It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 9.7

“So, what kind of story shall I tell you today?”

 

Edgar’s voice pierced through her thoughts.

 

“You have so many questions about my past, don’t you?”

 

“…No, Your Majesty.”

 

Ines slowly shook her head.

 

The information Ines had gathered over the past few days wasn’t just about the marquis. She had also looked into everything related to her former self—Eleanor, the deceased Duchess.

 

And she had come to a conclusion.

 

A peaceful smile played on her lips.

 

“I don’t think I need to cling to the past. If my memories are meant to come back, they’ll return naturally without me forcing it. More than that—”

 

“More than that?”

 

“I want to find a way to return to my original body.”

 

Perhaps the words were unexpected. Edgar looked surprised. Ines repeated herself slowly and firmly.

 

“I want to find my own body.”

 

“…Do you want to go back to how things used to be?”

 

“Hmm…”

 

“Do you want to go back to him?”

 

Edgar tried not to rush. What mattered wasn’t how he felt, but what she wanted.

 

Even though he knew that, a trace of urgency crept into his voice.

 

It was as if her voice—whispering love to her husband on a summer’s day—still echoed in his ears.

 

“Ines, did something else come back to you?”

 

“No. It’s not that. Nothing new has come to me. I don’t want to go back to him either.”

 

“Then why… I thought you might want to keep this body.”

 

“It’s not mine to begin with.”

 

Ines answered without much thought but then hesitated, cautiously asking,

 

“Do you not want me to return to my original body, Your Majesty?”

 

Edgar remembered what the Duke had said when he visited the Imperial Palace that morning.

 

“Isn’t it time you took an empress, Your Majesty?”

 

“Now that the war is fully over, and the daughter of Count Irope has returned to Randeva, perhaps it’s time to seriously consider marriage…”

 

Celia Irope was the woman the noble council unanimously agreed was the best fit to be the next Empress of Lezan.

 

A prestigious and honorable family of scholars, without the kind of power or wealth that could threaten imperial authority.

 

So, if Ines didn’t return to her original body and remained Celia Irope, this time the seat next to her might truly be his.

 

But if Ines went back to her original body…

 

The Emperor of Lezan could never take as Empress the former wife of his cousin, the Grand Duke of Eleanor.

 

In that case, their paths would split forever.

 

Edgar murmured, his voice tinged with anxious emotion.

 

“I just don’t think you need to be unhappy again.”

 

Celia Irope’s body was perfect—healthy, noble, and destined to be the First Lady of the Empire, free from any worries for life.

 

Edgar couldn’t bring himself to say the rest. He didn’t want to make a proposal like this.

 

“Unhappy…”

 

Ines repeated the word with a faint, unreadable smile.

 

Edgar continued, speaking to the woman who deserved all the beautiful and precious things in the world.

 

“No one will blame you for having Celia Irope’s body. You don’t have to be kind, Ines.”

 

After all, no one in this world had ever been kind to her. So—

 

“Take what you’ve never had, Ines. Do what you’ve never done. You can now. Do you know who’s sitting in front of you?”

 

“….”

 

“Don’t you want to hold the world in your hands and shake it? Don’t you want to get revenge on those who hurt you?”

 

“….”

 

“Don’t you want to be happy?”

 

Edgar reached across the table and gently covered the back of Ines’s hand.

 

“I can give you everything. I own this country—there’s nothing I can’t give you.”

 

Ines, who had quietly listened to him, slowly opened her mouth.

 

“Is this really a safe and happy place for me…?”

 

She knew what he was trying to say. He wasn’t wrong.

 

But he was just… a different kind of person from her.

 

“If this is a comfortable, happy place, and the slums like Gelnor are dirty and miserable… then I should’ve been happiest in Eleanor.”

 

Honor. Wealth. Status.

 

A luxurious mansion, dozens of servants, delicious food, elegant clothing. All the material abundance.

 

Everything Celia had, the old Ines had too.

 

But the result… had been her death.

 

“What’s important to me isn’t material things, Your Majesty.”

 

When Ines answered calmly, Edgar’s tone became even more urgent.

 

“But still, there’s no proof that a life of poverty is any happier, Ines…”

 

That’s not what I meant. Ines smiled faintly, like a sigh, at the way the conversation felt off.

