Sister, In This Life I’ll Become Queen
Cesare let out a sneer.
“Isabella was mine from the very beginning! She was a woman meant for me. The most beautiful woman belongs to the strongest male. Do you have any idea how much humiliation I felt when your father shoved you forward instead of your sister?”
Ariadne stared blankly at Cesare, her mouth agape.
“Your sister was the most beautiful lady in San Carlo. When I sent a proposal, that damn man shoved you in her place! I was so incensed! What on earth was I lacking?”
With Ariadne right in front of him, Cesare was spilling out every detail of his bitterness over being rejected.
Ariadne had been a ‘good woman.’ She had repeatedly accepted such nonsensical behavior from her own man. That was the only way she had ever learned to be loved.
She could never compete in looks with her stunningly beautiful sister. She loved to study, but her irritable stepmother had constantly hindered her, using the excuse that academics were not a virtue for a young lady, so she had not been able to learn much.
Ariadne had to be ‘good.’ She was not naturally docile or kind. But she had carved out a place for herself in a world that wouldn’t give her space by letting go of her own desires, yielding, bowing her head, apologizing, and being submissive. That was what she had believed. Until today.
“Was I just a replacement?”
A smile of disbelief etched itself onto Cesare’s face, which was as handsome as a statue carved from marble. It was a laugh bordering on madness.
“A replacement?”
He strode forward, reached out, and tilted Ariadne’s chin up. He spat out every word as if it were being forced through his teeth.
“You’d have to be a substitute to be a replacement. You aren’t even a replacement.”
Even as she trembled, Ariadne scrutinized every expression on Cesare’s face.
The upper lip he curled to show his fangs when angry; the high bridge of his nose and the handsome, reddish-brown brows that followed; the prominent brow ridge, and the way the muscles above it twitched with rage.
And his deep blue eyes. Those eyes were filled with an incomprehensible, cold blue fury.
She knew Cesare all too well. He was a man her mind could not comprehend, but she had internalized his patterns in her heart. She had a feeling that today would be the last day she would ever see him.
He roughly shoved aside the hand that had been gripping her chin. Unable to withstand the man’s strength, Ariadne fell as if she were being dragged across the bedroom floor.
“Get out of my sight. And never show yourself again.”
There had been countless hints. It was she herself who had foolishly sat there, chewing on hope like a cow ruminating its cud.
She had known it would come to this.
* * *
Cardinal Del Mare was a man of the cloth, but like many other clergymen of that era, he had several children.
His mistress, Lucrezia, was of noble birth. She had borne three children by the Cardinal and behaved as if she were the rightful wife. Those three children, too, were raised like the offspring of a great noble house.
The second child and eldest daughter among them, Isabella, was only sixteen, yet her beauty made her renowned in high society; she was Lucrezia’s treasure and Cardinal Del Mare’s pride.
“Father. I don’t want to marry that man.”
With skin like a peach and flaxen hair, she whined cutely to Cardinal Del Mare. Her eyes, which resembled amethysts, twinkled pitifully.
“They say he is as savage as a beast. And there are rumors that he is an illegitimate child.”
Cardinal Del Mare stroked the hair of his angelic, beautiful daughter.
“Yes, yes, this father knows. Though it is announced that he is the Prince’s cousin, he is in fact the King’s bastard. I have no intention of marrying my daughter off to a bastard.”
He spoke as if his children were legitimate heirs. Isabella smiled faintly. As the hint of a laugh touched her innocent face, she resembled a delicate fairy for a fleeting moment.
“Father, you always told me to let the name of the De Mare family resound through the land. I will become the most beautiful and noble woman in this kingdom. I cannot settle for being a mere Countess.”
Cardinal Del Mare nodded in agreement.
“Let us say our Isabella has been bedridden for a while. We cannot force a sick child to marry.”
“But we cannot ignore the marriage proposal from Count De Como, can we?”
A cold voice cut in from behind. It was Lucrezia, the Cardinal’s mistress.
“They say he will soon become the Warden of the Marches; we must not offend him.”
The Warden of the Marches served as the guardian of the kingdom’s borders. While the title carried military authority, it necessitated leaving the capital. For Count De Como, the appointment left one wondering if it were a promotion or an exile.
One thing was certain: Cesare De Como, the Warden of the Marches, was not the match they wanted for their precious daughter. They could not send Isabella to the remote countryside, to a man who might perish in a skirmish at any moment.
However, if they spurned a Warden who held military power, it could spell disaster should he harbor treasonous thoughts and march upon the capital. They could not sacrifice their most valuable pawn, yet they had to keep the alliance intact. Since it was a link they might need to discard at any moment, the less significant the tie, the better.
“Bastards belong with bastards. Send Ariadne, your Eminence.”
“Ariadne… that is a name I have not heard in a long time.”
Cardinal Del Mare smiled brightly.
* * *
Ariadne’s mother had been a maid to Lucrezia. On a day of heavy rain, a heavily intoxicated Cardinal Del Mare had taken the maid instead of his mistress, and when Lucrezia discovered the transgression, she flew into a rage.
