Chapter 1: The Beginning of It All – At the Church

The priest addressed the groom.

“Do you vow to love this woman and spend your life together with her?”

“Yes, I do.”

His strong, resonant voice echoed against the church’s high ceiling.

At that moment, a white dove flew in through the skylight.
The dove fluttered its wings, perched on the window frame, and tilted its head slightly.

My gaze lingered on the dove.

As I watched the pure white bird, I suddenly felt my heart grow lighter.

Ah, it’s fine now.

If I am going to die anyway, then I may as well do things my way.

The priest turned to address the bride.

“Do you vow to love this man and spend your life together with him?”

“I do not vow.
I will not marry him.”

I said it in a small voice.
My voice was trembling.

After a moment of stunned silence, a wave of murmurs erupted.

The priest leaned forward slightly and whispered to me.

“Please calm yourself.
I will ask again, so please answer once more.
It will be all right.”

I awkwardly turned around.
Still looking diagonally downward, I spoke rapidly.

“I do not vow.
I will not marry him.”

My father hurriedly stood up from his seat and came up near the altar.

“Maria, what is going on?
You were looking forward to this wedding so much.”

Though spoken quietly, my father’s tone was firm.
I snapped, and shouted all at once.

“When did I ever say such a thing?
Put your hand on your chest and think carefully.
Up until now, how many times—how many times—how many times have I told you I didn’t want this!
How.
Many.
Times!”

Because of my tension, my thin voice sounded higher than usual.
Even as it happened, I calmly thought that I sounded hysterical.

Mother also stepped forward.
Standing one step ahead of Father, she stretched her arm toward me in appeal.

“But I truly do not understand why you dislike it so much.
What exactly do you find objectionable?
It is a flawless marriage.”

“And with that logic, you never once listened properly to what I had to say.
I hate it so much I would rather die!”

“Big Sister, what on earth is wrong with you?”

My brother and my delicate younger sister came up beside our parents.
All four of them looked utterly shocked and flustered.

The guests also seemed unable to hide their astonishment.

After all, the groom was a handsome elite, the eldest son of a marquis family serving in the Royal Guard.
He was a match any noble house would desperately want.

The groom himself seemed so stunned that he simply stood there, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

No one had ever truly listened to what I had to say.

That was partly my own fault, for being timid and unable to assert myself clearly.

I had tried my hardest to express myself indirectly and gently, but no one took me seriously, and things had ended up like this.

I took a deep breath.
Clenching the bouquet with trembling hands, I spoke.

“He has a mistress he is hiding.
And a daughter.”

“…What are you saying?
Why would you say such a thing?”

Jason, the groom, spoke to me as if genuinely shocked.
I glared sharply at him and took a step back.

My father turned to Jason and the guests and offered an apology.

“I am terribly sorry.
My daughter is likely confused from the stress.
Please forgive her.”

Jason briefly smirked, hiding it behind his sleeve, then rearranged his face into a serious expression.

“I had no idea she had become this unstable.
Is it wedding jitters?
Even so, I love her deeply.
From now on, I will support her.
Right, Maria?
You can rely on me without worry.”

As he spoke, he extended his arm toward me with concern.

The guests whispered awkwardly among themselves.
It was not uncommon for noblemen to have mistresses or illegitimate children.

However, for such matters to reach the bride’s ears before the wedding was unacceptable.
Either it should have been resolved beforehand, or hidden completely.
Because of this, Jason would likely be whispered about as immature.

The women frowned, while the men shifted restlessly.
Some married couples even looked as though they feared this situation might spill over onto them.

“There was no need to say this here and now.”

When Father muttered that softly, I replied in a trembling voice.

“But no matter how indirectly I tried to say it, so that I wouldn’t have to reveal everything, you never listened to me at all.”

I paused once, then spoke clearly and loudly—far louder than I ever had before.

“That is why I will say it here, where you have no choice but to listen to my words.”

That alone shocked my parents, my sister, and my friends.

