I’m Sorry I’m Not Qualified to Be Empress - Chapter 20

Chapter 20

“Thank you for your concern.” Rose smiled, only replying with a short greeting.

“Do you like the new room?”

“Yes, it’s an elegant place. The windows were especially beautiful.”

“Thank God,” Following her response a strange smile appeared on Mrs. Katiana’s face.

“You must have struggled a lot for me.”

“It’s natural. It’s what I’ve always been doing.”

Rose smiled slightly and nodded as she spoke, “So I’m thinking of switching out the furniture and decorations.”

Mrs. Katriana asked as if Rose spoke the unexpected, “I’ve put a lot of thought into this room. Didn’t you like it?”

“I respect Mrs. Katriana’s eye, but it feels a little old-fashioned to me.” At Rose’s words, Katriana’s face flushed with embarrassment.

One of the watching nobles, who had just taken a sip of wine coughed in surprise.

“You’re from a luxurious place like Solstern, so of course you’d like something gorgeous. I’ll try to redecorate.”

Rose dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief before leisurely setting it down once more. She calmly smiled and replied to Mrs. Katriana in a soft tone, “Thank you, but I can take care of my own space, and it’s just as you said, I lived a very colorful and luxurious life, likely beyond anything you could imagine.”

Kartriana felt insulted, the fluff on her neck rose in annoyance.

“I’m definitely a Helabant now. Now that I’ve become the mistress here, I don’t want to stick to Solstern’s ways.” Rose continued as if unaware of Mrs. Katriana’s reaction.

“You have no need to worry about the trivial living of the castle. I’m in charge of it all.”

“Thank you, but I can’t. You’ve worked very hard, but I can’t trouble you any longer.”

“Trouble? What are you saying! How can I! I have never once thought in such a fashion. I’ve looked after the castle’s livelihood thinking of it as my responsibility!” Mrs. Kartriana raised her voice unexpectedly, accompanied by trembling gestures.

“Kartriana!” Only then did Pierre attempt to calm down his wife.

Rose’s eyes widened and nervously regarded her surroundings as if surprised by her reaction, then tried to clear up the situation. “I didn’t know you were so attached to the castle. I guess I shouldn’t have brought it up on a day like this. We can discuss this again when it’s appropriate.”

Rose, who looked like a gentle sheep, remained calm until the end, saying what she had to say, on the contrary, it was Mrs. Kartriana who was upset.

At this moment, the winner seemed clear.

The noble wives who sat together were busy reading the lines between Mrs. Kartriana and Rose, wondering what happened, and hoping to find a hidden meaning between the lines. The men on the other hand were coughing in fits as they drank.

Just in time, the musicians approached the table. The musicians, clueless as to what just occurred, began to play their instruments with excitement.

Rose smiled brightly as if nothing had happened and enjoyed the musicians’ performance.

Seeing her natural appearance, Maxim took his fist to his mouth and fake coughed to suppress his laughter.

Yansen, who was standing in the back, bit down on his twitching lips holding back his laughter.

As the day went by, the party ripened and the servants constantly carried liquor and food around.

So the day of Maxim Lancert and Rose Etoile’s wedding passed.

* * *
It had been a long and hard day for Rose and now she had the gaze of someone who wasn’t at all comfortable at a wedding.

“Hah. Is it finally over?”

Without the energy to look around the decorative couple’s room, Rose flopped onto the bed.

Maxim was drinking with the most enthusiastic knights, he could come to stay the night or not even bother to visit our room at all. I couldn’t figure that out of course.

I kept sipping sweet fruit wine at the dinner table as people poured it into my glass, and as a consequence, my whole body now felt drowsy.

The cozy bed seemed to wrap around Rose and pull her into the depths of its covers.

Her heavy eyelids closed on their own.

“I can’t… I can’t fall asleep now, ” Rose murmured, but even her words quickly faded.

* * *

Maxim, who entered the room late after the drinking, was stunned.

Well, would you look at that…

He leaned against the door with his arms crossed and slowly approached the bed. As soon as she entered the room, she must’ve fallen asleep, but she didn’t even take off her dress and merged with the bed.

This woman came in early?

Maxim saw the woman lying loose without any tension left in her body, but he only laughed for some reason.

“Yeah, you should be tired.”

With a sigh, he tossed off his tight robe and went to bed topless. The bed rolled to one side as he climbed in, but Rose didn’t move a finger.

She was sleeping like a baby, so Maxim propped his head up with one arm and laid sideways so he could stare at Rose.

‘Why are you marrying me?’

I remember her asking me urgently at the ceremony earlier.

If I had the answer, would it have eased my guilt any?

His arms supported his head, as he laid gazing at the ceiling, thinking to himself.

