6074-chapter-26
Chapter 26
He took a deep breath. Marcella realized that she couldn’t speak to her son in this state and obediently stepped back. Cain, with his wife’s shoulders enveloped in his arms, left the garden. As he crossed the garden, he scrutinized each and every noblewoman who had participated in the tea party, and they hurriedly avoided his penetrating gaze. Before leaving the garden, Cain paused for a moment.
“Viscountess Leshian.”
“Yes! Yes?”
His voice had no intonation, but it was enough to instill fear. The middle-aged Viscountess Leshian stammered without composure.
“Viscountess Leshian may be a loyal servant of Delacroix, but not to my wife.”
“Y-Your Excellency, I…”
“Return to the mansion and await the judgment of your family.”
Viscountess Leshian looked at Marcella pleadingly, as if asking for help. But Marcella opened her fan and covered her face.
Cain, accompanied by Lariana, headed towards the main building of the mansion, leaving the garden where the tea party was being held. Jena, who used to patrol the mansion and had been prohibited from entering the garden during the tea party, ran up to them when she saw her masters. Cain forcibly dismissed Jena, who followed them until the end. Once he had driven her away, they entered the bedroom, finally being alone.
“Lari, are you okay?”
When Lariana didn’t look at him, Cain didn’t know what to do. This damn madness. Why did this illness inflict the person he loves the most, causing her pain? It was all his fault, so he couldn’t blame anyone else.
The medicine he had been taking every day, as prescribed by the doctor, had no effect on his condition. It had only been a month since they got married. He was worried that Lariana might leave him, and various thoughts scrambled in his mind.
Please, Lariana, don’t leave him. He thought as he desperately held her hand.
“…Are you the Cain that I know?”
As warmth seeped into her hand, Lariana gradually regained focus in her eyes.
“Yes, Lari. It’s the Cain who loves you.”
Lariana had already decided that if Cain regained his sanity, she would leave, causing all sorts of trouble. However, she was too exhausted to cause trouble now.
“Why… did you come now? Do you know how difficult it has been for me all this time…?”
“I’m sorry. Was I too late?”
Lariana vigorously nodded in response to Cain’s question. Her tears, which had dried up, wet her delicate face once again. He wiped away her tears. He held his exhausted wife in his arms, who had endured so much hardship during the time he had turned away from her. Lariana cried like a child in his embrace. After crying for a long time, Lariana’s tears subsided, and Cain delivered good news.
“I received a message from the Grand Temple of the Kingdom this morning. They have completed the burial of your family in the temple’s cemetery.”
“You… did it without telling me…”
He had always been like this. He had given her both pain and salvation. Even in an era where magic and divine powers were lost, people still looked up to the Grand Temple. Only a few hundred chosen individuals in the entire continent could be buried in the temple’s cemetery.
Even the noble Delacroix family couldn’t go to the place where their family was buried after death. However, when Lariana agreed to marry him, Cain gave her family the best resting place available to the deceased.
Lariana’s heart began to melt after feeling the long-forgotten affection. After enduring cruel torment and hardships, facing Cain now felt truly sweet. Who could refuse a ripe fruit that was being handed over just before starving to death?
“Lari, don’t we still have unfinished business?”
Lariana looked at Cain with a puzzled expression.
“Shouldn’t we have the first night?”
Cain looked down at Lariana with a solemn face. The mad Cain behaved as if he didn’t know her. But the Cain who had regained his sanity remembered that they haven’t had the first night together. How could that be?
“…Do you remember what happened during your madness?”
“I can remember the events that occurred during my madness when I am in a sound state. However, the more I try to recall them, the more it feels like my head is being split open with a knife. When I’m in a state of madness, I completely lose my emotions, so I don’t remember any of these moments at all.”
Split open with a knife… Lariana’s fingers delved into Cain’s hair. She gently touched his soft locks. Her touch intoxicated him, and he wore an ecstatic expression.
“It hurts that much?”
“The pain of recalling the events is lesser than the pain I caused you.”
Cain buried his head in Lariana’s slender neck. He continuously pressed his lips against her, unable to stop. Despite her melting heart, her body was reluctant to give itself to him so easily. The fear of being rejected and betrayed by him multiple times instinctively made Lariana freeze.
