Chapter 2

Gloria took off her boots and stretched her feet out toward the fireplace. Her toes tingled. If she had been any later, she would have gotten frostbite.

Grrr. No sooner had the cold receded than her stomach rumbled like thunder. On the way from home to the duchy, she had hardly eaten a proper meal, so it was almost more surprising that she had not felt hungry until now.

‘Still, the important thing is that I made it here alive.’

Crackle, crackle, the sound of burning firewood was like a lullaby. Perhaps because she finally felt at ease, drowsiness came over her little by little. Nodding off, unable to resist her drooping eyelids, she suddenly lifted her head.

“Oh, right, my bag!”

Springing up from the chair, Gloria hurriedly grabbed her bag and pulled out the paper that had been shoved down at the bottom.

“Haa, thank goodness.”

Sighing in relief, Gloria carefully spread the paper out on the table. The writing had run, but it was still readable.

At this rate, could it be that the goddess of fortune is watching over me?

Reflecting on her miracle-like journey, Gloria gazed at the old and shabby paper.

I only hope luck stays with me until the very end.

Biting her lip, she rolled up her wet sleeve. The bruises hidden beneath it were revealed clearly.

A gift from that damned stepbrother of hers, Jonathan Curtis.

Seven years earlier, after Gloria’s mother died suddenly, Earl McCain remarried Countess Curtis.

Countess Curtis was a cold and stern person. Gloria tried hard to grow close to her new mother, but she hardly ever opened her heart to her.

Countess Curtis had a son five years older than Gloria. Unlike his cold mother, Jonathan Curtis was gentle and kind.

<Gloria. In this world, I’m the only one on your side.>

The following year, after her father also passed away and Gloria came to live cautiously under her strict stepmother, she opened her heart to her stepbrother’s kindness.

But that kindness gradually turned into a nightmare.

<Who did you go to meet without permission?>

Restraint and surveillance disguised as concern began. Jonathan meddled in every single thing—where Gloria went and whom she met. On the days she happened to go out without telling anyone, merciless *buse unfailingly came flying at her.

Each time, Gloria refused him in gentle words, but Jonathan’s control was so persistent and relentless that it became difficult to endure.

Unable to bear it any longer, Gloria confessed the truth to her stepmother. But the reaction she got was completely different from what she had expected.

<You ungrateful girl! After all we’ve done raising you, you dare slander John?>

<It’s not slander, Mother. Please listen to me!>

<It’s all lies! Why would I ever do such a thing?>

<It’s true! I’m not lying!>

<And you still haven’t come to your senses……! This won’t do. I’ll have to correct your behavior properly. John, go fetch the whip!>

<Mother! Mother!>

After suffering a brutal whipping, Gloria was locked in the attic. Her neglected wounds festered and fever raged through her body, but no one came to look in on her.

At the moment when she was wandering at death’s door, half out of her mind, Gloria’s late mother appeared before her.

<……Gloria, my beloved daughter. I pray your future will be peaceful.>

Looking at Gloria with a sorrowful face, her mother held her tightly, then vanished in an instant.

When Gloria came to her senses, both the pain and the fever that had tormented her had completely disappeared.

‘Was it a dream?’

Feeling empty, Gloria looked around the place where her mother had appeared, and discovered an old diary hidden beneath the floorboards. It was a diary left behind by her mother.

[Day 25 since I came here. Who am I?]

[Day 103 since I came here. There are many inconvenient things, but I’m slowly getting used to it. I still don’t know which novel this place is from.]

[Day 365 since I came here. A year has passed, and I’ve done absolutely nothing. Could it be that this isn’t the novel I read?]

[Day 544 since I came here. I miss Mom and Dad so much. How can I go back?]

Gloria read through the diary carefully. Most of it was ordinary daily content, but from time to time there were words written that she could not understand.

[Day 841 since I came here. My marriage to Earl McCain has been decided. I was hoping for a blazing romance, but it turns out to be a political marriage. I must really be an extra.]

The diary, written only once every few weeks or even every few months, stopped with the final entry saying that the political marriage had been decided.

