No One Ever Loved Me - Chapter 77

I entrusted the diary, which Martha had carried so carefully, to Ricardo. Surprisingly, solving their housing situation turned out to be rather simple.

Sir Juan offered to take Martha and Justin into his own home.

As a free knight, Sir Juan could sever ties with Edgar simply by handing in his resignation. But things were more complicated for Martha and Justin.

Although neither had signed direct employment contracts with Edgar, since I was still Countess Linton, Edgar technically had the right to dispose of them as he pleased.

In this world, a wife’s property—aside from her dowry—was considered absorbed into the husband’s.

Ironically, that meant Edgar had to settle for merely managing Cecilia’s land in her name.

Even this was based on an unspoken understanding—that a woman’s dowry was to be preserved, in case she wished to pass it on as part of her daughter’s trousseau someday. If a man spent it too freely, it would tarnish his reputation.

In any case, Cecilia had no children, and Edgar, for whatever reason, never seemed to consider the possibility that he might have a daughter one day.

Or perhaps, deep down, he had simply decided that unless a child could inherit the family name, they weren’t worth considering at all.

It was no secret that Cecilia’s dowry had been insufficient.

People still spoke kindly of Edgar—even after his blatant infidelity—because he’d filled in the missing portion of her dowry from his own fortune.

“Please take good care of Martha, Sir Juan. I feel like all I ever do is ask favors—I can hardly lift my head.”

“Then someday, Madam, you can return the favor by doing something for me.”

Sir Juan answered my farewell with that line before he left, taking Martha and Justin with him.

I looked down at my still-damp chest with a heavy heart.

Martha had suffered greatly because of me, and yet she hadn’t said a single word of resentment.

She only kept repeating, in between sobs, “My poor lady… It was all my fault.”

There was no doubt she had read the diary. The last time we’d spoken, she had still clung to the hope that Edgar would come back if only Elodie disappeared.

If she’d still believed that, she wouldn’t have agreed to join Sir Juan’s reckless plan.

She would have insisted on staying behind at the Linton estate, convinced it was her duty to protect my place.

To be honest, I’d only half-believed in both Sir Juan and Martha.

Sir Juan was clearly more unhinged than I expected, and I was only halfway convinced that even if he started a fire, Martha would ever leave the Linton household.

“Cecilia didn’t seem to know anything about her dowry in the diary. Is that enough to prove Edgar hid it from her on purpose?”

I asked Ricardo while watching the three of them walk away. He glanced at the diary, then replied.

“That’s what lawyers are for—to turn incomplete evidence into a complete case.”

“Can I read it?”

It wasn’t really my story, after all. Ricardo had piled the diaries carelessly in the back of the carriage.

“Not particularly curious.”

“But if he had met the real Cecilia, maybe he would’ve found a different kind of salvation.”

Cecilia was incomplete. And I believed that imperfection was the most beautiful part of being human.

Lately, Ricardo had been acting like the very definition of imperfection.

It was beautiful, in its own way. But being part of it—rather than just an observer—was exhausting.

If I had only been able to watch from afar, I would have admired his transformation and praised it without hesitation.

“Do you think Countess Linton felt the same?”

Ricardo asked. The living Cecilia had been so focused on Edgar that she probably wouldn’t have noticed Ricardo even if he’d been right in front of her.

“It’s not unusual, you know—two lonely people finding comfort in each other.”

I didn’t want to agree with him, so I forced that line out.

Even to my own ears, it didn’t sound convincing.

“Maybe her feelings could’ve changed.”

To my surprise, Ricardo agreed so easily.

“But—”

Of course. I saw the mischief in his eyes as he looked at my startled face.

“You know, Lia—I never wanted that kind of affection.”

Ricardo was searching for someone who understood him.

One thing I’d realized since coming into this world was that imperfect people can never completely understand one another.

In my original world, I’d never formed deep relationships, so I hadn’t known that truth.

But by taking over someone else’s life, I became tangled in the web of relationships Cecilia had built—and I learned it the hard way.

Martha had truly cared for Cecilia, but until she read the diary, she had no idea just how deep Cecilia’s despair ran.

Without that diary as a bridge, Martha would have continued believing she was helping—and would have stubbornly stayed the course.

Watching the evolving silhouette of the Linton estate in the distance, I finally spoke.

“Yes. I understand you. I know what you want from me isn’t just romantic affection. Ricardo, you’re simply someone trying to fill an empty jar. You’ve tried this and that, but nothing ever filled it, so you ended up in despair.”

