* * *

“Ah!”

“My lady!”

Veronica bolted upright, gasping for breath.

“Ah, ah…”

“My lady! Are you all right? My lady!”

Her horrific death remained lodged in her soul, leaving her unable to breathe properly.

Then, at the sound of Anna’s worried voice, she slowly began to calm down. Anna was the only maid who had treated her with kindness during her time at House Medlin before her marriage.

“…Anna?”

“Oh, my lady! I was so worried. You suddenly couldn’t breathe properly. I didn’t know what to do…”

Startled by Anna’s rapid stream of words, Veronica looked around.

The room looked very different from the bedchamber at the Felton viscounty where she had been just before collapsing.

It was bright and lavishly decorated, like a young noblewoman’s bedroom.

Somehow, it looked familiar.

“House Medlin…?”

“Did you have a nightmare? Are you feeling a little better?”

Veronica could hardly believe she was speaking with her.

She had spent two years as Veronica Felton, Carter Felton’s wife, before dying.

She had been ill throughout her marriage, and for the final month, she had been little more than a living corpse. Then she had died so helplessly, without even a moment to recoil in horror at the vile truth about those two.

“You must have had a terrible dream.”

Could Anna be right? Had everything she had witnessed been a nightmare?

Or had the desperate wish she had made as she lay dying come true?

Concerned by how distraught Veronica looked, Anna draped a shawl over her shoulders.

“I’ll bring you some warm tea. Please wait a moment.”

Anna hurried off to fetch the tea.

Watching her leave, Veronica slowly raised her hands, feeling the unfamiliar stiffness of her body.

The month she had spent unable to move remained so vivid that even moving her fingertips felt utterly foreign.

Her pale fingers, which looked as though they had never done a day’s hard work, moved awkwardly.

She fumbled like a newborn animal discovering how its body worked.

Then she lifted her head and saw her reflection in the dressing-table mirror opposite the bed.

She saw the golden hair Carter had always praised as beautiful as gold thread, winding it around his fingers as he played with it, and the deep blue eyes he had always said sparkled like sapphires.

Tears suddenly spilled down her cheeks.

It hurt so terribly to know that the happiness he had given her had been nothing more than an empty dream built on a scheme.

The truth that his love had all been a lie shattered the heart that had fluttered with love for him, and the pain was unbearable.

She cried and cried.

“Ah…”

The feelings that had made her happy for two years crumbled, beginning to wash away with her tears.

Veronica let everything go with the tears that streamed down her cheeks and dripped into her palms.

Her love for Carter, whom she had loved more than herself. Her foolish innocence in believing in fate. The boundless trust she had placed in Mary, whom she had thought of as her one and only sister.

She let it all wash away.

And so she mourned the death of Veronica Felton, who had lived with such innocent trust and love.

* * *

“Are you feeling a little better now?”

“Th-thank you, Anna.”

Her own voice, which should have been familiar, sounded strange to Veronica.

Only moments ago, she had died from the poison those two had given her, unable to utter a single sound.

She could not tell whether it had merely been a nightmare or whether she had traveled back in time. But perhaps the memory of being unable to speak was so deeply ingrained that she struggled to make a sound.

She felt awkward, as though she were speaking for the first time in decades.

Relieved by her faltering response, Anna carefully handed her the warm tea.

“I’m glad. I was worried you might be unwell.”

Veronica’s stomach churned at the kindness in Anna’s eyes.

‘Ah, this is real.’

The sudden realization brought her hand to her chest before she knew it.

Why had she never realized?

Foolishly, she had sought happiness only in Carter’s fleeting glances.

Looking back, Carter had never been sincere.

A single glance could reveal someone’s feelings, yet she had failed to understand his until the day she died.

Foolishly, she had refused to acknowledge the truth, even though she had known it deep down.

“Thank you. Truly.”

“Oh, there’s no need to thank me for something like this.”

Anna adjusted Veronica’s shawl again where it had slipped while she drank her tea.

Her touch was as anxious as that of someone watching over a child left by the water.