As Gloria looked through the diary once more in lingering regret, she realized that the blank pages were crinkled as though they had gotten wet.

‘Could this be……?’

With a faint hope, she held a candle to the blank page, and as the paper singed, the hidden writing was revealed.

[Day 2625 since I came here. I finally understand. I had been making a huge mistake. This is the world before the novel begins.]

[Day 4380 since I came here. Gloria, my beloved daughter. I write this hoping you will never find this diary. But if you do find it, you must do exactly as it says here.]

Written not in neat penmanship but in hasty, scrawled letters, the diary set down Gloria’s past, her present, and her miserable future exactly as they were.

Rather than a diary, it was closer to a prophecy.

‘It says that in the year I turn twenty, I’ll die at Jonathan’s hands, and the Empire will fall into chaos?’

It was unbelievable, but she could not help believing it. The diary accurately recorded events that had happened after her mother’s death, things her late mother could never have known.

‘This is absurd. No matter how I think about it, it makes no sense. But……’

Whether the contents of the diary were true or not, one thing was clear: if she remained here, she would be miserably murdered by Jonathan and her stepmother.

The only way to escape death was to flee somewhere beyond their reach.

Gloria decided to follow the diary’s instructions.

.

.

.

‘For the time being, I should be safe. Even John won’t be able to come looking for me all the way here.’

While rubbing at the bruises, Gloria pictured that devilish face again and shook her head hard.

‘Mother will protect me.’

Gloria steadied her weakening heart. Knock knock, a sound came from outside the door.

“Miss, the bath is ready.”

“Yes! I’m coming out!”

* * *

“Aren’t you going to sleep?”

Sitting across from him in the study, Logan asked with a grin.

“And you?”

“I’m tired, but I think if I hold out just a little longer, I’ll get to see something interesting, so I’m enduring it.”

Astan imagined splashing the brandy in Logan’s smirking face, then dropped the thought.

“What is that woman doing?”

“I heard she’s washing.”

As he swirled the glass of warmed brandy, Astan shot Logan a sharp look.

“No one has any sense of caution. I seem to recall repeatedly warning everyone never to lower their guard, no matter the situation.”

“We are definitely on guard.”

“You call giving a room to a woman whose identity is unclear the result of definitely being on guard?”

“The one who brought that unidentified woman into the castle was you, Your Grace, though?”

Logan replied with a shrug. Seeing Astan’s face twist, he asked with clear satisfaction,

“Do you really not know her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come now, just tell me at least. There’s no way a woman you don’t even know would come all the way here through a snowstorm just to see you, Your Grace, is there?”

“I’ve lived a long time, so I suppose things like that happen too.”

Draining the strong brandy in one swallow, Astan fell silent in thought.

Gloria McCain……. It felt like a name he might have heard somewhere, yet nothing came to mind clearly.

The Schultzmeyer Duchy was so remote to begin with, and it had been a long time since he had cut himself off from high society, so there were hardly any nobles he kept in contact with. To begin with, it was uncertain whether that woman was even really a noble.

McCain, McCain, Mc……

Knock knock. Lost in thought, Astan lifted his head at the sound of knocking.

“Excuse me. May I come in?”

At the sweet voice, Astan opened the door as though bewitched. Gloria, having just finished bathing, stood in front of the door with her face still moist. Her cheeks, thawed after having been frozen, were flushed pink, making her look like a shy young girl. Perhaps she really was a young girl.

“Wow.”

Logan, who had been peeking at Gloria from behind the door, let out an exclamation of admiration. Instead of the clothes she had arrived in, she was wearing the head maid’s clothes, so large on her they hung loosely like a sack, yet even that only made her beauty seem more striking.

Astan averted his gaze, suppressing the urge to draw together the defenselessly gaping clothes. Just as he was about to say that it was too late tonight and they should talk tomorrow, Logan cut in first.

“It’s cold, so please come in quickly. I even warmed the chair for you……”

“Logan, get out of here right now.”

While Astan kicked Logan in the backside and drove him out of the room, the woman entered the study without hesitation.