The Husband I Thought Was Dead Has Returned - Chapter 56

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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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The Husband Who Should Have Died Returns Episode 056
And the knights were watching the scene unfold.
“Is His Grace truly such a man?”
“What do you mean?”
“He seems almost like an ordinary human, doesn’t he? I always thought blue blood flowed through a Duke’s veins.”
“Blue blood? That’s nonsense. We’re all the same humans in the end.”
“…It does seem like something has changed since the Duchess arrived.”
“Again, again. You’re reading too much into it. It’s not that—it’s the Young Lord Hayden…!”
“You don’t recognize that look in his eyes, do you?”
“Well, he’d have to have experienced love to understand. You’ll see—this fellow’s a lifelong bachelor, a lifelong bachelor!”
“What’s a lifelong bachelor?”
“Someone who’s been single their whole life.”
“That was supposed to be a secret!”
The knights grumbled amongst themselves.
Borgus stood among them, watching Cherez. The knights were right.
From this distance, I could see it even more clearly. Cherez was smiling more freely beside Roana than anyone else.
‘He’s smiling.’
Borgus turned the words over in his mind.
Since the Previous Duke’s death, he had lost his voice and lost his laughter. Cherez had managed to live like a human being only for Hayden’s sake.
For Cherez, who had no attachment to his own life and lived solely to repay a debt, a warm ray of sunlight seemed to have seeped through.
Borgus drew in a breath.
Spring seemed to be seeping into him as well.
Borgus’s gaze fixed upon Roana. And upon Hayden cradled in her arms.
The child was laughing without any guard.
Children are sensitive and can recognize dangerous people, they say. Hayden was completely at ease in front of Roana.
Borgus pressed his hand to his forehead.
Roana had already seeped into their hearts long ago. Without anyone noticing. Borgus now had one more person he must serve with loyalty.

* * *
Despite the gentle spring weather, the air permeating the reception room was glacial. The moment I saw the two visitors guided in by Yureain, I held my breath.
They were Linnen’s parents—the Bruarte Couple. Like those who had endured the harsh northern winds, their knuckles were thick and rough, their faces weathered and gaunt. The instant they stepped into the room, they spotted Linnen sitting on the sofa.
“…Linnen!”
The Bruarte Countess shrieked and rushed toward her daughter. Linnen attempted to rise but seemed to lose all strength, sinking back down. The Bruarte Countess embraced her daughter as though she might shatter.
The Bruarte Count stood beside them, unable to meet his daughter’s gaze directly, his fists clenched so tightly they trembled.
The moment Linnen fell into the Bruarte Countess’s arms, she burst into tears. Only the sound of bestial, wrenching sobs escaped her.
Ragged breathing and wet coughing echoed hollowly through the room.
This was what Duchess Petunia had done. Pushing an entire family into the abyss. And there she remained, living in comfort and plenty.
“How did this happen? What occurred? Tell me. Dorote said it was merely an accident.”
After a long reunion of tears, Linnen seemed to steel herself, her trembling hands reaching for a pen with determination. Her eyes shone with an intensity I had never witnessed before—she had found courage in her parents’ embrace.
[That’s not true, Mother.]
The Bruarte Couple’s gaze fixed upon Linnen’s first sentence. She pressed each letter into the paper with such force it seemed the pen might pierce through.
[That morning… I was returning after meeting with Yureain. I simply thought, as she suggested, that Duchess Petunia and Duchess Roana might reconcile.]
Linnen sniffled.
[I only accepted some sweets and delivered what Duchess Petunia said. But on my way back, Dorote seized me. She took the purse from my laundry basket and dragged me to Duchess Petunia.]
Linnen’s hands shook so violently the paper crumpled. Tears and ink mingled, smudging her words. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. What followed was a cruelty beyond imagination.
[Dorote seized me, and she herself thrust something like a silver needle directly into my tongue. Before I could even scream, she laughed and said I would make a fine gift. I still don’t understand what she meant. She never explained. I lost consciousness, and when I woke, no one was there… my tongue felt wrong.]
Linnen wept again, and still more tears seemed to flow from depths she thought exhausted.
“…!”
A bestial cry tore from the Bruarte Countess’s throat.
Duchess Petunia. That woman, having lost Morigan, had let her poison rise to such heights that she committed such atrocities against a child. Perhaps Yureain had even provided the initial pretext.
But no one had ordered Duchess Petunia to render this child mute. The image of Duchess Petunia’s face rose before me, and nausea surged upward.
The Bruarte Count turned toward me, supporting his collapsing wife. His eyes had already lost all reason. In those trembling pupils burned only one thing—a bloodthirsty thirst for vengeance.
“I acknowledge that I provided the pretext. But this was never justified punishment.”
Everyone plants informants and buys loyalty to gather intelligence. But not everyone resorts to such methods. Especially without even hearing the other side. This showed no respect for the Bruarte Family whatsoever.
“First, I apologize for attempting to use Linnen.”
“…She said she didn’t want to go.”
The Count’s sudden words made me furrow my brow in confusion.
“I pushed Linnen’s back when she said she didn’t want to go. I demanded what she could possibly fear when the Duchess would protect her. I thought she could advance in the world. I told my daughter, who still had no betrothed, that this was an investment in her future. That she would return without incident.”
As the Count continued, Linnen’s sobs grew louder.
“We are all perpetrators.”
The Count suddenly dropped to his knees before me. No—he nearly threw himself to the ground.
“Your Grace. Use us. Not as lowborn servants of the North, but as beasts that will tear out that woman’s throat. If you will only grant us vengeance against Duchess Petunia, I will offer not merely this life, but my very soul.”
When he lifted his head with bloodshot eyes, there remained neither dignity nor pride. Only rage and desperation churned within them.
“She is our hard-won daughter. We swore to give her only the best in this world. I submitted to those wretches for Linnen’s sake… and my child, who left whole, has lost her tongue.”
I had known, in some form, that poison must have been used. Mixed into food or dissolved in water. I had assumed it would be something like that.
But to pierce her tongue directly with a needle was torture pure and simple. To pry open a seventeen-year-old’s mouth, seize her tongue, and drive a needle through it. I could feel the terror Linnen must have experienced.
The Bruarte Countess covered her mouth and turned away.
“After doing this to my daughter… I cannot forgive those who departed as though nothing had happened. They told me my daughter was ill and could not attend!”
I met the Count’s gaze. Beneath the sorrow lay something else—a sharp, burning emotion.
“According to Linnen, the Duchess is a different person. She walks a different path than the Duchess of Hejest. I know how she treats her own daughters.”
Flames ignited in the Count’s eyes.
“The Duchess truly regards the Duchess of Hejest as her enemy, then?”
There is a saying: a person reaps what they sow. Duchess Petunia would face the reckoning for her misdeeds—inevitably.
I nodded.
“It seems the Count and I share the same purpose.”

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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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