‘You must join forces with the immigrants to deal with Solstern!’

‘The Kaikar people are the largest, so let’s draw them to us.’

‘If you marry my niece, Ayla, you will have Kaikar and Jankar both at the same time.’

‘No! You must never take an immigrant as your wife. Rather, choose a noble young lady within Helabant.’

‘Whoever it is, you have to get a successor as soon as possible! Your Highness! This is not the time to be so idle!’

Once Maxim reached a certain age, opinions became divided between the elders and the nobility over the matter of his marriage.

Those persistent and annoying arguments that urged him to marry were on the verge of making him insane. Those incessant people stuck like leeches.

Then, this woman suddenly appeared in front of him.

On the night of a heavy rainfall, he doubted his ears in the basement of the chapel.

‘When will you marry me?’

Even though he could see her shaking, she tried to hold her head firmly and clenched her fists in front of him.

The little woman who threatened him to kill her there if they didn’t get married.

I’ve never thought about marrying a Solstern woman.

He hated the Solsterns who treated the north as barbaric and despised all of them to their core.

I thought I would rather kill her than follow in the footsteps of my father choosing to marry a woman from Solstern, who then drove everyone into misery.

No, before that, I thought she would become wolf meat somewhere whilst committing suicide, or running away.

She was a woman dragged away crying onto this unwanted land anyway.

It was sad to be a political victim; however, I held no mercy to make me able to sympathize with her.

I couldn’t stand the deceit of Solstern, who was an ally, but kept sending women and ignoring their existence.

But what’s wrong with her? What is her purpose?

I became interested in her even though I doubted her.

Yeah, maybe she’s the savior who showed up in front of me at just the right time.

If you use me, I can use you too.

Having made that decision, Maxim decided to have a quick wedding before the others emerged.

He kept his mouth shut with a bluff that he would regard all traitors as his enemies.

“Mmph…”

The air was cold, so the woman curled up, hugging her shoulders close in an attempt to stay warm.

Maxim woke up from his own thoughts and looked at Rose, who was now tossing and turning in the bed.

Eyes… nose… mouth…

His eyes stopped on her small, delicate lips as he scanned each feature of her face.

Not long ago the smile that laughed alongside Yansen came to mind, a child-like smile that she has never shown before.

I placed my finger on Rose’s lips without realizing it.

Her cute lips looked as if two cherries were stacked on top of each other.

The warmth spreading through his fingers brought back the sensation of kissing her lips at the ceremony.

Soft lips and a moist, soft tongue.

He gently ran his thumb across Rose’s lower lip.

“Mph!”

Rose’s fine forehead was distorted as if she had been disturbed in her sleep.

Smiling, he touched a curl of her red hair that curled down past her lips ending on her cheeks.

As if winding silk, he twirled her hair gently around his finger and tucked it behind her ear.

“Mmm.”

This time, Rose’s lips curled up, indicating she liked the action.

You came to this cold, strange place called the land of savages and pretended to be strong….

The precious daughter of the Etoile family was like a jewel, loved by both her parents and brothers.

In your dream, you must feel like you are still that innocent girl.

The warmth from Maxim’s body was transmitted, so Rose, wanting to get closer to the warmth, slowly inched her way over, as if a caterpillar were crawling and clung to Maxim’s side. She wrapped her arms around him like she was hugging her only source of heat on a bitter winter night.

Rose’s sudden action embarrassed him.

“Ha! You’re doing all sorts of things.”

When her body was wrapped around his bare chest, he couldn’t move.

“Mmm.” Rose rubbed her soft cheeks on Maxim’s neck like a baby dreaming a pleasant dream.

His expression hardened rapidly as her sweet and warm breath tickled the nape of his neck out of nowhere.

It wasn’t just his face that hardened.

“Ha…!”

Maxim huffed painfully toward the ceiling with an inexplicable, distressed, and embarrassed expression.

He had no intention of attacking the sleeping woman, but now his self-control was under tremendous challenge.

Huh? …What?

Rose felt strange.

I thought it was a cushion or a blanket that I was feeling with my hands, but why isn’t it soft?

There was a very ominous feeling from the hard, smooth, foreign touch.

“…!”

She opened her eyes wide.

“Ah!”

Rose’s body sprang up like a fish flopping around in hopes of staying alive.

He was the one who was attacked lying down, so when she stared at him as if he were a pervert, he was dumbfounded.

“What! What is it?”

As Rose tried to dive under the bed, Maxim grabbed her arm and quickly pulled her back into bed.

He climbed on top of her and smirked.

“Have you always seduced a man this way?”

The candles flickered in the dark behind him as his eyes locked on me.

Rose was suffocated with embarrassment.