Love Me Just Once - Chapter 32

Idren, who had been having a pointless conversation as instructed by Ophelia for a while, turned to look at her. Ophelia was staring at him with wide eyes.

He lowered his voice and asked her.

“What does that mean?”

Then Ophelia placed her hand on his forearm and brought her face close. Idren realized that her blue eyes were shining unusually bright.

Ophelia whispered in a voice tinged with a strange sense of excitement.

“I didn’t slap him, I swung a candlestick.”

So that was why the candlestick seemed familiar.

Realizing that fact, Ophelia felt a small joy. It was quite satisfying to recall a forgotten memory all by herself without any special measures.

However, Idren’s expression, which she thought would be pleased, was unimpressed.

She did as he asked, but the reaction wasn’t very good. Ophelia frowned.

“Why are you looking at me like that…”

“Wait a moment, please.”

And Idren held her hand under the dining table. He turned to the lord and said.

“Ophelia isn’t feeling well, so we’ll take our leave first.”

Her body was just so-so, so Ophelia narrowed her brows a little more. If he was going to lie, she didn’t know why he was selling her out instead of talking about himself.

But the man who made up a nonsensical excuse without batting an eye held her hand and stood up just like that.

Idren took her straight to the room. The servants who were tidying up the room while the guests attended the banquet were driven out by him without knowing what was going on.

Only after the two of them were left alone in the room, just like before, did Idren let go of her. Ophelia tried to say something to him, but he was a little faster.

“Say it again.”

“…What should I say again? That I swung the candlestick?”

“Are you talking about the one that was placed on the dining table a little while ago?”

Ophelia responded calmly to those words.

“It could be something that looks similar.”

Anyway, it was at least that much.

Idren recalled the appearance of the candlestick that was placed on the banquet table. The candlestick cast in silver was quite bumpy and looked heavy.

Why would she grab and swing something like that herself?

A headache came on. Idren barely resisted the urge to hold his forehead.

Anyway, in the previous life, the knight had said that Ophelia was not injured.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that if she had been hit by a candlestick, Thaeran’s words about her face being scarred might not have been a lie, but Idren ignored that thought. A face that would rot and fall apart when she died anyway, the exaggeration hadn’t changed.

He let out a small sigh and said.

“Why did you swing the candlestick?”

“Because he offended me first.”

And then Ophelia suddenly tilted her head a little and asked an absurd question.

“By the way, wasn’t there a boy next to him?”

“…There was. Do you know him by any chance?”

Ophelia thought that boy would be her financial advisor.

At one point, she had swung a candlestick at the lord who was trying to teach her something and kidnapped his servant. Because he was the only witness to that situation.

After the situation was settled, she had intended to just silence the boy and let him go. She thought she could give him some money and send him to a kingdom like Brinwell or Tessendot.

But the boy did not go to either of those places and became her financial advisor.

“Because Lady Ophelia saved me.”

Ophelia told the boy that she had kidnapped him, not rescued him, but he said it didn’t matter.

She told Idren the fact she had recalled.

“That servant is my financial advisor.”

“…So that’s why he seemed familiar.”

And Idren asked her.

“Putting that story aside, what do you mean by the southern lord offending you?”

“He threatened me.”

“…What does that mean?”

“It’s exactly as I said. The lord here has a good relationship with Mahanas, so Mahanas instigated him. To intimidate me into obeying his words well even while I’m in Aglante.”

Even if she had brought it up while looking at the candlestick, her memory of that day was not detailed. Only the scent of flowers in the reception room, the hot air, and the dim lighting remained in her head.

The lord, who seemed to be over forty years old, offered her tea as soon as he brought her into the reception room. Ophelia had not drunk it. Because it was the same kind that Mahanas often drank, she didn’t want to put it to her lips.

With both hands under the desk, the lord exhaled an excited breath. He murmured in a rough voice.

“Princess, you have truly grown up well.”

At first, Ophelia did not know what he was doing. The room was too dark and the air was stuffy.

He continued to whisper.

“But you must not forget your childhood.”

Listening to those words while looking around to understand why the room was so dark, Ophelia realized that the candles were not lit.

“Just because you’re married doesn’t mean anything changes. Always rely on your elder brother, as you always have.”

While wondering why they weren’t using candles, the lord rose from his seat.

“Look even now. You followed the prince’s words and gained such a good marriage, didn’t you?”

And the lord approached her. He placed his hand on her shoulder. The man’s warm hand was felt clearly through the thin fabric.

With one hand on her shoulder, the lord breathed words mixed with the sound of wind into her ear.

“Prince Mahanas said that Princess can think of me as an elder brother. He gave me the authority to treat you like a younger sister.”

So Ophelia did to him what she had done to Mahanas.

Before the man could let out a heated moan, she picked up the candlestick she had been eyeing for a while.

In the blink of an eye, the man was lying on the ground. Ophelia remembered that his hands were sticky and his clothes were disheveled.

At that time, she should have swung the candlestick one more time to eliminate future troubles, but she didn’t think of it. The air in the room was too stuffy and she wanted to go outside.

Only after leaving the lord’s reception room did Ophelia realize that there was a servant who had witnessed it all.

So she had taken that servant away. Because she couldn’t order the knights who had come under Idren’s command to do such a thing, she had bribed someone separately.

The one who helped with that bribery was Netefel.

Her friend, who happened to be nearby at the time, heard what she had done and helped find a way to deal with it together.

Once she started recalling memories, related things came to mind one after another.

After remembering the methods they had planned together at that time and how the matter was settled, Ophelia was a little relieved that her mind wasn’t a complete mess.

It was then that Idren spoke to her.

“What exactly did Lord Rohos do to you?”

Ophelia noticed that his expression had hardened. It was a different emotion from the bewilderment or usual astonishment he showed.

And she pondered for a moment whether to tell him the truth.

In her previous life, she had not told her husband anything. Netefel had told her that the lord of this land was close to Idren. Ophelia had checked the truth of those words and obtained the result that it was true.

So instead of saying something to Idren, she prepared another method. Of course, she had secured a witness in case she was accused, but that alone was not enough.

That was why she had joined hands with the lord’s daughter.

The daughter told her that she would accuse her father, so she asked Ophelia to summon him to the courthouse in the north. In the meantime, she planned to take over the household and kill her father.

But when the lord’s daughter accused her father, Idren killed him as if he had been waiting.

Ophelia asked the man who was looking down at her with a stiff expression.

“Will you kill the lord this time too?”

The woman looked up at him with gentle eyes.

Idren inhaled to avoid showing too much emotion to her.

If he had his way, he would have dragged out Thaeran Rohos right away. It was only natural since he had dared to threaten his wife on his land.

But apart from being furious from head to toe, Ophelia had done nothing wrong. If he got angry in front of her in this situation, he might be misunderstood.

He spoke in a voice that had been stripped of as much emotion as possible.

“I won’t let him live.”

Ophelia realized that the veins in the man’s neck stood out as he said that. It was different from the resentful grumbling she had seen from him so far.

Idren was very angry.

Realizing that fact, Ophelia felt strange.

In his previous life, he said he had killed Thaeran for her. And in this life, he was saying he would do the same.

Ophelia remembered the conversation she had with him in the carriage during the day. Idren had cried then. Even if it wasn’t intentional, Ophelia knew that she had hurt him.

But now he was acting as if he had forgotten all of that.

Why was that?

However, before her pondering deepened, Ophelia cut it off. It would be an emotion she couldn’t understand anyway.

She just had to answer what he asked, that was all.

Ophelia, who had reached a conclusion, opened her mouth.