The General's Wife Wants to Leave-Chapter 158: Beyond the pale words

As the horses began to run to pull the carriage where she was sitting, Joanna pulled her gaze away from the man who stared at her in silence.

Shifting her eyes to the seat across from her, where no one was occupied, Joanna took the package of breakfast that had been bought by her father in the inn restaurant.

Duke John de Lara was a loving father but a punctual person.

Joanna knew that he would not leave her, no matter how long she was behind schedule. But once she appeared, he would not bother to do more activity that would make the schedule that he had set fall more behind.

Hence, instead of having breakfast in the inn restaurant, the Duke bought the meals for her to eat, as skipping breakfast was not allowed by him either.

Looking inside the paper-based package, Joanna found four pieces of warm, fresh bread, each of which was as big as her palm. Aside from the package of bread that sat on the carriage chair, there were two bottles of milk, and each bottle was equal to about a medium-sized glass of milk.

Taking off her gloves, Joanna took one piece of warm bread and handed it to Canillas, who was now sitting leisurely beside her after receiving a surprising, silent confirmation that his wife did not object to him sitting by her side.

Accepting the bread from his wife’s hand, Canillas said, "Thank you, wife."

Without looking at his face, it was not hard for Joanna to tell that a broad smile could be found on his beaming face at the moment, just by how he called her wife cheerfully.

However, when Joanna offered Canillas a bottle of milk, he refused, saying, "I don’t like milk. You can have it."

Without asking more why he did not like milk, Joanna put the bottle of milk back on the seat before her, to be side by side with another bottle of milk that was supposed to be hers.

"Make sure you finish both of them," Canillas uttered, pointing at the two bottles of milk sitting across from them before taking a big bite of the bread in his hand.

Listening to what he said, Joanna, who had just taken a bite of warm bread from her share, shook her head. "It is too much," replied Joanna calmly while chewing the bread in her mouth.

Upon hearing her response, Canillas hummed in dissatisfaction. He then leaned closer toward Joanna’s ear to say in a low voice, "But my body told me that you need more fat." And that comment made Joanna hold her breath, open her eyes wide, and stop munching the bread in her mouth.

Turning her head in a swift movement to face the man who seemed to appear on his mischievous side, Joanna sent a sharp glare at him. But, of course, that adorable glare did not deter the mischievous man from making another comment that made the glaring lady with blushing cheeks glare and blush more, as she had already lost words to reprimand him for saying that beyond the pale words.

"I am not lying. My body still remembers my wife’s body very well."

Taking another bite of the bread as he had finished the previous one in his mouth, Canillas grinned before offering the bitten bread in his hands to the lady, who was still glaring far sharper than a dagger at him with her mouth filled with yet-to-swallow munched bread.

Chuckling, Canillas pulled the bread back from near her pursed lips and shoved another big bite in his mouth.

The glaring woman thought that there was always a risk that she had to bear once she behaved tenderly toward the mischievous man, while the beaming man thought that it was enough to be like this as long as he could stay by the adorable woman’s side, although the uneasy feelings still remained in his heart.

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The journey to the capital of Terra went smoothly without unnecessary events that delayed the arrival. There were no carriages’ wheels that were trapped in the hole because of unpaved and rocky roads that made the owner of the carriages and the carriages behind them have to wait to pass.

Because of that, Joanna had to once again be lulled during half of the journey, despite her determination not to sleep like she did in the departure to Fairns.

Joanna felt that she had had enough sleep, which made her able to stay awake during the trip. She had also filled the time with resuming reading the book that she had not yet finished reading the day before, while the man who was sitting next to her read another book that she brought from her bookshelf as he had finished reading the book that he had insisted on reading, which was Dear Mister Camel.

But still, the long journey and exhausted eyes of reading made her unable to prevent her eyes from closing shut.

And because she did not want to lay her head on the shoulder of the man beside her, when she felt that she was unable to endure the drowsiness, Joanna leaned on the wall of the carriage as she still remembered that the man said that he could not let her head hang down uncomfortably.

Nonetheless, to her surprise, when she opened her eyes, she still had her head laid on the man’s shoulder.

Closing her eyes back as she took a sigh inwardly, Joanna thought that there was nothing she could do to stop the man from doing what he wanted to do, no matter what she had reasoned to him.

Fortunately, once it became a clause in their agreement, although there was no written proof as evidence, he really went with that. He did not hold her hand without her permission on every occasion, including during her sleep just now, as she found her hands rested on the closed book on her lap without him holding one of them like the day before. Instead, his hands held the book that he was reading.

Joanna, however, hoped that she did not think of it naively. She really wanted to trust him that he really did not hold her hands during her sleep, not sneaking doing that without her knowledge. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Aside from that acknowledgement, after interacting with him all this time, she got some insight about the man who had become her husband. It was actually not a surprising movement that he would carry out, as she allowed him to sit by her side, just like the progressive, dangerous movements he made after he received the treaty of reconciliation from her.

Every time she behaved tenderly toward him, he would return it to her with way more tender yet dangerous gestures, as if he thought that she had had a change of heart and he did not want to miss any opportunity that would make him get closer to her.

It made Joanna think that if she wanted to feel secure and not worried about the dangerous movements he would make toward her, she had to make him agree not to do that. In other words, she had to make him agree not to touch her without her permission so that he would not embrace her again when they shared a bed next time.

But again, she realized that it was impossible to make him agree with that, as he had stated that it was impossible for him not to touch her, his own wife. Thus, he distracted her with another question when she asked for his agreement on that matter before they arrived at the inn the day before.

Upon that realization, what Joanna could do was trust him that he would not do what made her worry he would do to her without her consent.

Joanna subconsciously let out a heavy sigh at the thought.

"Awake?" Joanna heard a low, deep voice coming from above her head.

Opening her eyes as she was caught being awake, Joanna hummed as a response and quietly pulled her head away from Canillas’ shoulder.

Holding the right side of her neck, which was sore and numb due to her sleeping position, Joanna fixed the shawl that she draped around her shoulders to protect her body from the chill air before looking outside the window, as she wanted to guess their current exact location.

Outside, she found the sky blanketed in yellow and red hues, implying the sun would be completely hiding on the horizon in a few more minutes.

Not long after, when she still had her eyes fixed outside the window, trying to decipher where they were at the moment using the rest of the light of the sun that was still bestowed around them, she heard her only companion ask another question. "Is it still far?"

Joanna took a few seconds of silence before nodding her head, still looking outside the window, as she wanted to make sure that her guess was not wrong.

"We will probably arrive within an hour," answered Joanna.

She was sure that they would arrive at the de Lara mansion in Cresca within the hour she had mentioned, if no unprecedented occurrence happened in between. Without asking Sir Clayton, she would not guess it wrong, and it was all based on the long, majestic white stone bridge, which was a landmark of Cresca that they would soon pass through.

"So what are we going to do in the meantime?"

Joanna’s heart skipped a beat at the question that was directed at her by the man who moved closer by her side, asking that in a voice barely above a whisper near her ear.