Smooth brown hair, red eyes that reminded her of Mary. A kind face that inspired trust.

In truth, Carter’s looks were the sort one could find anywhere in society.

Why had she lost her heart to someone so ordinary?

Looking back now, there had been nothing remarkable about him.

But he had been uncannily perceptive about the vulnerabilities in Veronica’s heart and had comforted her.

And so Veronica had sincerely loved him, believing he loved even her shortcomings.

Now that he stood before her, her body kept acting against her will. It must have been because of those lingering feelings.

Yes. The love she had once felt for him, as though he were the center of her world, remained like traces of dust, tormenting her.

Useless feelings that would soon disappear.

“Step aside.”

Those lingering scraps of emotion stirred faintly in her heart, spilling out in a sharp, irritable tone.

It was a terribly rude way to treat someone offering help, but she did not care.

She no longer cared how she appeared to him.

“Pardon?”

“I said, step aside.”

“Oh, no, I was only trying to help…”

Carter looked utterly taken aback.

“How rude of you.”

“What do you…”

“To offer your bare hand to a young lady when you don’t even know whether she’s married.”

At that, Carter awkwardly withdrew the hand he had extended without so much as putting on a glove.

In society, only a fiancé could offer his bare hand to an unmarried young lady.

Carter had offered his bare hand in her previous life, too. Foolish as she had been then, she had taken it, as though bewitched by his kindness.

“Ah, I—I apologize.”

As he awkwardly apologized, Veronica lifted her chin and told him once more to move.

“Step aside.”

“Ah, yes.”

Only when he moved away from the doorway he had been blocking did she realize how steeply the carriage was tilted.

Unfortunately, it was leaning away from the door, making it difficult to climb out, but Veronica did not take his hand.

“Marcus!”

“Yes, my lady!”

The coachman, Marcus, who had been standing outside at a loss, hurried over at Veronica’s call.

Marcus understood at once. Politely asking Carter to move aside, he held out his hand.

Once Veronica was out of the carriage, she could see her surroundings.

They were on a road not far from the entrance to the capital.

Andre Street was in the heart of the city, so she could not walk all the way to the meeting place.

But if she walked as far as the city entrance, she would have no trouble finding a public carriage.

“Marcus, can the carriage be repaired right away?”

“My apologies. The wheel is broken, so I’m afraid it will take some time.”

“The capital is just ahead. I’ll hire a public carriage there. Come and fetch me once the repairs are finished.”

“Understood, my lady. I’ll see to it as quickly as possible.”

After speaking to Marcus, Veronica set off toward the nearby entrance to the capital.

Carter, who had been staring blankly at her, called after her in surprise.

“Lady Medlin!”

Veronica stopped after only a few steps.

Perhaps Carter took it as a response to his call. He hurried over and blocked her path.

Just as Mary had when she offered the handkerchief.

“My lady, even so…”

“I wonder what exalted rank you hold that you feel entitled to address me with such disregard for etiquette. I’m quite certain we’ve never met.”

Carter’s face flushed crimson at Veronica’s icy words.

The crest on the carriage made it impossible for them not to recognize each other’s families. But Veronica had never met Carter before, so she deliberately called him out on it.

It was etiquette every noble knew. Royalty was another matter, but when first addressing someone, one was expected to introduce oneself before asking the other person’s name, regardless of rank. And no one could possibly have mistaken Carter Felton for royalty.

“…My apologies. I am Carter Felton.”

Looking flustered, Carter quickly assumed an affable expression, apologized, and introduced himself.

Now that she was formally facing Carter, her insides burned just as they had when she faced Mary.

She wanted to hurl *buse at him, slap his face, and curse him for the inhuman way he had treated her in her previous life.

But she summoned all her patience and forced down the hatred welling inside her.

She did not want her revenge to end with such a meager outburst.

Just as they had trampled her soul, she wanted to take what they treasured most.

