The Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway Chapter 88

Chapter 88

“Señora Escalante, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll say something like a new dessert has arrived, or that I’ll be giving the Colonel a tour of the residence first, and then I’ll call him out.”

“What’s the dessert? That’s important.”

“The star is Dibalua-style crème brûlée. It’s been kept very cold.”

“Crème brûlée, oh my… I had some made by a chef when the Cavalier trading company stayed in Mendoza! It was incredible… No, it’s not the incredible part that matters. The Colonel dislikes the way people from that country act pretentious… you know what I mean?”

“So, he’d say showing him around the house is also pretentious?”

“Exactly! He’s really not a normal person, you know… I need some time to think about it. Señora Escalante, just a minute.”

Señora Coronado, as if she was going to see a play or something, disappeared into the residence, walking quickly and hastily, leaving the party.

In her previous life, the Ines of the past, would have scoffed at the very mention of calling this gathering a party. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] The size of the party, let alone the size of the place…

It would have been a cozy and charming rat hole for a Crown Princess.

And the members of the party were far from the center of Mendoza’s social scene. If the high lineage of people like Cárcel, Jose, and Colonel Barcá supported their honor as officers… These were just exceptions.

They were praised for their honorable duty, but they were just soldiers, after all. Most of the Imperial Military Academy was made up of nobles, but not many people from the most prestigious families would deliberately choose a path of hardship.

They were just some of the countless noble families who were more about status than money, maybe the second son who didn’t inherit any fortune, or maybe a side branch whose name was prestigious but had no money to speak of…

If you don’t have money, you have to have honor. They’d exchanged their bodies for honor.

But in Mendoza, they valued what you were born with. No matter how loyal someone was, unless they became a war hero or something, they were just ordinary people, wearing the uniform of the Imperial Navy, nothing special.

Perhaps that was why, whenever she remembered any part of social events, she felt nauseous, and she could just tolerate it.

People who were stiff, or tried to appear stiff. People who were humble, even if they were showing off… The people here were generally all less tainted by Mendoza. The more she looked at them, the more her deeply rooted aversion gradually faded.

Yes. This isn’t Mendoza. Nor was it Empress Cayetana’s maddening court…

Ines approached the wife of Major Bardem, poured some wine into her empty glass, and won her over with a small gesture. Then she turned back to her humble work.

She had never done anything like decorating a garden before, even though she had done it out of necessity. It was too ridiculous for the wife of the Crown Prince, and too comfortable a story for a noble girl who had run away with a poor painter.

Was this an inescapable affection? Or maybe a kind of pride? She had clearly started without any interest, but now, looking back, it was filled with her ideas. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but it wasn’t bad.

She had never been impressed by the grand manor of Perez or the magnificent garden of Valeztena residence, so it was definitely not her calling.

But it was still good.

Perhaps the abundance she had always wanted in life was just about the size of this small house’s garden. Excessive wealth often makes people dry, and poverty often knocks people down. She had experienced both, so she knew. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] This was the perfect balance, not dry, not knocked down.

A small residence in Calstera, comfort in such a small world… But even if their marriage wasn’t temporary, it would just be a moment, like playing house, for Cárcel, who would inherit everything from Escalante.

Just like this moment was just a fleeting, pleasant dream for her.

Ines shifted her gaze to Cárcel, absentmindedly. He was still inside the greenhouse, sitting at a game table with Colonel Barcá, Captain Coronado, and Captain Salvatore, playing cards, enjoying himself immensely.

His gaze, which had been glued to the game table, suddenly turned towards her. He brushed back his tousled blond hair and turned his head, as if he were just taking a break from the game, but as soon as he saw Ines, his eyes naturally curved up, as if he were smiling.

She was, ridiculously, at a loss for a moment. Then, she finally managed a faint smile, and Cárcel waved lightly. Before Colonel Barcá could say anything, as if he were accusing her of daydreaming.

Cárcel’s gaze had disappeared, but she felt unable to stay in place, so she turned. She heard Raul’s voice coming from a slightly secluded spot, where he was serving the Marchioness of Barcá.

