What’s Wrong With My Marriage? I Was Bought as a Wife, Yet My Husband Is Madly in Love With Me! - Chapter 14

 (It’s not “let’s go shopping at the store,” it’s “let’s go buy the store.” You can’t just buy shops like they’re candy…!)

As if hearing Luce’s inner monologue, Klaus smiled reassuringly.

“You don’t need to worry about money. I actually have so much I’m troubled by how to use it all. It’s strange! the more I spend, the more my profits seem to grow. Haha.”

“I don’t think that’s a laughing matter, Klaus.”

“…I’m not very good at jokes. Sorry, Luce.”

Seeing Klaus’s shoulders slump dejectedly, a wave of guilt washed over Luce.

(Now I feel like I’m doing something incredibly cruel to him.)

“U-um, Klaus? I think your money grows because you have wonderful talent. Take your handling of the customers at the cafe the other day—you did that specifically so they would visit the pastry shop too, right?”

“…Luce. Don’t you think my actions are just those of a man sucking up to others to earn a coin?”

“No, I think it was an excellent judgment as a business owner.”

To Luce, “sucking up for money” was a perfect description of her father’s daily behavior. To put it bluntly, Luce’s father, Earl Randolph Orlov, had absolutely no head for business.

As far as Luce knew, her father had failed in business time and time again.

Each time, he sold off the land, buildings, and businesses inherited from her grandfather. The summer villa she used to visit as a child was long gone, as was the ranch he managed away from their primary estate. He would abandon steady, long-standing businesses to jump into flashy new “get-rich-quick” schemes. When those failed, he would discard them without a single thought for the people working there. Luce suspected there would be almost nothing left for her brother, Ideon, to inherit.

While her marriage might have provided a temporary influx of capital, her father didn’t seem capable of using that money to actually build wealth.

“Sucking up for money is what people like my father do,” she said.

“…Luce.”

(Because he sold his daughter for money. It’s only by pure chance that the buyer was Klaus, so I haven’t been beaten or given impossible demands. This must be a stroke of incredible luck.)

Her father certainly didn’t care about Luce in the slightest; he only saw the money right in front of him. Even if Klaus had been a violent husband and Luce had pleaded to return home, her father wouldn’t have listened. To him, money was more important than Luce. And after money, the next most important thing was “family.”

Though, one would have to add a footnote: excluding Luce.

Her brother Ideon was the prideful heir. Her sister Cassandra was the renowned beauty. Her sister Mirella was the darling youngest child.

So, what was Luce?

The answer was already so clear it didn’t even need to be asked. She was a convenient tool to be saddled with everything unpleasant. Her mother called her the “low-maintenance daughter,” but “ignored daughter” was more accurate. Luce had plenty of things she wanted to say, but she was never heard. She was simply told she was being selfish and to endure it.

(They always told me not to be wasteful with money, but when I asked about our financial situation… I was told a woman shouldn’t meddle. Even Mother scolded me…)

And yet, her mother and sister insisted that nobility shouldn’t look “shabby,” summoning tailors to make new dresses. Her brother got new clothes because he was the heir, and her younger sister got them by begging for what she wanted.

Only Luce was denied, no matter her reasoning.

The memory of that misery made her tighten her grip. Luce was undoubtedly their biological child—not a child of an affair or a foundling. Yet the treatment was horrific. Even so, she had spent years hoping that maybe, just maybe, a day would come when she was cherished.

(But “someday” was never going to come for someone like me.)

“Luce, I’m sorry if this offends you, but please don’t worry about the money I paid your father. I wanted to marry you so badly, I…”

“…Klaus.”

“I bought out the businesses your father failed at, bought the merchant guilds he was indebted to, and brought them under my umbrella. The new business he’s starting is secretly one of our subcontractors, and his trading partner is also us.”

“…Klaus?”

“So even if he fails again and goes into debt, the loss is virtually non-existent because it all stays within our circle.”

“I don’t think that’s the point, Klaus.”

Looking at Klaus, who was smiling as if to say see, it’s fine, Luce was certain something was very wrong. If what he said was true, her father definitely had no business sense—he was being played like a fiddle. Her father was someone who should never be allowed near money.

(Did he really want to marry me that much?)

A question surfaced: if that were the case, why hadn’t he tried to pursue a formal engagement and get to know her first? When she asked, Klaus gave a wry smile.

“I only recently returned from abroad. While I was looking for you, I learned of the Orlov family’s dire straits and couldn’t just stand by.”

“And so you proposed marriage immediately?”

“Yes, because I thought if I hesitated, another man would take you. …I’m well aware I was too hasty. But I am not a well-behaved enough man to wait for you to marry someone else and stay patient until that marriage failed and you divorced.”

“Klaus.”

“I don’t even want to imagine it. If you had married another man… simply bankrupting his house wouldn’t have been enough for me.”

“Calm down, Klaus.”

Klaus put a hand to his head, turning pale and beginning to tremble as he stammered. As Luce rubbed his back, he muttered that he shouldn’t have imagined it.

“…Do you hate the idea that much?”

“I do.”

Klaus looked Luce straight in the eye.

“If it were a matter of our social standing being too different… no, even then, I couldn’t have given up. But as a fellow noble from an Earl’s house, I have the right to marry you. I couldn’t let it go.”

Luce was stunned by his admission that he would have been bitter for the rest of his life.

“T-to that extent?”

“Yes. There would be no point in me inheriting the Earldom otherwise. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone snatching you away from under my nose.”

From the way he spoke, it seemed he had waited to inherit his title before proposing. But if he had simply introduced himself as the heir to an Earldom, her father would have jumped at the engagement. The fact that he couldn’t do that suggested his parents might have been against it.

(Come to think of it, I don’t know anything about Klaus’s family.)

“…Say, Klaus, what about your parents?”

“My father died in an accident when I was born. My mother… passed from illness when I was fifteen.”

Klaus cast his eyes down, a sorrowful expression crossing his face. Luce felt that she must have been a very good mother to him.

“…That must have been so difficult.”

“I was sad, of course, but it was more a feeling of having lost my anchor. I caused her nothing but trouble. I wasn’t a good son at all.”

Regret bled through his voice. He continued, saying he wondered if he could have done more if he had known she was going to die.

“But even if I had known, I probably couldn’t have done anything. I wasn’t honest with my feelings, and there were times I even found her annoying.”

He said he only realized how important she was, how much he loved her after she was gone.

“Even if I want to apologize now, I can’t say a single word to her. Speaking to a gravestone means nothing.”

“…Klaus.”

“That’s why I stopped being stubborn. I decided that when I love someone, I’ll tell them. I try to put whatever I’m feeling into words as much as possible.”

(…So then, all the praise you give me is really the truth?)

Luce couldn’t bring herself to voice the question. The way Klaus smiled through his furrowed brows made him look as though he were crying.

She had a feeling that asking such a thing would only hurt him.