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Chapter 11
Finally, it was time for the bride to enter. Walking toward the chapel, I took a deep breath and calmed my nervous heart.
‘This time, I won’t die. I won’t become a pitiful duchess like Kayla.’
I firmly made that vow and stepped into the chapel with confidence.
The massive doors swung wide open on both sides, and all the nobles seated inside rose to their feet and turned to look at me.
The red wedding aisle felt endlessly long. At its end, Ricardo stood with one hand behind his back.
Everyone else turned to face the bride, but he didn’t even turn his body to welcome her. It was a bitter scene that showed just how unpleasant and detestable this marriage was to him.
‘Same here.’
No matter how he felt about me, I kept walking steadily down the aisle. Since I’d ended up possessing this body anyway, I imagined there was a bright escape waiting at the end.
“I heard the Empress brought her. Some distant relative, they say.”
“The Empress is truly cruel. No matter how much she hates the duke, how could she present such an unsuitable bride? Tsk tsk.”
“Exactly. Look at how much merit the duke has earned. He could have married any princess of a kingdom and it wouldn’t have been strange.”
As I passed by, I could hear the whispers of the people around me. It felt like I had become an animal in a zoo.
“But she’s quite pretty. The Empress isn’t entirely heartless after all.”
“Well, she’s better than expected, but she can’t compare to Lady Gineiro. Didn’t the marquis’s daughter like the duke for a long time?”
“That’s true. It seemed like the Gineiro marquis family would make him their son-in-law. But how could the Empress just let that happen? Think of the political influence of that marriage.”
The people nodded as if it all made sense.
By then, I had walked the seemingly endless aisle and finally approached the platform where the bishop stood.
Ricardo, who had been looking straight ahead, reluctantly turned toward me. For a moment, a flicker of something unfamiliar passed through his eyes, but his coldness remained unchanged.
With his dark expression, it was hard to tell whether this was a wedding or a funeral.
‘Right. He’s not happy. Neither am I.’
Who would be happy in a forced marriage? Still, if people were already whispering in front of the bride, he could at least try to manage his expression.
I took his large hand and stepped up onto the platform.
Standing beside him, I half-listened to the bishop’s boring sermon and recited hollow vows. His marriage oath was just as dry and empty as mine.
“By the authority of God, I now declare you one.”
At the bishop’s words, the final moment arrived—the kiss that would seal the marriage.
Under the glittering gazes of everyone watching, he half-turned toward me. Somehow, I felt slightly tense too, gripping my bouquet tightly.
‘Don’t shake. It’s just a formality.’
As he held my chin and lowered his head, our eyes met.
He looked down at my wavering gaze indifferently, then brushed his lips briefly somewhere between my lips and cheek.
It was a cold, perfunctory kiss, as if he were merely completing an obligation.
Then he quickly turned away as though he couldn’t bear to touch me at all. Seeing that, I let out a faint, self-mocking laugh without realizing it. I hadn’t expected a passionate kiss, but I still wondered if he really disliked me that much.
Now I finally understood why Kayla had remained so depressed after her wedding in the original story. I knew what kind of cold-blooded man Ricardo was, but for Kayla—who might have felt even a small flutter meeting him—it must have been heartbreaking.
And so, a wedding devoid of warmth came to an end. Like a bride who had been dragged there, there were no family members from my side, no friends to congratulate me—just an emotionless ceremony. Only the Empress in the front row seemed satisfied.
Before returning to the palace, she held my hands in front of the carriage and said,
“I trust you will do well from now on. Now that you are the duchess, devote yourself to your position.”
What a way to speak—not as congratulations, but as a reminder of duty. Meanwhile, she looked relieved, as if her own responsibility was finally over.
“Yes. I will keep it in mind, Your Majesty.”
I smiled a thoroughly fake smile, and as I watched the Emperor and Empress leave in their carriage, I felt a sharp gaze from beside me.
Ricardo was watching me coldly, as if he already knew what the Empress had said.
The fake smile still on my lips disappeared the moment I met his eyes. He turned away sharply and left. Cold wind seemed to swirl around me as I was left alone.
After that chaotic wedding, night had fallen before I knew it.
The mansion’s night was so quiet it was hard to believe a wedding had even taken place that day. The bridal chamber was so calm I could almost hear candle flames flickering.
The room prepared for the duke and duchess was larger and more luxurious than the guest room I had stayed in, but I felt no comfort at all.
I took off the wedding dress and put on an uncomfortable indoor gown, then sat blankly on the large bed.
For a short while I sat there like a bride waiting for her groom, then immediately stood up without hesitation.
‘That should be enough, right?’
Just as I reached for the bell rope to call Molly and change clothes, I stopped.
If I called her now, she would definitely—
“Oh my. To think the bride would spend her first night alone. How pitiful, abandoned on her wedding night.”
Rather than hearing Molly’s sneering voice, it seemed better for my mental health to change on my own.
Knowing no one would step into this room tonight, I quickly undressed without hesitation. I loosened the suffocating layers that clung like shackles until only thin undergarments remained, and only then could I breathe properly again.
“Ha… I thought I was going to suffocate.”
Stretching my freed body, I quickly changed into the nightgown prepared beside me. It was long and soft, slightly inconvenient because it exposed my shoulders, but it felt light and smooth as if I were wearing nothing at all.
“Better to live a little as a duchess than suffer to death as a maid.”
Holding the silk nightgown slipping through my fingers, I spun once in front of the mirror and then flopped onto the bed. It felt as soft as lying on swan feathers.
“Wow… this is amazing.”
I lay there waving my arms like a child playing angel in a snowfield, then suddenly remembered something and opened my eyes wide.
“Right. That was there.”
The important(?) thing left on the table came to mind.
“I almost fell asleep without even trying it.”
Smiling brightly, I jumped up.
In the middle of the room was a table decorated with flowers for the duke and duchess.
A crystal bottle filled with deep red liquor, slender glasses, and light desserts that looked sweet enough to melt in your mouth.
I couldn’t just leave something like that untouched and go to sleep.
‘Come to think of it… is this my first time since possessing this body?’
In the real world, after coming home exhausted from work, I would take a shower and crack open a cold beer from the fridge. That was my small daily happiness. And now I had woken up to something like this.
“Alright. Let’s have a taste.”
I poured the red liquor into a glass and brought it to my lips—and oh my god. This sweet, fragrant taste must be heavenly.
The tension and pressure from the wedding melted away instantly, and my body grew languid.
Bittersweet and sweet at the same time, it went down my throat smoothly. When I put a soft, cotton-candy-like dessert in my mouth, I closed my eyes in admiration.
Holding the glass in one hand, I stood up and slowly walked around the spacious room. Even barefoot, the soft carpet tickled my toes, making it feel like I was walking on clouds.
‘What if Kayla had just quietly enjoyed being a duchess like this?’
What if she had kept her distance from Ricardo, done her duties as duchess, and after he became emperor, quietly left with some compensation? If she hadn’t tried to aim for the empress position and had stepped back cleanly—would she still have died?
Yelena was the woman who had stayed by Ricardo’s side since his difficult days. No matter what Kayla did, she could never have taken Yelena’s place.
‘She must have only drawn hatred by getting jealous and trying to frame her.’
Jealousy blinds people and turns them foolish, but why did she always get caught and end up harming only herself? The original Kayla was truly incomprehensible.
‘Come to think of it… how much time is left?’
I stopped walking and tried to recall when Zeno Harbaston would arrive in the capital, and when he would appear in the story.
