The Villainess Doesn't Want Love (20 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 11
He surveyed the situation before him with an expressionless face.
The maid close to Caroline sat crouched on the floor, clutching one cheek.
Her posture clearly showed she’d been struck and knocked down.
And there was Karina’s reddened palm, unmistakably the one who had hit the maid.
“What is this…?”
Jeremiah frowned as he turned to look at Karina.
A silent pressure enveloped Karina, demanding an explanation.
Just as she was about to speak, Caroline spoke first.
“It’s all my fault.”
‘…What?’
Karina turned toward Caroline, bewildered by the unexpected remark.
“I should have taken better care of and shown more consideration to the Duchess. It’s because I was lacking.”
“What do you mean by that?”
When Jeremiah asked, Caroline lowered her eyes despondently and continued.
“I didn’t realize the Duchess would become this upset over my request that, now that I’ve married into the Dukedom, I should strive to become one of its people.”
“…”
“I only meant it as a suggestion that we both try our best and get along well.”
“…”
“Karina, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
Faced with Caroline’s tearful apology, Karina was left speechless.
“Duchess. Don’t you have anything to say?”
Jeremiah asked Karina coldly, his voice sharp as stone.
‘Honestly…’
Karina swallowed a hollow laugh, her expression incredulous.
“Well, I merely gave a fitting punishment to an insolent maid who forgot her place.”
“Is that all?”
“What more would you like me to say?”
‘Should I also apologize and say I’m sorry?’
Karina had absolutely no intention of doing so.
“Believe whatever you want to believe. I don’t care.”
She glanced briefly at Caroline and saw her covering the corner of her mouth with her hand—
clearly trying, and failing, to hide her upturned lips.
Despite Caroline’s obvious smugness, Jeremiah only pressed Karina.
Frowning, Karina stepped closer toward Caroline.
“Princess Caroline, you really must properly educate your personal maid. However foolish she may be, how dare she refer to me, the Duchess, simply as ‘Karina’?”
She enunciated the name “Karina” firmly and deliberately.
“…!”
At those words, Jeremiah’s expression behind her hardened instantly.
“She had the audacity to speak that way right in front of me. I don’t know what she thought she could get away with, but isn’t a servant’s misconduct the master’s responsibility?”
Her words carried the unspoken implication: “Isn’t your maid acting so boldly because she relies on you?”
Caroline’s eyes narrowed with amusement.
“Duchess, that’s…”
But Caroline couldn’t properly refute Karina’s statement—
after all, she’d already gone so far as to apologize to Karina herself in front of Jeremiah, playing the victim.
“What are you even talking about…?”
“I’m saying you should worry about your own affairs before giving me any advice.”
Having said her piece, Karina turned satisfied and walked toward the mansion, taking Mikhail with her.
Jeremiah stared at Caroline with a look that said, “What on earth was that about?”
Caroline smiled calmly, maintaining her composure.
“Oh dear, I’m not quite sure what you mean. It seems the Duchess must have misunderstood something in her agitation.”
“How could it possibly be a misunderstanding when a mere maid called the Duchess by her given name?”
At Jeremiah’s question, Caroline feigned ignorance with a blank expression.
“My maid called the Duchess by her first name? That can’t be. Karina must have misheard.”
Even after Caroline’s reply, Jeremiah’s expression remained grim.
Meanwhile, Karina had already walked quite far ahead.
As Jeremiah moved to follow her, Caroline caught his arm.
“It seems Karina is still sensitive about what happened at the last banquet. Going after her now will only lead to another argument, won’t it?”
“But…”
“I think Karina just needs some time. Let’s wait a bit longer until she calms down, okay?”
“…”
Jeremiah’s eyes followed Karina’s retreating figure.
His gaze didn’t waver until she had completely disappeared from sight.
[This is the timeline separator]“Your Grace.”
Once they’d put some distance between themselves and Caroline, Mikhail called out to Karina.
“Yes?”
“Has His Grace always been like this?”
“Like what?”
