Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
When I accompanied Clara to her supervised courtship meeting, the gentleman was exceedingly pleased.
Only after they were married did the mistake come to light. He had thought the young lady he saw that day was me.
But what was done could not be undone.
After that, Clara resented me. Her husband avoided me.
And my own husband blamed me for drawing attention to myself.
I was trapped on every side, endured a lifetime of grievance, and died miserable.
Now I had been given another chance.
When Clara came to ask me to accompany her to the courtship meeting again, I shook my head.
“No. You should go by yourself.”
Clara froze. “Sister-in-law, you’re not coming with me?”
I sat by the window, bent over my embroidery, and set another stitch without looking up.
“No. I’m not going.”
She grew anxious at once, hurried over, and caught my arm.
“But we already agreed, didn’t we? I’m still unmarried, and Mother isn’t there to look after me. How can I go alone?”
I had heard those exact words in my last life too.
People always said the elder brother’s wife was expected to act like a second mother. Helping arrange a younger sister’s marriage prospects was supposed to be my duty.
More than that, Clara and I had once been very close.
So in my previous life, I had gone with her.
That evening, beneath a haze of lantern light, we stood under a bridge and looked up at the man waiting above us from afar.
Clara had taken only one glance before lowering her head shyly.
“He’s very tall.”
Following her gaze, I looked up as well. All I had noticed was a long, elegant figure, his features blurred by distance and shadow.
“He does seem a little taller than your brother. Do you like him? It looks as though he’s coming down—”
Clara had flushed scarlet and dragged me away.
When we returned home, the go-between brought word that the gentleman had fallen in love at first sight.
It should have been a very fine match.
But on the third day, when Clara made her formal first visit back to her family after the wedding, she came home in tears and complained bitterly. She said that on their wedding night, once her husband lifted her veil, he had thought the bride had been sent to the wrong room.
“Th-that day… was the young lady your sister?”
Clara had stared at him for a moment before exploding in fury. “That was my sister-in-law!”
That was when I learned the man was a complete scoundrel.
Clara cried until she was shaking, wronged to the core.
“Sister-in-law, I know this wasn’t your fault. But if you hadn’t gone with me that day, how could he ever have mistaken you for me?”
Not only had I gained nothing from helping her, I had lost the affection between us as well.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I lowered my eyes and pulled the thread taut between my fingers. “Your brother dislikes it when I show myself in public.”
“Oh, so that’s all.” Clara smiled with her usual frankness. “Then I’ll speak to my brother. He’ll certainly allow it.”
“Allow what, exactly?”
That familiar, gentle voice came from behind me.
Julian had returned.
Why was he home so early from his duties today?
My heart jolted. The needle pricked my fingertip, and a bright bead of blood welled up.
I hid my hand at once and rose to greet him. “Julian.”
He looked at me quietly, his expression unreadable.
Clara laughed under her breath. “You’ve been married into this family for years, cousin, so why are you still like before? Why are you still so afraid of my brother?”
My fingers curled tightly into my palm.
Before I married Julian Ashford, I was only one cousin among many in the family.
We were never well matched.
My parents died of illness when I was still a child, and I was brought to the Ashford Estate to be raised as a dependent ward in my aunt’s household.
Julian’s mother—my aunt, Lady Ashford—showed me endless kindness.
But I had neither strong family backing nor much to recommend me in the marriage market besides a face people liked to praise. Any proper match was either too high for me to reach or too low for me to accept.
When my aunt was bedridden and growing weaker by the day, she ignored the family’s objections and settled my marriage to Julian herself.
At the time, everyone said I was reaching above my station. They pressed me again and again to withdraw of my own accord.
When word reached Julian, he said only that he could not defy his mother’s last wishes, and accepted the engagement.
Because of that, everyone assumed he cared for me.
Only I knew better.
In those days, my aunt had tried every possible way to plan a future for me. Once, she even asked Julian to introduce me to some of his friends from the Royal Academy.
“Julian,” she had said gently, “your cousin’s circumstances are lacking, yes, but she’s such a lovely girl… Help make a few introductions. Perhaps one of them may take a liking to her.”
Julian had set down his book and slowly lifted his eyes to me.
He studied me for a moment.
“She is pretty enough.”
I had lowered my head at once, cheeks burning, foolishly thinking he was praising me.
Then he changed his tone, and the words came over me like a basin of cold water.
“But a woman who relies on beauty to win favor is not fit to be a gentleman’s wife.”
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Only later did I understand. A girl with poor family standing and too much beauty was exactly the kind of marriage prospect noble families avoided most.
She brought no advantage to a household. Worse, choosing her invited whispers—that a man had been ruled by lust, that he had sacrificed judgment and family honor for a pretty face.
Julian had been unwilling too.
He married me in haste. There were none of the full formal marriage rites, no gathered relations, no witnesses. The doors were shut, a single wedding table was laid inside, and that was counted as enough.
After our marriage, he rarely took me anywhere in public.
And in my previous life, after that disastrous misunderstanding, he would not even let me step outside the door.
I spent my whole life cowering, swallowing grievance after grievance until sorrow settled into my body like an illness. In the end, I died with all of it still trapped inside me.
At the edge of death, my mind had already begun to blur.
Yet I still remembered that spring long ago, when someone had mistaken me for an unmarried young lady and chosen me at first sight. Ridiculous as it was, that had been the only moment in my life when I had truly been wanted.
I could not let it go.
So I clutched at Julian and said the cruelest thing I could.
“Julian Ashford, everyone said I was the one who climbed too high when I married you. But now? Looking at it now, even without you, I might not have married badly at all.”
His face had gone deathly white.
Only then had I felt a shred of relief.
Only then had I finally breathed out that last bitter breath.
And then I opened my eyes again—
and saw him once more.
My chest tightened.
“This is what it means to live together with perfect courtesy.”
Julian sat down beside me, took my hand, and pressed a handkerchief against my fingertip.
He had actually noticed that tiny cut.
I froze for a moment. Instinctively, I tried to pull my hand back, but his grip tightened.
“What were you saying just now?”
“Julian, I want Lydia to come with me to the courtship meeting.” Clara looked at him expectantly. “It concerns my whole future. You’ll say yes, won’t you?”
I waited for his answer.
In my previous life, he had said, Go ahead, as casually as if it were nothing at all.
But this time, he said, “No.”
I stared at him.
Julian clasped my hand more firmly and said in a cool voice, “If you want to go, go by yourself. Don’t bring her.”
Clara looked as if she could not believe what she had heard. “You—you want me to go alone?”
Julian nodded, perfectly composed.
“If you insist on taking her with you, do you think anyone will even notice you?”
That made Clara flare up at once.
“Julian, aren’t you a little too obsessed with my sister-in-law?” she snapped. “He’s the heir to the marquessate. You can’t seriously think he’d take an interest in a married woman.”
Julian’s eyes narrowed slightly. His breathing deepened.
“With that sort of man,” he said, “who can say?”
My thoughts turned to chaos.