Why Is My Husband the Scheming Mastermind?!
Yusra
왜 내 남편이 흑막 계략남인 건데요! Jun 22, 2026 52 views
Chapter 1
“Now that we’re married, there’s something I should tell you…”
“Yes.”
I swallowed hard.
What kind of secret would a husband reveal on the first night of their marriage?
My contract husband, Carcel, was the perfect man for my current circumstances.
A background powerful enough to protect Linea—and a wife he could present to his mother.
Our contract marriage had come together as naturally as flowing water.
Still, there had been no mention of any hidden secret worthy of Bluebeard in our agreement.
As the bride on our wedding night, I waited anxiously for him to continue.
“…It’s possible that I may have concealed one of my titles.”
“You concealed it? You mean… you’re not the Marquis of Rivandel?”
That couldn’t be right.
I had personally hired an information guild to verify his identity.
Flustered, I pressed him for answers.
“B-but to bring Linea with me, my husband has to hold a title higher than marquis! Otherwise, this contract marriage is meaningless—!”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“How can I not worry?”
The most important condition I had set for this marriage contract was simple:
My husband had to possess a rank higher than count.
Only then could I legally secure custody and parental rights over my adopted daughter, Linea.
In the Empire, there were only two dukes.
Grand Duke Dishulier, the Emperor’s younger brother.
And Duke Lacan.
But the unmarried Duke Lacan had never even crossed my mind.
That left only the marquises.
There were only three marquises in the entire Empire, and among them, the only unmarried one was Marquis Rivandel.
What do I do?
I had finally managed to bring Linea here.
Just imagining the heartbreak the child would suffer—after she had only recently begun opening her heart to people—made my chest ache.
Perhaps it was the worry written all over my face.
Carcel began soothing me.
“Asha, there’s absolutely no need to worry. I have never lied to you. Not even once.”
“Then what exactly is your title?”
“I…”
The corners of his lips curved upward.
Leaning closer, he lowered his voice to a whisper.
“I am Duke Lacan.”
“…”
For a moment, I wondered if I had heard him wrong.
I blinked repeatedly.
“Duke… Lacan?”
You mean that Duke Lacan?
The ruthless butcher who left blood and funeral dirges in his wake wherever he went.
The heroine’s obsessive, scheming second male lead.
And…
The final mastermind of this novel.
Carcel Lacan.
Better known as Duke Lacan.
“Wh-what?!”
No way.
Sure, their names were similar, but their personalities were completely different!
Every memory I had of Carcel Rivandel was filled with nothing but kindness, courtesy, and warmth.
“T-that can’t be true.”
“And why not?”
Why not?
Because you’re supposed to be—
“You’re supposed to become Linea’s obsessive, scheming second male lead! W-we almost ended up as mother-in-law and son-in-law!”
Well, technically, in the original story, their age gap meant there wasn’t any romance—just obsession.
But still!
This family tree was so tangled it was practically tied into knots!
“What on earth are you talking about?”
At the words mother-in-law and son-in-law, he furrowed his brow in confusion.
I was too busy panicking to explain.
I shook my head frantically.
“We can’t do this! This is peak train-wreck melodrama!”
“We can’t?”
Carcel’s smile curved sweetly.
“But this was my intention from the beginning. Why would we stop now?”
Why was it that, all of a sudden, all the nonsense I’d casually blurted out before kept echoing in my ears?
—Thank goodness you only share Duke Lacan’s name! Ugh, if you were that terrifying man, I’d have died of a heart attack already.
—As long as you’re not someone as frightening as Duke Lacan.
—Thank goodness you’re not Duke Lacan…
I’d said all sorts of things about how grateful I was that he wasn’t Duke Lacan.
Without a shred of awareness.
“Asha, don’t tell me it’s impossible now. You held me, told me you needed me—that it had to be me.”
“That was before I knew you were Duke Lacan! You fraud! No, wait—I take that back!”
The moment I called him a fraud, guilt hit me.
I hurriedly tried to retract my words.
Carcel, however, only looked more satisfied.
His lazy smile deepened.
“We’re already husband and wife. Before God, you signed your name and vowed to spend your life with me until death parts us.”
