Chapter 96

How to Tame My Beastly Husband — Chapter 96. Wailing Wall

Raphael’s question was confusing, at least for Annette. He really didn’t know who Celestine was? Even though she was his stepbrother’s fiancée?

“What? That girl with the sharp eyes?”

Raphael frowned. He already hated Ludwig, so now that extended automatically to his fiancée. If he had known who she was, he would have had a few more polite things to say to her. Like, keep your man under control.

Ludwig had a decent fiancée, but he was still pursuing another man’s wife.

“Why the hell is that guy so obsessed with you?” He asked, with anger flashing in his eyes. His arms tightened around Annette automatically, as if he thought she might slip away from him.

“Raphael…” she began, trying to placate him. His face was hard.

“It’s strange. Does he want to have you as a mistress? I don’t understand,” he growled, now thoroughly annoyed. He was like a beast, pacing anxiously at the thought that something might happen to his mate. Annette sighed deeply.

“Let’s sit down for a moment,” she said, pointing to a nearby bench. Raphael sat down obediently, and she sat beside him, tucking her hair behind her ears as she thought about what she would say. Her caution in speaking was one of her virtues.

“I met His Highness when I was eight years old,” she said. “My father was there when His Majesty told Ludwig and I that we had to get along, because we would marry when we grew up. From then on…there was a relationship, and we had an attachment. It’s normal, considering we were so young, and told we would be bound forever.”

Raphael’s expression was unreadable. Of course, he was in a bad mood, listening to his wife talk about her past relationships, especially when he was so naturally possessive. If she had sounded sad or nostalgic, he might have been seething with anger. But she was so matter-of-fact about it, as if it were nothing of great importance, it did not make him uncomfortable.

“His Highness is a bit unstable. He is very sensitive to stress,” she went on. “If the situation is too tense, he might even go into convulsions. So he needs a way to escape from the stress sometimes, and he used to do that by playing his lute, but now even that is difficult. His Majesty was never pleased that Ludwig liked to play music.”

“Why couldn’t he? Isn’t playing music a gentleman’s pursuit?”

“His Majesty is very clear about what qualities a monarch should have,” she replied soberly. “And by his standards, His Highness is a bit lacking. The King would have preferred that Ludwig’s hobbies were swordplay and hunting. That would be more manly.”

Raphael believed it. The only reason Selgratis had recognized him and supported him at all was his skill with a sword. If Raphael had preferred to play music or paint, his father would have abandoned him immediately.

Selgratis was not so bound to tradition that he would refuse to make his illegitimate son a nobleman, but very traditional in his expectations of masculinity. People were complicated and contradictory, and who could live in perfect, absolute consistency?

“Because of that, His Highness often called me to listen, when he needed to complain. The stress wasn’t so bad, when he had someone to talk to about it. But as the future King, there wasn’t anyone else that he could show his weakness to. Only me. And so, since we were like that for ten years…whenever something difficult happens, he always looks for me.”

If she looks so pretty in my eyes, then surely, to all of them…

Annette believed Ludwig did not pursue her from love. She was just an emotional support to him, a wailing wall. But Raphael wasn’t so sure. There had been deadly seriousness in Ludwig’s eyes when he declared that he would get Annette back. So much so that Raphael had been filled with anger and dread to see him so desperate.

But maybe Annette hadn’t noticed that.