“He’s awfully cold toward you, Your Grace.”
Mikhail asked outright.
“…”
Karina didn’t feel like giving a lengthy answer to that question.
“He’s always like this, so don’t worry about it.”
“Always like that?”
At her reply, Mikhail scratched the back of his head while gauging her reaction.
“Hmm… He really is a cold man, then.”
Seeing her displeasure, Mikhail quickly changed the subject.
“But where are your maids, Your Grace?”
“Maids?”
“Princess Caroline is always accompanied by her maids, yet you seem to have none at all.”
“You’ve got good eyes. That’s because I don’t have any.”
“You don’t have maids?”
“No.”
“…Not even one?”
“None. Not a single one.”
Karina shook her head firmly.
Mikhail furrowed his brows and grimaced.
“You’re the mistress of the Dukedom—how can you not even have one personal maid? That’s…”
‘…neglect.’
Mikhail swallowed the last word.
But Karina easily guessed what he’d left unsaid.
“Don’t worry about it. I actually prefer it this way.”
Having a maid constantly hovering beside her, reporting everything back to Caroline, would be far more irritating and inconvenient.
Yet Mikhail still looked unconvinced.
“Honestly, there are far too many things about this place that differ from what I expected.”
Indeed, viewed objectively, things were strange enough to justify Mikhail’s impression.
‘Because this situation itself is abnormal.’
Not wanting to continue on this topic, Karina deflected the conversation.
“What about you? As the Duchess’s personal guard, how was your lodging?”
“…I slept well on a soft bed for the first time in a while, and the meals were good too.”
“How were the maids and servants treating you?”
“You needn’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”
Karina felt a twinge of concern at his self-assured attitude.
“Still, be careful.”
“You don’t already forget how I proved my strength in the training grounds, do you?”
Mikhail continued confidently, a relaxed smile on his face.
“Maybe I won yesterday’s match thanks to luck, but who knows what’ll happen next time? Better safe than sorry.”
“Please don’t worry. No matter what happens, I can protect both you and myself.”
He added with a playful wink.
“It really was a difference in skill, you know.”
At his confident demeanor, Karina couldn’t help letting out a soft chuckle.
[This is the timeline separator]“Haa…”
Jeremiah let out a deep sigh as he returned to his office.
He sat down in his chair, attempting to resume his usual duties.
The prisoner escape incident remained unresolved.
Uncharacteristically, his normally immaculate desk was now piled high with disheveled stacks of documents—
reports regarding the prison break. Despite all efforts to investigate, the culprits and their backers remained elusive.
But then again, was this truly just a simple prison break?
Mercenaries—seemingly transient—had gone so far as to hire expensive mages, suggesting this was no ordinary affair.
‘These aren’t ordinary mercenaries. There’s definitely someone backing them.’
Many factions within the Empire had long opposed the Colesburg Dukedom.
Though the Colesburg Dukes served as the impregnable bulwark of the North, politically they remained distant outsiders from the imperial capital.
And yet, this peripheral noble house possessed the Empire’s greatest military might.
Naturally, rivals eyed them with suspicion and sought to undermine them.
It was urgent to trace the remnants behind the prison break and those responsible for the explosion.
Yet despite the documents right before him, Jeremiah couldn’t focus on their contents.
Karina’s cold-eyed gaze kept flashing through his mind.
‘Annoying.’
Jeremiah’s brow furrowed.
Ever since their marriage, Karina had been compliant—until recently, when her behavior had noticeably changed.
Perhaps even her initial obedience had been an act.
‘Maybe she’s finally showing her true colors.’
The marriage between Karina and Jeremiah had been a political union, forced upon them by the Imperial Court.
In truth, noble marriages were typically alliances between houses, driven more often by political interest than affection.
It wasn’t unusual for such unions to feel more like transactions than love matches.
But for Jeremiah, Karina was different.
It was because of her lineage.
The Milainer Marquisate.
‘I must never forget she’s the daughter of the scheming Marquis Milainer.’
