My Villainous Husband

27

Raniero asked, drenched in the strange sentiment.

“Did you decide not to feel guilty or self-hatred towards  yourself?”

Angelica trembled as though the question was horrifying. Her barely focused gaze fell to her shoe as usual before smiling shyly and rubbing her cheek.

“Well. It’s because I’m weak, as Your Majesty said. I’m not sure if I’ll survive even if I invest everything in my survival…”

It was interesting that he, who was stronger than anyone else, recognized her face even though she was the weakest human being first. Still, he had no idea what that fact meant… no, he didn’t even try to think to understand.

“Let’s go back.”

To be honest, he might have had a glimpse of the future had he dug deep into the situation at that moment, but it was the usual impulse that governed and dominated his behavior. As Raniero reached out his hand, Angelica’s eyes slowly grew bigger as his hand approached her. She quickly withdrew her hand as his hand went closer to her fingertips. At the same time, confusion and fear filled the pale green eyes.

Reading her expression has always been easy.

Was holding this hand not a mistake? Would it be presumptuous? Conceivably, it would be an act that the capricious Emperor considered rude or disobedient…

Like a rabbit that hides in the burrow at the slightest sound, she was too terrified. Raniero followed and grabbed the hand that was pulling away. It was a hand that had been left scarred from holding the bow for several weeks.

“Let’s go back.”

He uttered it again.

Angelica’s gaze naturally turned to the banquet hall. It seemed that she didn’t want to go back to the banquet hall as her awkward heart had been conveyed transparently.

Raniero grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, although it was in the opposite direction of the banquet hall. It was common before that the Emperor, who got bored of the banquet, would disappear somewhere in the middle of the event.

In the first place, he had no intention of going where the noisy swarm of ants would cling to him or her.

Angelica just followed him gently as Raniero was leading her blindly. Though their fingers were intertwined, she didn’t actively hold onto his hand. The direction he took them was neither the banquet hall nor the Empress’s Palace, because of that, Angelic’s body resisted… well, it was only ‘slightly’ anyway. Rather than disliking it, she simply hesitated because of an unfamiliar path.

Raniero burst into laughter at her hesitant steps.

As usual, Angelica felt a sense of rejection on a road she had not been to before even though this was inside her house, the Imperial Palace. Because of that, he had the erroneous guess that this complacent little woman would voluntarily be locked inside the Actilus Imperial Palace forever and that she would never even dream of going outside.