The Contract Marriage for Attilenta's Revenge - Chapter 31

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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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Atilenta’s Contractual Marriage for Revenge — Episode 31
Moonlight poured down in the hour before dawn.
Watching Atilenta sleep, Henrik found himself recalling words that Barsha had spoken at the Celebration Banquet in Bwendia.
‘Brother, if you don’t acknowledge it, people will think something’s wrong.’
It had been when Atilenta excused herself, saying she needed rest, and Antonio soon after rose to converse with the other nobles.
Barsha, seated beside Henrik, had whispered those words softly. He had immediately ceased all his affected ease.
Atilenta’s ex-husband? He had never given him much thought. He had found it amusing that she seemed to dislike him so intensely.
Politically speaking, the Duke was simply a nation to be conquered. That was all he had considered him to be.
Barsha had pressed the matter further with Henrik, who had gone rigid.
‘Brother, you are listening to me, aren’t you?’
Henrik looked at his sister, whose amethyst eyes so resembled his own, now gleaming with unusual intensity. She had never spoken words that would harm him.
That Duke, for his part, had been playing at charm while reaching toward her.
Barsha had spoken like a priestess delivering prophecy. The Duke had entered the same room Atilenta had entered.
At first, Henrik had had no intention of going into that room immediately. If Atilenta bolted out at any moment, it would have made for quite an interesting sight.
But from his experience, she was not the type to do such a thing. He wanted to see how she would resolve this predicament on her own.
As her nominal husband, he had dutifully assigned a guard knight to her. The Duke of Prancia was no brigand, and there was no reason to fear crude misconduct at such a grand and dignified banquet.
Or so he had thought.
‘Your Highness, their conversation appears to be growing rather lengthy.’
According to Kobel, the knight watching her, the whispered exchange happening deeper within the room had been difficult to hear clearly.
Upon hearing this report, Henrik’s resolve hardened. Of course, this was something he would have to confirm himself.
So the moment the Duke emerged from the room, he went directly inside.
‘Your Highness…….’
The moment she turned around — pressed perilously against the window frame as if about to fall —
Henrik felt as though cold water had been poured over him, freezing him from the inside out.
It was, without question, an expression he had never seen before.
Why?
The impulsive words he could not bring himself to speak aloud circled in his mouth.
Had she not always been composed and measured? What on earth could have happened with her ex-husband to leave her face so flushed?
Images flashed rapidly through Henrik’s mind. From the day they first met, through the Wedding Night, through the marriage commemorative banquet, and even when he had tested her by asking whether her homeland was truly so hateful.
She had always presented herself with an unchanging composure, advancing her claims with restraint.
Nor had she done so only toward him. The daughter of a dignified noble house, the envoys who feigned courtesy, whoever challenged her — she had always responded with elegance and grace.
So she had no right to be standing there with that flushed, excited face.
The reason was painfully simple.
She had entered within the fence he had drawn around her.
Henrik glanced down at his aching hand. Without thinking, he had clenched it so tightly that his knuckles had turned red.
He crossed his arms to hide this from her, and forced himself to maintain an appearance of composure.
‘You were with the Duke. What were you discussing?’
When she offered an obvious lie, this feeling intensified. This could not be happening. He had never relinquished anything he held in his grasp.
The transaction between them had been simple enough, and easy for him to honor. He had gained much from it and thought it a fair arrangement.
A promise was something to be kept through mutual effort, so when he asked her anything, she ought never to fabricate lies.
Especially not when her face had flushed so intensely red.
So Henrik told himself, as he did now, that he was simply doing what he had to do.
That night, and again today, he had deliberately slept pressed against her side.
That first night had been because he was unusually conscious of her ex-husband, and today had been after realizing anew that she was not conscious of him at all.
He could have worked in his study, or even slept on the sofa away from the bed, as he always had.
But since there would be nothing ‘unusual’ about it anyway, sharing the bed together under the pretext of being husband and wife was equally possible.
Henrik lay watching her, his back not turned away, when a strange fragrance brushed against his nose.
It was too delicate to be called merely floral, yet too fresh to be called dry and lifeless.
He had the fleeting thought that it suited her.
Henrik slowly extended his hand and grasped the scattered strands of her hair across the blanket. She made soft breathing sounds in her sleep, and with each breath her slender back rose and fell gently.
Now that he thought about it, he remembered this fragrance from the Wedding Night as well.
There was something Henrik would tell neither Barsha nor anyone else.
‘So my sister-in-law has already claimed her place, is that it?’
‘Yes. And…….’
‘Hmm, that’s unlike you, brother — your words are growing muddled.’
She was a gentle woman. So much so that even Henrik himself had grown heated against his intention.
Too unprepared to suggest she had orchestrated everything in advance, yet too bold to suggest she had grasped at him as a last resort with nowhere else to turn.
Henrik had meant to teach her how defenseless her position truly was, the way she dared speak of preferences with such certainty. In the beginning, at least.
But when he pressed her relentlessly, she showed unexpected confusion, and that had proved quite entertaining. Even though it was she who had initiated the request.
It was she who had lost focus in the end, while he had become wholly absorbed.
That was how it had been then.
Henrik, watching over her as she occupied one edge of the bed that had belonged to him alone—her presence marked by a dry, subtle fragrance—suddenly found himself seized by curiosity.
Would it always be this way?
Henrik had already spoken of her in glowing terms to the knight he trusted and his closest sibling. Yet she had done no such thing regarding him.
Though given how earnestly she pursued her own aims, it made sense that she would have little interest in anything else.
A peculiar feeling settled over him. Henrik released a low, thoughtful sound.
“Hmm…….”
Truth be told, in all his years, no woman had ever been urgent to him, never caught his eye. He’d scarcely had the luxury for such concerns. How else could Barsha’s preoccupation have been with their marriage itself?
And yet here he was, standing before her and making excuses that there had been no time for such things.
Strangely enough, it did not displease him.
After a brief moment of deliberation, the faintest smile emerged. Like some unfamiliar emotion, it budded quietly within him.

* * *
At last the day came to visit the Temple in Bwendia. Riding in the carriage with Henrik, I gazed out the window. The snow-laden vegetation painted the landscape in white—a beautiful sight.
More than anything, I hoped I might grow more skilled in Magic.
As Poznan had told me, following on from the previous banquet, I was to meet with members of the royal household again.
Since this seemed to be a different sort of gathering from the grand and lavish affairs, I turned to Henrik with a question.
“Your Highness, I heard from Poznan that this gathering is quite important. Might I ask why there has been no occasion to visit until now?”
Henrik, seated across from me, looked directly at me and answered in detail.
“When we wed, I made an offering to Bwendia alone. The Temple does not hold large celebrations for such private matters.”
“Is that so? I wish I had gone with you. I would have liked to see it.”
Since he knew something of my Magic, I revealed my true feelings. Henrik’s soft lips curved upward slightly.
“I hadn’t known that. Your words have merit, though. Word of relief efforts through the Temple as winter approaches would certainly aid our standing. Yet there is no need for the Temple to make a great fuss over the royal marriage. The Ring alone carries meaning enough.”

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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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