Chapter 4
“You insolent brat! Do you know where you are, barging in like this?”
At the baron’s furious voice, Lucy instinctively flinched, but then mustered the courage to quietly press her ear against the parlor door.
“A marriage proposal. Please give me Lucy’s hand.”
“You worthless wretch! Do you think I raised her so dearly just to hand her over to some bastard like you?”
Unlike Edwin’s calm voice, the baron’s tone was still filled with rage.
“The Periquil mine. I’ll give it to you as her dowry.”
“What? Periquil…? How on earth could you…? No—wasn’t that mine imperial property? Are you mocking me right now?”
“It may have belonged to the imperial family before, but not anymore. Here, take a look at the documents yourself. If you permit my marriage to Lucy, the mine is yours.”
Listening in from outside the door, Lucy couldn’t make any sense of what Edwin was saying.
Edwin, giving away a mine? She’d heard that some ladies from distinguished families might receive land or even a mine as part of their dowry—but this wasn’t just any mine, it was imperial property. Lucy pressed her ear closer.
“Even if this document is genuine, I won’t hand Lucy over to you for a mere mine. Do you know how many noblemen are already sending her proposals?”
“I thought so… You’re truly relentless. I’m beginning to doubt she’s even your real daughter. And I imagine those ‘proposals’ are nothing more than second sons of minor nobles or offers to make her a concubine.”
Edwin’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“That’s none of your business! Better that than marrying her off to a bastard like you.”
“Fine. If you’ll just allow me to marry Lucy, I’ll give you not only the mine but also a tax exemption zone guaranteed by the imperial family.”
“What—what? A tax exemption zone? From the likes of you…?”
Lucy didn’t understand a single thing Edwin was telling her father.
All she knew was that, with a confident smile, Edwin had told her to wait here just a moment while he secured the baron’s blessing for their marriage.
Lucy awoke with a frown. The memory had come to haunt her in her dreams.
Edwin—her fiancé of two years.
It was the day he had confidently gone to see Baron Diallo, swearing he would secure his approval no matter what.
She remembered herself pressing her ear to the door, her heart pounding, listening to their conversation. And indeed, that day, Edwin had obtained permission for their marriage.
But on the wedding day, he never showed up. He disappeared without a trace, as if he’d never existed at all…
The memory sat heavy in her mind, leaving her feeling unsettled.
“You scammer! How dare you humiliate me like this? Do you know how many opportunities I gave up for that tax exemption zone?”
After Edwin’s disappearance, the baron had raged for days about losing the promised imperial exemption they were to receive after the wedding.
Lucy had been so shocked by Edwin’s absence at the altar that she hadn’t left her room since.
Had something happened to him? Or had he truly abandoned her?
Night after night, she cried herself to sleep, slowly withering away.
“And now… I’ve woken up in this body. So what happened to the real Lucy…?”
Though she knew no answer would come, she murmured into the empty air.
“My lady, you’re awake?”
At that moment, Anna came in, as usual, carrying breakfast.
“Anna, why did you tell me my fiancé was dead?”
The sudden question made Anna look at her in surprise.
“My lady… did you regain your memory?”
The memories that had come to her last night were incomplete—just fragmented moments.
Only the events that had made her feel great joy, sadness, or shock remained vivid in her mind.
Even so, it was enough to narrow down which novel this might be.
“No, I overheard people talking at the party.”
“I’m sorry, my lady. The baron told me to say that so you wouldn’t get your hopes up about your memory returning… He said that after disappearing so suddenly, your fiancé must have died somewhere.”
Anna’s voice trembled as she spoke.
Had they actually found a will or some other proof?
Whether the baron was lying or Edwin was truly dead, she had no way of knowing.
When the bruise from the baron’s last beating had begun to fade, the baroness visited Lucy again.
“In three days, go with Jessica to the tea party hosted by the daughter of Count Perohos. Conveniently, the young viscount who attends the academy will be staying at their estate during the school break.”
What does the tea party have to do with the viscount being on vacation?
Lucy couldn’t guess at her intentions.
“Please let me see Father. I have something to say to him.”
Lucy didn’t want to go anywhere anymore. She knew she’d only become a laughingstock—the bride abandoned on her wedding day.
So she gathered her courage and told the baron she would no longer attend such gatherings. As always, the answer came in the form of merciless violence.
“You’ve completely lost your mind since your brush with death! Do you have any idea how much you cost me?”
Cowering from his enraged shouts, Lucy still braced herself. She could endure physical pain—but that didn’t mean it was okay to keep living under constant abuse.
The mental humiliation of being treated like this was almost worse than anything she’d faced in her previous life.
Eventually, worn down by the baron’s violence, Lucy began attending parties again—only to be approached by all sorts of men making advances.
“Lucy, you’re not going to pretend our night together never happened just because you ‘lost your memory,’ are you?”
It wasn’t uncommon for men to take advantage of her supposed amnesia to harass and grope her.
“So that’s why she can shamelessly walk around with her head held high after losing her memory.”
“Lucky for us, isn’t it? I’ve been coming to these boring parties just for the fun of talking to her. I was so disappointed when I heard she was suddenly getting married.”
“For the baron to have agreed to the match, that man must have been quite something. But what I want to know is—why call off the wedding on the day itself?”
By now, Lucy had grown numb to the constant whispers.
“You vulgar wench! Trying to seduce my husband? I’ll teach you a lesson today!”
Once, she’d gone to a “salon” thinking it would be a refined literary gathering—only to have a strange woman grab her by the hair.
Ha… I thought it’d be a cultured book discussion, but this is even worse.
She didn’t even know who the woman’s husband was—probably just one of the many men who’d flirted with her at parties.
Lucy gave a bitter smile inwardly, then glared at the woman.
“Go yell at your husband instead of taking it out on me!”
After months of enduring all sorts of incidents, Lucy no longer flinched so easily.
She shoved the woman away hard.
“You—you vulgar thing…!”
The woman stumbled back in shock, falling to the ground.
Before she could get up, Lucy quickly turned away. She knew by now that the longer a fight dragged on, the more it worked against her.
The bride abandoned at the altar…
Piecing together what people had said about her, one character from a novel came to mind—
A villainess who was abandoned by the male lead on her wedding day, turned bitter and destructive, and ultimately met her end at the executioner’s block.
Victory’s Becky. That was the novel’s title.
Before inhabiting Lucy’s body, Sohee’s greatest joy had been reading novels. She imagined an ordinary school life and dreamed of a healthy future through those stories. She usually focused on the protagonists, so she couldn’t recall the names of every villainess she’d read about.
Still, she clearly remembered feeling indignant that the male lead who had promised marriage abandoned the heroine, believing he deserved criticism.
At that point, Lucy still wasn’t sure if this world really was a novel. Time passed quickly, giving her no chance to think of a way out.
Her outings were strictly monitored and limited, and she had no allowance—nothing of value she could sell.
Stress and anxiety kept piling up, and even after several days, nothing improved. She became completely isolated in this world.
And then, one day—
