That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 2

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 2

Bridget followed her husband toward the Study.
Her face composed, her dress impeccable, her manner calm.
‘I could never have done this before.’
The moment she saw her closest friend descend from the carriage behind her husband, she had lost all composure.
Seized by a betrayal that felt like the world collapsing, she had wept and raged, tearing at Penelope’s hair.
When the servants finally pulled her away, she had sunk to the dirt and wept.
Years had passed since then, worn smooth by living through an entire lifetime; the feelings she’d carried that day had faded almost entirely. But then—her heart had shattered.
It was not simply Penelope’s fault, nor Isaac’s alone.
Bridget had lived her whole life as dutiful, obedient, and sacrificial.
She believed that was what she was meant to do—that everyone would be happy, and that she, too, would find happiness eventually.
But during those months of neglect by her husband, she had come to a quiet realization: it seemed she was only growing more miserable.
This marriage itself was unwanted, forced upon her by her own brother, demanding she abandon the man she loved.
I was never the master of my own life.
The moment that truth crystallized, Isaac and Penelope arrived.
The fragile heart she’d barely held together simply shattered.
Why did the world treat her this way?
Family, friends, her husband—why did none of them
grant her a single ally?
That day, Bridget lost her composure for the first time.
She had raged and struck out only once in her entire life.
Yet even that single moment was not forgiven her.
What followed was a catastrophic backlash.
“Don’t make this any messier, Bridget! Do you know how humiliating this is for me?”
The image of Isaac, jaw clenched as though he might strangle her, glaring down at her with such contempt, remained vivid even now.
That look of utter disdain, those eyes burning with murderous intent—they had haunted her dreams ever since, tormenting her relentlessly.
Bridget had been naive.
She did not know how to tend to her own heart, how to stand against injustice, or how to reclaim her rights.
So she begged Isaac’s forgiveness, prostrating herself before him.
The household servants were the first to recognize that their mistress was a fool who could not find her own voice.
All human relationships operate through power.
Not only between king and subject, but in seemingly equal bonds—between spouses, friends, siblings.
How much more so between mistress and servant?
The servants looked down on Bridget, now stripped of her authority, and condemned her.
A ridiculous superior became an object of outright contempt.
“Even so, she was with child, and Madam grabbed her by the hair. That was too much. A simple word would have sufficed.”
“How can a noble lady be so brutish? I was absolutely shocked. To resort to violence, no less.”
“And then she just sank to the ground wailing. I’m still embarrassed thinking about it.”
At first, the servants had pitied her, but soon they preferred ridicule. They even gave her a ridiculous nickname, calling her Bridget the Blundering, and mocked her relentlessly.
To the common folk, this scandal was delicious gossip about the upper classes. They spread this entertaining tale with abandon.
Bridget’s story swelled and twisted with each retelling.
“How shameful, Bridget! You’ve dragged the Winston Family name through the mud! Do you know what everyone is saying about you? The Winston lady with her petticoats showing, Bridget the Blundering!”
Her mother-in-law hurled a bundle of Gossip Columns at Bridget’s face.
The illustrations showed Bridget sitting on the ground, legs bare, weeping, rendered as an absurdly ridiculous scene.
It was a false image, drawn by an anonymous illustrator who had heard only distorted rumors.
Yet Bridget, cornered psychologically, accepted it as truth and, her face flushed with shame, bowed her head to her mother-in-law.
“I’m so sorry, Mother.”
“Why must you always be so helpless and crude? A man taking a mistress—what’s so remarkable about that? Tch, how ridiculous you are.”
“I…”
“This is evidence that you’ve damaged the Winston Family’s reputation, and it will be submitted to the Divorce Trial!”
After that, Isaac and his mother used the incident as leverage to swing the divorce to their advantage.
The jurors focused not on Isaac’s infidelity but on Bridget’s conduct, which had become the scandal of the Gossip Columns.
The situation was dire.
It was Penelope’s assault lawsuit that became the final blow for Bridget.
Young and naive, Bridget found herself with nowhere to turn, driven to the cliff’s edge.
Overnight, Bridget became the perpetrator who had given cause for the divorce.
She was stripped not only of alimony but also of the property she had brought into the marriage, and faced expulsion from the Winston Estate.
Under the weight of society’s scorn, Bridget trembled with shame day after day.
Her own family deemed her utterly disgraced.
“Bridget, your aggressive actions stem from an unsound mind.”
