The General's Wife Wants to Leave-Chapter 135: Keeping a weather eye open

Sitting at the dressing table as part of her night ritual before going to bed after washing up, Joanna combed her long hair, which was gathered on her left shoulder.

As she did not engage in any vigorous activities that made her sweat or dirty, Joanna kept her hair dry. Besides, she was too tired to treat her hair and wait for it to dry if she happened to wash it, as she wanted to call for the night as soon as possible, preparing for a longer journey the next day.

However, it was what she would have done if she was alone in her room, not prolonging her time sitting in front of the mirror like she was doing at the moment.

After spending nights alone in bed since she left West Lane Mountain, Joanna had to accept the reality that she would have a restless night as she had to share a bed with a companion, which was none other than her so-called husband.

It was not that she had had peaceful nights when she slept alone after she returned from the Powel Orphanage, as so many occasions had occurred that made her experience disturbances in sleep. However, for Joanna, it was far better that she had to share a bed with a man who had planted his gaze on her during the dinner in the inn restaurant until they entered their assigned room, where they would stay for a night.

And what made Joanna feel more worried and restless was that her so-called husband had kept a smile spreading across his face since they stepped inside the room.

Joanna thought that the smile would not last long, as it was only the expression of relief or happiness that he would be able to lay down on the bed after being trapped inside the carriage for hours. But then she realized that she was wrong, as the smile was still there after she went out of the bathroom to wash up.

She was not sure if Bianca, who had helped her wash up, noticed the General’s weird expression or not. If she noticed that, would she feel and think the same as she did about the General, as she was wondering whether he was fine?

Some questions had also popped up in her mind. Did he have his head bump into something hard that made him look like a worrisome man at the moment? Or did a long trip and being trapped inside the carriage for a long time change him into a weird man that caused her to feel shivers crawl down her spines and want to push him out of the room?

Joanna had planned to go to bed when he was in the bathroom to wash up after she was done with her part so that she would not be bothered by his weird appearance if he still wore the smile on his face. However, a soldier was indeed different from a nobleman, as he had only spent about two to three minutes in the bathroom and went out of there when she was still sitting at the dressing table, applying the self-made liquids to her skin as part of her night ritual.

Breathing out a sigh, Joanna thought that she had to quicken her pace in finishing her night ritual when she happened to share a bed with him next time. Or, at the second thought, she would skip it so she would not have her nervousness peaked by something like what he was showing at the moment.

Through the corner of her eyes, Joanna glanced stealthily at Canillas, who was lying on his side on the bed, which was positioned next to the dressing table where she sat.

Not like how it was laid out across from the bed in her room in the Powel Orphanage, in the inn room, the dressing table was set about one large step away from the bed. Hence, instead of watching what he did through the mirror, Joanna could only watch him cautiously through the corner of her eyes.

Propping his head with his hand above the pillow, Joanna found him smiling while looking at her.

Letting out a sigh that she had repeatedly taken inwardly, Joanna could no longer resist herself from ignoring his weird yet worrying behavior.

If there was no threat from the Tres, it would be that she would have dashed out of the room and locked the weird man alone so that he would smile at himself, or she would have pushed him out of the room so that she could sleep alone peacefully with no one disturbing her with such strange behavior.

Nevertheless, because the probability for her to do so did not exist due to the presence of the Tres, which was not only a rumor but really existed, she would do what she needed to do.

Joanna took a break from brushing her hair. Placing the comb on the dressing table, Joanna turned her body from her seat to her left side, so now she sat facing the smiling man who was still lying on the bed, which was a large step away from her.

Facing the smiling man, nervousness actually grew inside Joanna as his gaze was too intense to behold, particularly when there were only the two of them in the quiet inn room, whose ambience was somehow hard to decipher. But she forced herself to be brave, pushing aside all the unnecessary thoughts that made her want to hide somewhere so that he would not stare intensely at her and she would not have to bear the intense gaze any longer.

Talking to each other. It was the General’s suggestion that Joanna still remembered and had held to implement to voice what disturbed her about him, just like what they did in the carriage where she had voiced her mind about setting the boundary between them. And she felt glad that he respected her demand, showing that they really could talk to each other.

Therefore, despite the nervousness she felt at how he stared at her with a smile on his lips, which made her want to flee, Joanna chose to sit and face him. She then asked, "Are you fine, Sir Canillas?"

Meanwhile, Canillas, who was slightly surprised by the way Joanna suddenly turned from her seat to face him as she had tended to avoid looking straight into his eyes, answered, "Of course I am. Why did my wife ask me that?" The smile that made Joanna restless was still plastered on his face while he was still maintaining the same position on the bed.

"You have smiled quite so long, and it made me feel that you are actually not fine, Sir Canillas," said Joanna, slightly tilting her head with her eyes narrowed as if not sure that he told her the truth that he was really fine, as he claimed him to be.

Canillas chuckled, raising his body to sit on the edge of the bed. Facing Joanna, he said, "I am really fine, my dear wife. Don’t be worried about the smile on my face. This is just the happy smile of a husband who has finally reunited with his beautiful wife after being mercilessly chased away and separated to sleep alone on the empty and cold bed."

There he was again, about to strike her with his sweet, flattering words. Joanna straightened her back as she heard the response, which was sprinkled with exaggeration.

Joanna still remembered as clearly as the stream that flowed in the Glasstown River how she felt when her so-called husband, suddenly, out of the blue, when they were under reconciliation, praised her with never-ending sweet words that made her completely speechless and not able to think clearly what to do to respond or to behave normally as if it were nothing and had no impact on her.

How could she behave as if it were nothing if he said that she was more beautiful than Clara de Lorn, whose beauty had been widely soared in Barasca? He even said that she was the only beautiful lady in his eyes.

However, Joanna could no longer argue to say that he lied to her by saying those flattery words, as he said that each person had a different preference toward something.

Joanna actually knew about that perspective, as she was not a naïve, narrow-minded woman who was oblivious to that point of view. She just felt that she was not a beauty that could be compared with Clara de Lorn. And no gentleman, except her father, had complimented her as a beauty. Even her brother, Phillip, had often said that she was his dearest, ugly sister. As for what was said by the womanizer Viscount, Joanna had never counted it as praise at all.

Aside from that, she did not want to be swayed by such sweet nothings that came from the General, which of those mostly worked to flatter a lady one courted.

Joanna preferred to keep a weather eye open so that she would not fall and break when the sweet nothings that were used to pull her up were broken.