We're Married, After All - Chapter 41
“……”
Danel barely managed to set the empty bowl down on the nightstand. Even after a lifetime of observing Laurea and Petios, the mere thought of Petios entering the bedroom at Lafecia Castle made Danel feel as if he were being strangled.
The idea of witnessing such a scene had been so unbearable that he hadn’t planned to attend the wedding at all. If Petios hadn’t sent that letter, Danel might never have left the monastery for the rest of his life.
“But you, brother, just had to send me that letter.”
With a mockingly tender hand, Danel stroked the cheek of his rival. The man who had been so absorbed in his immediate problems that he hadn’t even considered who he was asking for help. The older brother who, despite being born eight years earlier, had never once managed to surpass him.
When Danel first read Petios’s letter, his initial reaction was disgust. Honestly, he wanted to kill him. Unable to pass the knight’s exam, incapable of shedding his inferiority complex toward Laurea, and too weak to even broach the topic of breaking off the engagement? Danel’s fury boiled over to the point where all the hours spent reciting prayers in seclusion seemed utterly futile.
But then, a thought struck him.
“Could this be an opportunity?”
If Petios disappeared, everything would resolve itself. Count Veloce, while kind, was a man devoid of mercy. Rather than annul the engagement with the Marquess of Temesio, he would undoubtedly accept public scorn as the lesser evil.
Once he made up his mind, Danel set his plan in motion. He manipulated Petios, urging him to flee for the sake of his own happiness. He told him that spiritual enlightenment could be pursued outside the monastery and that he, Danel, would continue the family’s duties in his place. He assured Petios not to concern himself with their father’s insistence on an engagement that went against his will…
Petios, already mentally cornered after receiving his third rejection from the knight’s exam, was in no position to resist.
He couldn’t escape the subtle, insidious manipulation of Danel.
In the end, Petios acted exactly as Danel had intended. He escaped along the route Danel had provided and used short, vague wording in his letters, perfect for fabricating evidence if necessary.
It’s unclear when Petios realized Danel’s true intentions, but at some point, he became convinced that his younger brother might actually kill him.
Danel, for his part, had indeed begun considering how to deal with Petios. Not necessarily killing him—Danel still had uses for his brother. That was why, instead of sending poison to the tuberculosis-stricken Petios, he sent highly addictive painkillers.
Despite these measures, Petios managed to escape from his hiding place. It wasn’t until Danel found and confined him in Lamprey Castle’s infirmary that he discovered Petios had not burned his letters. Worse, the most important ones were no longer in Petios’s possession.
Unfortunately, Danel didn’t know Petios well enough to predict where he might have hidden them. He could have solved the issue by burning down every location Petios was associated with, but the problem was that many of those places were also tied to Laurea.
Danel didn’t want Laurea to be dragged into vicious rumors. For her sake, he wanted to handle everything before it ever left Petios’s hands.
But, unsurprisingly, Petios refused to cooperate in any way.
“Did you figure it out by the time you ran?” Danel mused aloud. “That I never once mentioned Laurea?”
Petios was either unconscious, drugged, or too consumed by pain to think clearly. Conversations were almost impossible, yet Danel still often posed questions to him, knowing there would be no answer.
“If you cared even a little about Laurea, I might’ve told you something. But you… you didn’t think of her at all. Not even for a moment. You didn’t wonder what would happen to her when you ran, or how miserable she would be because of you.”
Danel’s life had been steeped in suffering, much of it revolving around a love that could never be fulfilled.
So, in a way, he had lived his entire life plagued by loss.
“Of course, you must have known too. No matter which of us married Laurea, it wouldn’t matter to her. Whether it was you or me standing as her husband, nothing would change. But… I’m not okay with that. I’m not fine.”
Danel was convinced that whoever her husband was, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to Laurea. Even if Petios had died from his illness and Danel had married her instead, she wouldn’t have cared. The only thing that mattered to Laurea was herself.
That was why Danel was the only one building up this elaborate fortress to preserve their marriage. While much of the wall surrounding it was built on lies, it was sturdy enough—for now.
Of course, there was one crucial condition for this fortress to remain intact: neither Petios Veloce nor the few letters he had hidden could be allowed to exist.
That was why Danel offered his brother a piece of heartfelt advice:
“If you don’t want to wake up one day and hear that the Veloce estate has burned to the ground and that I’ve become the Count, you’d better come to your senses soon.”
Danel carefully laid Laurea down on the bed. She had started nodding off when they left Lamprey Castle and hadn’t woken even after they arrived back at the manor.
Recently, Laurea had been sleeping a lot. Despite having watched her all his life, Danel couldn’t recall ever seeing her sleep this frequently.
It wasn’t difficult to guess the reason. Laurea had been unusually active lately. She traveled around the estate almost daily, and sometimes even accompanied Danel to the territories of their vassals. Most of her work involved meeting people she didn’t feel comfortable around.
For someone like Laurea, who didn’t enjoy social interactions, it was undoubtedly a heavy burden.
