To put it simply, the ML is broken. First of all, he found his parents dead by su*cide himself. So we have one of the worst starts to his character. Add to that 2 people that turned into his rock, his security. His best friends, the now widow, and her husband. When they were children, both saved ML from complete loneliness and despair. But, the friend ends up killed in the war while saving ML, giving him more despair and a new impression, that all he loves and cares about will end up disappearing. So he starts to try to protect his last connection, the widow. He loved her, as one in his position would. But he recognized that she was in love with the other friend, and it was mutual. So he gives up his feelings and supports both of them. Now that she is alone, and the gossip of their relationship is inflated, he is unsure of what to do. After all, he wants to be there for her, but the more he does so, the more fuel it gives to the gossip. Enters MC.

MC lives with her drunkard scumbag father. She lost her mother in an accident years ago. She died protecting her son, MC's brother. This same brother is then violently attacked by the grieved father. He was the only solace MC had, but one day he disappeared. And MC is now alone having to work to maintain at least the bare minimum in the household while the father drink and gambles all the family money away. She lives her life without desires or anything at all. But then she sees the grieving duke at the funeral and developed feelings for him. She knew from her work about the gossip and gathering all of her courage she finally proposes to the duke that in face of all the gossip, it would be ideal if he married and finally put it all down. And with her knowing his feelings for the widow and that he wants to stop the rumors, she thinks that this is the time to try to make him love her. It is, obviously beyond s*upid, but for someone that has nothing and suffered alone, maybe this ray of hope could help her at least achieve the only dream she now has.

Regardless of his initial negative response, ML ends up accepting after seeing firsthand how the gossip is turning and noticing that eventually, it would reach the widow. Thus began pain and suffering. Why? Simple. He has zero interest in MC, which is understandable. He knows jack sh*t about her. Worse, he in under the impression she is using him for something nefarious, after all, why would she propose it? So he not only keeps his distance but antagonizes her at every turn. What happens is that she, in turn, gets more and more despair, after all, her loved one sees her as nothing, but a cunning wench. But she still searches for him. She still believes that they could be together, eventually.

Some people notice that she really has feelings for the duke, and nothing else. But even her frugality and meekness come to ML as a plot to get whatever she must want. This ends in a cycle of her searching for him while he thinks she is trying or plotting something. Even so, she ends up achieving something. She got near him, and he seems to start at least tolerating her. Even when the widow appears between them, she perseveres, even with MC's gargantuan self-depreciation, she still maintains her belief that she will one day enter ML's heart. So they eventually have a night together (that is depressive, to say the least) and she ends up conceiving. That shakes both her and him. But gives her hope that maybe they will come closer even if only for the sake of the baby.

But nothing is good in this novel. She ends up discovering that his "business" travel was a lie and he is living in the widow's house. She ends up miscarrying and to make matters even worse she sees how he is carrying to her when she goes to the widow's house and sees him and the widow talking lovingly. So she brakes. And brakes hard. Not only she is almost catatonic, but she lost all the feelings she possibly had for him. After all she have said and done for him, he still chased the widow, even in face of her pregnancy. So she decides to ask him to release her, thus divorcing her.

More than that, she wants to forget all this pain. Forget the baby and the duke. And then remember a folk tale about a forest that makes you forget any memory you want to. And so she asks that not only they divorce, but that he permit her to visit said forest. But the duke is resolute and negates both. We soon learn that after his blunder, that is, he spilled the beams, the widow takes the same stance and goes to the forest. But when she came back, she did not forget her husband, but sees the ML as the dead man and started to become frantic and uneasy whenever he is not near. In face of that knowledge, he prohibits the MC from going there. But to MC this is only his guilt and pity after her losing the baby, giving her even more hatred of the situation. And even when she is confrontational and seems to hurt ML she notices that even then she lost all the feelings that once were there, and even the desire to affect him somehow. So she decides to escape and go to the forest even in face of his negatives.

But the forest is not what it seems like, and this is where I got until now.

