That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28

“The Countess Winston has departed, Your Highness.”
……
Julian’s brow furrowed. But that was all—no other reaction followed.
Milea approached him and examined his wounds, then applied salve to them.
He was always covered in cuts from handling his body so carelessly, but the fresh wound on his palm from a few days ago struck her as peculiar.
Milea glanced at the handkerchief laid out on the small table beside Julian’s bed—the one she’d washed.
It bore Bridget’s embroidered initials.
Milea knew that Julian and Bridget had spoken alone together again, but she didn’t press either of them about it.
“She said something strange before she left.”
Julian, who had been holding out his hand to her and lost in thought, finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.
“What did she say?”
“Regarding Count Kensington’s death—she hopes you’ll be remembered not as a ruthless murderer, but as a righteous king who eliminated corruption.”
Julian let out a bitter laugh.
“She wants to help you.”
“What’s your assessment?”
“It seems suspicious to take at face value, yet strangely, she draws me in. I sense no malice, but I believe caution is warranted. That’s my personal view.”
Milea also told him honestly that she’d placed someone to watch Bridget.
“If you disapprove, I’ll stop.”
“Do as you see fit.”
Julian withdrew his hand, the treatment complete.
“She’s not a woman to be trusted, at any rate.”
Milea looked at him with surprise at this unexpected admission.
Blood at the corner of his mouth, the handkerchief, the way he spoke as though they’d known each other for ages.
The suspicious circumstances between them were anything but few.
‘Yet he doesn’t trust her?’
Milea’s doubts only deepened.

* * *

As the carriage pulled away from the Royal Palace, Bridget seemed to mull something over before knocking on the carriage wall to summon the driver.
“Will we be stopping?”
“There’s a place I need to visit. Take me to Count Florence’s Residence on 13th Street.”
13th Street was crowded with small townhouses, each with perhaps four rooms packed tightly together.
It was where the wealthy commoners aspiring to climb higher mixed with the impoverished nobility who could fall no further.
Bridget’s childhood home stood at the corner of that street.
Before she turned the Winston Estate upside down, playing the role of a messenger returned from the grave, she wanted to see Josh.

* * *

“Bridget!”
The moment Josh heard that Bridget was in the study, he bounded up the stairs, calling her name even from the hallway.
The stairs creaked terribly, though they made less noise than Josh’s angry footsteps.
Bang!
“Bridget!”
“It’s been a while, brother.”
Bridget, who had been sitting in an armchair reading an old book that their father had left to Josh, snapped it shut with a decisive sound.
Josh’s study was a cramped space containing only a worn, small desk, a single-seat armchair, and three bookshelves.
The old townhouse had poor soundproofing, so loud voices in the second-floor study carried not only to the rooms on the third floor but even down to the maid in the first-floor kitchen.
All the other family members were out, so only Bridget, Josh, and the maid doing kitchen work remained in the building.
Bridget, anticipating the noise, had sent the maid on an errand beforehand to buy pastries from a cookie shop, timing it for when Josh would arrive.
“Where on earth have you been? Running away? Do you have any idea how hard I searched for you?”
Bridget listened for the sound of the front door as Josh spoke, saying nothing for a moment.
Soon she heard the door open and close as the maid left on her errand.
Only then did Bridget part her lips.
“Isaac said that? That I ran away?”
“Isaac wants a divorce. He’s been about to file a petition with the Noble Council, and I’ve been holding him back by his trouser leg the whole way here.”
Josh seized Bridget’s wrist and shook it.
“Get yourself together. What is wrong with you, Bridget? Why are you being so reckless? Is it because of Penelope? Just make do. A husband keeping a mistress or two isn’t exactly a scandal.”
Not exactly a scandal.
Bridget felt her anger rise at Josh—not for his own sake, but for his refusal to understand how she felt, his readiness to condemn instead.
She wrenched her wrist free and spoke in a low, biting tone.
“If a spouse keeping a mistress isn’t exactly a scandal, then I’d like to know why you broke your engagement with Julia over her taking a few days’ journey with another man.”
There was no need for courtesy or dignity when fighting with her brother. Her childhood speech patterns surfaced—sharper now, less guarded.
Josh pressed a hand to his chest, his face wounded.
“Why are you dragging up ancient history? You know how much that cost me.”
Bridget let out a scornful laugh.
“I liked Julia. I thought she wasn’t quite good enough for you, but she was kind to me. It was nothing. You should have just let it go and married her.”
“That’s different from your situation with your husband.”
“How is it different?”
“Julia was rolling around with another man before the wedding! Think about it—she could have been carrying another man’s child, passing it off as mine, putting our family line in the hands of some stranger’s blood. That’s what nearly happened.”
“But Julia turned out not to be pregnant. You broke the engagement anyway. So isn’t my husband bringing home a pregnant mistress a worse situation than what happened with your former fiancée?”
Josh pressed his temples, looking exhausted.
He spoke without consideration for whether his sister was hurt.
“Whether Isaac’s child is born to you or Penelope, it’s still his heir—that’s what matters. Don’t compare a question of succession to your feelings. You know it’s nonsense.”
“So you’re saying I’m being unreasonable?”
Bridget felt she was staring at a wall.
A high, thick wall that no matter how much she shouted, her voice could not penetrate.
When they were younger, Josh hadn’t been like this—but now he was wrapped tight in his own narrow self-justifications.
If this continued, it would devolve into childish bickering.
Bridget swallowed her frustration and let her voice grow serious, dropping the sarcasm.
“Then consider this. What if Isaac sold me to another man? What if he made an arrangement—exchanged my bed for some payment? Would that seem like nothing to you then?”
“Sold you? What kind of—”
Josh looked genuinely shaken.
“Is that the truth? Not just anger talking—are you serious? Bridget, you can’t say something like that without meaning it.”
“It’s the truth. Isaac had a maid drug me with a sleeping draught. His servants kidnapped me and took me somewhere.”
Josh was speechless for a moment, then began venting into empty air—”What—what—” over and over, his voice rising.
“I had no idea he’d gone that far!”
Bridget watched her brother shout into the void, his face flushed red like a madman. Her expression had softened somewhat from the moment she’d been mocking him.
There was less bite in her gaze now.
She studied him carefully, searching his face, his gestures, his eyes for something.
“So what happened? What came after? Tell me everything.”
Bridget could not speak Julian’s name, so she wove truth and lie together.
“The sleeping draught wasn’t strong enough. I was lucky and managed to escape. I got help at an inn nearby.”
“And here I was thinking you’d just run away like some silly girl! The bastard—after doing something like that, he had the nerve to feed me lies! Bridget, I—”
Josh felt a sudden wave of shame at how he’d been placating Isaac, trying to smooth things over.
He hated himself for begging her to apologize, for pleading with Isaac to let it drop.
“Listen, you should have come to me! How could you make your own brother look like such a fool? Something like that happens and you don’t send word immediately—what were you thinking—”

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