Chapter 336
Rebecca’s lips trembled under the cold stares pouring down like rain, but.
“…I am grateful for Your Majesty’s mercy.”
Rebecca barely managed to pay her respects toward the throne.
She had trusted her grandfather and rejected Countess Coventry’s secret proposal, but her grandfather’s scheme had come to nothing.
On top of that, the very charge she had tried to pin on Nina was instead tightening around her own neck.
Things had become twisted because she had stepped forward at the end, but she could not simply stay still like this.
Rebecca glared at Nina with bloodshot eyes.
Despicably enough, she was smiling softly with her head lowered, as though she found the current situation regrettable.
Rebecca felt as if she would not be able to endure it unless she relieved this sense of defeat and tore that woman’s smiling face to shreds.
While leaving the audience hall under the escort of the Imperial knights, Rebecca met eyes with Countess Coventry, who was watching the situation with an anxious expression.
“Yes, we can’t just leave things be so that only Duchess Bayern’s reputation rises, can we?”
The moment Rebecca fell, House Coventry’s social life, too, would collapse completely.
If Countess Coventry wanted to bring a good marriage prospect to her precious daughter, she would have no choice but to move for Rebecca’s sake.
Rebecca left the audience hall, forcing herself to hold her head high.
* * *
The moment they arrived at the Bayern villa.
Ash, who had been walking with his arm wrapped tenderly around Nina’s shoulders the entire time, withdrew his arm.
Ash entered the bedroom with an expression colder than ice.
The bedroom was full of warmth, but perhaps because of the frozen atmosphere.
Nina hunched her shoulders as if she were cold, but only for a moment.
“…Ahem, anyway, I’m glad things worked out well. For the time being, House Nord and the Minister of Finance won’t be able to exert power in politics.”
She was clearly walking on eggshells around him now, but Ash had no intention of giving Nina what she wanted.
“…More than anything else, I want to be able to hold my head high before myself.”
He had thought the prayer visits might have a dangerous effect on his wife.
If he had followed his heart, he would have stopped her even if he had to confine her in the annex.
“You said you wanted to be proud of yourself, so I allowed it even though I did not want to.”
If he had known that the decision to respect his wife’s wishes would pierce his heart like a dagger like this…
He would never have allowed it.
Ash let out a languid sigh and swept his hair back from his forehead.
“…Am I that unreliable to you?”
“T-That, I, no, that’s not it…”
At his low question, his wife’s lovely face crumpled as though she might cry.
Her fair hand reached out as if to make an excuse, to say that was not what she had meant, but.
As if pushing that hand away, Ash asked in a low, cold voice.
“If that’s not it, then why did you hide it from me when you had expected something like that?”
“That’s…”
“…Because if I told you, you would have stopped me from attending the prayer visits. And if you moved, there was a high risk you’d face a political offensive.”
A sneer appeared at Ash’s lips.
“That excuse you gave earlier comes down to this in the end. That I’m not reliable.”
It was his own fault for still not having given her enough trust.
Rather than merely proving his heart, rather than enduring until he caught the perfect moment like a beast waiting for prey.
It would have been right to simply trample each and every thing that displeased his wife and prove his ability and his heart.
“Wife, I did say I would question you, but how could I dare hold you responsible?”
If there was guilt, it all began from himself.
“Rest.”
“W-Wait, Honey, please listen to me for a moment…!”
Ash turned away from Nina and quietly left the bedroom.
What had happened today had certainly satisfied the Emperor and produced excellent results politically, but he could not smile.
It was not because he was angry at his wife for taking a risk.
‘For whatever reason…’
It was because he could not forgive himself for having ‘made’ his wife take that risk.
