Chapter 15
Karloi glared at Yvonne, who couldn’t help but keep her usual cold face.
Even if he looked like that, she had nothing to say. Karloi was yelling about how she didn’t listen to him.
“You openly ignore me. Even if it’s not for appearance, I can’t help realizing that you’re the Duke’s daughter.”
“…I was thinking about something for a while. I’m sorry.”
“Are you doing this just once or twice? You answer that every time.”
Karloi wasn’t very angry, and now he used a softer tone to criticize her.
“I’m not sure what else a woman, who is only in the Empress’s Palace, has to think about. I’m sure you’re not doing anything special.”
Ah.
Fourteen years of tact and patience were of no use before Karloi.
Every time she saw him, Yvonne had to use all of her strength to suppress the urge to grab Karloi by the collar.
Among many and many people, why the Emperor? If it weren’t for him being the Emperor, she would have pretended to be crazy at least once.
Even when she was young, she wasn’t a very gentle person, but she doesn’t know how things have changed this way.
“You’re acting like this, but still asking me to eat meals…”
Karloi muttered in an annoyed voice.
For fourteen years, Karloi seemed to have a knife in his mouth instead of a tongue. The invisible sword sometimes felt more painful than the Duke’s hand.
The pain was so painful. She came here with determination, but it was painful enough that the determination was overshadowed.
No one else but the Kal of her childhood hates her with all his heart. Hate.
She still vividly remembers the reddish face that held her, that child is nowhere. The only person remaining was a man who wanted her to disappear.
Maybe you want me to die? Or do you want to kill me?
Yvonne wondered about it every day.
It was hard to deal with Karloi, who exudes hatred even when she was staying still when mixed with his words. It ate all of Yvonne’s energy.
“… Your Majesty doesn’t come here often. If you don’t like this, you don’t have to.”
“Hah! Then it would be better for the Empress to tell the Duke that. He might ignore my words, but he might listen to you.”
Yvonne had nothing more to say.
It’s always been this way with Karloi. It was hard to ignore his words openly, and if she did listen to his words, the feelings she had forgotten resurfaced.
But she didn’t have much to say in the first place other than, ‘yes.’
Unlike Yvonne, whose appearance changed from then like heaven and earth, Karloi grew up just as he was.
Of course, Yvonne was more distressed. When Karloi sees her, he wouldn’t be thinking of Lilian Lou.
“…Get going first.”
Karloi arose with a cold face. Yvonne sat there, dazed, and ate alone.
How good would it be if he had been a boy who could be seduced by a piece of bread with jam-like before?
Being next to Karloi, having to keep seeing him was a war for Yvonne.
The fight against herself that she wanted to kill, the fight against the memories she had forgotten, the battle against the emotions she had been struggling with, and several fights occurred every day. It wasn’t easy to ignore everything in front of her.
Obviously, she didn’t expect anything from him. She was hopeful, but she was disappointed. She understood his hatred for the Duke, so she thought she would not blame him, but sometimes she hated it so much.
“What? I sent you in as the Empress with the most expensive price. Now you say I don’t need to come?”
Because the Duke went in and out of the Empress Palace, Karloi dislikes it since he comes and goes as if it was his house.
As the Duke touched Yvonne’s nerves from both sides, her patience was running thin. It seemed that she could go crazy at this rate.
“I didn’t know that because the Emperor made people so angry.”
“When are you going to say yes? Half of the things you used to do when you were younger would be better than this.”
“He doesn’t want to see my face because he hates the Duke so much. If the Duke stops pressing Karloi for a bit…”
“Don’t be a bother and be good. Stop talking nonsense.”
Even the Macea Mountains, which can never be passed through, would be better at communicating than the Duke.
“You’re not even paying for your mother’s medicine right now.”
The Duke bringing up Denise after four months was a hard blow.
“…I will try my best.”
“You’ll have to work harder. If the result isn’t good, you’ll see your mother again when she enters the coffin.”
“That’s ridiculous! You said I could see her soon!”
“Make it work. Then I’ll let you see her!”
Whenever the Duke yells, Yvonne would always shrink out of habit because of the bad memories her body remembers.
The Duke, staring at Yvonne without an answer, growled once again.
“There must be a change in something.”
Yvonne got nervous, but there was nothing else she could do.
