Chapter 38

Chapter 38

After he finished his lunch, Richard came to get Elisha as he had said he would.

“Elisha.”

Upon hearing the knock at her door, Elisha finished dressing and opened the door for Richard.

For a brief second, Richard could only stare at Elisha with a dumbfounded look.

Elisha was wearing a light colored and flowy dress and a sun hat. In a windy and cold place like Rubelin, it was an outfit that she could only wear very rarely.

In addition to that, when he saw her white, milky skin, slightly blushed lips and cheeks, blindingly bright golden hair, and vibrant green eyes, it was like seeing spring itself.

“Richard?”

Elisha looked at a dumbfounded Richard with puzzled eyes.

It was only then that Richard came back to his senses and stretched out his hand toward Elisha.

“Let’s go.”

Elisha hesitated for a moment and then placed her hand on top of his big hand.

For some reason, even though this was the same hand that she had been holding without any further thought from when she was little, today, the hand seemed a bit foreign to her.

When she felt the warmth of the hand that firmly wrapped around hers, she felt something tickle inside her chest.

‘I guess I’m just really excited because this is the first time that I’m going on an outing in a while.’

Elisha suppressed her feelings while she was following Richard out of the room when Anne, who had been watching the couple from afar, quickly came forward and threw a shawl around Elisha’s shoulders.

“Please come back safely, Madam. And don’t overexert yourself.”

“Okay, I’ll come back soon.”

Elisha bade Anne goodbye and left the room.

Richard, who was leaving the room with Elisha, felt someone staring at him from inside the room, and peered inside.

For some reason, Anne was staring at Richard with eyes full of resentment.

Richard was puzzled as to why Anne was looking at him with such strong resentment, but by the time he started to question it, the door was already closed.

When they made it to the front door, there was already a carriage with the Rubelin crest waiting for them.

The couple got onto the carriage side by side. Grayson and servants came outside and saw the couple off.

“Please have a good time, Duke and Duchess.”

Not long after, the carriage set off. Inside the carriage, there were only sounds of the carriage wheels turning outside.

Elisha slightly glanced at Richard.

Although he was looking out the window, his eyes seemed to be locked in deep thought.

‘It’s probably because of what happened last night, right……?’

Last night, Elisha laid in bed and thought about why Richard hadn’t wanted to divorce her.

After a long night of pondering over the matter, the conclusion that she had come to was that he thought of her as family and as a friend. That was why he didn’t want to see her go.

‘That’s why he was worried about me when I was sick, even though he was avoiding me at the time.’

If it wasn’t because of that reason, none of his actions made sense.

Elisha, who had decided upon that conclusion, was upset.

‘I wasn’t that happy when I asked for a divorce either.’

Rubelin was the place that she had come to as soon as she had come into this story, so the dukedom was like a hometown to her.

Elisha loved the cold, but warm-hearted, Rubelin dukedom with all her heart. In Rubelin, everything that she came to love was there.

People that she liked, precious memories, and everything that she had built up in Rubelin.

And of course, there was him.

For both people, Richard and Elisha were family and precious friends.

“But if we want to avoid the upcoming troublesome future, this is the point where we have to break up…….’

If things kept going like this, there was a chance that things would become like the original story.

That was something that she had wanted to avoid since the beginning.

But since he didn’t know the things that she knew, it seemed that Richard didn’t have any intention to divorce Elisha.

‘What do I do now? Do I have to run away to someplace far away?’

Elisha held back a sigh and sank into her seat cushion.

Perhaps it was because of lack of food from her morning sickness, but she felt extremely fatigued after just a few steps outside.

She didn’t even have the strength to continue thinking and soon fell asleep.

While she was sleeping, Elisha’s head rattled from side to side without mercy.

Then, suddenly, her head crashed onto the wall of the carriage. At the sound, Richard turned to look at Elisha.

“Ugh…… .”

Elisha slightly wrinkled her forehead in pain for a while and then soon fell back asleep. But her head was still dangerously bouncing off of the carriage wall.

When Richard saw what was happening, he gently lifted her head and put it onto his shoulder.

In her sleep, Elisha rubbed her face against his shoulder to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

“…… .”

Richard looked at the sleeping Elisha for a moment.

The light weight on his shoulders, the small amount of heat from her body, and her shallow breaths all gave him a sense of relief.

But at the same time, it brought unease. It was because of the thing that she had brought up so suddenly last night.

‘Let’s divorce now, Richard.’

