Chapter 5 – Wedding Night

Amber nearly shrank in fear from her glare.

‘Bella and her aids were all quite resentful of me because I had stolen the position of Duchess, weren’t they.’ When the Duke of Thales was single, Bella, wife to the late Duke of Thales, had acted as if she was still the lady of the castle.

Bella, who was very vain, had married the Duke of Thales when she was thirty-two years old, and he was 15 years her senior.
Once she had become Kalix’s mother, she had started to abuse her new position to satisfy her own wants.

She would take what little there was of the Duke’s wealth and spend it on materialistic things or hold grand parties to act high and mighty… those days must have been great for her.

However, when had Amber arrived, Bella’s position was endangered.
Even if Amber’s position was powerless, no one could simply ignore a duchess.
So, Bella began to harass Amber.
Her dowry was stolen, her confidence cut down, and it even became hard to leave her room.

Remembering all the harassment she received from Grace, Amber’s heart started to pound as she shivered.

‘But…’ Amber looked at the maid who was in front of her, ‘Just because I’m scared doesn’t mean I should live the same way as I did before.’

Amber straightened up and kept her eyes level with Grace’s.

Grace was slightly surprised.
Considering Amber had looked completely meek when she had been stamping her seal on the marriage documents just moments ago, this sudden confidence was wholly unexpected.

“You say that the Duke cannot come tonight.
What do you mean by that?” Amber asked in a clear voice.

In her previous life, Amber hadn’t been able to say anything to Grace at the news.
Instead, she had waited, anxious and alone, until morning.
Only then, thanks to Jenia’s pity, had Amber heard the reason behind why her husband had left.

‘I can’t let myself act like a fool like that again.’ Once, she had thought the answer was to just bow her head to everyone.
But the more she was shy and lowered herself, the more people had pushed her down and disdained her.

Now Amber wanted to confidently ask needed questions and receive a proper answer.
Despite knowing the truth, she still asked Grace aloud intentionally.

Grace was now visibly surprised by Amber’s words.
“The Duke… will be leaving the castle in the middle of the night.”

“For what reason? How am I to understand the details of his absence when you simply say he is leaving?” Amber asked.

Grace’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Though the maid was obviously displeased, Amber didn’t care.
She didn’t want to be friendly with Bella’s subordinates anyway.
Given the chance, she actually would kick them out of the castle.

“I’m sure you don’t know this as you’ve come here only recently, but every year in the Eastern lands there is a wave of terrifying monsters that invade.
The Duke left the castle in order to go into battle and subjugate them,” Grace said, with a strict, annoyed tone of voice that she hoped would strike fear into Amber again.

However, Amber felt something very different, ‘It makes even less sense now that I’m experiencing it again.’

In her previous life, being deserted by her husband on their first night was traumatic.
After it happened, she had spent a long time investigating why exactly her husband needed to go out and subjugate monsters.

The result was unbelievable.
The monster wave that had appeared on the day of Amber’s marriage was such a small one he hadn’t needed to oversee it.

‘I mean, who in their right mind would not even bother to spend their first night with their wife and run out into battle as if they’re trying to escape?’

Even if he were to apologize a hundred times for the need to go out into battle, she still couldn’t understand why he couldn’t even afford a few hours to finish up the wedding ceremony.

‘Perhaps he truly didn’t want to marry me.’ She was definitely sure that he hated this marriage so much that he didn’t even want to see his wife’s face.
‘It doesn’t make sense otherwise.
He passed on the whole ceremony and didn’t appear for document signing at the end either!’

However, those were her husband’s matters, and Amber no longer wished to be toyed with by him.