Chapter 3
After finishing the meal and heading to my room, my assigned maid Bell followed two steps behind me. With brown hair and eyes, the young woman looked terribly worried about me after yesterday’s events, fussing over me nonstop.
“Madam, shall I bring you a book?”
“No. I’m tired. I’ll rest a bit, come when I call you.”
“Yes, rest well.”
I practically shoved Bell out the door and collapsed onto the bed. The emotional tug-of-war had left me exhausted. I couldn’t believe Carla managed to live like this for two years.
Count Icarus didn’t even notice that Carla was acting differently. No—no one in this mansion seemed to realize that Carla wasn’t actually Carla.
Tears threatened to well up, so I sniffled and inhaled deeply. I missed my mom, who I hadn’t contacted in a while. What if she was crying, thinking I’d disappeared?
I missed my friends too—even the team leader I used to fight with daily at work.
Everyone must’ve been shocked by my disappearance. The thought that no one even noticed Carla had vanished made me feel even more pitiful. Maybe I would’ve felt more at peace if I had possessed someone who’d actually died in an accident?
The freshly laundered bed sheets smelled like nothing in particular.
“Oh, right. The list—the list.”
I let my body dangle halfway off the bed. Anyone watching would’ve found it unsightly, but I didn’t care.
Reaching out, I lifted the cracked marble slab, pulling out the bundle of papers and Carla’s diary hidden beneath. Though kept in a place devoid of light, the pages were worn with tear stains. I flipped through them until I found the dowry list.
“Not this, not this… ah, found it.”
There were three pages in the dowry list. It had everything from easily converted gems to various mines, big and small.
Lying on my stomach, I skimmed through the list with my fingers, searching for the diamond mine. It was written around the middle.
Using the soft pencil kept with the diary, I marked it quietly. A strange sense of pride welled up.
“I’ll find it all for you. Just trust me, sis.”
If the count had Carla’s assets, he’d just spend them on his mistress. In that case, taking them back was only right.
I gently stroked Carla’s diary. The high-quality leather was worn from use, but there were no rips or damages. The contents written inside, however, were dark and damaged.
Poor Carla. She endlessly questioned what she did wrong. If she had been cuter, more cheerful, more charming—would things have been different? But none of those were the answer.
It wasn’t her who broke the trust between them—trust sworn in the name of God.
Why should she, the victim of her husband’s affair, blame herself? I could only assume it was because she loved him.
Among her entries, she even blamed herself for not satisfying her husband in bed, believing she had failed her duty as a wife.
[Even praying to God hasn’t blessed me with a child. I must wash away my unworthiness.]
She doubted her own body for being unable to conceive for over two years. But I suspected the count. His mistress, who he reportedly slept with whenever he had the chance for over a year, didn’t get pregnant either.
He didn’t even use contraception. So isn’t it stranger if they had a child from their once-a-season mechanical intimacy?
Still, Carla didn’t seem to think that way. Her notes showed erased entries of every folk remedy under the sun to boost fertility.
She led charitable projects to build virtue, wrote letters to lonely elderly women, and reached out first to noble girls with no support.
Reading her actions, I couldn’t help but think: Does a person like this really exist?
But the more I read, the clearer it became—Carla wasn’t a saint. When it came to mistakes from her subordinates, she was a strict noblewoman through and through.
She had loved the count so much that she tried to rip out her own nature for him.
In this novel, Carla was painted as a madwoman. She had lost herself to love—abandoning her house and her sense of self.
And somehow, I didn’t feel like she was a stranger. I’d also had moments where I clashed with others because I got so fixated on what I liked that I ignored everything else.
“What’s so great about love that it drives people this crazy…”
I ran my hand over the diary again and then leaned down under the bed once more. Clack, the bundle of papers disappeared beneath the marble floor.
“Haa…”
Climbing back into bed, I let out the breath I had been holding. Peeking into someone else’s soul through a diary wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.
Trying to shake off the gloom, I pulled the bell rope beside the bed. Bell, who must’ve been waiting nearby, opened the door and entered immediately.