He had just made it back to her after 7 years, but she had brought up a promise they had made from 8 years earlier and wanted to leave him.

She wouldn’t know how he had survived the battlefield where he was being targeted by friend and foe.

‘Well, we haven’t even spent 1 year together.’

Before he went away, the time had been too short for him to show his feelings for her.

So, if they spent more time together, wouldn’t she naturally open up her heart towards him as well?

‘…… I definitely have to make that happen.’

He was going to make sure that the only person that her heart fully opened up to was him.

Richard softly placed his lips on her forehead.

The red eyes glowed vividly with obsession.

The carriage rattled as it rolled over some gravel.

When she felt the rattling, Elisha woke up from her nap.

But something was strange.

‘Huh?’

She had been wondering why the carriage wall was so soft, but she realized that the place where she was leaning against was not the carriage wall, but Richard’s shoulder.

In other words, she had been sleeping in a rather troublesome position.

Elisha was surprised and her heart was beating wildly in her chest. But she didn’t want to get up.

His shoulder was warm and his body was comforting. She could also smell his body’s scent.

‘Maybe I should just sleep a little more like this.’

When her body became weaker, it seemed like she wanted to lean on someone safe like him.

Her eyes had just fluttered shut again when the carriage came to a stop. From the front of the carriage, she heard the driver’s voice.

“Your Excellency. Madam. We have arrived.”

Elisha gave up on falling back asleep and lifted her heavy body.

Richard got off the carriage first and extended a hand toward Elisha.

Elisha took his hand and got off the carriage. She looked around the scene and let out an exclamation of joy.

“It’s so pretty…… .”

Under the clear, blue sky, there were cherry blossom trees in full bloom that were surrounding a lake.

The cherry blossoms that scattered every time the wind blew looked like snow as it fell.

The cherry blossoms in the air gently blew into the lake, which looked similar to the sky.

Elisha drank in the scenery and waved at Richard.

It was nice to look at her as she smiled brightly from between the falling cherry blossoms.

After he had returned from the war, it was the first time that he had seen her smiling so brightly.

Richard forgot the things that he was going to say and went over to her.

At that moment, the wind that had been blowing the flowers around suddenly stopped.

“Ah.”

He saw a brief look of disappointment come upon Elisha’s face.

Richard, who had noticed that brief expression, slightly raised one of his eyebrows.

But soon, the wind started to blow the cherry blossoms around again. This time, the wind was more gentle, so the flowers were able to float in the air without stopping.

“Let’s go.”

Richard, who had come over to Elisha, held her hand.

Elisha was surprised at the sudden skinship and almost tried to shake him off, but she couldn’t, so she decided to just follow him.

Most importantly, she didn’t dislike holding his hand.

The couple walked along the lakefront while getting showered with flower petals. Perhaps this was a place that wasn’t very well known to people, but there weren’t any people at the lake.

‘Maybe I should try talking.’

Elisha glanced over at Richard to look for the right time to start talking.

At that moment, Elisha noticed a flower petal that was stuck on his forehead.

Elisha stretched out her hand toward his head.

“Richard, wait.”

Richard halted for a second and then lowered his head towards Elisha when he realized what she wanted to do.

When he did so, his face came very close to Elisha’s.

Elisha was unable to do anything but stare at his face with a dumbfounded expression.

Even with dazzling things like the blue sky and the light pink cherry blossoms in the background, his face was definitely outstanding.

‘Your husband’s face is like a natural treasure.’

She heard that when people go to war, they return with faces hardened by war.

Although his hands were a little rough, Richard had returned with a soft face that was so white, that it looked like it hadn’t even seen the sun before.

“Are you done?”

When Elisha heard Richard’s voice, she quickly came back to her senses and stopped looking at him.

“Ah, yes.”

At that moment, sounds of children’s laughter came from the lakefront.

When she heard the laughter, Elisha’s head turned toward the children. Because Richard was only looking at Elisha, his head also turned towards the children when Elisha looked away.

There were two children that looked to be four or five years old that were skipping stones on the lake.

When Elisha saw that scene, a question that she had forgotten to ask suddenly resurfaced.

She glanced over at Richard, who was also looking at the two children playing, and looked away as she threw him a question.

“Aren’t they so cute?”

“I’m not sure.”

As she had predicted, his response was indifferent to the children. But because of his response, now she felt more impatient than ever.

Elisha decided to ask him a more specific question.

“Then did you ever consider having your own child one day?”