Both leads are culprits in this situation. Even considering the s*upid misunderstandings that are raised in some parts, the clear notion is that not only one of the parts is the sole culprit. She, for forcing the situation on him trying to use his desire to protect the widow to squeeze herself into his heart, and her passiveness in front of all his disdain and neglect is hard. I get that she is broken, but it will get you frustrated nonetheless. It is thus nice to see her get livid at him and talk sh*t back. But this is hard after you notice that she is only doing this to get revenge while still having so many feelings for him. So it is not that nice. He is inept in dealing with people. And considering how scared his psyche is, it makes sense that he will not trust her, after all, she comes out of nowhere and seems to know his feelings. But when he sees how his actions had affected her, and that she really did not seem to be after his money, power, status, and whatnot, his guiltiness and affliction rise. He ends up noticing that she will be another person that is trying to disappear from his life. But worse yet, this one was his own actions that drove her away. The relationship was doomed to fail from the beginning, but both sides made the worst of it all. So it pains to see where it comes to. And makes me want to know how this will end. Part of me hopes that it ends well, but not with them together. But who knows where it will lead?

My only complaint is about the cult of the forest part. I get where it will lead, but it is boring nonetheless. Even so, it is nice seeing her being more strong and more resolute there. Even considering her sh*t end goal.

One nice touch is that he sees himself in her. As he seems to feel that she had an affair when he was the one that was closer to the widow. It is like a reflection of his own actions that he projected on her. Worse yet when considering that she only had eyes for him. On their first night, he practically uses her while giving the impression of thinking of another person. And then, after the relationship falls, she hinted that she too did that, only fuelling his fault perception. It is a bad thing, for sure. But part of me thinks that he deserved that, and more. If only he looked her way to see her for what she really is. But who knows if one day it comes to that...

I lied. That was not it.

Thing is, at some point, I was skeptical about the direction this novel was taking. What raised my potential doubt was that she lost her memory after an incident. When I read this type of novel, where the lead character is suffering just by being near someone, I often desire that they just go away. Take their things, or just run to the hills and stay at a better place. This was what happened, and she was almost killed on that journey. But it ends with her living a simple life in a simple town doing what she knows best. Seems good, no? The problem is, that losing your memory is akin to losing who you are. Consider this: a human being is the sum of their experience. Losing your memory is almost like leaving a jigsaw missing a piece. A functional body with (at least part of) its essence lost. And to make matters worse, there is something like a phantom pain of the memories pressuring her. Something special that she forgot and misses even now. Considering that part of the reason for her to run away was to forget, it is almost ironic how the memory loss ends up tormenting her.

With due time he finds her and things get complex. She is not the same. No, it's worse, for him especially. He sinned and she doesn't even know what he did. She is fine but not there. And what he does? Start trying to get close, maybe at least being near her would be enough to mend something in him.

Thing is, I wasn't sure why. Considering what he did, makes sense he feel guilt and try to right his wrongs. But acting for a sense of guilt in such a case would probably be one of the worst moves one could make. People can catch such intentions easily enough. Going back because you pity someone is borderline offensive, in my opinion. But she is not there anymore. She is not the person he knew. She is a totally new human being with no memories of him. For all that matter, it would be the perfect resolution for her. Be free at last of the pain spiral she lived while with him. And him knowing how well she managed to become far from him. But there he was, forcing himself to be inserted into her life. Like a typhoon, making her new life turn upside down. I could not help but get pissed off at him.

With due time, and because of another almost-death situation she ends up remembering him. One would consider that she will finally berate him and be done at least in such a situation. You would be half right. She does berate him, sure. And I liked it very much. Yup. But there was another important thing she should do. Considering that when she acted rashly to escape her helper ended up taking the brunt of the sin, she could finally do something to help clean his name. More than that, it was about damn time for the whole marriage to end. The divorce should have happened already.

And back they go. He thought it was a chance for him to get her again, at least for some time. She considers this the best move to end this once and for all. Problem! She is swayed by him, more often than she would like to acknowledge. Makes sense, considering she went head over heels for him after a glance. But the show must go on. This situation is truly unsustainable. She is not able to deal with it at all. After finally confronting her childhood friend again, she understands that it is time to resolve things. The divorce will go on, and nothing will stop her.

Now, before we reach the main story finale, I shall make a small addend here. The thing is, she finally perceived how dumb of a move she made. By that, understand she didn't know a single thing about him. Besides superfluous things, she did not know what he liked or disliked, his life as a kid, and all that. When talking with the childhood friend, and hearing about how much of an emotional stunt person he always was, she started getting a glimpse of the real person that was hidden inside the seemingly cold person she desired to marry. And this was the start of the best choice she could make, get away and give things time.

