The Full Story of an Incomplete Divorce - Chapter 14

Deciding on a divorce, and then s*x? This had strayed far, far from any normal course. She couldn’t even begin to figure out where to start untangling this mess. Of course, separate from the confusion, the s*x with Lucius had been exceedingly good. He was so skilled it was hard to believe he was a man who had just lost his virginity.

‘…Wait a minute.’

A sudden thought made Charlotte’s head turn towards the bedside table. There lay the booklet she hadn’t opened since the consultant’s first visit. On a hunch, she scanned the table of contents and quickly flipped through the pages.

While it contained detailed information about marital relations, nowhere was there any mention of acts like Lucius had done to her the previous night: burying his nose in her pubic area to smell her, licking with his tongue, or drinking her juices.

If she didn’t learn it by following the booklet, then just where on earth did she learn such an embarrassing act? As she recalled the disconnect between his face, which was innocent and far from lustful, and the enormous c**k hidden inside his trouser seam, she became short of breath again. Charlotte, who had been unconsciously rubbing her thighs together, suddenly snapped out of it.
“I must be going mad.”

Charlotte slammed the booklet shut and opened a drawer to get it completely out of her sight, only to discover an old letter inside.
Though the edges of the paper had faded with time, proving the passage of years, the neat handwriting inside remained unchanged. She had read it so many times that even now, years later, she could recite the contents word for word without a single mistake.

-From Linert.
At the bottom, where the sender’s name was written, there were traces of his name being erased and rewritten multiple times.
“Linert.”
Perhaps because it was a name she hadn’t spoken in a long time, it felt gritty and rough on her tongue, as if there was sand on the tip.

From the beginning, her marriage partner hadn’t been Lucius. Charlotte had her engagement ceremony with Linert, the eldest son of the Valentin family, who was five years her senior, the year she turned twelve. Apart from the handsome looks that ran in the family for generations, Linert was the complete opposite of Lucius in every way.
He was eloquent, loved being in front of people, preferred entertainment over reading, and enjoyed horseback riding and practicing swordsmanship far more than his heir lessons. To put it nicely, he was sociable; to put it differently, his behavior was frivolous. In fact, even at a young age, rumors were widespread about his frequent drinking and promiscuous relationships with women.
But she didn’t particularly care. In noble society, marriage was a custom built on gains and losses, and her goal was to become an excellent wife, not to obtain a principled husband.

The situation completely changed on a sweltering summer day four years later.
Linert would often have sword practice sessions with servants in the indoor training ground. It wasn’t because there was a lack of suitable sparring partners; there were dozens of knights residing in the mansion alone. Linert’s sword practice was merely his own clever way of tormenting servants he didn’t like.
For some reason, brimming with confidence that day, Linert gave the servant a real sword and used a wooden practice sword himself. During the spar, the wooden sword broke, and he was pierced through the heart by the real sword in the servant’s hand, dying on the spot.
When she first heard the news of his accident, Charlotte’s initial thought was that it was a very fitting death for him, rather than sorrow. Unfortunately, Linert’s death was purely due to his own arrogance and carelessness.

As soon as the funeral concluded, her fiancé suddenly changed to Lucius, but Charlotte did not oppose the adults’ decision. Perhaps it was for the best. In fact, she had long held feelings for Lucius, not Linert.
She had first become aware of her affection for Lucius around the time she received this letter. The moment she read the contents, she could tell at a glance that it was written by Lucius. The sentences were far too delicate and considerate to have been written by Linert, and above all, the handwriting was different.