“Young Miss.”

“Young Miss!

“Please wake up, you have to get ready: The young Marquis is coming over to visit today!”

With those words, my eyes shot open. What did she mean by that? Was my miserable death coming to haunt me even in the afterlife? I sat up and quickly noticed that I was, in fact, not dead, or in a prison cell. I was back in my room, with my personal maid, Lea–one of the few people who had not betrayed me–standing near the side of my bed.

To say I was confused would’ve been an understatement. I quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the mirror. This was clearly me, but something felt off…

“Lea, how old am I?”

“Young Miss, are you feeling okay? How could you forget? You just had your debut ball a little over a week ago!”

 Debut? Didn’t my debut happen last year?

 Does that mean it was all a dream..?

No… definitely not, it was much too realistic to have been a dream.

Does that mean I’ve reincarnated a year into the past?

Well, either way, it doesn’t really matter what happened. I need to make sure to change my future; I can’t afford to die such a miserable death again!

“Lea! When is the young Marquis coming to visit?”

Lea came rushing into my room. “Actually, young Miss, I was informed he had just arrived. You should get ready quickly!”

After getting ready, I head down to the drawing room. My first step is to get rid of the engagement with Zeke, I don’t want to be anywhere around him.

I burst into the drawing room and Zeke stands up. “Lady Estelle, it’s so good to see you. I hope I didn’t show up too early, I was just very excited to see my fian–”

“Let’s call off the engagement,” I say with a completely serious tone and expression, cutting him off as he stares at me, dumbfounded.

“Lady Estelle, what brought this on?” He asked hesitantly.

Ha! What a faker—look at him pretending to be sad.

“I have no feelings for you and don’t wish to be engaged–it’s as simple as that.  I don’t wish to waste my life with someone whom I don’t have the slightest desire to be with.”

“What on earth are you saying? You were perfectly fine with me last time we saw each other, and now you’re saying you wish to break off our engagement? Besides, this engagement was decided by our parents a long time ago. You can’t just break it off because you don’t want to marry me. Political messages are quite common among nobles.” He sounded quite irritated.

That made me feel even more irritated.

“I’m sure Father would let me break off this engagement if I have a fiancé with more status and wealth than you,” I say calmly, while screaming on the inside.

“What does that mean?! Are you saying you’ve been seeing another man behind my back?!”

“Well now, our engagement has only been recently announced. How are you so sure I didn’t have someone I liked before then?”

“Fine, then. Let me meet the guy.”

Well, yeah, about that…

“If you really did find a man more powerful than me to be with you, I’m sure he could easily make me step down from this engagement. So why don’t you let me meet this man? How about, next week? At this same time, at the Lassen Estate.”

“Alright then, young Marquis, I hope you keep your word,” I say, walking out of the drawing room.

What have I gotten myself into!?!

How am I supposed to find a man with more power and a higher status than a marquis!?

“Lea! I’d like to not be disturbed!” I quickly told Lea and sat down at my desk to organize my thoughts. I need to quickly find someone to at least act as my fiancé…

I pull out my paper and quill and start writing down everything I remember from my past life. After going through what I remembered from my past, I settled on going over to visit Duke Eden.