After finally confronting him about the miscarriage, she goes away. He doesn't want to let her go but knows that he should do what she wants, ends up giving her the papers. And as she is going away, he gives her the diary.

That's it, divorce achieved and things are calm. She is living alone in random towns she goes to, and he is going by whatever. She doesn't know, they don't have contact.

Until, a year after the goodbye, she finally decides to contact him. And after that, she finally read the diary. And see how bad things were. Yes, bad is the word. I know that I probably sound biased and hateful to the ML. And believe me, he does not fully deserve all that. There are worse cases, for sure. But I still want to bad-mouth him a bit, overbearing MLs are a chore. But I need to give her flack too. I have written about how much of a bad move she made when forced this wedding. And I maintain that. For all intents and proposes, she decided that she would act to get the only thing she wanted. The problem was that was not a thing, but a human being. Relations between people aren't born from that. People need to get to know each other and get to reach a type of common understanding of how the other is. It sure sounds hopeful and ideal. And things aren't like that in the real world. People are complex and their relationships are more complex. Intruding someone's life because you love him and want to be near them is at least bizarre if not borderline criminal. And she was someone who acted like that. She forced her way into his life because she wanted to, all else be damned. And here it was. She confronted her ugly side, and one of, if not the most scarring situation she had gone through. How bad things were, how wrong she was, and how hurtful she ended up being to him. I could say she had some problems, considering she had no mother and a useless father. Sure that could explain why she acted so badly. But this is not a good excuse for her messing up his life.

But all things end. He comes to see her after she finishes reading the diary, and she finally comes to terms with how they two should deal with each other.

The end.

Satisfactory? Sure.

Did it really end? No.

We have some chapters about him visiting her. How she is forced to go back because he is a step away from being considered a rebel to the throne. Her coming back and how to deal with a life she doesn't know and isn't fond of. The old friend, her accomplice, comes face to face with ML again. And finally another pregnancy.

We ended with a really good last 4 chapters where we follow the new gardener. And that was what made the ending special.

I will end it here, but would like to add that I wanted to see more of some resolutions, considering the final time jump. By that read the accomplice situation (have he married the fired-up girl in that other town?), the childhood friend (she did not even come to see their child?!) and that's it. I hope Grandma Hoenn came to know the young lord before passing away. And that her grandson got a nice girl to become his wife.

More often than not, the secondary or even tertiary characters' love story can be fun to follow too, you know.

She proposes a contract marriage to her unrequited love knowing his heart lies with an entire other woman, and has the audacity to get hurt feelings when he doesn't treat her like an actual lover?? She knew exactly what she was getting in to, she took advantage of him and his circumstances in order to live her fantasy of being with him, and that puts her firmly in the wrong here. It doesn't matter how Sweet or Soft or Kindly she acts, it makes total sense for him to view her as someone trying to emotionally and romantically take the place of the woman he loves (because, well, she is) and react with hostility towards her. They aren't friends, and she states multiple times that she knows little to nothing about him and bemoans the fact that he won't let her in. Why should he? It isn't enough for them to be married in name only, they need to foster a friendship first, and she can't even do that when she crosses his boundaries in the name of her Unrequited Love and milking all the experiences she fantasized about having with him before their marriage.

It's very hard to view her with sympathy when she thinks "Well he was mean to me because he assumed I'm trying to seduce him... but at least I got to talk to him in our nightclothes on his private terrace in his home bcs I'm his wife now." It's tragic, certainly, the girl can't help herself. But I feel way more for the ML who isn't even allowed to process his grief in peace with a life partner who respects him and his pain.

I did not like the female lead at first. I first saw her as an opportunist and lovesick girl who used her personal dilemma (with her father) to justify her selfishness to marry the male lead. It's a pity that she lost her child, but it's not like she's completely faultless.

The male lead is your typical male lead who is cold and unaffectionate, and realizes his feelings too late so more than half of the whole novel is dedicated for his redemption arc.

the begging is kinda unnecessary because we dont even have a scene where the ML falls in love madly with his wife. although there's a tiny bit (short) where he felt something towards FL crying (pyscho...)

and this just felt weird because he didn't even fell in love with her but her disappeareance just gave an exaggeration effect. like how he had insomua (ig) and searched for her years! I mean why the fuss when you didn't even bat an eye to the fl. this just felt weird... there's no reason for him to react like that. (considering he liked the duchess more...)