Jeremiah reminded himself sternly.
Karina’s birth family was the Milainer Marquisate—
staunch, unwavering loyalists devoted entirely to the Emperor.
Indeed, the Emperor had openly favored the Milainer family, granting them exceptional privileges.
Both the Imperial Court and the Marquis sought to preserve their power and influence indefinitely.
Thus, they remained hyper-vigilant toward any factions that might threaten imperial authority—
and the Colesburg Dukedom was among the houses they watched most closely.
That was where the trouble began.
The Emperor, who clung to imperial authority as if it were his life, distrusted Jeremiah, head of the Colesburg Dukedom.
Hence, he had forcibly married Jeremiah to Karina, daughter of Marquis Milainer—
a strategic move to prevent Jeremiah from expanding his influence through marriage to foreign royalty or forming alliances with other noble houses.
The Emperor would have deliberately chosen a woman he could trust to obey his orders faithfully—
someone suitable for both restraining the Dukedom’s influence and spying on, or even obstructing, Jeremiah’s actions.
Karina Milainer had been selected precisely because she met all those conditions perfectly.
Karina was the Emperor’s openly dispatched, yet undeniable, spy.
‘She can never truly be mine.’
Jeremiah pulled a letter from the top drawer of his office desk.
The crumpled paper contained intelligence sent from the capital—
a detailed report on secret contacts between factions hostile to the Dukedom and their sympathizers.
At the end of the report, filled with accounts of greed and sinister schemes, was a warning about Karina:
‘Don’t trust her too easily.’
Even as he thought this, her newly cold demeanor still bothered him.
Moreover, that insolent guard constantly glued to her side also displeased him.
Jeremiah’s brow furrowed further as he recalled Mikhail.
‘Really, are they truly not from some past acquaintance?’
It was only natural for a Duchess to be guarded by a knight of the Dukedom.
Yet Karina had stubbornly insisted on appointing an outsider—
a mage of uncertain status—to that critical position.
“What could she possibly be planning?”
The more he observed Karina’s actions, the more suspicious they seemed.
Perhaps, as the intelligence warned, she truly had another agenda—
perhaps even aiming to dismantle the Dukedom and monopolize its power through greed.
But still…
“Believe whatever you want to believe. I don’t care.”
Karina’s calm words seemed to tell an entirely different story.
“…”
Grief etched deeply into the corners of Jeremiah’s eyes as he stared coldly at the intelligence report.
Male lead first thought she played hard to get, only to realize she
really disliked him
Short intro:
What she can’t stand the most is the streets full of effeminate men, especially that so-called top beauty whom she avoids at all costs.
Shen Yaoxing looks at Jiang Mingyue, who keeps approaching her with coy shyness.
Shen Yaoxing: Bro, don’t be like this, I’m really about to throw up!
She fears nothing in heaven or earth, except for him getting close to her.
*
At first he thought she was just using the trick of feigning indifference to attract his attention. Later, he learned that she truly despised him.
This dealt a heavy blow to Jiang Mingyue, and he vowed to make her, like everyone else, fall at his feet in worship!
***
Synopsis:
Before transmigrating, Shen Yaoxing only wanted to find a reliable man to spend her life with. Who knew that after transmigrating, she would become a reliable woman herself…
A forced misandrist, highly skilled, and reliable female lead
vs.
An initially aloof and arrogant, later morbid, obsessed male lead
_____
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Chapter Comments (10)
Inline Comments (158)
“I can help you—with the Duchess’s divorce.”
And then get with him.Even though he’s hiding things, he still seems more honest and trustworthy than the duke at this point.
“I can help you—with the Duchess’s divorce.”
Let him see we need a fallback plan.
"You should consider yourself honored just because I came all the way here to me
“The lady doth protests too much, methinks.” What else do they say, “pride cometh before the fall?”
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I love when it’s just them
i’m really hoping for divorce next chapter
why did I unlock all the chapters? I wish I didn’t do that because he’s irritating me.