Chapter 2:
The Villainess Goes Back in Time
“I KNEW IT. The gods don’t exist.”
“Lady Claudia, while I can imagine the grief you’re going through, it is entirely inappropriate for a duke’s daughter such as yourself to blaspheme the gods.”
What a ridiculous thing to say! And I am no duke’s daughter—not anymore.
Incensed, Claudia rounded on the woman who’d spoken with a glower, but her eyes went wide upon recognizing the familiar face. She gasped.
“What…what are you doing here?”
“The other maids came begging and pleading for me to see to you, claiming you refused to sleep even though you have an early morning tomorrow.”
The head maid’s ashen hair was pulled up in a tight bun, and she looked every bit the same as Claudia remembered despite the decade-long gap since their last meeting. It was as though the maid hadn’t aged a day. But how could that be? What company’s
cosmetics is she using to pull that off? No, no—that’s not the point here.
“But you were fired when Father brought his mistress to live with us. I remember that,” Claudia muttered as she stood by the window.
The head maid had kept a blank expression until that point, but her features abruptly hardened. “I do not know who you heard such nonsense from, but it is custom in aristocratic families to mourn for an entire year.”
Exactly, yes. Father waited until precisely a year had passed since Mother’s funeral before bringing his mistress and their daughter, Fermina, to live at our estate. Claudia had detested her father at the time. A mistress was bad enough, but his siring a daughter with her—who was the same age as Claudia!—was even more unforgivable. Then, as if to add even more fuel to the fire, he had poured all the love he had denied Claudia and Virgil into Fermina. The mere memory made her stomach roil.
“Come now,” the head maid insisted. “Tomorrow we will have a number of grieving guests here. I understand this must be terribly difficult for you, but you and your elder brother must be there to greet them together.”
Claudia’s chin jerked. It was only now that she realized how much she had to crane her neck to look up at the head maid. She found it odd, especially since they were of the same height when the woman was fired. Though she could hardly believe what this meant, she obediently crawled into her bed.
“Say, Martha… How old am I again?”
Martha shot her a dubious look and answered, “You are fourteen.”
“Mother must have passed away, then.”
“Yes, taken by a contagious disease, I’m afraid. Would you like me to bring you some warm milk to drink?”
“No, please leave me to my thoughts. I promise to wake up on time tomorrow morning.”
Martha bowed her head and promptly left the room. Claudia watched her go before examining her room. Now that she got a better look, this was indeed her bedroom at her family’s estate.
What’s going on? I remember heading to Helen’s funeral… It had been raining, and she’d clung to her best friend’s headstone, weeping. I got terribly sick after that and…ah, now I see.
A sickness had crept into the chinks of her body’s weakened immunity. It wasn’t one of the typical diseases common to their trade, but since her work involved daily face-to-face contact with numerous clients, it left her and her peers easily exposed to all manner of illnesses.
So, I died from the same epidemic that claimed Mother, Claudia concluded.
No one had been with her to watch her breathe her last. She had been too wary of the others catching it and had refused to let anyone come close. Thus, she had passed away the same way her mother had when Claudia was just fourteen—quietly and alone. They had met the same fate.
That’s right. Mother left us for the afterlife without anyone at her side. Oh, how lonely she must have felt.
At the very least, Claudia had felt that loneliness keenly when it was her time. She’d been surrounded by a collection of luxury furniture and glittering jewels, but none of that was enough to soothe her hurt.
Does that mean the capricious gods really do exist? Why had she died and come back to life, returning to her fourteen-year-old self? But if they were going to bring me back, I wish they had done it before Mother passed away. Though I know how much I hated her in the past.
Claudia’s mother had been a strict disciplinarian, to the point that young Claudia assumed her mother and Martha both hated her. She was convinced of it. Only now, with maturity and experience under her belt, did she finally realize that it was just the opposite. After all, the antithesis of love is not hate, but apathy. If her mother had really loathed her, she would have left Claudia’s education entirely to personal tutors and interacted with Claudia as little as possible. The reason she had been so demanding of perfection was because she didn’t want any of Claudia’s peers to look down on her—to make sure her father’s lover and their illegitimate daughter didn’t hamper her in the future.
Judging by the way Martha reacted, I bet she and Mother already knew about Father’s lover.
It wasn’t all that unusual for noble lords to have a mistress. Their harsh society made it difficult for women to make it through life on their own. It became a status symbol for men who had the financial ability to keep a mistress and act as her guardian of sorts. Most of these women were widows down on their luck after losing their husbands. But Claudia’s father wasn’t exhibiting charity or status; he had merely fallen in love with another woman.
Good etiquette and education were a woman’s weapons. Claudia’s mother and Martha had tried to teach her as much, as had Helen and the other more experienced sex workers when she first entered the brothel.
Mother, I promise you I won’t make the same mistakes this time. I will answer the love you showed me by doing better now that I have a second chance.
Claudia closed her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her chest.
Helen shouldn’t be working at the brothel yet. I need to do whatever it takes to prevent her from being sent there. As for Fermina…I won’t let her have her way this time.
Perhaps she was still deathly sick and this was all merely a comforting dream, but even so, Claudia was determined.
The ignorant, foolish child-Claudia was no more. In her place stood adult-Claudia with all the life experience she’d accrued at that brothel. Yet, while her mind was years ahead of her body, she fell sound asleep the moment her emotions settled, just as she had as a short-tempered, petulant child.