Reborn To Change My Fate-Chapter 88 - Eighty Eight

The garden, in the bright, warm light of the late morning, was Marissa’s sanctuary. The day was promising. She was tending to a row of small pots, where the tiny, bright green heads of new sprouts—herbs for the kitchen—were just beginning to emerge. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

She was humming a happy, tuneless, and almost forgotten little song from her childhood, a small watering can in her hand. Lily, enjoying the tune, was beside her, happily arranging the small pots into a neat, sunlit row.

"Your Grace."

The voice was not belonging to any of the servants. It was a soft, sweet, and utterly unwelcome sound.

Marissa’s humming stopped. Her hand, holding the watering can, froze in mid-air. She looked up slowly, the peaceful, happy, and unguarded expression on her face vanishing, replaced by the cool, polite, and unreadable mask.

Senna was standing at the entrance to the garden, her maid, Esme, a few respectful paces behind her. She was smiling, a picture of perfect, fragile, and beautiful innocence.

And she was wearing a dress.

It was an almost perfect replica of the simple, cornflower-blue morning dress Marissa herself was wearing. The material was a little different, Marissa noted with a cold eye—a brighter, modest, high-quality silk— and the style, the cut, the ribbon placement, was identical.

Lily, whose thoughts were never so complicated, gasped. She looked from Senna’s bright blue dress to Marissa’s identical blue one, and her face flushed with confusion and anger.

"Your Grace," Lily whispered, her voice a low, indignant sound, "why... why is she wearing your dress?"

Marissa did not answer. She ignored Lily, and she ignored Senna. She calmly, deliberately, returned to her task, her gaze dropping back to the small, green sprouts. She finished watering the pot, her movements slow and measured, as if she were alone. So, the little viper has left her nest in the east wing, Marissa thought.

She has been quiet for a few hours. I knew it could not last.

Senna, seeing she was being ignored, glided closer, her silk dress rustling with every step. She came to a stop right beside the flower bed, her shadow falling over the small, new plants.

"I came to thank you for your kind hospitality, Your Grace," Senna said, her voice a sweet, melodic purr. "The east wing is so comfortable. You have been so generous."

Marissa did not look up. She moved to the next pot. "Thank His Grace, not me," she replied, her voice flat and cold. "You are his guest. I am merely the one who manages his household." It was a simple, factual statement, a cold reminder of their respective places. You are a guest. I am the mistress. Do not forget it.

Esme stood behind her, knowing her place not to speak in the presence of the Grand Duchess unless spoken to.

Senna let out a soft, short, tinkling giggle. "His Grace treats me so thoughtfully," she said, her voice full of a warm, intimate pride. She gestured down at her own, bright-blue dress. "He knows I lost everything in that terrible fire. He has been so kind. He specifically bought me new clothes."

She looked directly at Marissa, her large, amber eyes wide with a perfectly performed innocence. "This style is one of his favorites. It resembles yours, I know. But I simply adore it."

Lily, who could not stand the passive-aggressive poison, finally snapped. "It doesn’t just resemble it, Lady Senna," she said, her voice sharp. "It is identical."

Marissa’s hand, holding the watering can, tightened. She set it down on the stone path with a soft, definitive thud. "Lily," she reprimanded, her voice soft, but with an edge of steel that made the maid flinch and fall silent.

Senna smiled, her victory clear. She had drawn blood. She had made Marissa’s own maid lose her composure. She pressed her advantage, her voice becoming a soft, sympathetic, and utterly venomous purr. "Even if it is identical, Your Grace, you still look so elegant and virtuous. You have a grace that I, a simple dancer, lack." She let out a small sigh. "But the Grand Duke... he told me he prefers my... youthful charm."

The insult was as sharp and as clear as a shard of glass. You are not his type. You are stiff. You are a ’virtuous’ wife he does not desire. I am more charming. And he told me this, in his bed.

Marissa, who had been waiting for this, who had seen this clumsy, telegraphed punch from a mile away, let out a soft, almost silent, mocking chuckle. She finally, slowly, straightened up and turned to face her.

She wants me to scream, Marissa thought. She wants me to be a jealous, screeching wife. She wants me to throw her out. She wants to run to Derek, weeping, and tell him how cruel I have been. Who has the time for all that rubbish?

"Lady Senna," Marissa began, her voice a calm, light tone, as if she had all the time in the world. "You have no status here. You are not a wife, you are not family. You are a guest. A refugee, one might even say."

Senna’s smile faltered, her eyes hardening. This was not the reaction she had wanted.

"Yet," Marissa continued, her smile polite, "you speak to me, the Grand Duchess, so informally. You speak of my husband, to me, as if we were two girls in a market, gossiping over a fence." She shook her head, her expression one of faint, pitying disappointment. "Aren’t you afraid of ridicule? It is so... common."

Senna’s face paled, then flushed a deep, angry red. She had been called common. A provincial. She immediately fell back on her one, practiced defense: her vulnerability. Her eyes welled with sudden, beautiful tears.

"Your Grace..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "Are you... are you displeased? Is it because I wear matching clothes? I... I did not know... I did not mean to offend you..."

Marissa’s smile widened. It was a cold, sharp, and deeply amused expression. "Oh, no," she said, turning back to her garden. She picked up a small, silver pair of shears. She looked at the rose bushes, which were full of large peonies. She found a perfect, pale-pink bloom, and with a sharp, definitive snip, she cut it from its stem.

"Peonies," she said, holding the flower up, admiring it in the sunlight, her back still to Senna. "They all look alike, at a glance. They are all pink, they are all beautiful. They may, as you say, resemble each other."

She turned, her movements slow and graceful. She walked to Senna, holding the perfect, heavy-headed flower. "But there is only one true Queen of the garden," she said, her voice a soft, velvet purr. She looked from the flower, to Senna’s face.

"The other one... the one that tries too hard to look just like her... she is merely a backdrop. A copy. An imitation, meant to make the real one look even more impressive."

The silence that followed was absolute. The insult was so elegant, so precise, and so utterly, devastatingly cruel, that Senna’s carefully constructed performance of a "pitiful victim" shattered. Her face, under her tears, was a murderous rage. She had been called a backdrop. An imitation.

She was so furious, she made a mistake. She lashed out, her voice a low, hissing, desperate attempt to regain her footing. "Even if you dislike it," she spat, her "sweet" persona gone, "it does not matter what you think. His Grace gifted me this!"

Marissa’s smile only widened. Her voice was so pathetic, so obvious, that it was almost sad. "Oh, I don’t dislike it at all, Senna," she said, her voice full of a sudden, bright, and deeply false sympathy. She reached out, as if to fix a stray ribbon on Senna’s identical dress. "I just worry that other people, who are not as understanding as I am, will see you standing next to me, and think you are... a poor, desperate imitation."

Senna’s face, which had been red with anger, now went completely, starkly white with humiliation. She had been called a cheap, pathetic copy. She opened her mouth, a sharp, ugly, and no-longer-ladylike retort on her lips. "You...you..."

"Marissa!"

A new voice called out from the garden entrance.