“That nightmare must have been dreadful. I haven’t seen you like this since your mother passed away.”

Anna had originally been her mother’s maid.

After her mother’s death, she had been the only maid who stayed by her mistress’s daughter and cared for her with unwavering devotion.

As though bestowing charity, her father had assigned Anna as Veronica’s personal maid while she grieved for her mother. Anna had cherished her as though she were her own daughter.

“You must have been terribly worried about today’s marriage meeting.”

Veronica gave a violent start at Anna’s quiet words as she refilled her empty teacup.

‘It wasn’t… a nightmare?’

The moment she opened her eyes, she had suspected this was her room at House Medlin. But Anna’s words began to convince her of an impossible possibility.

The wish she had made so desperately in the face of death—her plea to return to a time before she met them—had come true.

Those hellish days could not possibly have been a mere nightmare.

And this moment, when she could breathe freely and move as she wished, could not possibly be anything but real.

She had no idea how she had returned to this time, but she was beginning to feel certain that she was back just before her first meeting with Carter.

“Anna.”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Am I supposed to meet a prospective husband at the café on Andre Street?”

“That’s right. You haven’t forgotten.”

She wanted to be more certain.

She had met Carter on the day of the marriage meeting her father had arranged, announcing it as though ordering her to fulfill her duty. Once she went to the meeting place, she would know.

Whether everything still so vivid in her mind had merely been a nightmare, or whether her desperate wish had come true and time had turned back.

Still, it was a tremendous relief.

She had awakened from the nightmare before she had indulged in fantasies about a coincidence so extraordinary it had felt like fate, before she had fallen in love with him.

The thought of having to meet him again overwhelmed her, but it was a tremendous relief nonetheless.

Nothing had happened yet.

She was still a Medlin. She had not become a Felton, nor had she begun taking the poison.

If she truly had traveled back in time, her carriage would have an accident today on the way to Andre Street, and she would meet Carter Felton.

What had she been like back then, in her foolishness?

Frightened by the sudden carriage accident, she had done nothing but sob like a child.

Then Carter had appeared, opened the broken door, and held out his hand, stealing her heart completely.

She had thought him so dashing as he braved danger to rescue a lady in distress.

The young girl who had never received such affection had fallen for him in an instant.

Pure and foolish, Veronica had believed this was a perfect destiny she must never let slip away.

And so she had forgotten all about the marriage meeting and tried to seize the destiny that had appeared before her.

His tender gaze, his affectionate touch, the sweet word “love” that spilled from his lips.

The girl who had yearned for love had believed all of it was true love.

That day, after returning home, she had tried defying her father for the first time.

She, who had never once raised her voice at him and had only ever watched his temper, had raised it to fight for true love.

“Very conveniently for me, Count Medlin had this ridiculous misconception that I was his real daughter, not you. Funnily enough, he thought you were the product of his late wife’s infidelity.”

Could that dream be true? Had all those painful days, that lonely childhood, really stemmed from her father’s misunderstanding?

It was absurd.

Her mother, who had worried only about her father as she lay dying, had been unfaithful?

What made it even more absurd was that Veronica resembled her father so closely that anyone could see it.

Had he been happy all those years, rejecting a daughter who looked so much like him?

Who knew?

It no longer mattered.

“Ha…”

Veronica released all her regrets in a deep sigh.

Seeing her tremble, Anna gently soothed her and changed the subject.

“Oh, we couldn’t decide which dress you should wear yesterday. Shall we look again?”

Anna’s question brought her back to her senses.

If this truly was a second life miraculously granted to her, it had to be different from the first.

She had to change from the ignorant girl who had let Mary and Carter lead her around. Only then could she survive.

There was still time to build a fence around her life that would keep Carter out, and to drive away Mary, who coveted what belonged to her from within it.

To do that, she had to steel herself and act quickly.

“Let’s do that.”

Unable to believe she had returned, she had spent the entire morning in a daze.

If today was the day she had met Carter, she had to hurry.