Love Me Just Once - Chapter 33

“He said that nothing would change even if he married you.”

Before she even realized that those were the words Taeran had said to her, Ophelia placed her hand on his shoulder. Her small, light hand rested on his shoulder.

“He touched me here.”

Ophelia raised herself on her tiptoes. Idren felt the woman’s faint breath brush the tip of his chin.

With her hand gripping his shoulder, she whispered.

“And with his mouth this close, he said he would handle me the way elder brother did.”

Then Ophelia stepped back to her original position. She tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. It was as if she was asking what he was going to do about it.

The moment he saw her bright blue eyes and her expressionless face, Idren felt as if he had been doused with cold water.

Ophelia’s words were plain, but Idren could tell what had happened to her.

Taeran Rohos had laid his hands on his wife. He had dared to put his vile hands on the woman who should have been treated with the utmost respect in his land…

And then he had slandered her as if everything was her fault.

Idren wondered what confidence Taeran had to do such a thing. If he had known about this, that lord would not have died so easily. At the very least, Idren would have cut off his limbs.

But he soon realized why Taeran had acted so brazenly.

Because Ophelia would not have told him.

Regardless of his feelings for Ophelia, they were not very close. And in Aglante, a wife’s rights depended on the power of her family.

Ophelia’s family, Leden, was a weak kingdom, and its prince had owed debts to Taeran. Ophelia was the younger sister whom Mahanas treated like an object.

So how much must he have looked down on her?

It was when Ophelia had not been married for long. No matter how much he had given her wealth and power, it would take time for them to settle in.

Since Ophelia had nothing at the moment, Taeran must have ignored her all the more. He must have tried to break her spirit before she could receive proper treatment as a queen.

Seeing that Ophelia did not respond, he must have thought it was okay and ran his mouth noisily.

And now Idren realized how ridiculous his suggestion – to keep quiet or expose everything and protest – must have seemed in his eyes.

Because if he had known that his wife had been harassed, he would never have said such a thing.

Idren looked at the woman standing in front of him with a composed expression.

He asked her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He tried to make it sound as gentle as possible so as not to sound accusatory, but he couldn’t help his voice from shaking.

She was the wife he was so conscious of, even sharing the same room. Even knowing that he had only gained her body and not her heart, he was too precious to her and could only be mindful of her.

He cherished and cherished her so much that he ended up ruining everything.

And yet, to think that someone had dared to put her through such a thing made him so angry.

Ophelia stared at him without answering. To make sure there was no room for misunderstanding in his words, Idren added.

“I’m not blaming you. I just need to know the reason so I can fix it, don’t I?”

The man’s voice was trembling as he spoke those words.

Ophelia looked up at the man who was trying to act calm in front of her despite the heat rising to the tip of his neck.

Ophelia wondered why his emotions had become so intense. She knew it was an emotion she couldn’t understand, but she kept wanting to know his motives.

It was a useless curiosity. Ophelia, who had suppressed her inner urges in that way, said to the man who was treating her affair as his own.

“It wasn’t your problem.”

“Then why…?”

“I just had a plan, but you took action first.”

And the woman explained her plan in a kind voice, as she had heard before.

“The lord’s daughter had decided to assassinate her father. I decided that when she denounced her father, instead of sending an inspector, I would hold a trial at Sigrasal Castle, and she planned to take control of her family during that time.”

Hearing those words, Idren thought of how Taeran’s daughter had denounced her father.

Usually, in such cases, it was common to send an inspector to handle it. But Ophelia was the queen, so she had the right to summon any nobleman to the capital.

“But you executed him first.”

It was natural since he had been looking for an excuse to remove Taeran, and a justification to punish him had just come in.

As he was understanding the situation, Ophelia added.

“Don’t think I was complacent. If the lord’s daughter had failed, I was going to poison him.”

“…I don’t think that.”

As he listened to Ophelia’s explanation, Idren was newly grateful that she was not the type to suffer in silence. At least if she experienced something similar, she would retaliate, which gave him a small sense of relief.

However, that did not mean his surging anger had subsided.

And Idren felt pathetic about himself.

He should have looked into it more. He should have thought that Ophelia wouldn’t do such a thing without reason.

If Ophelia didn’t tell him, he should have asked more.

Then a question came to mind. Idren carefully asked after wiping his flushed face once.

“If I had asked a little more in my previous life, would you have answered like you are now?”

Ophelia was once again puzzled as she looked at the man asking in a voice that was still trying to suppress his anger.

Would she have answered truthfully if he had asked?

It was a situation she had never imagined.

Ophelia recalled what she thought of him in the early days of their marriage.

Idren was a quiet husband who kept his distance and did not demand much from her. But he wasn’t that close either.

He excluded her from internal affairs and did not bring any issues to her.

Recently, in the garden of the Leden palace, Idren had said those were considerations. Looking back now after hearing those words, it did feel that way, but at the time, Ophelia thought he didn’t trust her.

It wasn’t that she was hurt or disappointed by it. After all, she didn’t trust her husband either from the beginning.

Moreover, in the early days of their marriage, she didn’t even know what to do or how to do things. It was a time when rights she had never possessed before suddenly appeared simply because some man had paid for her.

So Ophelia was confused about whether she could have those rights. Even after learning that she could, she was unsure of how to use them.

In that situation, would she have told the truth to her husband, not knowing what the outcome would be?

Not to mention, she was of the belief that revenge was cleanest when done by her own hands.

Ophelia lowered her eyes slightly.

“I don’t know.”

And Ophelia questioned herself. Then why did she tell Idren now?

Because he asked?

But that was a reason that contradicted the answer she had just given.

Moreover, she was not someone who answered everything just because she was asked. When Idren asked why she had taken her life, she never gave him an answer.

Even now, Ophelia had no intention of telling him about the flowers that had been wrapped in silk and handed to her, or about the executed magnolia.

But at the very least, she had the will to explain to him the reasons why she had harmed others, and to say that it was not his fault that she had kept quiet.

They were definitely feelings she didn’t have at first. Ophelia could swear that up until right before the end of her first marriage, she had no such will.

What was the difference between then and now that made her feel this way?

Suddenly, the image of the man picking up chair pieces in the messy room came to mind.

At that time, Ophelia had shrunk back like a person with scars, but instead of threatening her, Idren had tidied up the room. He didn’t bother to explain, but Ophelia knew it was because he was worried she might get hurt.

That night, he had her sit down and applied medicine to her leg. Even though she acted like someone who had learned wrongly, he said nothing about it. The wound he had treated was still on her leg.

Ophelia thought about the boat that had been floating on the canal for quite a while. Why didn’t Idren switch to a carriage? If they had used a carriage, they would have arrived at the lord’s castle much earlier.

Although she would have had to wake up without getting much sleep.

And the candy too.

Ophelia recalled how he had picked the blue candy from the jar she had held out. And among the candies rolling at the bottom of the paper bag, there were no blue ones.

She looked down at the floor with confused eyes.

Idren did not demand an answer from her. Instead, he embraced her. Ophelia blinked at the embrace that felt like the first time even though it wasn’t.

“Thank you for telling me.”

So Ophelia wondered if this was something he should be grateful for. She retraced whether there was any hint in what had just happened that she had missed, whether there was anything more than the conversation that had passed between them.

But having become clumsy with other people’s emotions for quite some time, she could not decipher anything.