 

Edgar probably didn’t realize it, but the more he reacted like this, the clearer it became how people used to treat the old her.

 

“I didn’t mean I liked being poor. It’s just…”

 

“Just?”

 

“I simply don’t trust things given without a price, Your Majesty.”

 

She said it like stating an obvious fact, glancing down at the newsletter.

 

“I don’t wish for luck. I don’t want to wait for fortune. I want to be cautious of anyone who tries to tempt me with those things.”

 

“….”

 

“Would you laugh if I said someone like me dared to think that way?”

 

“Of course not. Never.”

 

Edgar let out a hoarse chuckle.

 

“Don’t call yourself ‘someone like me,’ Ines. Why do you put yourself down so much?”

 

“Because I was a bastard.”

 

The fact that she had been Eleanor’s Duchess meant quite a lot.

 

The illegitimate child from Jenaire that Clara mentioned—the vulgar duchess everyone pointed fingers at. A lowly woman who belonged more in a slum shelter than a noble estate.

 

The kind of person who would never be seen as human unless she lived in someone else’s body.

 

That’s who she really was.

 

“I should go back to where I belong. I don’t want to be punished for holding on to something that’s not mine.”

 

“….”

 

“I’m not even sure why I started thinking this way. Maybe I grew up too wary, being a bastard in the Jenaire palace?”

 

Ines muttered, nibbling the tip of her pen.

 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Your Majesty… It’s just, somehow, I’m afraid of relying on someone.”

 

“….”

 

“Maybe, once, I hoped for something beyond my place and got badly burned…”

 

Though she now knew she was a bastard and the former Duchess of Eleanor, her memories hadn’t actually returned.

 

Even by piecing together all the gossip about the duchess, she couldn’t fully understand what her life had been like.

 

A woman who lived quietly and died unnoticed. Someone whose entire life was denied and who faded away in misery.

 

That was it.

 

What really happened to the ‘real me’ in that beautiful mansion? She was afraid to know, yet curious enough to not bury the question.

 

Had she once loved that dangerous Grand Duke? She didn’t know. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t.

 

Maybe she hurt him. Maybe she got hurt.

 

But now, those things didn’t really matter. Not enough to dig them up.

 

“I’m alive now.”

 

Ines murmured as if making a vow to herself.

 

“I know who I am. I’ll be happy with my name, in my body, not by stealing someone else’s name, family, or status.”

 

“….”

 

“The real me also deserves to be happy. There’s no reason I can’t be.”

 

That was why she wanted to return to her original body. To show those who had trampled her that the real her could be proud—and happy.

 

And… because if she went back, she’d have a better chance of being with her child. Though with the Grand Duke holding on to the child so tightly, it wouldn’t be easy…

 

Ines didn’t say that part. She just smiled. Instead, she added something that suddenly came to mind.

 

“Oh, and of course, I plan to make full use of everything around me right now. I do owe Celia something for borrowing her body.”

 

Truthfully, she’d always felt sorry to Celia.

 

If Celia, like her, was living in a different body, she might’ve been in danger multiple times already.

 

It had already been months since the Grand Duke began searching desperately for Ines’s body.

 

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have been caught yet—but if she were in Lezan or Eleanor, there was a real chance she might be discovered.

 

If Celia was still alive, Ines needed to find her quickly and figure out how to switch back.

 

Lately, Ines had been focused on that thought.

 

She had ordered all the newsletters from the capital over the past few months to be gathered, and planned to start searching the Randeva slums first.

 

She was also collecting information about Jenaire—the empire that was her homeland.

 

To truly know herself, she had to learn about her dead parents first—not just her past with the Grand Duke.

 

And one more thing. She sent a letter to an address in Hailan, a part of the Kingdom of Apael. The recipient was Robert.

 

This was what Ines’s new beginning meant.

 

“I just want to live a normal life. Doing what everyone else does… peacefully and quietly.”

 

“So you don’t have to try and do anything for me. I don’t want to be a burden to you, Your Majesty.”

 

After studying her in silence for a long time, Edgar suddenly let out a soft laugh.

 

“Sometimes, I really don’t know what to do with you.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I just… never want to become like that man…”

 

Reaching across the table, Edgar gently brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.