Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
My foster father was the most sought-after courtesan in the Back Alleys, and I was the stray child he’d picked up.
On the night of my eighth birthday, he told me he’d finally saved enough for my dowry. He said he was done with that life after this—that from now on, he’d stay with me and watch me grow up.
But the next day, the parents who claimed to be my real family came from Ashford Manor.
He never did.
They said he was dead.
Dead filthy, they said. Burned to ash afterward. Nothing left for me at all.
In the little courtyard outside the city, I clutched the Little Rabbit he’d bought me and glared viciously at the man and woman who had come to claim me.
They had been wearing me down for three days.
They coaxed and reasoned and tempted me with one fine thing after another, but I refused to go with them. I would not even speak to them.
Because my father had told me never to talk to strangers. Bad people could trick you and take you away.
Then they told me this:
My father was dead.
He had died of some filthy sickness, and after that a client had set his body on fire.
I would never wait for him again.
“That’s impossible.” My arms tightened around the rabbit. “My father was cleaner than any of you. His skin was finer than yours. There was never any dirt under his nails, and his clothes always smelled nice…”
The Marquess Ashford’s face darkened at once. He frowned at me with open displeasure.
“I am your real father,” he said. “You are a trueborn daughter of this house. How can you call a whore your father? Do you want your own father laughed at by every man at court?”
The woman beside him looked enough like me to make my stomach turn. Lady Ashford had my eyes—or almost. Tears slid silently down her face as she watched me.
“This is all my fault,” she said softly. “I trusted the nursemaid back then. She switched you with her own daughter, and because of that, you ended up in the hands of the lowest sort. No wonder you were raised without respect, without even the bearing of a noble girl.”
I looked at them coldly and pointed at the courtyard gate.
“If you think so little of me, then leave. I don’t think much of you either. The door’s there. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”
“You—”
The marquess glared at me, furious.
“Ungrateful girl. The marquess’s household will never allow its bloodline to remain outside these walls. Whether you like it or not, you are coming back with us today.”
Lady Ashford nodded too. She reached out and brushed my cheek with her fingertips.
I turned away from her touch with a hard face. She studied my eyes for a long while, grief in her own. Then, little by little, that grief gave way to something like satisfaction.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
“You are ours after all,” she murmured. “A soldier’s blood runs in you. Your tongue is sharp and your temper wild. You are nothing like our Juliet—sweet and delicate as she is. But your eyes… your eyes are strong. I had eyes like that when I was young.”
She sighed, then ruffled my hair by force.
“Your enemy is in the palace. If you want revenge for him, come back with us and behave. You must understand this—without enough power or standing, you are nothing more than an ant beneath the feet of the great. They can crush you anytime they please.”
I was stubborn.
I was not stupid.
So I frowned and thought about it for a while. Then, swallowing down the disgust in my throat, I packed a small bundle and climbed silently into the carriage from Ashford Manor.
When Lady Ashford saw me do it, the corner of her mouth lifted. She nudged the marquess with her elbow.
“If you look on the bright side,” she said, “the child is loyal. She knows how to love deeply. That much she gets from you.”
The marquess rolled his eyes, but there was pain in them too.
“She’s too stubborn,” he muttered. “We had to bait her into it. I never wanted to tell her the truth this early. At her age, she ought to have been happy…”
His eyes reddened, and he could not finish.
Lady Ashford leaned into him and wept soundlessly, her shoulders trembling.
“This is your fault too,” she whispered. “That reckless mouth of yours made enemies everywhere. And now our Clara is the one who’s suffered for it.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “That name is terribly plain. Should we change it?”
Ashford Manor was enormous, every corner touched with taste and elegance.
Compared to the little courtyard where I had lived, it was heaven set against dirt.
I was wearing the finest dress my foster father had ever bought for me, with a silver butterfly hairpin in my hair, yet I still looked out of place here. More than out of place. I looked cheap. Low. Even more so than the servants standing nearby with their eyes lowered and their backs bent.
A strange feeling rose in my chest.
And when I noticed the silver bangle on one young maid’s wrist, that nameless feeling swelled until it nearly choked me.
I couldn’t stop seeing what had happened three days ago—my father holding me before he left.
“Be good, Clara. Yesterday at Moonfall House I saw a lovely pair of silver bangles. I’ll buy them for you tomorrow as your birthday gift, all right?”
Lady Ashford followed my gaze to the maid’s wrist. Something flashed in her eyes. At once, she ordered the girl to remove the bangle, then took it herself and held it out to me.
“If you like it, then take it—”
I shot her a glare, snatched the bangle from her hand, and put it right back on the maid’s wrist.
Then I let out a cold little laugh.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“So this is the breeding of a marquess’s household? Taking whatever someone treasures on a whim?”
The smile froze on Lady Ashford’s face.
A burst of laughter suddenly came from the covered walkway outside.
“Well,” a girl said, amused, “Mother’s being mocked by Elder Sister already. I suppose the family our sister came from must have taught her remarkably fine manners. Though from what I heard, wasn’t that foster father of yours from rather… questionable stock?”
I turned at the sound.
A finely dressed little girl stood beneath the eaves. Her features were delicate, her eyes narrow and cool as they rested on me.
I looked back at Lady Ashford instead.
“This young lady doesn’t resemble you in the slightest,” I said flatly. “She must be the nursemaid’s daughter. You’ve raised her for so many years, of course you’re attached. If that’s the case, why bother bringing me back at all? Or do you simply enjoy watching someone else’s daughter trample your own?”
Lady Ashford looked even more uncomfortable. She shot the girl a sharp glare.
“Beatrice. Weren’t you supposed to be keeping Juliet company? Why have you come to the front court?”
But Beatrice threw herself into Lady Ashford’s arms and whined sweetly, “Mother, I missed you. And besides…”
She bit her lip, eyes reddening as she sniffed.
“Now that Sister is back, will the love you give me grow even less? I know I’m not your real daughter, and what happened back then wasn’t my fault either… Ever since I was old enough to understand anything, you’ve been my only mother. You’re the only mother I recognize.”
Lady Ashford wrapped an arm around her and sighed.
After all, this was a child she had raised with her own hands. How could there be no affection?
“Don’t let your thoughts run wild. I love all my children the same.”
Beatrice buried her face in Lady Ashford’s chest and slanted a triumphant look at me from the corner of her eye.
If I had still been living as I once did, I would have dragged her out of those arms and clawed her face bloody.
But I had only just arrived at Ashford Manor, and I had already decided I would root myself here no matter what. So I could only crush my temper down with all my strength.
Still.
It was disgusting.
Then, all at once, a thin little figure rushed out from behind the corridor. She grabbed Beatrice and yanked her away from Lady Ashford, then slapped her hard across the face twice.
Crack. Crack.
She was coughing as she did it, one hand pressed over her mouth.
“Ah—!”
Beatrice’s shriek rang through the manor.
Marquess Ashford, who had been silent all this time, hurried forward and scooped Beatrice into his arms. He glared coldly at the girl who had just attacked her.
“Juliet, what are you doing? She grew up with you like a sister. She’s looked after your sickly body since childhood. Why have you always treated her like a thorn in your side?”
Juliet hid the hand she had coughed blood into behind her back.
She had my face.