I’d kept telling myself I couldn’t understand Ricardo, that I couldn’t see through him—even fooling myself in the process. But deep down, I’d already guessed the truth.

And that’s why I had to push him away.

“Complete understanding is an illusion, Ricardo.”

He carried an empty jar, but mine was broken from the start.

That was the difference between us.

We might have both been empty—but while he could eventually find something to fill his jar, mine could never be filled again. That difference was absolute.

I had been wrong to think we were both just defective in the same way, based only on appearances.

Ricardo was like a mislabeled product in perfect condition inside. I was a defective item with nothing inside, not even suitable for recycling.

“It’s hard to convince someone who’s witnessed a miracle that what they saw was just an illusion.”

The smoke around the Linton estate had begun to clear.

I spotted Edgar near the center of the chaos, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Still in his nightclothes, he was throwing threats in all directions, vowing to find out who had set the fire.

“That’s the illusion—believing that a perfect soulmate can fill even the emptiest heart.”

“You already did that.”

Ricardo placed his right hand over the left side of his chest, near his heart.

“I’ve never felt so alive. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve gone on living like a corpse… and probably ended it all.”

I let out a quiet sigh.

“Don’t forget—I warned you.”

“A warning?”

“If you come looking for me later, saying you were tricked, it won’t be my responsibility.”

Ricardo loudly insisted that would never happen. He was a fool.

And the truth was, I wasn’t much different, worrying whether I would still be the same after losing him one day.

Even knowing Ricardo was wrong, I kept finding myself expecting things I shouldn’t.

Even after divorcing Edgar, I still had to live as Cecilia.

I was stepping down as Countess Linton, not abandoning Cecilia Rosette’s life altogether.

Yet Ricardo kept reminding me of someone I no longer remembered—my true self.

He shook my sense of duty—the role I had committed to, to quietly live out Cecilia’s life and bring it to a calm conclusion.

The words I spoke now, trying to heal Ricardo’s heart, were really my own selfish refusal to face a future without him.

I made him believe he had something, when he never truly did. I let myself imagine he might stay by my side forever, knowing that was never how the story would end.

I wasn’t a princess in a fairytale, overcoming hardships and finding a happy ending.

I was just a shadow pretending to be one.

And the fate of impersonators is always the same in every story—pathetic and tragic. So the best thing I could do was focus on escaping the ending that was already written.

If this were a fairytale, Ricardo would be the prince, or perhaps the knight on a white horse. He was never meant to be mine.

At best, maybe he was like the prince who gets tricked by the black swan instead of finding the real Swan Princess.

With that thought, I lost interest in the view of the Linton estate, barely burned despite all the smoke.

“The Queen says she can’t wait any longer. You’re to come to the palace tomorrow.”

As I turned toward the carriage, Ricardo opened the door for me and added that remark.

“I haven’t even seen Lady Lorraine’s face yet.”

“Apparently, she’s staying at the palace for a few more months.”

Ricardo delivered the message as if he were merely passing along the Queen’s wishes, but it wasn’t hard to imagine he’d applied pressure behind the scenes.

If Marchioness Federica locked herself in and refused to see either the Queen or Ricardo, no one could say how long things would be delayed.

“Her Majesty seems to rely on you more than I expected.”

I thought she saw Ricardo as an obedient little cat, but maybe that agreement he signed had changed her view.

“To the Queen, I’m just a useful pawn. But she has high hopes for you.”

Me? I was nothing. Without Ricardo, I wouldn’t have even been accepted as a lady-in-waiting at court.

At least Ricardo was a valuable piece on the board. I wasn’t even the table holding up the chessboard.

“At best, I’m someone who can say what she wants to hear. What exactly is she expecting from me?”

Ricardo closed the carriage door and replied,

“Exactly that—saying what she wants to hear.”

His tone was full of disapproval.

He was probably already jealous of the way Margaret and Penelope liked me, and now he was preemptively worried the Queen might feel the same.

“Hasn’t Her Majesty heard flattery her entire life?”

I opened the carriage window so he could hear me clearly from the coachman’s seat.

“You must be something special, Lia—if you can still charm someone who’s lived her whole life surrounded by sycophants!”

Ricardo shouted back in a grumpy voice.

I shook my head and closed the window.

If the Queen truly had high expectations for me, it was probably because she thought I could control Ricardo, her most useful pawn.

Once I divorced Edgar, it would be best to make it clear I had no such talent and leave the palace for good.

If I had read the Queen correctly, she’d probably be angry and ban me from court as punishment—but she wouldn’t lower herself to beg me to stay.

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