The Returned Husband Refuses to Divorce - Chapter 32

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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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Ines fell silent for a moment.
‘From the Capital all the way here?’
The North lay far from the Capital.
It meant he’d had someone travel for days by carriage just to commission a single dress, then make the journey back again.
‘How much money has he spent?’
While Ines gaped in shock, Zekard’s expression was quite satisfied.
“At last I can provide my lady with garments befitting her station.”
In truth, at the last banquet there had been no time to commission new clothes.
She’d worn the dress Zekard had brought back with him on his return, but that meant the only proper dress she actually owned was essentially that one.
“Choose freely. If nothing suits your taste, we can have everything remade.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
The Designer’s face beside her brightened visibly.
Ines, by contrast, felt the ground tilt beneath her.
Since Zekard’s return, this had happened more than once.
He refurnished her rooms, saw to her meals, constantly brought in clothes and ornaments and necessities for daily living.
He seemed ready to carve off a fief if she merely asked.
‘No, wait—didn’t he actually offer to do that?’
She’d laughed it off at the time as an exaggeration, but looking at everything Zekard had done since then, perhaps that too had been sincere.
A powerful sense of dread washed over her—the feeling that this was only the beginning, not the end.
Suddenly she found herself thinking of some old tale: a despot who’d ruined his kingdom over a single woman.
Somehow, it didn’t feel like someone else’s story.
‘I need to speak up now.’
Ines opened her mouth with a sense of grim resolve.
“I’m truly grateful, but this is more than enough.”
……
“I could wear just what I have for three years.”
She’d deliberately emphasized the word three years.
The contract term was one year.
Since she could wear all this for much longer than that, nothing more was necessary.
Zekard fell silent for a moment.
“Now that I think of it, we’ll need several more pairs of shoes.”
……
He hadn’t been listening at all, had he?
Ines too found her gaze following his, looking down at her own feet.
A moment later, she asked with an expression of complete bewilderment.
“How long have you been looking at my feet?”
“Since just now.”
It was brazen.
As Ines stared at him incredulously, Zekard let out a low laugh.
“I understand you find it burdensome. But this is something I wish to do.”
……
“For me, being able to do something for you is itself a joy.”
At those words, Ines found herself at a loss.
‘…That’s strange. Really strange.’
Could someone say such a thing driven only by a sense of duty? Finding joy in doing things for a contractual wife?
Without meaning to, Ines found herself studying Zekard’s face.
But the man who’d spoken those words didn’t draw any closer.
In the old days, he would have taken her hand by now.
Or he would have pressed close beside her, asking what caught her fancy, insisting on choosing each piece together.
Instead, Zekard simply remained at a distance, watching her, then turned his gaze toward the Designer.
“Have the rest prepared according to my lady’s preferences.”
“Of course, sir.”
That was all.
Somehow her eyes were drawn to the empty space beside her—a distance that once she’d thought was far too close.
“Zekard.”
Only after calling his name did she realize she had nothing to say.
When he turned back to face her, Ines hurriedly picked up a bolt of fabric to show him.
“…What do you think of this color?”
It was then.
“General.”
A familiar voice reached her ears.
She turned to find Ash Lanford approaching.
He stiffened the moment he noticed Ines.
‘There it is again.’
Ash still hadn’t grown comfortable around Ines. After hearing the Head Maid’s apology earlier, the distance between them felt freshly pronounced. Yet unlike before, the heavy darkness that had clung to him was no longer present.
Now that she thought about it, even at the banquet he had been the same way. Ash had not actively shielded her, but neither had he doubted her.
He had simply watched the situation unfold to its end.
‘Has something changed in him?’
Zekard turned to look at Ash.
His face was noticeably different from the expression he’d worn while observing Ines—distant and composed.
“What is it?”
“There’s something you should see at once, sir.”
Ash glanced toward Ines before adding quietly,
“It concerns the Knight Order.”
Zekard’s eyes sharpened.
“…I understand.”
He turned directly to Ines.
“I’ll go at once.”
“Yes, do go quickly.”
“Should you need anything, speak to the Designer. You needn’t ask my permission.”
With that, Zekard turned and departed.
“…”
Ines watched his receding figure in silence.
Once, he had hated leaving so much that she’d had to push him out the door herself.
Not today.
‘…What is this?’
Without meaning to, she’d followed his retreating form with her eyes far longer than she should have. Catching herself, she shook her head.
‘What am I thinking?’
If it was Knight Order business, of course it was important. Far more so than choosing fabrics.
Besides, hadn’t she also decided that she ought not to grow needlessly close to him?
Yet now that Zekard had begun to maintain his distance first, she found herself oddly unsettled.
‘I never thought I’d grow so accustomed to him so quickly.’
Ines exhaled softly.
Since his return, she had received so much help from him.
At first she had simply been grateful, but somewhere along the way it had begun to feel like an ordinary thing.
‘There’s nothing wrong with receiving help.’
And yet.
‘I need to prepare my own way.’
In a year’s time, she intended to leave this place.
By then, she would need to have built a foundation upon which she could survive even without his favor.
Now that she thought of it…
‘…Money.’
With one crisis after another, she hadn’t properly begun her preparations for independence.
Ines pondered briefly, then decided where to go with the time she had left.
* * *
Leo came running from a distance.
“Miss!”
“Slow down. You’ll fall.”
Leo, who had practically tumbled his way over, laughed brightly.
Color had returned to his cheeks, and a little flesh had filled out his face. He looked vastly different from when they’d first met.
“How have you been?”
“Good!”
His spirited answer brought a faint smile to Ines’s face.
She had called Leo here for a particular reason.
“How are things in the village lately?”
“Same as always. Oh, bread prices have gone up a bit.”
“By how much?”
Leo named the price, and Ines committed it to memory.

“How’s work these days?”
“It’s picked up now that the weather’s improved. Even the shops are hiring.”
“What’s a day’s wage around here?”
Leo’s eyes went wide.
“My lady, you’re curious about such things?”
“Yes. I’d like to know.”
Leo tilted his head, but soon began chattering away about everything he knew.
‘It’s so different from what the ledgers show.’
The numbers Enrique taught her revealed the whole fief at a glance.
But they never showed how a single person actually lived within those figures.
That’s what made her conversations with Leo so precious. If she was going to live alone after independence, she needed to understand things like this first.
‘I’ll need to earn money too.’
Just then, Leo’s eyes sparkled.
“Oh! The Spring Festival is coming up soon!”
“A festival?”
“Yes! It’s huge. People come from all the other villages too.”
He said the Spring Festival in Evanhardt Territory had its roots in an old legend of lovers.
Young men and women came in particular numbers, and merchants flocked there far more than usual.
‘So something like that exists.’
She’d lived here five years, yet she was only learning about the fief’s signature festival today.
It struck her anew how confined to the castle her life had been.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
‘What if I went myself?’
A festival where crowds gathered would let her see prices, trading methods, and how the common folk actually lived.
It would be a different sort of education from what Enrique taught her.
‘Besides, I still know so little about how the world works.’
If she truly meant to live alone a year from now, she had to understand the outside world.
“Thank you for telling me, Leo.”
“Of course!”
Ines packed some food for Leo and thought to herself.
She’d heard the purge was nearly finished now.
By the time of the festival, leaving the castle shouldn’t be difficult.
‘I should tell Zekard about it.’
Not to ask permission.
She would simply tell him she wanted to go, and they would coordinate what needed to be done.
The moment that thought crossed her mind, the image of his retreating figure from just before suddenly came to her.
For some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about that silhouette.

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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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