But the maid was already carrying the Cardinal’s seed. The child born was neither a son, nor did she resemble the Cardinal in the slightest—she was a daughter.
The maid was confined to a tower room immediately after childbirth and died within a few years. Since being torn from her mother’s arms, Ariadne had been raised in the servants’ quarters.
Without proper education, Ariadne could not write, paint, or play any instruments. Then, in the spring of the year she turned fifteen, the Cardinal’s butler, Niccolo, informed her that ‘Lady’ Ariadne was to pack her bags and move into the inner castle.
At the time, she had truly believed her father finally remembered her. She thought she, too, had a family; she believed the noble house beyond the castle walls had finally forgiven her mother’s lowly status and accepted her as one of their own.
Family, my foot.
If a family was defined by sinking straws into your marrow to drain you dry, only to deliver a crushing blow the moment your utility faded, then the Cardinal’s three children and Ariadne were a perfect family.
* * *
「We accept your request. The daughter of the House of De Mare shall be betrothed to Count De Como.」
When Cesare De Como held this reply in his hands, he was overjoyed. Isabella, the only daughter the Cardinal had introduced to society, was every man’s sweetheart and ultimate goal. To have secured her was a testament to his status as the most formidable man in the capital.
With porcelain-white skin, a soft peachy flush on her cheeks, and hair like spun flax, Isabella’s beauty mirrored that of an angel from a holy painting. Occasionally, when a smile graced those amethyst eyes, she was as playful as a fairy from ancient myths.
But she was at her most supreme when she wore a somber expression. When sadness shadowed that noble, innocent, statue-like beauty, no one could help but desperately yearn to soothe her distress.
And that was exactly how Isabella appeared before Cesare De Como now.
“Lady Isabella, why do you look so troubled?”
“…”
“Are you not pleased with me? Though I hold a noble title rather than the right of succession, I am still the King’s cousin and Count De Como. The estate I shall soon inherit is vast and beautiful. Among all the nobles in the capital, there is no better match than I. I would risk everything to ensure your happiness…!”
Isabella De Mare cut him off.
“It is not me.”
“Pardon?”
“I am not the one intended to be engaged to Count Cesare.”
Cesare faltered, flustered. “But the proposal letter… it clearly contained an affirmative response.”
Isabella lifted her eyes, which shimmered like amethysts, and gazed at him with a look of pity.
“The ‘daughter of De Mare’ addressed in that proposal is my younger sister, Ariadne De Mare. She is a poor, sheltered girl, little known to high society.”
Her voice was slender, melodious, and sounded like celestial music to Cesare’s ears.
“My sister made such a fuss, begging Father for a chance at a life beyond our walls, demanding at least to be married to the most excellent man in the Etruscan Kingdom. She was so stubborn that none of us could stop her.”
Isabella lowered her golden lashes and let out a soft, pained sigh.
“I… have lived having so much more than she. So, Father told me that this time, I must yield to her desires, and thus—”
Tears welled up in her violet eyes. As if wishing to hide her sorrow, she deliberately bowed her head.
“I cannot defy my father, Count Cesare.”
The sight of her frail, bowed frame was heart-wrenching.
“I have admired you from afar ever since the High Mass, Count Cesare. But we are to become family now, are we not? Such feelings of affection are forbidden between kin. Please, bury this emotion deep within your heart and remember me only with kindness and goodwill.”
This makes no sense. Cesare, who had been listening spellbound, finally found his voice.
“But…!”
“Shh.”
Isabella raised a finger, gently pressing it against his lips. The white, translucent skin brushed his mouth, a sudden, searing contact that left Cesare gasping.
“Ariadne is a kind child. Please, treat her well. I only came because I wanted to tell you this myself.”
With that, Isabella De Mare turned and tripped away from the great chapel toward her family’s pew.
Cesare stared at her retreating figure in a daze, until he suddenly spotted a gauze lace handkerchief lying on the floor.
He snatched it up and cherished it, tucking it into his breast pocket. He longed to catch its scent, but even that felt like an act of sacrilege. A faint warmth radiated from the fabric against his chest. He pressed his right hand over his heart, where the handkerchief lay hidden.
Thump, thump.
His heartbeat throbbed. He could not tell if his heart raced from the lingering, intoxicating arousal of Isabella’s touch, or if it echoed with the fury of a man who had seen his prize stolen right before his eyes.
He lifted his gaze to see Cardinal Del Mare, who was chatting with the nobility, and a black-haired girl standing beside him, her head bowed low.
The girl was awkwardly tall, her posture hunched not like the pampered daughter of a high noble, but like a servant accustomed to menial labor. Her sun-tanned skin looked dreadfully countrified.
He glared relentlessly at the Cardinal in his white robes and at the black-haired girl cowering at his side.
I was on the verge of holding the golden trophy. Those two have ruined my life.
* * *
“Giacomo!”
“Yes, your grace, the Regent!”
“Take Lady Ariadne to the top of the west tower for convalescence. She has been struck by madness and is unable to fulfill her duties as Queen. Since she is an eyesore, handle it discreetly. I want no one to see her coming or going.”
“Yes, your grace!”
—Clang!