The Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway Chapter 73

Chapter 73

“If you say it like that, I can’t tell whether you’re apologizing to me or to Lieutenant Almenara.”

“In the first place, there’s no way I would curse at you unless I was crazy—.”

Ah.

Cárcel remembered exactly which words of Ines she had quoted. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] A petty quibble like ‘If you call me Escalante, how am I supposed to know whether you’re calling me or Miguel who’s not even here?’

As soon as he realized he had been quoted, he no longer felt like winning the argument.

Then, he changed his attitude from casually throwing out an apology.

“I apologize for cursing while saying I was sorry for cursing, Almenara.”

Cárcel spat out his apology through gritted teeth, as if he were reading a foreign language carefully.

As Jose nodded with an expression that said he was accepting the apology on behalf of someone who couldn't, Ines smiled faintly and looked at Cárcel.

“See? How well he does when he does it properly.”

“It was nothing.”

What great thing did he do to deserve such humility… Jose inadvertently looked at his superior irreverently, then quickly rolled his innocent and dull eyes in the opposite direction as soon as they met again.

Ines was still looking at him with a kind smile.

‘She’s so different from the rumors….’

To Jose, someone who gave him delicious food was basically a good person. And how could he forget her warm words?

Jose’s fiancée, who openly admired Cárcel, had told him various witch-like rumors about Ines, but they didn’t quite match the beautiful wife of his superior who was currently in front of him.

And it wasn't just his fiancée who had spread such rumors. Everyone who knew Cárcel had, at least once, talked behind his back about his impending marriage to the gloomy crow.

Whether it was worry or mockery, regardless of their intentions, the content was similar. How could such a distinguished man have children with such a gloomy woman, how could he face a woman who wore mourning clothes every morning and chew food with her, and how could he live a suffocating life, persecuted in various ways, for the rest of his life…….

However, Ines Escalante in front of him was a beauty dressed in a bright, lavender dress, far from being gloomy like a crow.

If he had met her at this distance at a ball, and if she were still unmarried, and if she had personally taken care of him and smiled like this… Jose would have definitely run out to the terrace and thrown up everything he had eaten, unable to bear the pressure. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] Or he would have suspected her of being a fraud.

The reason he could stay composed now was thanks to Cárcel’s irritated and annoyed face, which had dragged Jose’s mind back to the training ground.

“I’m sorry for calling you ‘that bastard,’ Almenara.”

And thanks to the series of absurd apologies.

“No, it’s alright. You can call me as you always do….”

Even though he meant it, Cárcel frowned fiercely. He didn’t look like someone who had just apologized at all.

“Oh dear, you’ve always been so ill-mannered… Thank you, Lieutenant. Thanks to you, I’ve learned a little about my husband’s behavior outside.”

“Don’t misunderstand, Ines. Your choice of words has been… since earlier.”

“What else would you call his behavior outside? Anyway, that’s not important, so forget it, Jose.”

“…Y-Yes?”

“Can I call you Jose from now on? We’re already friends.”

Cárcel finally made a dumbfounded expression. He looked at Ines with that expression, then when he looked back at Jose, his expression changed to something like ‘You’re on your own if you say yes.’

So, should he say no? To his superior’s superior… no, his wife…?

Their hierarchy was now, even in Jose’s simple eyes, becoming increasingly clear, to the point of being blatant.

How could he tell him to defy her when he couldn’t even defy her himself?

Besides, how could he say no after hearing such a gentle voice….

He looked at Ines’s kind and friendly face again. That composure. It seemed marvelous to Jose, who was instinctively oppressed by Cárcel.

With just a few words, she had turned Cárcel Escalante into the most childish man in the world, scolded him like a child, made him apologize to his subordinate with his own mouth, and yet she didn’t even glance at the sculpture next to her.

Could it be that she couldn’t even see that sculpted face with those eyes?

Cárcel Escalante was truly a masterpiece of God. Even men would sometimes be speechless when Cárcel looked at them with that handsome face, as if mocking them, and even if he just stood there silently and looked at them, they would feel intimidated…. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] Some men even stared at him as if he were possessed, as if he were a different species. That’s why he was literally a wondrous being.

