Chapter 4 – My Husband Has a Disability

The road from the capital to Aeon in the North by carriage was said to take about eight days.

In fact, when Cecia entered the Sangje Valley, known as the gateway to Aeon, it was exactly eight days since she had left the capital.

When she left the capital, it was a season with blue skies and beautiful blooming flowers, but after just eight days, Cecia entered a land where she had to wear fur clothing.

‘It’s cold……’

The inside of the carriage was very cold.

Even though she wore padded clothes and a fur coat tightly, for Cecia, experiencing winter for the first time, it was extremely cold.

“When will we arrive at the mansion?”

Opening the carriage window, Cecia spoke to Ralph, who was riding with the coachman.

“There’s less than an hour left now.”

“That’s a relief. I want to warm myself in front of the fireplace soon.”

Cecia looked up at the sky.

Far from a blue sky, the sky was a dull color, with dark clouds gathering heavily.

‘This is……’

Then, something cold fell on Cecia’s hand.

‘Is this what they call snow?’

It was her first winter, so naturally, it was her first snow.

White, fluffy things floated down from the sky and landed on her hand, melting away instantly. Cecia was so fascinated by the snow falling from the sky that she forgot about the cold for a moment.

When snow started to pile up white on the road the carriage traveled and the surrounding hills, the carriage arrived at the mansion surrounded by stone walls.

This was Marquis Sinclair’s mansion.

‘It’s huge……’

As the carriage entered the mansion, Cecia couldn’t hide her amazement.

She knew he was a wealthy Marquis of the North, but the mansion was so enormous it defied description.

Even after passing through the main gate of the stone wall, the carriage continued for quite some time.

Only after traveling through the seemingly endless mansion garden by carriage for a while did they finally arrive at the front of the mansion, whose garden was so vast it even contained a forest of fir trees reaching up to the sky.

The mansion was five stories high and seemed to have hundreds of rooms.

She had never seen a mansion of this size even in the capital.

“Please step down carefully.”

At the entrance of the mansion, the staff were lined up.

“You must have had a hard journey. I am Thompson, the butler of this mansion.”

A butler with quite a bit of age and graying hair greeted Cecia, and other staff began unloading the luggage from the carriage.

“Please come inside. The Marquis is waiting for you.”

Brushing off the snow from her hair with her gloved hand, Cecia followed the butler’s guidance and entered the mansion.

From the outside, the mansion was made of heavy stone and looked somber, but once inside, a dazzlingly bright scene unfolded.

Splendid chandeliers, marble floors, columns and walls of ivory marble—all shone and sparkled.

And it was warm.

The cold from outside couldn’t penetrate at all, and inside the mansion was as warm as spring.

“The Marquis is coming down over there.”

At the butler’s words, Cecia lifted her head with a bright smile.

After eight days, she was finally meeting Marquis Sinclair again.

That beautiful face lingered in her mind, and enduring the past eight days had been very difficult.

‘Finally…….’

Finally, she would have the first night that was postponed before.

The moment she watched the Marquis coming down the stairs with a joyful heart—

“Um…… the Marquis…….”

Cecia tilted her head.

The man coming down the stairs was not Adam Sinclair.

No matter how she looked, it was not Adam.

Adam was a handsome man with a tall, slender build, black hair, and gray eyes.

But the man currently coming down the stairs had red hair and, above all, was as big and rough as a bear.

It was impossible for someone to become so large in just eight days, or for their hair color to change in eight days.

Most of all, the face was different.

It wasn’t the face of a handsome man, but closer to that of a bandit.

‘Could it be, was I scammed?’

The man approaching her now had a face that was not just fierce—it was so scary that anyone would run away at the sight.

‘Did they use a fake to scam me, worried I wouldn’t marry someone with that face?’

But even if she was scammed, Cecia was not in a position to call off the marriage.

Thanks to the Marquis, her family’s debts and living problems had all been resolved.

If she called off the marriage as a scam, she would have to return everything she’d received.

‘But it’s so unfair……’

If he’d had that face from the beginning, she could accept it, but to show her such a beautiful face at first and then appear with such a frightening one—this was the worst kind of scam.

“H-he doesn’t seem to be the Marquis……”

Cecia whispered quietly to the butler standing next to her.

“Madame, didn’t you hear the explanation beforehand?”

“What?”

Explanation? What explanation?

“Ralph must have explained that the Marquis has a slight disability.”

“What?”

A slight disability?

Is that face the disability?

No, the face isn’t a disability, it’s a scam!

At that moment, the man came right up to Cecia.

There was nowhere left to retreat.

“You’ve had a hard journey.”

Even the voice was different.

Where had that honeyed, sweet voice gone? Now, a harsh, metallic voice dirtied her ears.

Cecia held back her urge to cry, thinking this was clearly a scam, and carefully opened her mouth.

“W-who are you…?”

She had to check again.

“I am your husband, Adam Sinclair.”

No, no!

Marquis Sinclair didn’t look like this!

“Would you like some tea while your luggage is brought to your bedroom? You must not be used to the cold here, so warming your body with hot tea after the carriage ride would be best.”

Right now, warming her body with tea wasn’t the problem—her frozen heart needed warming, but did this man not realize that?

***

Clatter.

Cecia set down her teacup, not knowing what to say, her lips just moving soundlessly.

She couldn’t even sense the aroma of the tea.

‘Should I ask why he scammed me? No, I’ll wait until he speaks first. He’ll tell me the reason.’

Yes. The face was a scam, but the Marquis himself wasn’t a fake.

So, she would wait until he explained.

‘Well, it’s not like a handsome, wealthy Marquis would propose to me for no reason. He must have some flaw, so he proposed.’

Thinking about her own situation, she finally accepted this mismatched marriage.

No woman would want to marry a man with such a frightening face.

“I don’t know where to start the story……”

Go ahead. Tell it all.

It’s okay. I understand. Please tell me everything.

Now, completely resigned, Cecia nodded and looked at the fierce Adam Sinclair.

“I understand, so please speak comfortably.”

“Thank you.”

A smile bloomed on that fierce face.

But even the smile was frightening.

‘I wish he wouldn’t smile……’

His smile was so scary that Cecia’s hand holding the teacup trembled.

“I have a disability.”

Is it a disability of lying, or is that face the disability?

“Yes……”

“You may not believe it, but my appearance changes every five days.”

“What?”

Cecia doubted her ears.

What did this man just say?

What changes?

“How does your appearance change?”

“Yes. My appearance changes. Into a completely different form.”

“……”

It must be a disability of compulsive lying.

“A-and so……”

“The reason my appearance is different now from at the wedding is because of this. The reason I left in a hurry wasn’t really because of the mine, but because that day was the fifth day in that form, and since I didn’t know what I would look like the next day, I made an excuse and left.”

He kept saying things she couldn’t believe.