Year 544 of the Hyder Calendar.

The Sivert Marquisate had once been celebrated as one of the founding noble houses of the empire, but it had since fallen into decline, and now only ‘Eleanor Sivert’ remained, living modestly in the shadow of its once-great glory.

After the accident that claimed the lives of the previous Marquis, Arthur Sivert, and his wife, the Marchioness, during a cruise they had departed on together, Eleanor became the sole direct descendant of the Sivert line.

Had Eleanor been a man, she would have naturally inherited the marquisate title. But under imperial law, which did not permit women to inherit noble titles, Eleanor Sivert had no choice but to take in a Live-in Son-in-Law to carry on the Sivert Marquisate’s line.

All the more so, given that not a single male could be found even among the collateral relatives.

Marry into the marquisate just by getting married!

Eleanor had already been a sought-after bride in the central social circles, with proposals pouring in even before the rumors spread. But once word got out that marrying her would mean inheriting not just any title but a marquisate, men from all across Hyder made their way to Korenca, each determined to become her husband.

Everyone in social circles wondered who Eleanor would choose, and before she even realized it, she had become the talk of the town.

‘I will marry you, young lord of Viscount Damel.’

The man Eleanor Sivert chose, despite all the extraordinary courtship she had received, was surprisingly neither a high-born member of the imperial family, nor a nobleman of renown, nor a newly wealthy man of means.

‘It is because you alone were sincere with me.’

Marcus Damel.

A collateral relative of the Gotren family, said to be the second son of the sister-in-law of the younger brother of some distant relation of Baroness Gotren.

He had been exchanging letters with Eleanor and building a friendship with her even before it became known that marrying her would allow him to inherit the family title.

The trust they built, one letter at a time, grew steadily. Eleanor had felt disillusioned by the people who changed their attitudes toward her overnight after her parents’ accident. Though Marcus was neither of high birth nor great wealth, she was certain that a life with him, a man who had approached her with sincerity from the very beginning, would surely be a happy one.

But―

‘I will give my wife a funeral befitting her station.’

Ten years after the marriage.

Marcus Damel, now Marcus Sivert, who had finally seized full control of the Sivert Marquisate he had long dreamed of, locked Eleanor away in the solitary room on the third floor of the mansion, where no one could reach her, and stripped her of everything.

He looked down at the dying Eleanor with cold indifference and whispered cruelly to her, and even moved to end her life with his own hands.

The most wretched part of all was that Devlin, who helped Marcus commit that m*rder, smiled a deep smile at Eleanor as her consciousness faded and she looked up at them.

‘I……’

Until the very moment she suffocated at the hands of those two unforgivable people.

Eleanor shook with rage at the cruelty of the two despicable people who had deceived her for over ten years.

‘Today is the day Baroness Gotren is visiting!’

She had thought it was all over.

There had been no way to hold onto her fading consciousness, and of course no strength left to fight back against the two of them.

And yet, somehow.

Eleanor Sivert opened her eyes again.

‘Along with the young lord of Viscount Damel, whom you have been so eagerly waiting for, Miss!’

And what was more, she had woken up a full ten years in the past.

She had returned to that very ‘day,’ the day she was to meet Marcus Damel in person for the first time, after all those letters they had exchanged.

‘How…… can this be?’

Her lips trembled.

It had been a life she was certain had ended. The fact that time had turned back at all was already astonishing enough.

But of all moments to return to, it had to be the one right before the worst decision of her life!

She could not believe it.

“Miss?”

Am I truly dreaming?

“Goodness, Miss! What are you doing?”

Eleanor had been standing there in a daze even after Anna spoke to her, when she suddenly raised one hand and stretched her own cheek. Anna’s eyes went wide.

“It’s…… not a dream.”

She had pinched herself hard, and stretched her cheek long.

But it only hurt, and no matter how many times she blinked and opened her eyes again, Anna, who was flustering about saying ‘Miss, please don’t do that!’, would not disappear.

This was not a dream. It was reality!

‘I……’

……I’m back.

“Miss, please stop. I’m worried you’ll hurt yourself.”

“……”

“Miiiiss.”

“Anna.”

Eleanor had been staring down at Anna, who was now on the verge of tears, and lowered the hand that had been holding her cheek as she called her name.

“When the Baroness arrives, tell her this.”