“Since it was like that… what kind of punishment would you like?”
“How about being whipped?”
Cain said with a gentle gaze, tempting her.
“What a savage thing to say!”
Lariana couldn’t help but imagine tying up Cain’s naked body and whipped him. Her cheeks flushed. She lowered her head deeply and pressed her cheek with the back of her hand.
“If it’s something you give me, I can endure any punishment. If you want me to undress…I’ll undress… If you want me to be whipped… I’ll be whipped…”
“Stop, stop! Why do you keep saying such things?”
Cain slowly pulled the thin red ribbon that adorned the neckline of Lariana’s champagne-colored dress. Lariana belatedly reached out her hand, but it was useless.
“I’ve been waiting for you for so long…because of this damn illness…”
His voice, filled with suppressed emotions, echoed softly in her ears. Her ears tingled, and Lariana gripped the bedsheet tightly. His fingertips moved from her shoulders and arms to her palm in the bedsheet. Their hands entwined and formed a fist. It was his hand that she had held many times before, but in her current state of heightened sensitivity, it stirred excessive excitement. Cain raised their joined hands and lightly pressed his lips against her knuckles. The sound of his lips kissing it was tingling.
“Cain…”
The sensation of his soft lips wasn’t the end. The heat that transmitted from his mouth caressed her hand, moving from her knuckles to her palm, as natural as flowing water.
“…Please.”
Her meaningless resistance continued for a short while. Cain, who had been kissing her hand, started to unbutton the back of her dress. They had held hands, embraced, and exchanged kisses before, so Lariana thought that the first night would be no different. However, the emotions and sensations she felt from Cain right now were completely different.
His touch… felt dizzying. With each touch, her body grew weaker. When he finally unbuttoned her dress and removed it, she had no choice but to surrender herself. He gently laid Lariana, his precious treasure, on the bed. He straddled her, unbuttoning his shirt, and looked down at his wife.
Her body was burning. It felt as if she was on fire, and all she wanted was for him to cool her down. Let those red lips touch her. The one who was mad wasn’t Cain, it was herself. Why did she fall in love with this crazy man who tormented her so?
In the bittersweet ambivalence of happiness and misery, she closed her eyes. In this dreamlike moment, she didn’t want to think about anything.
? ? ?
After Cain’s marriage, Duke Delacroix’s mansion was divided into two parts—the main building where the Duke and his wife resided, and the annex where the Dowager Duchess1rom what I‘ve read about this era, when someone becomes a widow, they would either be called dowager duchess/revert back to their old title. Accoding to the raws however, she kept the duchess title. lived.
The atmosphere in the two spaces was completely different after the tea party in the Duke’s garden. If the main building was filled with the happiness, joy, and hope of a newlywed couple in love, the annex…
“Ah!”
Marcella’s scream echoed through the bedroom. The servants who were passing through the corridor quickly held their breaths at the sudden scream. The bedroom was in chaos. The only recognizable things were the furniture. Marcella was lying on the bed in what used to be a room but now resembled the ruins of a war.
She had thrown the champagne bottle she had been drinking onto the floor. Glass shards were scattered on top of the broken pieces. Marcella couldn’t forget the humiliation she had received from Cain in front of the noblewomen. She was angry, but she still believed in her son. At least she expected Cain to come and apologize the next day. But her expectations were ruthlessly shattered.
She had heard that her son and his wife hadn’t left their bedroom for several days due to their madness. Marcella couldn’t sleep because of her worries and even took sleeping pills. Her son, whom she had protected with her life, had gone crazy because of a woman. Marcella couldn’t forgive Lariana.
To maintain her position as the Dowager Duchess, she needed a perfect son. He had to be an exceptional work of art with the best lineage, the best family, the best appearance, and abilities. Marcella already messed up her own blond hair in anger.
“How dare you take my son away from me…”
Uttering these words through gritted teeth, Marcella smiled bitterly.
“Three years. I’ll allow you to walk out on my own within three years.”
In aristocratic families, strategic marriages and divorces were common. It wasn’t a big deal. There were also ways to separate. Thinking like that, Marcella felt a sense of relief in her previously complicated mind. She felt that she could sleep tonight without sleeping pills or sleeping incense. Read ahead here.