“That was…”
My words caught in my throat.
Even as I struggled to process the absurdity of the situation, I shook my head.
“That was just a formality—”
“How dishonest.”
“What?”
“The real fraud was standing here all along.”
“Huh?!”
Carcel smiled calmly and continued.
“You never asked me whether I was Duke Lacan. I simply never answered a question you didn’t ask.”
His gaze sharpened.
“But now you’re claiming the vows you made with your own lips were lies.”
“Concealing something on purpose still counts as deception!”
This was exactly why people should read the terms and conditions before agreeing to anything!
“Asha, we are husband and wife now, recognized by God himself.”
He reached for my hand and lifted it gently.
Then, as if to prove his point, he pressed a soft kiss against the back of it.
His eyes—red as pomegranate seeds—held my gaze.
There was something fierce in them, something that tightened around me like invisible chains.
I stared back at him blankly.
But one thing became crystal clear.
I’m doomed.
And all of this had started only a short while ago.
“Please lend me some money.”
“…Excuse me?”
The guild master’s eyes widened.
Well, of course they did.
An ordinary countess wouldn’t walk into an information guild and boldly ask for a loan.
But I’m not an ordinary countess. I’m a transmigrator.
Possession.
At this point, I was sick of explaining it.
Who would’ve thought that reading fantasy romance novels on the subway during my commute would land me in one of those infamous reincarnation-possession-regression stories?
If this was going to happen, I wish I’d won the lottery instead!
But regardless, I had transmigrated into a romance fantasy novel.
And, naturally, I’d become the villainess.
Asha Delmore, the former Countess Delmore from I Became the Secret Friend Obsessed Over by the Crown Prince.
My husband had died a month after our marriage—from overexertion in his mistress’s bed.
My original role was to be the wicked stepmother who abused Linea Delmore, my husband’s daughter.
Linea was the novel’s heroine.
Mistreated by her stepmother and family, she eventually caught the attention of both the Crown Prince and a duke before marrying the Crown Prince in a classic Cinderella ending.
The problem?
As Linea’s abusive stepmother, I was destined to be brutally murdered by that obsessive, scheming duke.
The only silver lining was that I hadn’t mistreated Linea yet.
Which means we can start over.
Considering the years of abuse she was fated to endure, wouldn’t it be better for us to leave the Delmore estate together as soon as possible?
Honestly, I could have left alone.
But I wanted to take Linea with me because she reminded me of my past self.
A child starving for love.
A child with no one to protect her.
I wasn’t trying to take responsibility for her recklessly.
But there was one problem.
I’m broke.
Taking custody of my late husband’s daughter—a child who wasn’t even biologically mine—required an enormous amount of money.
Fortunately, Linea hadn’t lost her kind nature.
But if I left things as they were, she would grow up carrying the scars of abuse, becoming the pitiful heroine of the original story.
So I intended to take Linea and escape this household as quickly as possible.
And for that, I needed money.
A lot of it.
Unfortunately, no bank would lend money to a former countess with nothing to her name.
The information guild master didn’t seem much different.
“Surely you know this isn’t a bank?”
“Of course. I know this is a place where information is bought and sold. And our previous deals have been quite profitable for both of us, haven’t they?”
“That may be true, but…”
I smiled brightly.
“The Perel Merchant Company made quite a fortune from the information I provided. Far more than what they paid me for it.”
Shamelessly, I kept pushing my proposal.
The guild master regarded me with amused curiosity from behind his mask.
I asked,
“Come on, Master. You’re rich anyway. Just lend me two thousand gold. You know I only bring high-quality information.”
I knew how insane I sounded.
In modern Korean terms, I was basically asking to borrow two hundred million won out of nowhere.
I didn’t even have two hundred gold right now.
But I was confident I could pay it back with double the interest within a year.
No—forget interest-free installments over fifty years.
I could double it in a single year.
Besides, knowing the future and not profiting from it felt like a crime.
“I’ll repay you twice the amount exactly one year from now.”
“And if you lose the two thousand gold?”
“Then cut me open and see if there’s money inside.”
The guild master stared at me as though I’d lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
But when it came to achieving my goal, sometimes you had to shamelessly throw your pride away.