“Maria, this is a misunderstanding.
I do not know who told you such things, but they are malicious lies.
Please believe me.”

Jason looked at me sorrowfully, wearing a sincere expression.
This was his usual tactic.

Everyone would be swayed, and I would once again be treated lightly as an unstable, unreliable young lady.

That was how things had gone for the entire year since our engagement.

Ever since I returned from death two months ago, I had struggled desperately to change it, yet failed.

“No.
What exactly am I supposed to believe about you?”

“My love for you.
Everyone here knows how deeply I love you.”

He gazed at me with melting eyes and displayed his charming smile to those around us.
The guests nodded as though convinced.

“Maria, Lord Jason says he will forgive you.
Apologize now, while you still can.”

“That’s right, Maria.
Hurry.”

Once again, the same pattern.

It always ended like this.
Worse still, this incident would help spread the notion that I was unstable.
It was practically aiding Jason’s misdeeds.

At that moment, the dove suddenly took flight with a loud flutter of wings.

I stared at its white feathers.
Those small white wings fluttered as though beckoning me.

I made up my mind.
I would move forward from here.
…In order to live.

“If you all continue to belittle my words, then I will say it plainly here.
Jason intends to murder me and make it look like a suicide, and he has already arranged to remarry afterward.
If I am going to be killed anyway, then I will expose everything here and now.”

The hall fell completely silent.

Such words were unthinkable coming from a bride in a church.

“That is outrageous.”

Jason had gone pale.

“I will refrain from naming the woman, but she is a slender young lady with pale blond hair and blue-gray eyes, someone you have been close with for several years now.
She has a beauty mark beneath her eye.”

Jason faltered.
At the same time, his friends and acquaintances stiffened in shock.
The description matched the rumored young lady perfectly.

“If you think I have gone mad, then so be it.
I was driven mad by being forced into a marriage I despised.
So let us call off the engagement.”

“There are things you can say and things you cannot.”

Jason snarled.

“The child is one year old, correct?
She has the same silver hair as you, doesn’t she?
Why don’t you have someone investigate?
You will find out quickly.
After all, she is being raised by a wet nurse.”

I saw the viscountess, the wet nurse, flinch violently.

From the altar, it was very easy to see the guests’ heads all turn toward her at once.
It was almost amusing, like watching herd behavior in animals.

“I have also heard that the woman has entered the marquis estate disguised as a maid assigned to me.
What exactly was that for?”

As the details grew more specific, the guests began to look genuinely unsettled.

Having a mistress or an illegitimate child was one thing, but bringing the mistress in as the bride’s maid, or entrusting the child to one’s own wet nurse, crossed a line.
It was far too disturbing.

Dragged along by my mention of murder, they were likely imagining dangerous motives.

“This is impossible.
It’s a misunderstanding.
And how would you even know such things?”

That was a problem.
I could hardly say it was because I had returned from death.

I broke into a cold sweat and fell silent for a moment, then noticed the marriage registry papers before me.
An idea struck.

I smiled slowly.

“One day, letters began to arrive.
They were signed as coming from a well-meaning third party, an acquaintance of the woman in question.”

“You mean to say you believed letters from someone you don’t even know?”

“I didn’t believe them at first.
But when I once visited the marquis estate, I saw a woman very much like the one described.
The next time, she was holding a child and discussing the child’s education with the wet nurse.
If you didn’t know better, you would have thought she was the future marchioness.”

The marquis and marchioness froze, their faces turning pale.
They must have recognized her.
Jason was pale as well.

“If you wanted to marry her that badly, why not simply marry her instead of killing me and remarrying afterward?
Ah, my apologies.
You couldn’t do that, which is why you took the extra step of lowering the hurdle to marrying her, wasn’t it?”

The wet nurse clutched her husband the viscount’s arm and fled the scene in a hurry.
The sound of their running footsteps echoed strangely loud.

“The wet nurse is trying to let them escape.
Their destination is the marquis estate, isn’t it?
She is there disguised as my newly appointed maid.
That alone proves my words were true.”

