Chapter 3 of (“The Perfect Ending Plan of a Fairy Tale Villainess”):
I thought about my life back there.
The image of my beloved niece, Seoyeon, flickered in my mind.
I had cherished Seoyeon like my own child.
I’d read her favorite fairy tales so many times the pages wore thin.
“But no one probably read fairy tales to Larisa.”
What on earth had Larisa been thinking while being beaten like that all the time?
Was she perhaps waiting for a knight to rescue her from this hellish house?
“No, I doubt she even had the mental foundation to entertain such girlish fantasies…”
Fairy tales never mentioned what the heroine was thinking while she was imprisoned.
They only described how beautiful she was as a child, or how valuable her tear-made jewels were.
She was merely a damsel waiting to be rescued by a dashing prince. Despite being the protagonist, she barely had any psychological description.
The only notable detail was that she prayed every night to the moon, saying, “Please save me.”
“But in this secret underground room, there isn’t even a window to see the moon.”
With a bitter feeling, I stepped closer, silently picked up a bandage from the medical kit, and handed it to the nanny.
The nanny, flustered, said, “Oh, miss. There’s no need for you to do this.”
“I’ll help.”
“It’s fine. I’ve always done this alone. You shouldn’t dirty your hands with things like this.”
Things like this? Don’t dirty my hands?
“That child is also a lady of this house.”
I frowned.
The nanny, unaware of my reaction, put down the medicine and bandages and stood up.
“Now, go back to your room. Master said you’re not in good shape, Miss Marcia. If you stay here too long, I’ll get scolded.”
She pushed me out the door and quickly shut the basement door behind me.
Even if I stayed, I wouldn’t have been much help.
With no other choice, I slowly climbed the stairs.
The injuries from the carriage accident throbbed all over my body.
“First, I need to recover. Only then can I think about escaping or not.”
As I headed back to my room, I heard chatter from up ahead.
I narrowed my eyes.
Two maids were noisily chatting as they pushed a cart stacked with firewood—probably delivering it to the rooms.
Because of the cart, they noticed me a bit late.
“Oh, oh my, L–Lady Marcia!”
“Miss Marcia!”
As soon as they saw me, they were startled out of their wits.
They froze, stepped back against the wall, folded their hands respectfully, and bowed their heads.
Their faces were pale with fear.
Marcia had always been ruthless with the servants.
At the slightest annoyance, she’d hurl insults and slap them.
Even if they had done nothing wrong, she would vent her anger on the passing maids whenever she was in a foul mood.
So it was only natural for them to be terrified upon being caught chatting.
“Let’s not do that anymore, okay? Let’s not give each other reasons to get upset.”
I quickly muttered inwardly.
It was to convince the part of me that still rejected such kindness.
Truthfully, a corner of my mind—Marcia’s—wanted to slap the maids.
—How dare you chatter so loudly here? You’re just servants.
I tried to suppress Marcia’s emotions and whispered to myself,
“Just let them be. If we end up on bad terms, it could make escaping this mansion later more difficult.”
There was no need to go out of my way to be kind to them either.
If I suddenly started acting differently, it would be even more suspicious.
So instead, I simply glanced at the maids who stood with their heads bowed, said nothing, and headed up the stairs.
—What’s this? I thought we were going to get slapped. Is she in a good mood today?
—Did she hit her head in that accident yesterday?
The maids whispered behind my back.
They must have thought I couldn’t hear them.
When I turned around, they quickly lowered their heads and pushed the cart as if nothing happened.
“That’s strange.”
I was already halfway up the stairs.
“We were pretty far apart, so how did I hear their whispers?”
Did they say it loud on purpose?
The maids exchanged glances and quickly wheeled the cart down another hallway.
They were clearly trying to flee before I changed my mind.
I shrugged and continued climbing the stairs.
Soon, the injured leg from the accident began to ache again. I had to cling to the railing as I climbed.
“Ugh, why is my room on the top floor, of all places?”
I grumbled, finally reaching the railing on the second floor—when the mansion’s front door swung open with a bang.
Rain was still pouring outside. A cold wind mixed with rain swept into the lobby.
“Damn it!”
The person who entered with a booming curse was Marcia’s older brother and the eldest son of the house, Villain Bleak.
As usual, he seemed drunk, his steps staggering.
“Or maybe it’s not alcohol—it might be drugs.”
Normally, I would’ve ignored him and gone to my room, but curiosity got the better of me.
“What does he look like?”
I could dig through Marcia’s memories to know, but I wanted to see with my own eyes—just once.
So I leaned on the railing and looked down.
I didn’t feel like greeting him.
The hostility between siblings was clear from my body’s reaction.
Marcia instinctively curled her lips into a sneer.
“Welcome home, young master,” a servant quickly approached, closed the front door, and bowed.
Villain threw his wet coat onto the servant’s head without a word.
“What a charming personality.”
His golden hair, soaked and sticking to his face, and his green eyes, glowing even in drunkenness, gave him a strikingly handsome appearance.
He took after their deceased mother.
None of the three siblings resembled their father.
All had exceptional looks and green eyes, though the youngest, Larisa, was the most beautiful.
Villain left the servant struggling with the coat and lazily unbuttoned his shirt.
Then he met my eyes.
When I didn’t look away, he was the one who scowled first.
“What are you staring at?”
“I wasn’t staring.”
I tilted my chin and gracefully turned my head toward the stairs.
That was Marcia’s influence.
Villain sneered at the back of my head.
“Walking around fine, huh? I heard the carriage flipped—looks like you didn’t even break a leg. What was a lady doing wandering around like that? You should’ve stayed home quietly. Still not over the broken engagement?”
—An engagement? How dare you bring that up?
Marcia’s fury surged.
Blood rushed to my head. Her memories flooded into me.
She had been dumped just a month ago.
After their father’s business collapsed and Villain racked up gambling debt, her fiancé broke off the engagement.
Not that she particularly liked him.
“We barely even met anyway.”
It was just an arranged match appropriate for their social status.
But Marcia couldn’t accept the label of “the woman who got dumped.”
“I couldn’t even attend parties for a while because of that.”
The humiliation of receiving the annulment letter was vivid to me too.
I turned back, gripping the railing, and glared at Villain.
Marcia’s rage spoke through me:
“And you? Didn’t a loan shark beat you up? You must be fine if your mouth still works. You squandered money, got your sister’s engagement broken, and now you’re gambling again? Wow, amazing.”
Villain was three years older, but Marcia never treated him like a real brother.
Throwing his insult back at him made the servant behind him wear a pale “oh no, they’re fighting again” expression.
The servant quickly scurried away.
“Shut the hell up. My old man’s business is more doomed than mine. At least gambling is fun. A merchant ship sank, huh? What’s the point of doing business if it all ends up underwater? He should just die already and leave me the estate…”
Villain shamelessly spat out such heretical thoughts.
“Wait, did he say the merchant ship sank?”
Come to think of it, Igor in the basement had said something like that too.
“So that’s why he was acting all frantic earlier.”
Igor’s failed ventures weren’t anything new.
Anything he touched turned to ruin before long.
Was it bad judgment? A lack of business sense?
Marcia didn’t know, nor did she care to.
Villain stumbled toward the stairs, spreading his arms wide in a mocking gesture.
“Money? Just go down to the basement and you’ll get it. Why the hell did he invest it only to throw it into the water? Huh? Wouldn’t you want a drink after that?”
Wow. Just listen to this guy talk.
I shrugged and let Marcia take over completely.
“So you’re saying you drank because Father’s business failed? Don’t lie. You—”
