The Male Lead Is Going Mad Searching for His Dead Wife, and I’m That Wife - Chapter 12

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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 male lead goes mad searching for his dead wife, and that wife is me. Chapter 012
Lucian’s head throbbed. The Duchess had gone out alone, without a single guard, and come back with sewing work?
What on earth were the gate guards doing?
“Princess.”
“Yes?”
“How exactly did you get out?”
“Through the gate, openly…?”
Lisana asked, as if she couldn’t see what was strange about it. Lucian’s gaze moved to the guards. Their heads drooped the moment they looked her way, which suggested they had not recognized her at all.
Who would have imagined the Duchess going out alone, dressed so plainly?
Truthfully, it was not something he could blame them for.
And then there was Laura’s Tailor Shop.
It was a place the Ducal House patronized. They used it because the owner was honest and forthright.
So she had really gone and taken on mending socks for pay?
“Is the allowance I gave you not enough?”
He asked in all seriousness. Lucian had set aside a generous budget in Lisana’s name.
He had also confirmed that not a single coin of it had been touched.
“No. It never even crossed my mind.”
“Then why on earth are you doing this?”
At that, Lisana rolled her eyes. Explaining the reason would mean spoiling the future, and she wasn’t sure that was wise.
If she honestly told him she planned to leave this place someday, all it would do was plant anxiety and distrust in their hearts.
Lisana blurred everything together and spoke in a small voice.
“Mm. A hobby?”
Lucian squeezed his eyes shut, exasperated beyond words.
Lisana had a knack for grating on his nerves in ways he never saw coming.
Her clear, lovely face and that glossy smile lingered in his mind like an afterimage.
Besides, no matter how much he pressed, he knew she would only come back with some reply that would leave him speechless.
‘It isn’t mine, is it.’
Lucian rubbed his face roughly, as if trying to wipe it dry. It irritated him in a strange way, and somehow it made his chest feel like it might burst. The clean line Lisana had drawn so plainly on her bright face kept gnawing at him.
That precarious line made him restless.
“Thank you for the stockings and socks you sent. I’ll wear them. But you don’t need to worry so much about me. I’m fine.”
Lucian bit down hard on his lip.
“If you’re fine, then wear them. Before I throw away every last one of those blasted socks.”
“…I’ll try.”
Lisana let out a faint sigh. From that stubborn expression, he understood: she would never bother to open his gifts and wear them. Just socks, after all. What was so important about them?
He had no idea yet. How much that word ‘I’m fine’ could drive a person insane.
* * *
“Your Highness, I have a report.”
His aide Theodore came into the study, looking troubled. He had gone into the city to trace Lisana’s movements and was now returning.
Lucian set down his quill and took a deep breath.
“Speak.”
“Yes. She really did stop by Laura’s Tailor Shop in the city. And she came away with work from them.”
“….”
“According to the owner, the Duchess even bargained over the wages, and quite skillfully at that. Six copper coins per shirt.”
Snap.
The quill in Lucian’s hand broke in two. Flustered, he even let out a cough.
“So now… my wife… is mending other people’s old clothes just to earn a few coins?”
“That is correct.”
“The Duchess herself?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Silence settled over the room.
Lucian dragged a hand down his face.
Shame? No, it was something else, though he couldn’t quite name the feeling. Of course, when he first brought Lisana here, he had hoped she would do nothing at all.
He didn’t want to suffer even a single gram of harm because of Lisana. She only needed to exist as if she weren’t there.
That was all he had asked for.
Lisana fit that requirement perfectly, and yet he kept finding himself bothered by her.
“Hah… this is maddening.”
“What would you like me to do? Should I pressure the tailor shop owner and cut off the work?”
Theodore asked cautiously.
“No.”
Lucian shook his head.
“Then she’ll just go off and cook up some other nonsense somewhere else. Maybe it’s better to keep her within sight.”
Lucian ground his teeth and muttered under his breath.
And there was no argument he could use to beat Lisana with words. She was truly living “wanting nothing” just as Lucian had declared at their wedding.
As if she were only staying here for a little while.
“Tell the gate guards. From now on, whenever the princess goes out, she is to have an escort.”
“Understood.”
“But tell them to follow at a reasonable distance so the princess doesn’t notice.”
He hesitated for a moment, then drew a checkbook from the drawer.
“And send someone to that dressmaker’s shop.”
Theodore tilted his head, puzzled. Surely he meant to cut off her work, didn’t he?
“Yes, I’ll see to it.”
But Lucian’s order was nothing like what he had expected.
“Disguise yourself as an anonymous noble and commission the finest mending work. Set the repair fee at one gold coin per garment.”
“W-that much?”
“The Ducal Consort said she wanted to earn money, so let her earn it. Though she should still be paid a fair wage for her labor, don’t you think?”
Lucian murmured in a low voice. Something unreadable seemed to glint of madness in his eyes.
From that day on, a flood of sweet, easy jobs began pouring in for Lisana.
She was happy, fool that she was, believing her sewing skills were praised all the way across the North, and never once dreamed that every bit of that money was coming straight out of her husband’s pocket.
* * *
It was a night with only moonlight for company.
The only sounds filling the room were the crackle of firewood burning in the hearth and the rasp of a needle piercing through stubborn cloth.
I had the lamp beside the bed turned up as bright as it would go and was absorbed in my sewing.
Across my knees lay a farmer’s worn-out shirt I had collected from the dressmaker’s shop. The sleeves were frayed to nothing and the armpit seams had split. A faint scent of sweat and soil clung to it, but to me it was nothing more than a job worth six copper coins.
Now and then, fine shirts as smooth as honey came my way, but this one I had grabbed on my own greed, when a single copper coin is so precious.
I remembered to the bone those days in the Imperial Palace when I had to go hungry for lack of money, as if they were truly my own memories.
Just as my past life had been anything but easy, so was this one.
I knew how desperate a single coin could become, and how miserably that one coin could reduce a person.
That was why I had to prepare as thoroughly as I could whenever I was able to. Who knew when even this leisurely sewing time would come to an end.
“Ugh…”
My shoulders ached. When I rolled my neck, it gave a crack. The tips of my index finger and thumb throbbed where they’d been pressed against the needle’s eye. Even with fingers thick with calluses, they had been working nonstop for hours, and my sense of touch was growing dull.
Five garments today, in total. If I finish them all, I’ll walk away with eighteen copper coins and two gold coins. Enough to buy a sack of potatoes with change left over, and enough to pay for a day in a cheap inn room.
Many a little makes a mickle, as they say.
I bit the thread off cleanly with my teeth. This money is nothing like the uneasy kindness Lucian offers.
It was my own, earned by trading my labor, owed to no one and needing no one’s approval. That fact put my mind at ease. And even on the day I had to leave this place, it was the safest asset I could carry away with my head held high.

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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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