The guests, who had been listening half in doubt, watched the couple flee and their expressions twisted.
If my claims were false, there would have been no need for them to run.

“After pulling something like this, you’ll never be able to marry for the rest of your life.”

Jason discarded his good-natured mask and advanced toward me as if about to grab me.
Seeing his face, I smiled.

“So that’s your true face.
It’s far better than that creepy smile you wore before.”

“Big Sister, if things were really like this, you should have told us.”

At my sister’s pained voice, I snapped my gaze toward her.

“I told you again and again that I didn’t want this.
Try remembering your own attitudes.
What do you mean, a momentary lapse of judgment?
If that’s the case, then I’ll let someone take my place.
Someone marry him for me.”

I thrust the bouquet, one by one, toward my sister, my friends, and even my romantic rivals—those who had tried to persuade me and push me toward him.

“Marrying him is supposed to be bliss beyond heaven, right?
I’m going to throw this bouquet now.
How about it—whoever catches it gets that happiness?”

I called out, “Here it comes,” and hurled the bouquet with all my strength.

The bouquet traced a beautiful arc toward the group of young women.

In that instant, people scattered away, and the bouquet fell with a thud onto an empty chair.
No one tried to catch it.

Not only my friends, but Lady Annabel, who had envied my engagement to him, and even Lady Belle and Lady Cyril, who had gone so far as to harass me.

The people watching the bouquet from afar looked at it as though it were something cursed.

“Oh my, how strange.
No one seems to want that happiness.
…Do you understand?
I don’t want it either.”

“This is terrible.
Your life as a noble lady is over.”

At Father’s words, I smiled and replied.

“Yes.
That’s why I tried until now to escape quietly without revealing everything.
But that was completely impossible, so I chose my final option.
If I was going to be killed anyway, I decided to risk my life.
Or would you rather I marry him as a noble’s daughter and be labeled as having committed suicide from melancholy less than a year later?”

Father fell silent, and Mother spoke instead, squeezing out the words.

“I thought it was for your happiness.”

My face twisted slightly.
That goodwill and love… and the casual disregard mixed into it, had exhausted me beyond measure.

The priest peered into my face.

“Miss Maria.
This is an act from which there is no return.
Do you understand that?”

“It is fine.
I realized that when you resolve yourself to die, you can do anything, Father.
Right here before this altar.
When the white dove flew in.
It may have been a revelation from God.”

Jason tried desperately to break the atmosphere and lunged at me with words.

“Everything you said is baseless slander.
I never imagined I would suffer such a grave insult.
Show us these so-called letters as proof.”

“I burned all the letters.
They were not something I could take into my marital home.
And when did you plan to start administering the poison?
It was a poison meant to weaken and kill me over several months, wasn’t it?
It hasn’t been carried out yet, so the only thing I can prove now is the existence of a daughter who looks just like you.”

“I don’t have a child.
And even if there were a similar-looking child, you couldn’t prove she’s mine.”

“That’s true.
And honestly, I’m glad it was discovered at this stage.
I was actually considering sending the sugar mixed with poison for inspection.
I even know where the poison is stored.
But I didn’t know if that would work.
After all, I was constantly being watched by your maid.
That’s why I was planning to leave a will.
If I had done so, you and the woman who actually administered the poison might have ended up on the gallows.”

The man’s face twisted in shock.
The poison had been intended to be mixed into the sugar used during tea.
Anyone would turn pale after being exposed so thoroughly.
Well, you were the one who told me, after all.

“…Oh my.
It seems I did something good.”

I smiled at the priest, who was staring at me with his mouth hanging open.

“It was God’s will.
I prevented three deaths and one child from becoming an orphan.”

From now on, I may be cast out of noble society.

But I have decided not to regret it.

Still—this frozen atmosphere.

I felt sorry for the gathered guests and for the priest.

As for the man standing beside me in stunned silence—he truly did not matter at all.

If anything, I wanted to punch him.

Suppressing that urge, I quickly stepped down from the altar.