“You called, madam?”
I was about to ask for tea but stopped.
I didn’t really want any tea, and I wasn’t in the mood to give meaningless errands either.
Instead, I showed my disheveled hair from all the tossing and turning on the bed.
“Would you brush my hair a little?”
“Yes.”
I sat in front of the vanity and looked straight into the mirror. Bell slowly began brushing my hair.
Reflected in the mirror was Carla’s black hair and pale skin—so pale she looked sickly from lack of sun exposure.
Her face didn’t resemble a noblewoman’s. She looked more like an apprentice priest from a convent.
But her slightly upturned eyes and firmly pressed lips didn’t belong to someone who had given herself to God.
Those jet-black eyes stood out. Were they mine—or Carla’s?
When I closed my eyes, the reflection vanished. Poor Carla.
This insane world actually had a more structured system than I thought. Of course, more than I thought doesn’t mean much. Monogamy was the norm here, and divorce was extremely rare.
That’s because divorce required proof of someone’s immorality—and in this world, everyone had at least one lover on the side, laughing and playing.
However, when a married person had an affair with a single person, that was a violation of moral standards. So everyone just got into loveless marriages and found joy elsewhere. I couldn’t help muttering, “This is crazy…”
The count, messing around with an unmarried heroine, was so out of his mind that I couldn’t even imagine it.
Illegitimate children from affairs had to be taken in by the higher-status parent. If both had equal status, then the wealthier party took responsibility.
In other words, if the heroine got pregnant, the count would be responsible. Disgusting.
If Carla could just prove the count’s immorality, divorce was possible. But she didn’t want that.
Though it wasn’t written in her diary, I was sure she would’ve even raised the count’s illegitimate child as her own. But not me. I’m not raising someone else’s kid just because they’re “cute.”
“Ugh.”
I groaned without realizing. Bell flinched and stepped back in surprise.
“Are you in pain?”
“Ah…”
I blinked in surprise. Bell had gone pale, down to her fingertips. She probably thought she’d pulled my hair too hard.
“No, I was just thinking of something else.”
Watching Bell tremble, I began to suspect Carla had a worse temper than I thought. Everyone seemed to flinch at the slightest word, even Bell, who’d spent the most time with her.
I turned my head and examined my reflection from different angles. My hair was braided at the sides and pulled back, pinned here and there to form soft waves. It looked beautiful, even without any accessories.
“Yes, it’s lovely. I really like it.”
Only then did Bell let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“Shall I decorate it with pearls, madam?”
I thought for a moment. I wasn’t going anywhere, so it seemed unnecessary. But I did want to see the pearls, so I casually replied,
“Just a few.”
Bell opened a drawer and brought out a small box. Glittering beads rolled inside.
They weren’t real pearls. Real pearls wouldn’t show fingerprints like that. The oils from human hands can damage pearls. But I didn’t bother pointing it out.
Each bead had a twisted pin attached, apparently designed to adorn hair.
Bell picked a few and inserted them between the braids. Surprisingly, they stayed in place well. When I turned my head, the light caught the decorations, making them sparkle.
“Madam, you look so elegant. Pearls suit you very well.”
“Is that so? Good job.”
I was pleased. Yes, if there was any small comfort in this world, it was things like this.
Life is like falling into a deep well with a lion above and a snake below. And yet, the human clings to a small branch and licks the few drops of honey at the tip—that’s what life is.
“Um… madam…”
As I smiled with satisfaction, Bell cautiously spoke up.
“Forgive me, but I need to organize the old invitations. What shall I do with them?”
Ah, I’d forgotten. It had been two months since I possessed Carla’s body, and I’d barely gone outside. Yesterday’s brief carriage ride to the outskirts of town was the most I’d done.
I shuddered at the memory of my legs swelling after just a few steps. Still, I had to go out at least once.
Socializing was a duty for nobles, and even Carla had made occasional appointments. Though people knew she was unwell, locking myself away entirely would raise suspicion.
I sighed and looked at Bell.
“Alright. Bring me the invitations.”
“Yes!”
