What’s Wrong With My Marriage? I Was Bought as a Wife, Yet My Husband Is Madly in Love With Me! - Chapter 38

That night, with a quiet determination in her heart, Luce spoke to Klaus.

“…Klaus, I have a request.”

“What is it, Luce? Is there something you want? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly taken a fancy to owning a new country?”

(…A country?)

Luce froze, completely failing to grasp what Klaus was talking about. Looking back at their conversations as a married couple, she had no memory of ever suggesting she wanted a country. She was certain she hadn’t done anything that could be misinterpreted that way, either.

“Klaus?”

“Well, you had such a serious look on your face. I thought you were going to tell me you wanted half the world or something…”

“Klaus, please calm down. I don’t want half the world, and even if I did, it would be impossible.”

“If I put my mind to it, I could make it happen.”

(I don’t think that’s something that should ‘just happen.’ …He’s joking, right?)

Luce decided not to press him further and said what she had intended to say from the start.

“I want to leave the Royal Capital.”

If possible, she wanted to reach a point where she never had to deal with the Orlov family ever again. She knew this might mean being separated from Klaus for a time. Even so, Luce felt it was unavoidable.

Faced with Luce’s hidden resolve, Klaus gave his consent surprisingly easily. “I don’t mind at all.”

(…Could it be that he’s grown tired of me?)

Luce felt a pang of pain at his breezy reaction, but Klaus immediately added with a smile:

“I was just starting to get bored of life in the capital myself. Where shall we go?”

“What do you mean, ‘where’?”

“I mean our home. Where should we live? Oh, or should we go on a world tour? You can’t really know the merits of a country until you see it for yourself, after all.”

“A world tour?”

Every time Luce repeated his words like a confused parrot, Klaus would look back at her with a puzzled expression. Seeing that, Luce realized that this man had absolutely no intention of letting her go.

“Um, even if we travel, what about your work, Klaus?”

“There were a few shops I wanted to acquire, but I was one step short on a few deals. I was thinking it might be better to look toward other countries instead of just the capital anyway.”

“I see.”

(Shops he wanted? He’s buying shops again? Entire shops? Didn’t he just buy one the other day?)

As usual, the scale of his shopping was beyond her comprehension.

“I know! I just had a wonderful idea!”

“W-what is it?”

“Let’s hold a wedding ceremony in every country we visit on our travels!”

“Klaus?”

“Luce, dressed in the bridal gowns of every nation. How magnificent that would be.”

“Klaus, please calm down.”

“I think it would be lovely to have a new home for us in every country in the world.”

“Truly, Klaus, calm down. A house is meant to be lived in.”

And yet, here was Luce, planning to leave this very mansion where he had even built a private kitchen just for her.

“Well, putting aside my earnest wishes for a moment—”

(Earnest wishes…? So, he wasn’t joking?)

Klaus looked at Luce with a serious expression and said:

“The reason you want to leave the capital is because of the Orlov family, isn’t it?”

“…Yes, it is. If I stay here, they’ll never stop disrupting my life.”

“You’re right. It would be nice if they just left you alone, but I can’t overlook them going out of their way to harass you.”

“Did something happen?”

Catching the nuance in his voice, she asked. Klaus told her he had run into Cassandra. Apparently, she had come by accompanied by Earl Feinen and his wife.

“Was Earl Feinen a schoolmate of yours, Klaus?”

“Not a friend. He looked down on me as a bastard child. In truth, I wasn’t even a bastard. I was a total stranger and a commoner from the slums, so I didn’t care what he said.”

Klaus remained indifferent, noting that a noble’s bastard would actually have had a higher social standing. Since he didn’t seem the least bit self-deprecating, it appeared he truly didn’t care.

“I didn’t pay them any mind while I was in school, but the moment I succeeded in business, people started crawling out of the woodwork. And ever since I took you as my bride, things have become a bit noisy.”

“…Is it because of the bad rumors about me?”

“No, it’s that some people are under the grand delusion that if I accepted a daughter offered up for money, I might do the same for theirs.”

Since it wasn’t technically wrong that she had been “bought,” Luce found herself unable to say anything.

“It might be nice to head toward the seaside town where my grandfather is.”

Klaus explained that if they went to the Kingdom of Ghoolam from a nearby port and then took a direct ship to the seaside town after their stay, the journey would be much easier than traveling by land.

“Ghoolam… I would like to go there.”

Luce pictured the face of the young girl, Adelheid, who had become her friend. Things had ended disastrously at the cafe, but she hoped she could still maintain a friendship with her.

“Then let’s go on our trip immediately. Deck, Nora, please prepare for departure.”

“Certainly, Master.”

“We have already completed a certain amount of preparation. Please rest easy.”

Luce never would have dreamed that Klaus’s definition of “immediately” meant leaving the very next morning.