Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Oh, God!”

“If You truly exist and are listening to my prayer, please, strike that wicked man down with the thunderbolt of judgment!”

Just before her death, Irenea prayed with her whole heart.

She felt she would have given up her soul if someone had offered to make it happen. Even if that someone were a devil.

And whether it was a god or a devil that truly existed in this world, she, who should have met a miserable end, came back to life.

What’s more, she had been sent far back through time, to the day she turned twenty.

If only she had gone back just a few days more, she could have saved her parents. But by the time she opened her eyes, their funeral was already over.

In a hazy daze, Irenea looked back and forth between the fireplace in her father’s study and the two younger siblings clasped in her arms. Everything around her felt so distant that she seemed to be dreaming.

Yet the heat of the fireplace warming her cheeks and the warmth of her two siblings, held tightly against her, reminded her that this was real.

If she was twenty, then Elizabeth was sixteen, and Charlotte was five.

Her little siblings, whose faces she could no longer even remember after so long, were in her arms, small and young, just as they had been back then.

She couldn’t let go, afraid that if she tried to pull them away, they would vanish like a mirage. Barely able to breathe, Irenea could only gaze endlessly at her siblings’ faces.

Just then, with a creak, the study door opened carefully. The one who had opened it was the butler who had long watched over the House of Blair.

“Ah… So you were here, Miss.”

With the gentle smile that always rested on his aged face, he held out both hands to Irenea.

“I will take care of the young misses. You should return to your room and rest, Miss…”

“I never told you to come in.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll keep my sisters with me. I want to feel Father’s warmth, so leave quietly.”

But instead of bowing his head, the butler let his words trail off.

“But, Miss…”

“Do my words mean nothing to you? Shall I call the knights to drive you out?”

“M-Miss?”

He seemed quite flustered by the sharp edge in Irenea’s voice.

As he fumbled, then helplessly lowered his gaze, Irenea turned away from him and pressed her lower lip firmly between her teeth.

“I’m sorry. It’s all been so sudden… I think my nerves are frayed.”

“Not at all. It is I who should apologize.”

“Please go now… I want to be with my sisters right now.”

“Yes, Miss… I shall come again tomorrow morning.”

Why? To steal the Blair seal from the drawer of this study desk?

Swallowing those words, Irenea watched the butler until he had left the study. She watched him glance back over his shoulder, lingering as though reluctant to go.

‘This isn’t a dream.’

Cheeks pulled taut by dried tears. The warmth and weight of her siblings, who had cried themselves to sleep. Skirts tangling around her legs. The crackle of firewood burning down.

Sensations far too vivid whispered to her that this was real.

Then what of the things in her head, the things that were going to “happen”?

The butler stealing the Blair seal and delivering it to her uncle, and her uncle using that seal as evidence to produce a forged will.

Losing the trial to determine whether the will was forged, and being stripped of her title, her fortune, and her domain, then facing the threat of being thrown out into the streets.

Taking refuge in her uncle’s house on his charity, being worked like a maid, and finally being sold off as the second wife of an old nobleman. Could all of that be nothing but events from a dream?

‘…It could really happen.’

The butler had already opened the study door without his master’s permission.

For now, she had no way of confirming whether what she had lived through was a dream or something else.

Only one thing mattered.

That she now had to protect this house and her two siblings.

‘There’s no harm in being prepared in advance.’

Gently laying her two siblings down on the carpet, she softly kissed the cheeks of the little ones she had missed and missed so dearly.

Then, just as she had once been taught sitting on her father’s knee, Irenea searched the secret compartment in the first drawer and found the Marquisate’s seal and the head of the house’s ring.

And with them lay her father’s true will.

‘I don’t remember seeing this.’

…I see. So the butler had handled this as well.

Now she finally understood how the forged will, so exquisite that its authenticity had been impossible to judge, had been made.

Irenea clenched her teeth to barely smother the anger blazing inside her.

‘No matter what happens, I will never let them take it.’

Hiding her father’s will inside her clothes, Irenea slipped the head of the house’s ring onto the ring finger of her right hand and closed her fist around the Blair seal.

No matter what, she would take her revenge. On the uncle who had not only taken everything that was hers, but had killed her and the man she loved!

Until dawn broke, she kept watch with bloodshot eyes over the fireplace that warmed her siblings.

* * *

As soon as day broke, she had a trusted servant summon a lawyer sponsored by the Imperial family. And through him, she executed her father’s will.

On the surface, she shut herself away in her father’s study, pretending to be drowned in grief. Somehow sending away her uncle, who knocked on the mansion’s door every other day, she completed the succession to her title as the rightful heir in a mere week.

She announced it, and only a few days later.

Her uncle, Viscount Calio, raised a sweeping objection to her succession.

He claimed he held his dead brother’s true will, and that as proof he held the Blair seal and the head of the house’s ring.

But those were forgeries that Irenea had had skillfully made and placed in the drawer of the study desk.

She immediately submitted the Blair seal, the head of the house’s ring, and her father’s will, which she held, and requested an authenticity investigation.

At the same time, she submitted as evidence a sworn statement reporting that the replicas, made with theft in mind, had been stolen a few days earlier.

The woodworking artisan who had made the fake seal and ring on Irenea’s order testified that the items Viscount Calio presented were certainly his work. Soon after, the imperial palace investigator also certified that what Irenea held was genuine.