Then she said, “That I am not feeling well at the moment and find it difficult to meet with her right away. Tell her I will arrange lodgings for her in the meantime, and that I will see her again once I have recovered.”

* * *

“Miss, the Baroness sends her regards.”

“Is that so? Please convey my thanks. But I am still unwell and I’m afraid I cannot see her.”

“Miss, Baroness Gotren is asking how you are feeling today.”

“The same. I have no energy.”

“Miss, Baroness Gotren has sent over some medicinal herbs that are good for your health!”

“How thoughtful of her. Please give her my thanks.”

“She also asked when she might be able to see you.”

“Well, it is still too much for me.”

“Miss, the Baroness has sent word asking how you are feeling today.”

“Is that so? Anna, how do I look to you?”

“……I’ll tell her you’re not doing well.”

“Thank you, Anna.”

Anna was, as ever, her maidservant through and through.

She had been going back and forth between Baroness Gotren, who was determined by any means to cross the gates of the Sivert Marquis Mansion, and Eleanor, who was just as determined to keep her out. By the end of it, Anna had come to understand perfectly what her mistress wanted.

Anna had flashed a grin and said Don’t worry! before bowing her head politely and disappearing. Eleanor let out a long sigh.

‘But there’s a limit to how long I can hold out like this.’

One week.

For the past week, Eleanor had been blocking Baroness Gotren and Marcus from crossing the threshold of the mansion with one excuse after another.

She had also heard that Baroness Gotren was quite furious, having arrived in Korenca some time ago and still not having caught so much as a glimpse of Eleanor’s pale pink hair. But Eleanor still was not ready.

Setting the Baroness aside entirely, she simply could not bring herself to face Marcus Damel.

‘His Lordship has never loved you, not for a single moment! Every word he ever said to you was never sincere!’

She had believed that everything he had shown her was genuine.

But she only learned the truth at the very edge of death: it had all been planned from the start, to take hold of a marquisate with no master.

‘El. Let me prove it to you. My nephew is a fine young man. He has a deep character, and having lost his parents young, just as you did, he would understand your feelings better than anyone. So why not humor this aunt of yours and try exchanging a letter or two?’

Going back to the very beginning, to the moment Eleanor first made contact with Marcus Damel, there had been Baroness Gotren’s encouragement.

At the time, Eleanor had little interest in marriage or in men, but she had picked up her pen at the Baroness’s suggestion and began exchanging letters with Marcus.

At first, it was nothing more than an obligatory correspondence. But as the letters went back and forth, she began to sense his care and sincerity in the neat, deliberate handwriting. Before she knew it, Eleanor had opened her heart to the person on the other side of those letters.

At some point, she had even poured out her grief and resentment over her parents’ sudden deaths to a complete stranger she had never met, and had received no small measure of comfort in return.

And so, the moment she first came face to face with Marcus Damel, who had come to the capital with Baroness Gotren―

Eleanor fell helplessly in love.

‘It was all a lie.’

A bitter taste rose in her throat.

Baroness Gotren had been relentless over the past week in her attempts to see Eleanor.

More precisely, she had been doing everything she could to introduce Marcus, who had come with her, to Eleanor.

Perhaps she had known all along about Marcus’s ambition to take hold of the marquisate, and had been helping him while setting her sights on whatever she stood to gain from their marriage.

Sure enough.

As Eleanor kept avoiding meetings with Baroness Gotren, several elders from the collateral lines even sent letters directly, urging her to marry as soon as possible for the sake of the family.

‘I need to pull myself together.’

But she could not avoid him forever.

There was no shortage of people insisting that the Sivert Marquisate could only survive if she carried on the family line and married quickly to produce an heir. The only option available to Eleanor now, pressed from all sides, was to choose someone other than Marcus.

But.

‘I don’t know who I can trust.’

The Eleanor of ten years ago had been a weak and passive person.

She had grown up from childhood as the sole young lady of the family, cherished and doted on, and had known no worries until her parents died in that unfortunate accident.

But after their deaths, she had been helplessly swayed by the words of elder relatives insisting she must protect the family, and in the end rushed into a marriage that handed not only her own life but the family itself over to another person’s hands, with terrible consequences.

After learning the truth that the person she had been certain truly loved her in her previous life had deceived her from the very beginning and ultimately led her to her death, she had despaired, and despaired again.