She wanted to bring the loathsome House Felton to ruin and shatter Mary’s wicked soul.

Veronica returned his greeting accordingly.

“So you are Viscount Felton. I am Veronica of House Medlin.”

Perhaps Carter took that simple greeting as a sign that she had accepted him. His expression had relaxed.

“The carriage ahead of mine suddenly had an accident, so I hurried over in alarm. Are you all right?”

At his words, she looked behind her family’s carriage.

The carriage bearing House Felton’s crest was excessively ornate.

It was the carriage Carter had used only for important matters or visits to the imperial palace.

Once she took notice of the carriage, she began to see things she had overlooked before.

For instance, the coachman sitting in the driver’s seat, smiling as though he could barely wait for his master to return so they could leave.

He was the Felton family coachman who had made his displeasure known whenever Veronica used a carriage throughout her previous life.

When their eyes met, he bowed respectfully.

“Ah.”

Now she thought she understood.

Every servant at the Felton estate had been in league with Carter.

The coachman who had pretended to stumble upon her and suggested a lovely place to go instead of the marriage meeting. The head maid who had attentively cared for her before the wedding. They had all been accomplices.

At House Medlin, there had been only Mary. At House Felton, everyone had been deceiving and mocking her.

So that was it. At last, the mystery was solved.

“Our foolish, naive young mistress.”

They had never openly called her that to her face.

But whenever she quietly passed a corner or walked somewhere alone, servants gathered in small groups would refer to her that way.

In her previous life, she had thought it was because she meekly obeyed her increasingly indifferent husband and the mother-in-law who scolded her day in and day out.

That had not been it. Everyone in House Felton had known about Carter’s scheme.

Everyone except Veronica Felton.

“What an extraordinary coincidence.”

The longer Veronica stood facing Carter, the colder her heart grew.

“Yes, there could hardly be a coincidence like it. Ha-ha!”

Now she could plainly see what she had failed to notice then: his contrived smile, the tenderness he had forced into it.

“I was the only one who didn’t know.”

That everything she had believed was fate had been a lie.

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

Veronica stared at him for a long time.

She needed time to sort through the feelings left like wreckage in her shattered heart.

She had to master the urge to seize him by the shoulders and demand why he had done it.

“…Nothing.”

Veronica alone had lived through that life and returned to the past. She had to bear it all and make sense of it herself.

It was terribly cruel.

“Thank you for offering your assistance, Viscount Felton.”

At her courteous words, so different from her earlier sharpness, Carter gave an awkward smile and replied.

“Not at all. It was only right that I should help.”

“Then I’ll be on my way. I have somewhere to be.”

“Pardon?”

“Ah, I’ll tell my father how you helped me and have him send you a proper expression of our gratitude.”

“Oh, no!”

As Carter tried to say something more, Veronica hurried past him.

“Lady Medlin!”

If she stayed with him a moment longer, she felt she would unleash all the anguish and rage twisting inside her.

“My lady!”

Veronica fled.

* * *

Veronica could not remember how she had managed to get away from Carter.

All she could think was that she had to go somewhere out of his sight before she could breathe.

By the time she came to her senses, she was already on Andre Street.

As Veronica came to her senses before the angel statue at the beginning of Andre Street, a hollow laugh escaped her.

“Ha, ha-ha…”

She hated Veronica Felton, who had struggled so desperately through life, trusting in love alone.

She pitied the woman who had shut her ears and closed her eyes, living in foolish ignorance.

It hurt to know that she alone knew of her own death.

“Ah…”

Today, she hated the angel’s face, with its hands clasped and its benevolent smile.

When she had opened her eyes back in this time, she had thought it must have been a nightmare.

Perhaps that was what she had wanted to believe.

If everything she had experienced was true, if that wretched, horrific death had really happened, her own misery was too much to bear.

Perhaps that was why a part of her had hoped it was a dream.

Now that she knew she truly had returned to the past, countless emotions erupted within her.