The Duke seemed to want Yvonne to take her feet off and spring at Karloi, but everyone knew it would be useless, except the Duke.
“Your Majesty, how about sleeping in my bedroom today?”
This was the best Yvonne could do. She wanted to get down on her knees and pray.
“Why does your father dictate you?”
The Duke was threatening her. Threatening. So, please stop being so angry, close your eyes just once and come to bed, she wanted to say so. If you don’t, I don’t know what the Duke will do to me.
Her words hovered narrowly on her tongue, but the servants of the Empress’s Palace were glistening their eyes, watching Yvonne’s every step of the way.
All of them are the Duke’s watchdogs.
Yvonne was forced to repeat the best she could, asking if he would come to bed at least once, even if Karloi refused.
Since she became Empress, Yvonne could not see Denise. She never did.
Because Karloi has never allowed Yvonne by his side.
***
Everything Yvonne struggled to leave behind was often revived fiercely in the dark nights and struck her. For instance, her revenge, intense memories, and terrible feelings would break into her dreams and shatter Yvonne.
Like a living, breathing monster, in her dreams holding and shaking her, she woke up gasping and panting. Yvonne felt fortunate that she didn’t sleep with Karloi.
Karloi would not miss this opportunity. He might have tried to get her out on the charges of madness.
Instead of Yvonne, the women who went to Karloi’s bedroom were usually maids working in the Imperial Palace. Sometimes they were maids, and sometimes they were women who seemed to be brought from outside.
The message he conveyed was transparent, but on the other hand, it was as clumsy as he was suddenly seeing someone when he had never even looked at women before marrying Yvonne.
Occasionally, some women, who were feared of the Duke’s power than their Emperor, Karloi, would spit out that when they face Yvonne in her palace, they pray on their hands and feet.
〈 Nothing really happened! I swear the Emperor didn’t touch even the tip of my hair! 〉
It seemed to them that Yvonne would carry the Duke on her back and kill them without even knowing.
It was no surprise that they thought so. Especially, since Karloi isn’t a person who is rumored to kill someone for fun, while the Duke is notorious for killing people like flies.
She doesn’t know if they’re talking that way because nothing happened really with Karloi, or if they’re scared and lied, but either way, it wasn’t bad for Karloi.
He must have sternly ordered that what happened in the bedroom should never be told outside, but it’s useless. Even the Imperial Palace can’t seem to be a space completely for Karloi.
Karloi quickly stopped calling in the women to his bedroom as he realized that this clumsy thing did not have an effect.
So, when Karloi suddenly appointed Keana as the Queen, she vaguely thought it would be just an extension of that stupid thing.
It was more effective to turn the country upside down rather than play around in the bedroom.
Of the four continents, only Croisen and Lartua allowed it, but Croisen’s system was ineffective for two-hundred years.
The Queen was an unrealistic institution in Croisen, to the point no one remembered its existence.
What changed her mind was when Karloi brought Keana to lunch.
“I couldn’t think of it so far because I was so absorbed by the feeling of love that I was experiencing for the first time.”
Karloi looked happy with Keana Roden… She doesn’t know how to feel.
She thought that Yvonne, herself, would love to be someone like Keana Roden.
Yes, her thoughts struck her about how much she wanted to be his wife.
She suddenly remembered what Kal had said in her childhood. Kal said he wanted to live well with his loved ones. Yvonne thought at the time that it was a very trivial and insignificant dream for a child to dream of such a precious family.
〈 Do you want to have a family? I want nothing much. It’s okay if I only have my mother. 〉
〈 There’s no reason not to have it. I want to know what it means to have someone on my side. That’s… I don’t think you can make it with money or riches. 〉
His current voice overlaps with the old voice she didn’t want to recall. Karloi shows a side to Keana that she had never seen before.
Strangely, her hands kept shaking.
It’s not even nighttime, so why would the things come back to haunt her? Yvonne struggled to hold on to her hand, giving it strength.
She endured Karloi’s smile to Kiana, and she struggled to pretend that she didn’t see the smile she only saw as a child.
She thought she couldn’t help it if his heart were really comforted by the Queen. Karloi will need a haven in this palace. Yvonne was a person who could never be that for him.
Unfortunately, there was a limit to her brainwashing herself. After the helpless fourteen years, she felt the sensations, which had been pressed for many years, wriggling.
Yvonne was really on the verge of going crazy.