Chapter 20

Dragged forcefully into the carriage, Diana found a man sitting with a sarcastic smile waiting for her—her husband from her past life, Miles.

“Just what is the meaning of this?”

Rubbing her wrists, Diana glared straight at Miles.

He was someone she had once shared a marriage with, if only for a time.

Yet the Miles sitting before her now felt like a completely different person from the man she thought she knew.

“Meaning of what? It’s simply because you refused to listen to a word I said.”

Miles’s justification was entirely and utterly selfish.

The moment he dragged her into the carriage by force, her own will ceased to matter.

Just where was he planning to take her?

Where was this carriage heading?

With the scenery rushing past her eyes, Diana had no choice but to face Miles head-on.

“Where on earth are you planning to take me?”

Though she tried her best to act brave, her voice trembled slightly.

“All you need to do is nod along to my words.”

Faced with her reaction, Miles twisted his lips into a cruel smirk.

Right here and now, there was no one to rescue Diana.

“You are supposed to marry me.”

Such a one-sided declaration made anger boil up from the very depths of Diana’s chest.

Yet she couldn’t afford to lose her temper now.

Raising her voice here would only make an already terrible situation worse.

“Why are you so obsessed with me? I thought we were nothing more than friends, and that neither of us held any romantic feelings for the other.”

“Why? You’re actually asking me that?”

In contrast, Miles’s voice sounded almost amused.

He no longer bothered to hide his own cunning or his true attitude toward Diana.

“Diana the Moon and Cordelia the Sun. People compared you to your sister endlessly, didn’t they?”

“Y-Yes…”

Nodding at Miles’s words, Diana felt confusion spread across her face, completely unable to understand why he was suddenly bringing up their old nicknames from their academy days.

“I worked hard, you know. To keep annoying little gnats from buzzing around you, I kept other guys in check and spread all sorts of rumors.”

(Kept them in check? Rumors? What on earth is Miles saying…?)

A cold sweat ran down Diana’s spine.

She didn’t want to hear the rest.

She shouldn’t listen to any more of it.

Even as her reason sounded the alarm, Miles continued speaking with a rather self-satisfied expression.

“Don’t you think it’s strange? With faces identical to each other, there’s no reason why only Cordelia should be so endlessly praised. In the first place, your value and Cordelia’s are simply different.”

Miles’s words slowly seeped into Diana.

They encroached upon her heart like a dark, ugly stain spreading across a carpet.

“If I married you, I could become the adopted husband into the House of Gazard. There’s no way everyone else didn’t realize that.”

“Miles, you…”

For a time, she had thought of him as a friend.

A man who had even become her partner in her past life.

She couldn’t believe it.

She didn’t want to believe it.

That this man, of all people—

“It was a lot of work, you know, dragging your reputation down through the dirt.”

He had been the very mastermind who deliberately compared her and Cordelia, spreading all sorts of fabricated rumors about Diana behind her back.

Even now, the carriage kept racing through the streets of the royal capital.

Where on earth was it heading? At this point, none of that mattered anymore.

(I’ve had quite enough of being anywhere near a man like this…)

Even if she had to force open the carriage door and leap out, she would escape from him.

Diana’s mind was already made up.

“It’s your own fault for failing to realize how I felt about you…”

“Feelings?”

A sarcastic laugh slipped past Diana’s lips.

Calling it “feelings”—how brazen of him.

Weren’t they nothing more than a relationship built entirely on calculation, mutual benefit, and a complete absence of affection?

(If you truly had any feelings for me, why did you treat me like nothing more than a tool to bear your children…?)

The words rising right to the throat, Diana forcibly swallowed them down.

Saying them to Miles now would accomplish nothing.

More than that, she wanted to put distance between herself and this man the moment possible.

“Is speaking ill of the person you claim to care about and spreading malicious rumors supposed to be your idea of ‘feelings’?”

Raising her voice in a provocative tone, she slowly unleashed her magical power.

If she used a massive spell, it would be discovered instantly.

Little by little, step by step, the temperature around them dropped without a soul noticing.

Her target was the carriage’s wheels.

She would freeze them solid so that its speed would falter, if only a little.

“You’re wrong! I always intended to make you truly happy!! But then that man…”

Completely worked up into a frenzy, Miles failed to notice that the air inside the cabin was freezing over.

—What a pathetic man.

And even more pathetic was the foolish Diana (herself) who had once taken such a man for a husband—who had trusted him to the bitter end.

“Miles, what you feel is not love.”

The carriage frame groaned and swayed violently.

The frozen wheels refused to turn properly, causing the carriage to lose speed rapidly and steadily.

Diana glanced briefly out the window.

A horse and rider had been chasing the carriage for some time.

After confirming their presence, she turned back to face Miles once more.

“As long as I am with you, I will never be happy.”

“Diana!!”

As Miles let out a cry of anguish, Diana gave him a soft, gentle smile.

While Miles was still catching his breath in shock, she moved quickly.

She lifted the latch of the door. A cold wind rushed inside, violently tossing Diana’s hair.

Even though it had slowed down, the carriage was still moving with considerable momentum.

Yet she could no longer afford to hesitate.

(It’s now or never—!)

With her mind made up, Diana flung her body out of the carriage.

“──Diana!!”

At that exact moment—the horse and rider chasing the carriage extended an arm, firmly catching Diana’s body as she soared through the air.