A Way to Confirm Your Husband’s True Feelings - Chapter 72

When he had suddenly asked earlier if she had come to meet Edgar, she hadn’t caught on. But now, she was starting to understand what was going on.

Caesar was clearly caught up in some ridiculous misunderstanding.

“Caesar, don’t tell me… are you suspecting something between His Highness and me?”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at her. The silence was as good as an admission.

“What on earth…”

Beatrice was about to demand how he could believe something so absurd, but she closed her mouth.

If Caesar was misunderstanding her and Edgar, this must not have started just today or yesterday. Judging by his attitude, he had likely already come to believe she was being unfaithful.

If that were the case… then it meant that all this time, even while suspecting her, he’d never let it show.

…Why? Why hadn’t he confronted her from the start, when the doubts first appeared?

“When did you start thinking that way?”

At her question, Caesar buried his face in one hand, then roughly dragged it down his face.

“Since I heard that you were offered a position as lady-in-waiting to the Crown Princess.”

Staring blankly into space, he gave his answer, and only then did Beatrice recall one of the oldest scandals in the imperial family. A dusty tale involving the late Emperor and his mistress.

The Tyrenia Empire, by law, did not allow polygamy. As such, those in power often resorted to loopholes to keep lovers or mistresses by their side.

The former Emperor had done just that. Edgar’s grandfather had arranged for his favorite mistress to marry one of his retainers to give her a proper status, then brought her into the palace as a lady-in-waiting.

Of course, the Empress hadn’t stood idly by while her husband flaunted an affair in front of her—but before long, she too brought in a young lover through similar means, and the scandal more or less settled itself.

The current Emperor—Edgar’s father—who had witnessed all this as a child, grew up to reject all women except his Empress with a near-obsessive purity. Influenced by him, Edgar had always declared from a young age that he would live looking only at his wife for life.

So Beatrice believed Caesar’s suspicion to be absurd. But now she could see how he might have come to think such things.

Still, understanding it was one thing. Accepting it was another.

“…Then why didn’t you say anything until now? You could’ve asked me not to accept the offer. You could’ve demanded to know if there was anything really going on between Edgar and me.”

Caesar said nothing.

Beatrice watched the veins rise on his hand, still gripping the door of the carriage. She waited for an answer calmly. But then, to her surprise, the metal door before her began to bend slowly under the pressure of his grip.

“Caesar!”

Only when she called his name did Caesar seem to snap out of it and let go of the door.

‘Did he… just crush the carriage door?’

It wasn’t just his terrifying strength. What disturbed her more was not knowing what he had been restraining so hard.

His violet eyes now burned silently as he looked at her.

“I apologize for showing you something so disgraceful. I lost my temper. Where is the carriage you came in? Let’s go home.”

He still hadn’t answered her questions, and the conversation was going nowhere. Even so, all Caesar seemed to want was to send her back home.

Beatrice felt the familiar tightness in her chest. She made a renewed decision.

Tonight, no matter what, she would make him show the feelings locked in that hardened chest.

“Caesar, if you want to get angry, then just be angry. If you’re upset with me, don’t take it out on a carriage, say it to me! If you want to ask something, don’t hide it, just ask! Please, I’m begging you—don’t just bottle everything up. You always do that, always, and because you always do that…”

You end up venting to Dillon Schultz instead!

She swallowed the last part of her sentence, unable to bring herself to say it aloud, and waited for Caesar’s reaction. All the hurt and anxiety she had been holding back started to rise inside her.

But to her disappointment, the wall Caesar had built around himself showed no signs of crumbling even tonight. He had already reined in his emotions and returned to the icy composure that made her grind her teeth.

“I would never dare to be angry with you… and I won’t be in the future, either. Just as I’ve always done.”

“Why not? Because I’m the precious youngest daughter of Duke Estern? But Caesar, I’m your wife. A husband and wife should be able to argue. To fight like this, too!”