After I Died, My Husband Went Mad [EN]: Chapter 89

He couldn’t even bring himself to wipe away the tears. Overwhelming emotions, squeezed from the tiny gaps of his tear ducts as if competing with each other, dripped down to the floor.

“I’m sorry. I know these empty words can’t make up for the hurt and injustice you’ve suffered, but still… I’m sorry. I feel like I’ll suffocate if I don’t say this. Bella, please.”

Heavy, suffocating emotions. Realities too shameful and blatant to put into words. Dihart knew that the more he spoke, the more excuses he made, the greater his misery would become.

But he couldn’t help himself.

“I don’t dare ask you to listen, but I beg you. Just once, just this once, let me speak in front of you.”

He knelt silently before Sebelia. He opened his hand, which was bleeding from being clenched too tightly, placed it on the floor, and looked up at her. Tears and blood soaked the floor simultaneously.

“I now know that you never betrayed me, not even for a moment. I belatedly realized that you were always sincere with me. No, those are just excuses. I simply didn’t have the confidence to accept such a precious heart.”

Dihart squeezed his eyes shut. Tears fell in heavy drops.

He couldn’t have failed to notice. He couldn’t have failed to know. How could he not have seen her sparkling eyes when she looked at him, her affectionate touch, the sighs of regret she let out every time they parted?

He was just scared. He couldn’t trust her affection; he couldn’t muster the courage to believe it, so he turned away and ignored it out of fear. She was so different from him. She was a beautiful bride who had spent a childhood full of love, not one stained with screams and loss.

Dihart had deceived himself in that way, and this was the result.

“Because I thought you couldn’t possibly love someone like me.”

Dihart bitterly regretted his foolishness. He had ruined everything. Foolish, cowardly, twisted, and ignorant, he had thrown away a hard-won opportunity.

“I’m sorry.”

If he had been brave, if he had trusted her a little more, he could have had a fairytale-like happy ending. He could have had the beautiful and harmonious family he had dreamed of as a child.

“It’s all my fault. I was so inadequate that I couldn’t believe someone like you would love me, that you would be sincere with me. So I turned away from you, I didn’t want to get hurt, so I didn’t listen to your words… until the end.”

Plop, plop. Tears fell. The creaking wooden planks and the old carpet were too heavy and dense to absorb the moisture.

“That’s why. Because a fool like me would fall for your every word. I thought I would actually believe that you loved me because of your sweet lies, your soft whispers.”

So he thought he had no choice but to push her away. Looking back now, it was a foolish and stupid decision, but at the time, Dihart thought it was the only way.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wept silently. He lay on the floor and cried for a long time, as if he wanted all the moisture in his body to drain out and his heart to dry up.

Sebelia quietly looked down at him. As the color of the wooden floor grew darker, so did his sorrow. Dihart crawled on the floor like a blind man, weeping silently.

A trajectory was drawn. The trajectory of tears left by a man circling in place, yearning for an invisible salvation. The light of dawn scattered over it. Turning her head to look down at Dihart, she saw his cheeks, dry with salt, sparkling in the sunlight. From his lips came a groan-like name.

“Bella.”

He no longer called her Sebelia. Sebelia quietly bent her knees. Dihart’s eyes, curled up like a child’s, were red and swollen.

“Yes.”

Responding to his call, Sebelia stroked Dihart’s bruised lips. Once again, her name flowed from his blood-filled lips. Sebelia stroked his cheek and looked back at the window.

Dawn was breaking.

* * *

Dawn retreated and morning arrived. It was a dawn that would be remembered by some as stained with tears, but for others, it was the end of a dawn that would be etched with the joy of victory.

“It seems the Lash family has safely fallen into the hands of Marquis Lims.”

“Good.”

Ryan spat out the word coldly as he looked around at the wounded soldiers. Thanks to proper defense and response, no one was fatally injured.

“There’s no need to spread rumors separately, right?”

Ryan said, unfolding the extra edition [special newspaper issue] that had been scattered on the streets as soon as morning came. As planned, Marquis Lims had easily occupied the tower and rescued the Lash family.

He was so confident in the results that Lash loudly proclaimed his victory as he left Hillend Hall, and the result was an extra edition that was hastily made and distributed at dawn.

[What is the intention of Marquis Lims, who wielded a knife against his nephew?: Power struggle within Inverness]

[Is he really an innocent victim? About Lash Inverness]

There was a result of loudly welcoming Marquis Lims, who had quietly invaded. Thanks to this, Lims’ armed struggle, which began quietly last night, was held very loudly until this morning.

Thanks to that, such a wonderful extra edition was scattered all over the streets.

“Go and tell the servants that they don’t need to worry anymore.”

