That’s How I Became a Villainess - Chapter 39

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

039

“The portrait printed there—that person from back then. That’s right, isn’t it?”
The maid pointed to one corner of the Gossip Pamphlet.
There was a portrait of Bridget and Isaac as a couple.
And beside it, Penelope was also drawn.
A Mistress Ensconced in the First Wife’s Home—and Soon After, the First Wife’s Cenotaph Found in the Garden!
It was the title of the Gossip Pamphlet.
Beneath each portrait, the words “First Wife” and “Mistress” were written in letters everyone could easily read.
Another maid who had read it first came rushing over, bursting with indignation.
“The Mistress forced her way into the mansion and stole the Duchess’s Dress and Jewelry! She even tried to steal the Wedding Gifts, but a costumer’s assistant who was away on business caught her. And the Earl of Winston took the Mistress’s side even after finding out! Can you imagine the audacity?”
“……”
“Being supported like that made that Mistress so full of herself. In the end, she even made a Cenotaph of the Duchess in the Garden and cursed her. The Gardener found it, and the mansion became an absolute wreck, I tell you. What an age we live in!”
Though the chamber maids had found Bridget disagreeable before, upon reading the contents in the Gossip Pamphlet, they instantly took her side.
“Poor Duchess! We didn’t even know……”
“How her heart must have been eaten away, enduring it all alone……”
“This is just what the servants and the costumer’s assistant testified to. Who knows how much more torment she actually suffered……”
Testified?
Milea’s eyes narrowed.
The Gossip Pamphlet did contain a passage that read: “According to accounts from a costumer’s assistant and one employee working at the Winston Mansion……”
But since she didn’t even know for certain who had written this Gossip Pamphlet in the first place, how could she know whether those testimonies had actually occurred?
Yet the maids had already fallen completely into this sensational story, believing every word written as gospel truth.
‘Of course, thinking of Bridget’s own account and the rumors that had circulated in society, it’s not impossible this is true.’
But Milea knew who had published this Gossip Pamphlet.
She even knew what purpose lay behind it.
So regardless of whether it was a lie or not, she could reasonably guess that the story had been dramatized far beyond the actual truth.
‘She redirected the criticism that had been pouring down on me toward my husband’s Mistress.’
It was extremely clever. No—clever didn’t begin to cover it. It was brilliant, even genius.
But dragging herself into scandal as well—that was not wise.
Bridget had essentially taken Penelope down with her into the abyss.
“How far has this spread?”
When Milea asked the maids, they tilted their heads uncertainly before answering.
“Well…… we’re not sure, but the main road in front of the Royal Palace was covered with these Gossip Pamphlets. They were lying all over the street without anyone even buying them—everyone had one in hand and was reading it.”
It was hard to believe that Bridget, with that kind and open face, could orchestrate something like this.
She had prepared something so enormous, yet carried herself so calmly.
There was a vast discrepancy between the quiet voice of Bridget saying that tomorrow the world would be different and this bombshell Gossip Pamphlet.
‘Will things be alright going forward?’
People want their victims to be perfectly virtuous and spotless.
They wish their own denunciations of the perpetrator to represent just punishment against a flawless victim.
But no human being could ever be without flaw.
The moment even the smallest blemish was discovered in a victim, public opinion could turn.
People would begin to ridicule the victim themselves, and all manner of creatures would descend like hyenas.
Yet Bridget had accepted this risk and scattered the romantic entanglement of the Winston Family about like a theatrical script.
More sensational, more appetizing.
“A storm is about to sweep through the Winston Mansion.”
And through Bridget’s life as well.
Bridget was the one who said she couldn’t count on anyone—not her husband, not even her own family.
So who could protect Bridget from here on out?
What was she relying on to be so reckless?
Like someone who had jumped off a cliff knowing there was a safety net below, so resolute.
But as far as Milea knew, there was nothing in Bridget’s circumstances that she could rely on.
Wait.
A figure crossed Milea’s mind.
‘Surely not.’
Julian?

* * *

By evening, Bridget’s promise that everything would change proved true.
Gossip Pamphlets detailing the Winston Family’s romantic entanglement spread rapidly through every corner of the city.
Whether noble or commoner, people gathered to discuss what was happening within the Winston Family.
Some spread hearsay as though they had witnessed it themselves.
Thanks to such people, Bridget’s story swelled larger still, spreading faster than any other news.
Her decision to attach Portraits, emphasizing that these were real people—it proved a masterstroke.
A scandal involving a face one knows has a way of doubling people’s appetite for gossip.
The crowds that had gathered outside the Royal Palace vanished.
Instead, the Taverns across the Capital and the Tea Rooms of prominent society women overflowed with patrons.
Gossip tastes best when chewed over alongside a drink.
“But do you think all of this is really true?”
“I heard it directly from someone who works in the wardrobe department—why would they lie? That’s why there was all that talk about a household divided between a wife and concubine not long ago.”
“Oh yes, and the Duchess Cavendish even invited that couple to a party to see what sort of people they were. I saw them myself at that gathering.”
The rumors that had circulated until now lent solid weight to the pamphlet’s contents.
Thus everything hardened into truth.
“It’s not enough to steal the First Wife’s possessions—they’re calling it theft? What a disgrace!”
“And building a fake grave to curse her? Isn’t that absolutely vicious?”
“Ugh, it gives me chills.”

* * *

The scandal that gripped the entire Capital in half a day reached Julian’s ears the next morning.
After hearing the full account from Milea, Julian stared at Bridget’s Portrait printed in the Gossip Pamphlet before crumpling it in his fist.
“What are you doing?”
He dragged his fingers roughly through his hair.
The absurdity that she had done such a thing for him rankled.
Last time she insisted on becoming his fool to captivate him, and now she’d done something equally outrageous.
“There really are countless ways to drive a person mad.”
Was she attempting penance?
It infuriated him.
If she thought that such a scheme could constitute atonement, she was sorely mistaken.
Julian cared nothing for his own reputation or reproach.
“I left her alone to live quietly.”
I sent her away to meet an ordinary man, to build an ordinary marriage, to bear and raise children in ordinariness—to simply live that way.
When I could shut my ears and close my eyes to her and move forward, I only had to bear the betrayal and swallow my anger in solitude.
“And she does this—why……!”
The fury he had pressed down for so long finally erupted.
Bridget’s misfortune lay crumpled in the palm of his hand.
He seized his coat as though snatching at something.

* * *

The Winston Mansion was thrown into chaos.
Penelope’s screams and wails echoed through the mansion for an entire day—she who had become an evil woman pilloried by the whole world overnight.
Isaac raged as well, vowing to root out everyone who had supposedly testified against him.
In that process, Anna and the Gardener, among others, were named as suspects.
But most had alibis, and those without were covered by fabricated ones that Cedric hastily arranged.
When employees united and stood against their employer, the master’s authority crumbled.
Isaac, who had never once considered the need to secure even a single servant as an ally, found himself helpless.
And so, after one day had passed.
Penelope opened Bridget’s door roughly, her face swollen and blotchy.
“It’s all a misunderstanding! All of it!”
She set the problematic Gossip Pamphlet before Bridget.
Her voice trembled as though she could not bear the injustice.
Her expression was such that tears seemed ready to spill at any moment.
To look at that face alone, Penelope appeared unmistakably the innocent victim.

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