The Wicked Wife's Dark History Keeps Coming Back To Haunt Her - Chapter 148
“Honey, you’re overreacting. Just smelling it isn’t going to do anything.”
“Even so, you can never be too careful. Whether it’s a narcotic or a poison, nothing harmful should be taken lightly. Understood?”
His wife had been born prematurely and had always been frail since birth.
Ash had witnessed his birth mother die after being secretly poisoned by his half-brother, so his reaction could only be hypersensitive.
Ash fixed her with a sharp gaze, as if compromise was not an option, and demanded a compliant answer.
It had been a long time since he’d looked at Nina with such a cold, threatening look.
Nina, somewhat stiffly, nodded her head.
“…Yes.”
Only then did Ash relax, closing the box, and Countess Braumhill, hiding her lips with her hand, smiled gently.
“It seems Your Grace cherishes and loves your wife very much. My husband always scolds me and calls me a coward when I refuse to smell things, saying ‘You can’t die just from smelling it.’”
Count Braumhill, bristling at his wife’s subtle jab, retorted,
“Ahem, it’s fine to at least smell it! And you need to know what it smells like, so you can avoid it if someone tries to sneak it into your food!”
“That’s true.”
Listening to their exchange, Ash’s shoulders sagged a little.
They were right.
You did need to know the scent so you could avoid it.
He’d just overreacted because of his own trauma.
“But Duchess, didn’t you say it reminded you of something?”
“Oh, I was going to say it smelled a bit like rosemary.”
Of course, real rosemary could never be used as an ingredient in a poisonous drug.
* * *
After having dinner at the Braumhill manor.
Ash declined the Count’s earnest invitation to stay the night and returned to the hotel with Nina.
They had to meet the coachman at the hotel the next morning.
After bathing, Ash paused when he saw Nina.
It had been a long day, and with a glass of wine at dinner, it was no wonder he was tired.
His wife had fallen asleep, limbs sprawled everywhere.
The line of pillows meant to separate them had long since collapsed.
He laughed quietly, his chest rising and falling, then gently gathered Nina’s arms and legs, which were sprawled out like a lamb in deep sleep.
Then, suddenly, he paused at the sight of a fair leg exposed beneath her nightgown, which had ridden up.
In the glow of the reddish oil lamp, he saw a scar that had yet to fully fade on her thin leg.
Pale skin, and a patch even paler where new skin had grown. It was proof that she had saved him.
He traced the mark on her body with his fingertips.
He’d never had the chance to see her scar for himself, and seeing it now with his own eyes, his stomach churned and his spine tingled.
It was then he realized his own feelings.
At some point, he had begun to harbor feelings for his wife.
Once, he’d resented her for binding up his life, but…
“But where would you find a man who’d just neatly give you a child and nothing else?”
Now, he felt a kind of anxiety toward this woman who no longer bound him.
Worried that she might have truly left him, at last.
He wondered. If only he’d made an effort to accept her, would things be different now?
Ash lowered his head slowly.
Then he gathered up her hair and softly pressed his lips to it.
With his lips against her hair, soft as silk, he whispered,
“…I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you go.”
Did you feel the same when you looked at me?
She once said that just imagining another woman at his side made her heart pound with discomfort, and regardless of who it was, she wanted to remove them from the world.
Oh, this is bad.
If that day comes, would I really be able to let you go?
He reached out toward his wife’s exposed ankle as she slept defenselessly.
All his vows to proceed with the divorce as planned now felt meaningless.
“I don’t want to let you go anymore.”
Slowly, he wrapped his hand around her slender ankle.
Holding that thin ankle, he gazed at his wife’s face in the deepening darkness for a long, long time.
Erica
I’m so glad she knows that the drug smells like, that means she’ll definitely recognize if it’s in the tea that she’s offered, after all, nobles have a habit of smelling their tea before drinking it, especially when it’s offered by someone else. Not only will she recognize the smell, but she’ll know that whoever is offering it, is trying to drug her.
As for ASH….. WOW! He’s just going all out now isn’t he?! The way he wrapped her ankle almost like a shackles, and admitted to himself that letting her go would be impossible. I love it 🥰