Irenea meant to use those things as grounds to send both the butler and her uncle to prison. But because Viscount Calio had bribed the presiding judge long before, the butler took the entire blame and was put to death, his hands cut off.

“My beloved niece, because of that vile man’s scheme, we nearly became estranged beyond repair! I truly believed that what was written in the will he brought me was my brother’s wish. Is it not only natural that I, in place of my late brother, become your guardian and find you a good match?”

The moment he judged that he couldn’t seize the marquisate, he had presented himself as her guardian and tried to marry her off to a man within reach of his influence.

He was truly a cunning man.

“How could I not understand your intentions, Uncle? However, the guardian of my sisters is me, Marchioness Blair. I intend to look after them myself, so I think you should devote your whole heart to Fiona.”

“Don’t say that. I understand your tender feelings for your sisters, but you’re still of tender years, aren’t you?”

“Of tender years? I came of age this year, too. That’s why I was able to inherit the title.”

That was truly a stroke of great fortune. Had Irenea been even a year younger and unable to inherit the title, then even if all went well, her uncle would have become acting marquis.

“Even so, I would like to introduce your betrothed myself. I always used to speak with your father about it. That should either of us die in some unforeseen accident, we would see to it that the matches of your sisters or Fiona were settled without fail.”

How was she supposed to believe the words of a scoundrel who would even tamper with a will?

But now that he had put on such a gentle uncle’s mask, it was hard for her, as someone of lower standing, to keep resisting.

What she needed now was to strengthen her foundations. If she wasted time quarreling with her uncle for no good reason, everything her parents had worked for might be ruined.

So Irenea showed him an innocent smile and said she would gratefully follow his wishes.

“Yes, then I shall rely on you alone, Uncle, in that matter.”

I’d sooner trust a squealing pig than this man.

And Viscount Calio moved exactly as Irenea had expected.

* * *

A month later, Viscount Calio introduced a man to Irenea.

She was certain, even without looking, that he was a man Viscount Calio had hired.

So Irenea immediately burst into tears in front of Viscount Calio.

“It has been only a month since my parents died. How could I meet a man and show him a smile?”

“No, but your parents would also want to see you happy…”

“Oh, Father! Mother! Why did you leave me behind? Father, Mother!”

At Irenea, who wailed at every single word she uttered, even Viscount Calio seemed to be at a loss for words, and he asked when would be a good time, then. Wiping away her tears, Irenea answered with a sob.

“I would like to mourn my parents for at least three years…”

Irenea was something, but Viscount Calio was quite remarkable too. On precisely the third anniversary, he came to visit the marquis’s residence again, bringing that same man.

This time, Irenea met him. And she dumped that man in ten minutes.

“He’s ugly. I like handsome men.”

So her uncle next brought a man whom anyone would call handsome. This time, Irenea kicked that man out in five minutes.

“He’s far too slender. I prefer a man with a sturdy build.”

So her uncle next brought a young and handsome knight. This time, Irenea kicked that man out in three minutes.

“His body odor is too strong. A man should be a bit more tidy.”

So her uncle next brought a young, handsome, and tidy man. But Irenea kicked him out the moment she laid eyes on his face.

“I like a knight with golden hair, like a prince from a fairy tale.”

By then, even Viscount Calio had exploded.

“What did you say?! I said I’d wait and see how far you’d go, and you’ve finally crossed the line! How dare you make a fool of your uncle!”

Against Viscount Calio, who was bellowing in a rage, Irenea put on a shocked expression, refusing to back down.

“How can you say such a thing? Isn’t it only natural to choose carefully when it’s the person I’ll spend my whole life with? If it were Fiona, not me, who chose a groom this fussily, would you have said anything? You are truly too cruel!”

Burying her face in both hands, Irenea made a loud, wailing sound.

But perhaps because he had been burned so badly all this time, Viscount Calio was not fooled by the sight.

“Being fussy is one thing, but there’s a limit! Do you think every reason you gave for rejecting those grooms was justified? Do you think a man who meets your standards exists in this world?!”

“Of course he exists. Surely there isn’t truly not a single man who meets such simple standards?”

Seeing Irenea speak like a dreaming girl, her hands clasped tightly together, Viscount Calio wore a look of utter disbelief.

“Hah, fine. Go on, bring him to me! If you do, I’ll admit it without another word!”

“Very well. I’ll introduce him to you before long.”

The very next day, Irenea summoned the head butler and declared that in two months she would hold a grand banquet at the townhouse in the capital.

When the head butler asked what kind of banquet she was planning, Irenea answered briefly.

“As splendid as possible!”

“To whom shall we send the invitations?”

“People I’m personally acquainted with, people I’ve done business with, and influential nobles, and send one to the Imperial family as well. I’m going to announce my fiancé at that banquet. Oh, and it would be best to start the wedding preparations in advance. I’ll be marrying as soon as possible.”

At those words, a single bead of cold sweat rose on the forehead of the head butler, who never lost his composure in any situation.

“With all due respect, Marchioness… you do not yet have a fiancé, do you…?”

“That’s exactly why I’m telling you to hold the banquet in two months.”

Irenea declared with a bright smile.

“I’m going to go find him starting now, my husband.”