After I Died, My Husband Went Mad [EN]: Chapter 162

It was a rare dinner alone for the two of them. Rosalyn had gone out to play with her friends, and Maya had disappeared to enjoy her own time. Dihart was spending a happy time facing Sebelia, who looked even more beautiful today.

Even when he brought the dessert after the meal, he was definitely the happiest man in the world.

“Dihart.”

“Yes?”

Sebelia said, breaking the surface of the crème brûlée that was nicely browned.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, if I can answer it.”

At his exceedingly affectionate reply, Sebelia smiled, as if embarrassed. And immediately, she strung the prepared question onto an arrow and aimed it at him.

“Don’t I get a gift?”

The gap of this week had not only amplified her longing, but she had also confirmed all the rumors and various love scandals that Dihart had spread while he was away.

‘Doreen’s daughter was among them, too.’

She was even known as the most certain figure among Dihart’s many love scandals. In other words, she was someone who had frequent contact with Dihart, enough to lend credibility to people’s gossip.

“A gift, you mean.”

Dihart’s hand, which was about to break the golden-brown surface, paused. Sebelia didn’t miss that small movement. She shouldn’t give him time to prepare.

Sebelia fired a second arrow at the brazen target.

“You said you’d buy me a jewelry box as a souvenir from your business trip last time.”

Sebelia bit her lip, as if a little embarrassed, as if it were slightly shameful to say it herself like this.

“Ah, I didn’t want to say it like this.”

And Dihart’s heart dropped. But a duke is a duke for a reason. It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to recover his pale expression.

Dihart offered an apology in a carefully refined voice.

“I’m sorry. I was so preoccupied that I couldn’t take care of you. I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”

“No, it’s my fault for pushing you when I know you’re busy. I should have waited a little longer.”

The effect of the final blow was tremendous. Dihart couldn’t help but be shocked at Sebelia’s self-reproach.

“I wonder if I ruined the mood by getting ahead of myself…”

He wouldn’t be qualified as a gentleman if he remained still after making her say such a thing. Dihart jumped up from his seat and rushed to Sebelia’s side in an instant. And he said with earnest eyes, holding her hand.

“To make you think that way… I’m sorry. What can I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything, Dihart. It’s not like you intended it on purpose… it’s just, what can we do if things turned out this way.”

Sebelia gazed at him with eyes that seemed to say, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Her face was so innocent that Dihart was speechless.

He felt a sense of guilt weighing down on his heart.

‘I have no choice.’

Dihart strengthened his grip on her hand with a dismal feeling. Sebelia’s comfort fell upon his drooping shoulders.

She was the one who didn’t receive a gift, but conversely, he was the one being comforted. Did that even make sense? Dihart let out a silent sigh and decided to revise his plan. If he continued like this, there was a high possibility that he would only hurt her feelings, let alone a perfect surprise.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, he revealed half the truth. It was to clear up Sebelia’s misunderstanding.

“Actually, there was a problem with the jewelry box I was going to give you, so I had it re-crafted.”

“Really?”

Sebelia’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Yes. In fact, that’s partly why I went to the North.”

“I see.”

The generous Sebelia seemed to understand the situation well enough with a brief explanation. Dihart was moved by her kind forgiveness, but one part of his conscience pricked him.

It was a conscience that only reacted to her, so the degree of pain was even greater. As he suppressed his groan and endured the pain, Sebelia suddenly sparkled her eyes and said.

“Could that be why you met with the young ladies?”

“That’s… Bella?”

Caught off guard, Dihart, who had unknowingly answered honestly to the question that had slipped in, belatedly realized the sense of incongruity. As he stared at her with astonished eyes, Sebelia snorted and leaned back.

The hand that had been held was already gone.

“There was a very interesting rumor in the capital while you were staying in the North.”

Saying so, she handed him a newspaper that contained the scandalous affair of a high-ranking man. Dihart’s face quickly hardened as he took in the names of the families of the young ladies the man had seduced, one by one.

“I can explain.”

The man who crumpled the newspaper had a face that had abandoned all pretense of laughter. There was even a sense of desperation in the man who met her eyes without trying to gloss over the situation or evade it.

But Sebelia had never wanted the truth from him in the first place.

“Don’t come to see me for the time being, starting tomorrow. The period is until I call you again. Until then, you can’t come to see me unless we happen to run into each other in the mansion.”

What she wanted was appropriate time.

“Of course, going to the annex is completely forbidden. Got it?”

But Dihart, who didn’t know such circumstances, was going crazy.

“Bella, I can explain everything. I’ll tell you everything that happened.”

Sebelia shook her head, raising the man who had knelt down as if it were a habit. Dihart’s face was filled with despair at the clear refusal.

“Don’t misunderstand, Dihart. It’s not that I’m blaming you.”

“Then why on earth…”

“I was the only one waiting for you.”

A sliver of doubt lingered on his face, which had been full of despair. Sebelia reached out her hand towards that pitiful light.

“Now it’s your turn to wait.”

Sebelia murmured, stroking the man’s cheek, which was unknowingly distorted.

“You’ll keep this promise, right?”

Dihart had a complicated look on his face. But because he had committed a sin, he had no choice but to obediently follow the given punishment.

“I promise.”

Sebelia smiled as she listened to his resentful voice. She had bought herself some time with this.

* * *

“At this rate, it won’t end, miss?”