Her brother Josh insisted that she had gone mad.
“I beg your clemency, Lord Bellingham. My sister committed these acts while in a state of diminished judgment.”
After their father’s death, every decision in her family fell to Josh’s hands.
In the end, Bridget could not even return to her childhood home.
With nowhere to go, Bridget had no choice but to enter the Convent—a captivity by another name.
Having lost her husband, her friends, and her family, Bridget brooded endlessly.
Was I truly so wrong? Deserving of such condemnation from all sides?
I should have held back.
I should have kept my composure, no matter how wounded I felt.
I destroyed everything.
It was all my fault.
As everyone repeated this refrain, she sank deeper into despair’s quicksand.
Her regrets were countless.
She came to realize—far too late—that emotion alone could never solve anything; appeals to people’s conscience and morality were powerless against their indifference.
Bridget discovered, long after the fact, that people hate not the one who actually committed the wrong, but rather the one who refuses to suffer in silence and instead poisons the atmosphere with revelation.
If only she could go back and act differently.
Differently from beginning to end.
‘What should I have done then?’
Self-reproach festered into illness, and regret stole even the strength to overcome it.
Bridget perished miserably in a convent renowned for its harsh discipline, succumbing to malnutrition and exhaustion.
Yet fate, for reasons unknown, reversed time and returned her to the past.
‘I changed the past.’
This day, arrived like a miracle once more, Bridget had changed the past.
Exactly as she had rehearsed hundreds, thousands of times in her mind.
Now, save for herself, no one knew the Bridget she had been before.
‘This life must be different.’
Isaac stood at the far end of the corridor, the Study door open behind him, watching her approach.
Despite the urgency in his gaze and the chill of his demeanor, Bridget did not shrink back or quicken her pace as she once would have.
She no longer cared to win her husband’s favor, and so had no reason to second-guess herself.
She would walk at her own pace, guided by no one else’s will.
She lifted her foot with unhurried, measured grace.
* * *
Upon entering the Study, Isaac closed the door behind him and gestured to a seat.
“Bridget, you’ve seen the news, I’m sure.”
“Yes, I’m aware. I have eyes and ears like anyone else.”
Bridget cut in smoothly, seizing control of the conversation.
“I hear Penelope took excellent care of you during your time in the Russel Kingdom.”
Isaac regarded her with an expression of bewilderment.
Bridget smiled sweetly.
“How fortunate that was. I worried so much when you left without a word right after the wedding, unable to follow—grateful, truly, that Penelope was able to fulfill what should have been my duty.”
“Don’t twist your words. If you mean to blame me, I’ve no interest in hearing it. Just leave. I’ve no patience for feminine jealousy.”
Isaac fixed her with a cold stare.
Jealousy? Bridget nearly laughed aloud.
“How could I be jealous? I was only relieved that someone as reliable as Penelope was at your side.”
“Relieved?”
“Before her widowhood, everyone knew how faithfully she served her aging husband. One hardly needs to witness how well she served you to understand it.”
The word “served” carried a barb Bridget had carefully placed, though Isaac, his mind elsewhere, did not catch it.
Penelope’s late husband, Earl Bellingham, had been over eighty when he married the twenty-year-old Penelope.
The Earl had been seeking a wife who would nurse him through his final years.
Though many nobility married for advantage regardless of age, such a disparity and so transparent a reason had become the jest of High Society.
Whatever Penelope’s true feelings toward her husband, the epithet “dutiful wife” that people applied to her was laden with mockery.
Isaac knew well enough how much gossip Penelope had generated during her four years of marriage.
Of course, being distant from High Society, he scarcely understood the full scope of it.
He knew only that Penelope had truly been devoted to her husband.
Learning of his lover’s past uninvited, Isaac’s brow furrowed with discomfort.
It was only natural to wish never to be reminded of a lover’s history, no matter how much one knew of it.
Hearing about his lover’s past from his wife’s own lips was hardly a pleasant affair.
Isaac thought Bridget was pretending everything was fine, clinging to what little pride she had left.
Was this what it meant to be a woman from an aristocratic family?
‘Convenient.’
Even as he sneered at her, he found it not disagreeable.
“In any case, I’m grateful you’re not taking this matter too sensitively. Keep it this way from now on.”
He spoke as though praising her, but it was thorough contempt.
Still, Bridget simply nodded quietly.
Be satisfied. Be reassured.
Never knowing the cheese in the trap you’re eating.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————