How To Escape From A Devilish Husband (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 6
It was phrased more casually than a question about why she didn’t use a maid to help her get ready.
An immediate reply came again.
“Who wouldn’t? You are the Red Peony of the Astraks Empire—the pride of House Pembroke, Delphine Pembroke herself.”
He spread both arms wide in an exaggerated, theatrical gesture.
“On the day news of the Earl’s treason arrived, everyone present sighed, saying your beauty was far too precious to be lost to the executioner’s blade because of your father’s crime.”
He finished with a faint, playful smile.
So, was it because of that he’d snatched me up midway and married me himself?
But if that were true… then why hadn’t he taken me yesterday?
As far as Delphine knew, noblemen married for three reasons:
heirs, political alliance, and lust.
He had yet to fulfill any of those three with her.
Delphine set down the brush she’d been holding and stared silently at him through the mirror.
Fully dressed in his uniform, he slowly fastened his longsword to his waist.
It was the very blade that had severed her father’s head.
“Shall we go down for breakfast, my lady?”
Having finished changing, he addressed her in a smooth tone.
Delphine, gazing blankly at the sword at his hip, responded a beat late.
“…Yes, let’s.”
[This is the timeline separator]For a man of such formidable size, he ate very little.
He seemed accustomed to sleeping little, eating little, and working much.
“I’ll be back before dinner, my lady.”
After a simple breakfast, he bowed gracefully to her and left the mansion.
Delphine stood quietly by the window of her chamber, watching until he’d completely disappeared beyond the estate gates.
His massive figure on horseback gradually shrank to a mere dot.
Still watching him, Delphine suddenly asked Anna, who was tidying the bedding with the maids.
“Anna, what do you think?”
“Yes, miss—no, my lady. About what?”
“About Ioan.”
“Oh my! Have you already decided to call him by his first name? Heehee. You two must be getting along wonderfully. Phew, I’m so relieved. Everything moved so abruptly, I’ve been terribly worried—”
“…Anna? What are you talking about?”
Anna chattered on as casually as ever, her expression perfectly composed.
“What do you mean? Since something like that happened before your marriage, I was just worried…”
“No, I mean that man—Ioan Pride. Doesn’t it seem strange to you?”
“Huh? Master?”
“…Master?”
“Well, since he married you—you—my lady—he is now our master, isn’t he?”
Anna blinked innocently at her.
Something felt off.
Just three days ago, hadn’t it been Anna herself who’d guided her alone, assuring her it was “definitely Ioan”?
Delphine quickly turned to Betty, another Pembroke-born maid who’d been helping with the bedding.
“Betty! What—what do you think about this?”
“Yes, my lady? About what?”
“No matter how I look at him, he’s far too much like *that* Ioan! Yet he suddenly appears out of nowhere as the Empire’s hero and marries me? Does that even make sense to you?”
“Exactly! He just appeared like a morning star and saved you from an unjust death caused by your father’s crime.”
“Heehee. Right? It feels just like a fairy tale.”
“The other maids are all in an uproar too—they say it’s just like the knight-and-princess stories they read recently.”
Betty giggled contentedly along with Anna.
…What is this?
Delphine felt goosebumps rise all over her body. A cold sweat trickled distinctly down her spine.
She stammered as she spoke.
“Do—you don’t remember anything at all? About Ioan?”
“Huh? What do you mean…?”
“Well, we don’t really know much about Lord Pride. He’s always away at the border, after all.”
Lord Pride?
That man had been a baseborn slave in Pembroke Mansion.
He’d suddenly returned and slaughtered her father and every servant in the house.
You all saw it yourselves just three days ago!
The words she couldn’t bring herself to say churned silently in her mouth.
Somehow, uttering them would mean admitting to herself that her mind had gone mad.
“My lady, are you all right?”
Anna and Betty looked at her with puzzled concern.
“…Wilson. Where is Wilson?”
Delphine urgently summoned Wilson and all the other maids.
Their answers were all the same.
Not a single person remembered the former slave Ioan.
“Are you all right, my lady? You look terribly pale. You must be exhausted—why not take a nap?”
Delphine staggered to a chair and sank into it.
What was going on?
Had she gone mad overnight from the shock of losing her father and her family’s fall from grace?
Suddenly, her eyes fell upon a phrase in the newspaper lying on the table.
[Bizarre crimes have been occurring consecutively in the capital recently.
The perpetrator(s) leave identifiable traces, leading authorities to suspect organized, premeditated murders.
Investigators announced, “We are intensifying efforts targeting individuals from District 3 and will strengthen wall patrols accordingly.”]
…A demon?
Delphine let out a hollow laugh, her face deathly pale.
She’d thought she was bewitched by a fox—but now it felt as though she’d been ensnared by a demon.
[This is the timeline separator]“I’ll prepare to go out.”
Delphine, who had been silent with a waxen-white face for a while, suddenly spoke.
She intended to step outside and see for herself what was truly happening.
At those words, Anna and Betty instantly dropped the cleaning tools they were holding.