Denisa, who had come to work at Inverness Mansion early again today, was helping Sebelia in the annex, not the main building. Sebelia, who had dismissed all the servants who cleaned every day and even issued a temporary entry ban, was plotting something suspicious there.

“I need more people.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“At least have the servants move the things.”

Sebelia averted her gaze at the nagging while pointing at the flickering illusion.

“I’m fine now, and this much is nothing.”

“Who uses illusion magic to move things?”

“I heard wizards do that too, so why are you only picking on me…”

After the existence of illusionists was actively highlighted, she received many requests for interviews from many magicians. Of course, she didn’t meet them all, and she only had tea with a few of them who had received approval from the Crown Prince.

And the magicians she met at that time freely used magic to take care of trivial tasks.

“It may seem like nothing, but it’s all part of training to effectively utilize power.”

Sebelia, who had picked up a plausible excuse from the magicians, approached the window. Instead of curtains, a white lace cloth with delicate embroidery was draped over the window.

“It seems like the trivial things are mostly done, right?”

The drawing-room with its soft and warm colors was filled with all sorts of beautiful and sparkling things, as if something had happened. Three-branched candlesticks, lace woven directly by priests, corsages made of silver-white and light cyan fabrics, and flowers and branches made of silver.

It was an atmosphere that someone might mistake for a wedding venue if they took a wrong turn and stepped inside.

“Let’s decorate with fresh flowers last. Then it’ll be perfect.”

With a spirited face, Sebelia declared the end of today’s work. Denisa, who was sitting on the sofa that hadn’t been cleaned up yet and doing embroidery, sighed.

“The last thing you need to worry about isn’t fresh flowers, it’s the ring, miss.”

“…….”

“The Crown Prince’s messenger said he would visit on time tomorrow.”

So there’s no need to worry. Sebelia snatched the embroidery from Denisa’s hand and pushed her out of the annex. How time had passed, the cool evening air brushed her cheeks.

“Go home now.”

Sebelia waved her hand diligently, seeing off Denisa, who had a dissatisfied look on her face. Even as she left, she kept grumbling, ‘Why does the miss have to do such a thing,’ and ‘That man needs to know he’s blessed.’

“Oh, dear.”

Unlike herself, she still seemed unable to forgive Dihart. But it wasn’t like she hated and loathed him like before. She sometimes looked at him with disapproving eyes, but she didn’t object to living with him.

‘If she really hated him, she would have objected when she heard my plan.’

On the way back to the mansion, Sebelia inadvertently raised her head. She could see someone standing beyond the window with the curtain half-drawn.

It was a momentary thing that their eyes met. Dihart was flustered and tried to turn away behind the curtain, but he soon changed his mind and gazed at her with a confident look.

‘It’s a coincidence.’

His lips were moving silently, saying that. Sebelia smiled as she looked at the window, which shone alone like a lighthouse in the darkness that surrounded her.

‘I know.’

As she returned those words, she could see the man’s face, which had been stiff, relax. Shaking his head slightly as if he couldn’t help it, Sebelia moved her steps.

Yes, coincidence led you to me.

The person who was originally destined to be your partner was Nelia, and I just happened to take that place. It was a marriage that started by chance, and it was just as painful. Enough to volunteer for death and run away, enough to erase my existence and disappear.

But you managed to find me.

You struggled while enduring my absence, which was as terrible as the pain I had experienced, but even more so. And that long struggle finally reached me.

Coincidentally, in that city where God’s blessing resided, with a fleeting encounter.

So Sebelia didn’t believe in his change of heart. No matter how much people she didn’t even know chattered, her belief never broke.

Because she knew that her absence was hell for him.

‘But I can’t let them gossip forever.’

The hard times had been too long, so she was only trying to enjoy happiness. But this wasn’t a research lab in the mountains, a place where we couldn’t create our own paradise isolated from the world.

Then all she had to do was make sure that such dirty rumors could never be spread again.

Click.

Opening the door and entering, Sebelia once again checked her plan. Tomorrow, as soon as the ring that she had asked the Crown Prince for arrived, she would call Dihart to the annex and propose to him.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

What kind of face would he make? In the midst of the excitement, Sebelia went to bed. Her heart kept beating, and she couldn’t close her eyes.

“……!”

Sebelia opened her eyes in the early hours of the morning. She couldn’t sleep soundly anyway because of the tension and anticipation, but she suddenly woke up from the commotion downstairs.

“…….”

Frowning, she got up from her seat and put on a long cardigan as if to vent her anger. I need to check what’s going on. Opening the door with a bang, she strode down the hallway.

As she quickly moved her steps, she suddenly looked out the window and saw that the sky was a pale blue color. An ambiguous time that was neither dawn nor morning. She couldn’t help but frown at the unpleasant feeling that she had ruined the perfect start to the day.

Meanwhile, the incomprehensible noise was still continuing downstairs. From the looks of it, they were trying their best to move as quietly as possible, but that actually had the opposite effect.

They tried to move carefully and bumped into the wall with a thud, and they held their breath so they wouldn’t make a sound, then burst out loudly at once. These things overlapped and vibrated the air.

‘Why on earth are they working at this early hour?’

If it were a thief, he would have been slaughtered by Dihart long ago, so it was clear that it was either servants or knights moving with his tacit approval. The most likely thing was that they were organizing the things they had brought from the North, but why would they do this when people were sleeping?

After thinking about it for a long time, Sebelia had already reached the stairwell. Just as she was about to step forward, she heard a voice from below.