The General's Wife Wants to Leave
Chapter 117: Once in a lifetime

Chapter 117: Once in a lifetime

He really could not describe his feelings at that moment. He could just stand there, watching her smiling face while she calmly introduced the foreign woman, whom she expected to take over her position as his wife, to him.

But he knew what the most apparent feeling was that had surged inside him until now.

Disappointment.

It was the clear feelings that he felt at the moment, aside from anger and the other feelings, that were hard to describe.

"I still don’t understand why you hate me so much." His low voice was laced with dejection. "I still don’t understand it after so many times I have thought about that."

Canillas then took a momentary silence, as if forming words were hard to do.

"What mistakes have I done to you, so you treat me so lowly this way?" Canillas shook his head, as if speaking out his disappointment and disbelief. A faint smile appeared on his darkened countenance.

"Is it because you don’t want to have a soldier as a husband, like you said in our first meeting?" He asked the quiet Joanna. "But I have asked you to bear with that, as many women could bear to be the wife of a soldier, and I want my wife to bear with that." Canillas resumed speaking, as if not expecting Joanna to answer his inquiry, as he just wanted to pour out his inner feelings.

"And I am sorry if I am selfish in this matter. What I can do to make amends for this selfishness is that even though I may leave you to fulfill my duty as a soldier on the battlefield, I will come back home, as I have managed to do so so far. But of course, if you pray for me to return home, not the opposite." A chuckle echoed in the serene, cold air before he continued to speak.

"Or is it because my mother had done something that you disliked, so that you hate me and my mother?" He asked again and was silent for a fleeting moment, watching the lady before him in stillness while looking at him, not giving an answer.

"I apologize once again on behalf of my mother, if it is so. But hadn’t I said that I would take you to live in a separate house from her once we return to Archess?" Another inquiry was made by Canillas, to which only the sound of the river breeze answered.

"If you are still angry at me because I left you for months on a battlefield, is what I have done to make amends for that by coming here in your homeland and accompanying you until now nothing to you?" Canillas’ voice got softer and softer, which brushed along the cold air in Joanna’s ears.

Seconds passed as both Joanna and Canillas only stared at each other.

"I have said before that nothing will make me not accept you as my wife, but it seems that nothing will make you accept me as your husband."

At his words, Joanna subconsciously bit inside her cheek. She strangely felt her eyes burn. Was it because she did not blink enough since he faced her and talked to her? Or was it because of the cold air that blew from the open river? Joanna wondered in her mind.

"Then, let this man, whom you resent so much, change his mind." Canillas’ low voice seeped into Joanna’s ears, making her grip the pouch more.

"There is one question to which the answer will make me not accept you as my wife." Canillas stated. "But you have to be honest with me this time. Don’t dare play a role as a liar because it will be useless. As I have told you, I will find out every lie you tell me." And Canillas caught her flinch.

"But before we go to that point, I want to tell you this, Joanna," Canillas began. "I will only have one marriage in my life. Only once in a lifetime." Taking a pause to linger his eyes on her face, he then added,

"And that is not my problem, if you believe me or not. No matter how beautiful the lady you match makes me, I will never take her as my wife." He stated it in a serious, firm tone, with no trace of mischief in his unreservedly serious countenance.

If one saw in a neutral position how he looked at the moment, there was no room for doubt that he was neither making a joke nor a lie. Even Joanna, who expected and wanted to believe it to not be true, could not help but have her heart pound even harder at the firm statement she heard.

Once in a lifetime.

She knew that he was a man of his words. Hence, Joanna could not stop her heart from thumping more.

"Now, answer me honestly, Joanna." Canillas demanded, not asking her to look straight into his eyes, as she had captured his during their conversation with her watery eyes.

"Do you want to end this marriage and want to get rid of me because you have someone dear to your heart whom you want to make your husband?" Canillas asked without any hesitation. He kept his eyes straight at the cold woman before him, capturing every emotion with his eyes. And the first reaction he caught was her widening eyes before her brows slightly furrowed.

On the other hand, Joanna was completely taken aback by hearing that question from Canillas. She did not even once think that he had thought about her that way.

However, it was not a matter at the moment. His judgment about her was not a matter she should be concerned about. What mattered was how she responded to his inquiry, which he said could free her from her marriage with him.

Wasn’t that what she had desperately chased after so far? Wasn’t it because of that that she played a role as a matchmaker for him and Clara de Lorn? Joanna talked to herself inwardly.

If she nodded her head or said yes to the thing that was totally not true, she would be free from him and their marriage. Everything that she had done would be fruitful in the end.