Kanaelle! Kanaelle!”
It was the moment when she was burying her head endlessly between her knees.
“…Kanaelle.”
Suddenly, a voice that wasn’t her husband’s reached her ears.
Kanaelle let out a long breath.
‘Now I’m even hearing hallucinations.’
It must be because of the guilt from doing something terrible to Adrian.
But.
“Kanaelle.”
When the voice came again, her thoughts stopped abruptly.
Adrian’s voice was too vivid to be a hallucination.
She slowly raised her head.
And as soon as she confirmed Adrian standing before her eyes, she froze in place.
“…Yan?”
“What exactly are you doing here?”
Adrian’s attire was slightly disheveled, as if he had just climbed over the wall.
“Today was your wedding, and the bride who should be enjoying her honeymoon.”
He gazed at Ricardo, who was searching for her in the distance.
“Why are you hiding here dressed like this?”
Only then did Kanaelle realize what she was wearing and wrapped her arms around herself.
Having rushed out of the bedroom, she was wearing only a thin slip.
Adrian immediately began unbuttoning his uniform jacket.
He draped the jacket over her shoulders and extended his hand.
“Let’s go.”
“Wh-where to?”
“Weren’t you planning to go outside?”
Kanaelle closed her mouth.
That had been her initial intention.
But she didn’t want to do that in front of Adrian.
For reasons she couldn’t understand, she wanted to hide her current situation from Adrian, at least.
“…I, I’m fine.”
Adrian furrowed his brow.
“I’m really fine. We just had a little argument, and because of that…”
Kanaelle quickly rose from her spot.
“I, I should go. You should leave quickly too, or you might cause unnecessary misunderstandings.”
As she stood up, the jacket Adrian had given her fell to the floor.
Kanaelle looked at it and hurriedly stumbled out from between the bushes.
She could see Ricardo turning around after spotting her in the distance.
“Kanaelle!”
Her heart pounded thump, thump.
Her eyes were watching Ricardo approaching, but her attention was entirely focused behind her.
Had he climbed back over the wall and left?
Or was he still hiding in the bushes?
More than that, how had he gotten here?
Had he coincidentally heard Ricardo’s voice on his way to the Hunt Family Town House?
“Kanaelle! I’ve been looking for you for ages. How could you storm out of the room like that just because our argument got a bit heated!”
Whether he knew what was in her heart or not, Ricardo strode toward her.
Kanaelle barely managed to calm her breathing and said,
“…You’re being loud. Let’s go inside and talk.”
Just as she was about to take a step toward the manor,
“Just talk here, Kanaelle.”
She felt a careful touch grasping the area around her left wrist.
When she turned her head, Adrian was standing there in a composed posture.
His gaze was fixed on her wrist, which had turned red and bruised where Ricardo had grabbed it in the room earlier.
“I need to hear what kind of argument you had that made the bride run out of the bedroom on her wedding night.”
Adrian raised his head and smiled at Ricardo.
“Lord Hayton. Do you know something about this?”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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