“Understood.”

“I should also write apology cards to the nobles residing in the villas around Hillend Hall. I should apologize for disturbing the dawn because of family matters.”

Ryan raised the corners of his lips and turned around. Giving apology cards to the nobles was like throwing firewood into a blazing fire.

‘By evening, the salons [gathering of people] will be overflowing with stories about Marquis Lims.’

And the direction of that story will naturally flow as Dihart and Ryan want. Ryan, relieved, was wondering what to write on the apology card when.

“Lord Ryan…!”

“What’s wrong?”

A knight rushed up and whispered something in Ryan’s ear. He gritted his teeth and moved his steps towards the Latur Hall, not the office.

* * *

The sun, which had appeared late, took its place at the highest point. The sound of servants waking up one by one and starting their morning busily echoed through the mansion.

Sebelia quietly stared out the window before turning her head. Dihart was lying on the thin carpet.

“I think your adjutant is wandering around looking for you.”

Sebelia’s fingertips slowly stroked Dihart’s cheek.

“You should have come sooner.”

Instead of suffering alone after knowing everything, you should have run to me. If you had, you wouldn’t have had to pour it all out so desperately and cry until you fainted. He was hurt again alone, outside of Sebelia’s sight.

“You’re so arrogant and terribly selfish until the end.”

Sebelia looked down at the unconscious Dihart with a bitter smile. A small sigh escaped her lips.

He didn’t say a word about Silas, but Sebelia could sense it indirectly. She didn’t know how it happened, but he had finally learned the ugly secret that the Weden family had desperately hidden.

The beloved youngest daughter of the Weden family was actually just a dirty bastard who had been despised since birth. And that Silas was trying to use that useless bastard to steal information from the North.

‘I don’t know how he found out. The servants of the Weden family are all as black-hearted as their father.’

A burst of laughter escaped Sebelia’s lips as she touched Dihart’s newly grown beard.

“I guess my words were shocking.”

It seems that my words that I didn’t apologize properly really resonated with him.

‘I didn’t know he would be this tormented.’

I knew he had feelings for me. But I didn’t know he would be this tormented by the past. I wanted to shake him up and relieve his pent-up feelings through his torment, but seeing him kneeling before me in such a miserable state felt strange.

‘I wasn’t happy at all. I couldn’t even feel that miserable thrill. Far from resolving my resentment, I, I…….’

Seeing him completely broken and crying made me terribly sad. Because I realized that both he and I were lacking. It was funny because I knew that we would never have a happy ending from the beginning.

‘Would it have been better if you had married someone else?’

Sebelia looked down at Dihart with shadowed eyes.

There was a time when I put everything at his feet. Because I had never received affection from my blood-related family, I had devoted everything to the newly formed family.

Because I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t receive even a shred of affection. Because I knew that even if I took everything from someone as worthless as me, it wouldn’t be enough for a handful of attention from someone as great as him.

But the sincerity I put at his feet was eventually trampled under his feet.

‘It was a really foolish act.’

Sebelia rested her chin on her knees and hugged her legs.

‘Ignorant, foolish… inexperienced, I thought it would work if I did that. I thought I would be loved if I put myself below and worshiped and loved you.’

That was the only way I learned from my father. If I humbled myself and obeyed my father’s words, I could receive even a short glance. That was the only way for Sebelia to receive her family’s attention and affection.

But I belatedly realized that it was not a way to be loved, but just a way to put myself at the bottom of the relationship. That it was something that distorted the relationship itself.

‘It was an unhealthy start from the beginning. Yes, we just buttoned our first buttons wrong.’

Even if my father’s work hadn’t happened, the relationship between the two would have ended badly anyway. As soon as I thought so, a burst of laughter escaped Sebelia’s lips.

Both he and I were really ridiculously stupid.

“Ugh…….”

At that time, Dihart tossed and groaned. His body, lying on the thin carpet, trembled intermittently. Sebelia got up and covered him with a thick blanket.

Sae-ak, sae-ak [sound of rustling]. Dihart’s face, breathing evenly, was haggard.

Various thoughts flashed through the blue eyes looking down at him. But soon the color of emotion cast in her eyes slowly subsided.

The golden eyes, shining beautifully in the sunlight, were slowly opening. Sebelia’s blue eyes, who was watching it, shook. Without knowing that, Dihart looked for Sebelia as soon as he came to his senses.

“…Bel, la?”

Sebelia raised her hand and covered his eyes. She didn’t want to show him her face right now.

“Let’s talk again after you sleep.”

Leaving Dihart with a dazed face, Sebelia went straight up to the bed. She felt his gaze over the blanket she had turned over.