“Yes, my lady.”
Perhaps because she’d grown up alone in the mansion after her mother’s passing, she’d always been kind to the servants.
But that kindness existed strictly within the bounds of mistress and maid.
Born into an ancient and noble earldom, raised—even harshly trained—to one day enter the imperial court,
Delphine was far more accustomed to giving orders than receiving them, and to enforcing her will rather than yielding it.
Whether inside or outside the mansion.
“…What did you just say?”
Thus, this situation was entirely unfamiliar—and frankly unsettling—for Delphine.
The guard knight blocking her path repeated his earlier answer with the same expressionless, doll-like face.
“I already stated that going out is currently impossible.”
“Why, you insolent—!”
Anna, who had accompanied her all the way to the door, immediately snapped.
“How dare you block my lady’s path!”
Delphine gracefully raised a hand to calm the agitated Anna.
Then, straightening her spine with dignified authority, she commanded,
“Step aside. This is my mansion. By what right do you bar my entry and exit?”
The guard knight replied in a flat, toneless voice.
“Going outside is impossible without the master’s permission.”
Master.
At that word, Delphine’s throat tightened, cutting off whatever retort she’d prepared.
Right. Until recently, she—Delphine Pembroke—had been the master of this mansion.
But now it was no longer Pembroke Mansion—it was Pride Mansion. And she was no longer Delphine Pembroke.
Delphine muttered dazedly in a helpless tone,
“Yes… I am Delphine Pride now…”
Due to her father’s treason, the name “Pembroke” had been erased from the noble registry.
So she was now little better than a commoner.
…Save for the title of “Lady Pride,” the wife of that man.
Thud.
Delphine’s grip on her dress loosened abruptly.
Only now did the full weight of her miserable situation sink in.
Daughter of a traitor.
A fallen noble of base status.
Her location had merely shifted from the imperial dungeon to Pride Mansion—
She was still nothing more than a wretched slave.
“…So I dared try to leave this prison without the ‘master’s’ permission.”
Delphine spat the words with a bitter edge, then turned on her heel and headed straight for the study.
“Oh, my lady—”
Anna, hurrying after her, called out in a tone brimming with helpless sorrow.
“I’m fine.”
Delphine replied calmly, struggling to maintain her dignity.
But even her pride couldn’t stop the tremor of vulnerability that quavered at the end of her voice.
“It’s fine. I’m fine… Go attend to your duties.”
The quick-witted maids immediately bowed and withdrew.
Delphine sank into the sofa in the study, feeling utterly powerless.
The carefully chosen dress she’d put on for going out now felt like a crushing weight upon her.
[This is the timeline separator]Delphine heard that Ioan had returned late in the afternoon, nearly evening.
Upon receiving the maid’s report in the study, she hesitated for a moment.
“…He’s here.”
But only briefly.
“Is he in my chamber?”
“Huh? My lady?”
“I asked—is that man… no, is Lord Pride in my chamber?”
“Y-yes. He is.”
She rose so quickly the maid nearly jumped, then rushed straight to her chamber.
The door burst open without a knock, and the man standing there in uniform slowly turned his head.
“…My lady.”
He hadn’t even removed the scabbard still at his waist.
He showed no surprise at her sudden entrance.
Unlike his calm demeanor, it was Delphine—the one who’d launched the surprise—who was truly startled.
‘…The smell of blood?’
There was no way she could forget that sharp, metallic scent.
It was the same stench that had filled her nostrils as she wandered through the blood-soaked mansion that day.
Pride looked at her standing in the doorway with the calm, gentle face of a man wearing a mask.
Then, in the tone of an affectionate husband, he asked,
“So you intended to go out.”
At those words, Delphine’s eyes, which had briefly faltered at the scent of blood, narrowed sharply.
He’d only just returned—how could he already know about her plans?
When yandere male lead believes she loves him — but she never did
“How dare you!”
“How dare you make me love you, only to cast me aside as nothing more than a friend?!?
“I will never accept that.”
“I will never let you return to him.”
“Even if I have to burn myself to ashes.”
“Even if I must shatter my purity, my dignity, my very soul.”
“I will never let you escape me!”
This was the first novel that introduced me to the matriarchal genre. I’ve read it three times already!
At first, the male lead despised the female lead. Later, he misunderstood that she liked him, so he condescendingly and reluctantly reciprocated her feelings.
Then, he suddenly discovered that she was kind to everyone in the same way, and there was already someone she cherished in her heart, and that person was not him.
The male lead couldn’t believe it, he became angry and crazy. He was determined to capture her body and heart by any means necessary.
Synopsis:
Want to see how a green tea bitch male lead falls in love with the female lead?
Want to see how he flirtatiously pursues the female lead?
Want to see how he gets slapped in the face repeatedly?
The male lead is a green tea bitch, a poisonous lotus, jealous, ruthless, unscrupulous, with a venomous heart, and he’s also a delusional maniac.
The female lead is righteous, positive energy-filled, kind, a holy mother.
Let’s see how two people with extreme personalities come together~
_____
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