There’s No Divorce For You

Chapter 5

Translated by Tam

This is the best way to say it when you run into a handsome man. I couldn’t help it.

Even though I screamed in his ear, he didn’t care. I trembled and threatened that I wouldn’t forgive him if he touched even one fingertip. 

“P, put me down right now. Do you know who I am? How rude!”

It sounded like a pretty good threat to me, though a little shaky. But the knight responded as he held me in his arms.

“Excuse me, madam. I will apologize for my rudeness after moving you to a safe place.”

The man literally took me to a safe place. He dropped me off only after I reached a flat area near the entrance to the riding area. 

As soon as I stepped on the grass and stood straight, the knight kneeled. He only knelt on one knee and bowed his head, but he looked great, just like a theater actor.

“I apologize for my rudeness in carelessly touching Madam’s body.”

The man politely asked me for forgiveness. No one was watching, but he was very polite.

“That, n, no—” 

I stuttered and noticed that I hadn’t thanked him yet. I was embarrassed for no reason because I turned a polite man into a rude man just like that. I coughed a little as I felt a burning sensation in my throat. 

“Thank you for saving me. I guess I was too emotional a while ago. Because of this place—I turned blind eye to a gentleman.” 

I adjusted the messy skirt by adding casually that I knew what kind of place this was. 

The tip of the skirt I was wearing lightly to ride the horse was torn. It wasn’t too badly torn, but the man’s face turned red when he saw it. 

“I, I never meant to dishonor the Lady!”

“Of course.”

I don’t know if he understood what I was saying or if he was being overly naive. He kept calling me “Lady” and even stuttering when he spoke. His bright red face was cute.

I calmed down and looked at the knight, then straightened my back. It didn’t seem like a good option to hang out with this man for a long time. So I signaled that I was going to leave.

“Sir, thank you. I would like to thank you, but the situation is not going well.” 

I raised my chin to the point of looking arrogant. Saying thank you without asking his name was a rather arrogant act, even if I thought it was, but the man didn’t raise an eyebrow. Instead, he stood up with his knees straight and asked me again. 

“May I… may I take you home?” 

The handsome man looked at me pitifully. I felt like I was doing something bad.

“No.” 

He looked and acted like a knight from a romance novel. So I was even more anxious.

‘I must not be shaken.’

I shouldn’t have done anything to be blamed in order to use the Count’s affair as an excuse to get the property back. I couldn’t let him spread rumor that Carla was hanging out with other men.

‘Let’s ignore it.’

“Does the knights of the temple come sometimes too?”

“Oh my, he’s so manly.” 

The story soon moved on to a scandal involving a knight and a court lady. Then, they talked about a good story for a while, like who was playing a game with who and how they got separated. 

Fortunately, the story didn’t last long. It was because of the strong wind. When the wind blew hard, and the skirt was disheveled, the Ladies stopped talking and soon began to organize their seats. 

“Why don’t you come again next week if the weather is nice?”

“I’ll send you an invitation.”

“It’s good for your health when you’re exposed to the sun and the wind. There must be a lot to worry about in a mansion.”

They secretly encouraged me. It was obvious what they were thinking. I’ve just started to enjoy the outing. Wouldn’t that be a great excuse to go to the horseback riding ground? I pretended not to know and accepted their invitation.

“I will be waiting for you to send me an invitation.”

The torn skirt kept getting caught around my ankle, which was annoying.

I thought about tearing it apart completely, but I stopped because I thought of Bell’s face.

******

Belle, who was waiting in the carriage, was at a loss when she saw that my skirt was torn.

“I almost fell off my horse.”

“Madam, are you okay?”

“Of course. I’m not hurt.”

Bell said it was a relief and said she would mend the dress as soon as they arrived at the mansion. I nodded and leaned my back on the carriage chair. Tired.

Still, the fresh air made me feel better. Because even in a world with no such thing as chastity, I felt that there was a good side. If this carriage’s destination hadn’t been the Count’s mansion, I might have liked this world a little bit.

If the Count respected Carla as a countess, at least he shouldn’t have touched the maid in the mansion. What hurt Carla’s pride most was that the Count’s mistress was a maid in charge of laundry.

I wondered what the affair and cheating had to do with the opponent’s position, but Carla was ashamed of it. Carla, who is used to class society, wanted him to hang out with aristocratic wives, or at least Lady like her if he was cheating. That way, he can come back to her.

But the Count reached out to the maid in the mansion as if to make fun of her. He talked to the maid who wasn’t married and whispered that she would soon be the hostess.

The Count is a really bad guy. It was obvious from looking at what he had done to Carla and what he had done to me. As soon as he saw me back in the mansion, he started to argue with me. 

“Your clothes are torn. How unfaithful.” 

“I almost fell off my horse.”

If it was Carla, would she be embarrassed or happy to have a conversation with the Count? It wasn’t both for me.

It was just tiresome and annoying. I sarcastically looked down at him instead of going up the stairs. 

“It looks old and the fabric is worn out.”

It was an attack on the Count, who had a lot of money but didn’t buy his wife a pair of clothes, but he didn’t care. 

“Saving is a virtue, but being excessive won’t make us poor.” 

So he will act like this. At this point, I decided to rip off the clothes from the Count. I didn’t want to just pass by the word that it was pathetic. 

“That’s right. I should get some new ones.”

Only then did the Count wriggle his eyebrows and react properly. Then he lifted his head and looked at the stairs where I was standing. I grabbed the railing and raised my lips. The Count’s face was wrinkled. 

“There are so many clothes, it’s a waste to get a new one just because one broken.”

I snorted. In Carla’s dressing room, only out-of-fashion clothes were hung. There weren’t even that many.

It was only worn once or twice, and there was a limit to the number of times clothes may be mended if they were torn. I wondered if Carla didn’t go out often because of this.

It was clear that the Count didn’t even know how many clothes were in his wife’s wardrobe. Or maybe he thinks it’s a waste to buy a pair of clothes.

 “Really? I see.”

Instead of arguing for nothing, I smiled. Too bad I couldn’t tell him what I was going to do in advance.

******

As soon as the sun came up, I told them to wash all the dresses in the wardrobe immediately.

“Madam, do you want to do laundry all of a sudden?”

“Yeah. Except for a few coats.”

I threw the excuse I had planned ahead of time to Bell, who asked puzzledly.

“I’ve left it in there for too long, right? It will be comfortable for me if we wash it clean before fixing it.”

I easily convinced Bell. They were out of fashion, but they were all made of good fabric and had to be handled with care. It was hard to wash because it had been repaired many times.

Thanks to this, the laundry maid had to stay up all night for a while. Every time I looked at the maids with tired eyes, I felt bad for them, but it was unavoidable. So I tormented them for a long time.

“Do the bed sheets have any lint on them?”

I criticized the bed sheets for having lint smaller than beans or even intentionally spilled black tea on the tablecloth. Then I said the curtains were dull and removed them all and put on another curtain.

Guilt pierced my heart. The hands of the innocent maids trembled until the Count’s mistress cried.

When this week was tormented so much, the Count raised a white flag. 

“Just do whatever you want to do what you want. But not too much.”

He said this to me with a face that looked tired and worn out. He didn’t even speak in honorifics. It looks like the Count’s mistress has been giving him a lot of trouble.

It was even funny that he bothered Carla for a year with a tenacity that would fall out in two weeks. Anyway, I was satisfied that I had broken the flag of the Count now.