The General's Wife Wants to Leave-Chapter 209: Not anticipated to be

Standing in the doorway, as the door had been pushed open, Canillas scanned all around inside the powder room with his hawk-like eyes.

"Did you see Joanna?" Canillas asked because, inside the powder room, there was no sight of a figure that he impatiently wanted to see. Instead, standing in front of the mirror was a lady that he did not want to see at all.

In a hurry, storming back toward the great hall, Canillas pooled his focus to catch the sight of Joanna among the rest of the guests who still remained there, as they were unwilling to say goodbye to their relatives or colleagues that they could only meet when the royal events were held.

Trying to appear as calm as he could by halting from his hurried steps to take a few seconds of break to calm his heavy breath, when he found only a figure of his father-in-law from the position where he was standing, Canillas walked casually toward him as he did not want to make the father of his wife panic when he saw him looking for Joanna in urgency.

It was his instinct that pushed him to find Joanna as quickly as possible—an instinct that made him restless, giving no second thought to leaving the servant that was assigned to escort him to meet the King. It was also a strong push that gave him no room to delay seeing his wife. Even the King, who was waiting to meet him, was not his priority at all.

Joanna was his only priority at the moment. Once he saw her in person, he would be at peace. At the moment as well, he even wished for his instinct to be wrong. For the first time in his life, he did not want to be praised for having the ability to make accurate, intuitive judgments.

When his father-in-law told him that Joanna was in the powder room, without spending more than a second, Canillas made his way toward the powder room without forgetting to maintain his composure so that no one could detect the nerves that grew palpable inside him. That way, he would let his father-in-law believe in the reason he brought up—there was something important that he forgot to tell Joanna about.

Then, there he was, in the powder room where his wife was supposed to be. However, instead of being calm, his heart pounded erratically in his chest when he did not see Joanna there. But Canillas still wished for his instinct to be inaccurate.

Not receiving an answer from the lady who looked at him in a daze with her blue eyes that opened wide, Canillas strode inside the powder room, ignoring all the propriety about entering the powder room that was provided for ladies, as his mind was only occupied with an urgency to find the presence of Joanna in every cubicle that was present there by himself. But there was no other presence there except for the lady, who remained silent until now.

"Did you see my wife here?" Canillas asked again with his breath paced up, hiding his trembling hands by forming them into a fist on either side of his trousers. But what the blonde lady did was only stare at him without uttering a word, standing still with her back facing the mirror.

Considering that there was nothing he could get from the person who seemed to turn out to be deaf, Canillas made his way towards the doorway, deciding to find Joanna by himself.

"Forget her." Frowning, Canillas took an abrupt halt, turning his head to where the source of the voice came from. "Let me be your wife."

Finding Canillas not resuming to walk out of the powder room but now looking at her with his captivating green eyes, Lady Clara thought that her words had attracted him. Hence, feeling encouraged, she said more, "I can do more as your wife than her." She walked slowly towards where Canillas was standing, being certain that all men were actually the same. "I believe General von Rodega is not blind. You can see with your own eyes how I look compared to Joanna. There is no need to deny that."

She was so sure that no man, regardless of sexual orientation, could reject her, the most beautiful lady in Barasca. He just pretended to not be attracted to her, acting to be a loyal husband, when in fact he wanted her more compared to the plain Joanna.

"I am way more worthy to be your wife. I can play a role as a wife better than her. I can please you with all that I have. I can help you achieve what you want to achieve. I won’t complain, and you won’t regret it," she chirped while making her way closer to get what she had dreamt more of since she laid her eyes on the gentleman before her eyes.

She did not believe in anything that Joanna had said to her. All of the words that she confidently told her about General von Rodega were only her imagination, not a reality. What would become the reality was about to happen in a moment. It was Clara’s belief until a moment later, as she was struck with an alarm.

"She hates you," Clara said in a haste, stopping the man of her dream from leaving her as she saw him unexpectedly back away before resuming his steps toward the doorway, maintaining their distance, not willing to get close to her. "I met her just now. She told me that she hates it when you get closer to her side. She said that she hasn’t changed her intention to annul her marriage. She just pretended to be nice to you."

But she still believed that no one could take what belonged to her. No one could beat her. The position as the General’s wife was solely hers. It was the reality that she would believe, not the other way around. "She said that she did not deserve to be a peasant’s wife, and she would only marry the man that she had long loved. She asked me to take her place as your wife because she knew that... I love you."

Clara’s heart beat faster in her chest as she confessed, and it beat more violently when she could see the handsome face of the man that would become her husband soon, as he was now facing her, looking at her with those beautiful eyes. And she felt like her heart almost jumped out of her chest when the handsome man took step after step toward her in languid and deliberate movement.

As if pulling by a magnet, along with eagerness to welcome him, telling him that she would accept him no matter who and what he was, Clara also moved forward to diminish the distance that had separated them all this time.

She closed her eyes when Canillas reached out his one hand that she believed was directed toward her cheek. She did not want to see that because she wanted to perceive his touch more deeply, just like how it felt when he caressed her in her dream. And her breath hitched when the calloused palm reached the area of her body that she had not anticipated to be.