This Time, My Brother-in-Law Proposed - Chapter 1.4

It’s not me but Linda who is lacking in etiquette.

Well, she’s still young and immature.

I smiled at Linda.

“Maybe I did.”

The Marquis’s household or the underworld.

I will never go back there again this time.

But my uncle has no tact.

“Irene. You’re meeting with the son of the Marquis of Freier well, aren’t you? There’s no better match for you than him.”

“Of course. Who would want to marry a woman who grew up unable to learn anything like me?”

“……Th-that’s…… right……?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

My uncle seemed a bit confused, but when I promptly answered, he nodded absentmindedly.

You’re the one in charge of my education, yet you neglected to teach me anything and left me alone – that was a sarcastic remark. He doesn’t even notice.……Someone I once only feared in my previous life. Now, after meeting all sorts of cunning snakes in the Marquis’s household, he just seems insignificant to me.

I lost my parents when I was twelve.

My father died from complications after being attacked by a monster, and my mother collapsed from overwork trying to restore the crumbling family. My mother breathed her last in that very bed where my father had been bedridden.

My uncle, who finally showed up lazily after the funeral, took me in and said.

‘Live as if you’re there and not there, without going against my moods. Then I will educate you just enough to function as a human being.’

‘But if the day comes when you go against my moods.’

‘Irene, you will return to this place where your parents died.’

It was the worst kind of threat.

My uncle knew well how to scare children.

I lived as quietly as possible.

My uncle, on days when he was stressed from business, would sometimes stomp his feet loudly in front of my room. Whenever that happened, I would stop reading and huddle on the bed, clamping my mouth shut. Perhaps my uncle enjoyed my reaction.

Thinking about it, he’s such a petty human being.

I lightly mocked him and enjoyed my breakfast happily. I could hear the maids whispering behind me.

“Miss Irene, hasn’t she changed?”

“I know. Why does she look so happy?”

“Maybe she’s excited about getting married? Her marriage to the Marquis’s family is as good as decided, and they say she just needs to receive the proposal now.”

“Ah, is that so!”

No, people!

Wait. Come to think of it, when exactly did I receive the proposal?

It was on my twentieth birthday, so…….

September 19th.

Only one week left until the proposal.

Just as the maids said, the proposal is merely a formality. Everyone in both families already knows that we are getting married.

But I can’t marry that bastard again this time.

Where should I start to break off this marriage?

It’s obvious my uncle won’t listen to anything I say. If I meet Ernst in this mood, I might end up punching him. Then it wouldn’t be a matter of breaking off the engagement, but of me ending up in jail.

Should I negotiate directly with the Marquis’s family?

Just then.

A maid entered the dining room and said.

“Miss Irene. A message has arrived from Ernst. He says he would like to have lunch together today.”

The good feeling I had from being revived plunged back to the bottom again.

* * *

I reunited with the past Ernst at a restaurant.

I’d worried about what I would do if I wanted to throw a punch the moment I saw him, but that worry soon disappeared.

“Hello, Irene. Did you have good dreams?”

Ernst smiling affectionately as soon as he saw me.

His smile was truly beautiful.

I remembered. The twenty-year-old me trusted Ernst because of that smile. I believed that even if he didn’t love me, he would at least keep his faith as a husband.

But he would change little by little.

On that day he sent me to the gallows, getting a kiss from his mistress and grinning lewdly, he was truly disgusting.

I recalled that face and tried not to feel flutter towards Ernst before me.

Even though I felt like throwing up instead.

“That’s a good question, Ernst. I had a very long dream last night.”

“Oh, what about?”

“A dream where you betrayed me.”

“Even if it’s a dream, that can’t happen. Didn’t you provide the cause? Like falling for a more handsome man!”

He joked by himself and laughed boisterously. But as my face hardened, he seemed to realize he had said something stupid.

“Ahem, ahem. Just kidding. There’s no way there’s anyone more handsome than me, right.”

“……You’re right. By the way, why did you call me today?”

“I’d like to say that having a meal with my future wife needs no reason, but. I called you to discuss a few things regarding the wedding preparations.”

“I figured as much. You’re a reasonable person, so you wouldn’t waste time on useless things.”

Ernst, thinking that was also a compliment, nodded.

A human being who thinks he’s reasonable in everything.

He put even minimal effort into the proposal.

On my birthday, he had me stand in my uncle’s garden, knelt on one knee, and handed me a bouquet of roses – that was all. The maids who took pity on me applauded, which only made it more miserable.