However, when Cárcel closed his mouth and looked at her with that magnificent face, she told him to open his mouth, and when his mouth was open, she told him to close it.

Then, wouldn’t she be an even greater being…? And an even warmer one at that.

“Y-Yes… Of course.”

He was first taken aback when Ines called his name, and the rest of his composure left him when Cárcel glared at him, so by the time he decided to say yes and nodded, he didn’t even know what he was agreeing to.

However, Ines seemed quite satisfied with just that.

“Good, Jose. As an adjutant, you’ll be coming and going from the residence often, but for some reason, I haven’t seen any of Cárcel’s colleagues or subordinates coming and going from the residence since we got married. Perhaps they all feel uncomfortable with me being here?”

“Ah, that’s the same with the previous residence….”

“The previous residence?”

Jose, despite his dull instincts, understood Cárcel’s cold glare this time. He shook his head without knowing the reason.

“I must have confused him with another Captain for a moment….”

“Is that so? With whom?”

“Señora, I can’t even remember his name.”

“So, you must have mixed them up.”

Cárcel avoided the question as clumsily as Jose. However, he looked natural thanks to his handsome face.

Still, he wasn’t cut out to be a con man, so he should be thankful that he was born the eldest son of a distinguished family with a face to match, or perhaps he should be thankful that Ines couldn’t see his face right now…….

“I see. So, it’s not because of me?”

“Yes, not at all.”

“Then why don’t you socialize at the residence? My husband doesn’t have any rough edges, he’s quite sociable and gets along well with people… Judging by the way he treats training like a religion, he must be dedicated to his military life as well.”

She sounded like a señorita asking why her puppy couldn’t get along with another puppy.

How should he answer this? Once again, it was difficult to figure out what to say just from his superior’s look that told him to answer well on his own.

Should he say that it’s not that we don’t get along, but that they don’t socialize with us? Should he say that your husband has more rough edges than you think and isn’t that sociable?

In Jose’s eyes, Cárcel in Calstera handled necessary social interactions well, but he wasn’t a very sociable person. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] He had no interest in the various entertainments that officers enjoyed together in the garrison, he wasn’t interested in events that weren’t necessary, he wasn’t interested in being briefly involved with the daughters of high-ranking officers through various gatherings, and he wasn’t very interested in weekend chess gatherings or playing billiards with a few people after work.

He only worked himself to death with training that no one asked him to do anymore. It would have been fine if he was the only one dying, but he was also killing others along with him….

All Jose had gained in the year and a half he worked under him was a more enlarged body than he had at the military academy. It would have been nice if only his muscles had grown, but the greasy food he endlessly stuffed into his mouth every evening due to lack of energy had remained in his body along with his bulky muscles.

And recently, it had gotten worse. After Cárcel returned to the garrison after his marriage, he started training like a madman at dawn, tormenting him, and at some point, instead of doing that in the morning, he started taking away his evenings. No matter what he did, his free half-day would always be reduced to a quarter-day.

Ah, there was one more thing he had gained.

He had this year left, without a single day of vacation. Thanks to someone’s marriage.

Still, Ines was a good person, and now, he thought it was quite rewarding. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] To receive an apology from Cárcel Escalante before he died… But Jose himself had to get married within this year, and his fiancée was sending him angry letters every day due to the reality that he couldn’t get a single day of vacation except for his marriage leave.

The reason being that he had used up all of his summer and winter vacations, even going as far as spying on the Valeztena residence and Perez Castle….

Around this time, Jose’s expression transformed into that of a picture-perfect sinner.

Thanks to his dull mind forgetting about it, he had been able to just sit there innocently and be mindful, but now that he remembered, he couldn’t sit still like a thief with a guilty conscience.

“Yes, of course, the Señora’s husband is perfect, but we are lacking….”

He mumbled, unable to look at Ines’s face. Perhaps because of how she interpreted it, Ines muttered regretfully.

“So, there’s a reason why the billiard table and chessboard are placed like that….”