“……It’s truly a masterpiece by Señora Escalante. It was a very long construction project. It seems small, but you wouldn’t know how much effort she put into it.”

Of course he wouldn’t know. The construction had been finished before Raul arrived in Calstera.

Still, Raul, handing the Marchioness a glass of wine, was rambling about Ines’s supposed achievements. As if he had seen the entire construction from start to finish.

“You know, I came to this residence a very long time ago… Not Captain Escalante, but a long time ago, when another officer lived here. It looks so different now.”

“Of course it does… Everything changed when Señora Escalante came here. Everything, from the inside to the outside of the residence, there’s no place that doesn’t have her touch.”

“It was beautiful then, but it’s incomparable now. The view from here… As expected, she’s the daughter of Valeztena, she has a keen eye for aesthetics. Even though the garden is the size of your hand, you can’t hide talent.”

“Of course. Our Señora Escalante…”

The Marchioness of Barcá had been using Raul’s tray as her personal table, from the start. She had neatly placed one of each type of snack on the tray, and she had several glasses of wine placed on it, to make sure she never ran out.

She was talking about Ines with her mouth, but her eyes were dissecting Raul Balan, as if she was about to devour him. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] That was the kind of face that was in high demand, practically.

Raul, knowing his own advantage, easily charmed the noblewoman with simple service, and then, while they were distracted, he would obtain a few stories for himself.

But Raul, in his current state, was so happy to hear Ines’s praise that he was wagging his tail like a lovestruck dog. So, he was more pitiable, a little like a candy wrapper to be peeled off in the Marchioness’s imagination.

‘So, let’s save Raul first.’

If he continued this way, he’d be dragged into bed…

“Marchioness of Barcá.”

“Señora Escalante! I was just talking about you.”

Even though she said that, her eyes clearly indicated, ‘Get out of the way so I can keep talking about you, without you.’ Ines ignored that request and gently grabbed her arm.

The Marchioness of Barcá had once been one of her people. She knew her habits like the back of her hand.

“I was looking for you, Marchioness. It’s time to show our guests around the residence…”

Her eyes, as if asking, ‘What’s there to see in this tiny place,’ briefly glanced at the residence, but the Marchioness of Barcá quickly brightened. As if she were the most affected by Mendoza of all the people present, her expression changed rapidly.

“I’ve been waiting to see it. Captain Escalante was always alone in Calstera… I wanted to see how the residence changed, now that it has a hostess.”

‘In Calstera’. That was a subtle way of saying ‘not here,’ but Ines ignored that too.

“Anyway, this place, did I tell you how beautiful it is? The Colonel is no match for young Captain Escalante. We have to climb to the fourth floor of our residence to even get a decent view of the naval base, but look at this amazing view from the top of Logroño!”

Instead, Colonel Barcá’s residence would have been ten times the size of this small mansion, but the Marchioness, in a playful exaggeration, praised Ines. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] She even made sure to mention that Colonel Barcá’s residence had four floors.

Some officer had said, hadn’t he? That power in the Calstera Naval Headquarters was proportional to the view from Logroño Hill.

But even just looking at the way all the high-ranking officers lived in huge mansions on flat land near headquarters, you could see that power lay in a well-positioned flat space.

This was also a different kind of power, separate from the power of Mendoza. It was childish, but something worth bragging about… You had to brag first, just in case no one noticed… but it was still childish.

“How dare I compare to the residence where the marquis and his wife will be staying? Anyway, before you see it, I thought I’d give the ladies a small gift, just a token of my appreciation, so would you mind leading them?”

‘Lead them.’ Those two words were enough to make the Marchioness’s eyes light up as if they were instantly drawn to Raul. She was the one hosting the party, but you were the one moving people around, that’s the simple implication that was enough to sway the Marchioness. [ʏᴜʟʜᴇʏᴜɴ] She quickly forgot about Raul, prioritizing power over just a handsome young man.

“And if you could rescue my husband before he loses all his money to the Colonel, that would be great.”

Ines never intended to invade the greenhouse from the beginning. She could just use the people she had used before.