How to Get My Husband on My Side

“I’ve finally found a worthy groom for you, darling,” announced Father, as he wiped off his lips with a napkin.

Laying on the knees of my oldest brother Cesare, I felt the urge to run back to my bedroom and throw up all the food I’d just eaten.

My second brother Enzo, who had been busily chowing down on an awfully smelly quenelle, slammed his fork down and cried out in protest.

“Not again! Father, how many times has it been already?”

“Enzo.”

“It hasn’t even been three months since her last engagement was called off! Regardless of what our family would gain from this marriage, shouldn’t you at least try to consider her feelings?”

“What a surprise to see you side with your little sister. Then would you rather battle the barbarians yourself instead of accepting Britannia’s support?”

“What are you talking about? Those savage barbarians up north wouldn’t stand a chance against the likes of me, the greatest, most noble soldier to ha—”

“Shut your trap, boy.”

The great noble soldier took the rest of the quenelle on his plate and shoved it into his mouth, aggressively chewing in protest.

The marriage proposal wasn’t any surprise to me though. I knew that it would come sooner or later.

“Who is it, Father?”, I asked cheerfully.

My father, who had been staring disapprovingly at Enzo, looked back my way and smiled.

“He’s Britannia’s hero. The king’s beloved nephew and famous knight of the South. He’s very handsome, I’m sure you’ll like him.”

“What! Father, do you know how bad his reputation is?!”

“Boy, was I talking to you?”

Enzo became quiet again.

one day massacre their entire family. Oh poor, wretched creatures of this

“Ruby?”

who had been stroking my head, called for me again. This time his long fingers groped the back of my head. I shuddered in revulsion. It felt

my head and locked eyes with Cesare. After glancing at his eerie azure eyes, I shifted my gaze to Enzo who was frowning discontentedly, and then to Lady Julia and my father beside her, both seated upright, poised and

you, Father. I’m grateful that I can at least be of some service to you with this

gentle smile and pressed them up against the top of my

our sweet little angel,” he

I really wanted to

to attend to than throwing up. After all,

***

end and I could finally rest. But if I’d known that I would be reincarnated as a lady in the Renaissance Era, and as a character in a novel that I’d read long ago, and, to make matters worse, forced to survive in an environment that was just as vile as my previous life, would I still have thought the

a character in this novel, couldn’t I have at least been born into

“Ugh!”

water. I’d gotten good enough at throwing up silently that I didn’t need to worry about

an eating disorder. Before I became Rudbeckia de Borgia—I mean before I died—I was an adopted daughter of

age, I knew nothing about the so-called ‘Korean Peninsula’ where I was born. Like my adoptive siblings, I attended a prestigious private school in Madrid and

4th grade, when a boy in my class laughed at me while pulling back his eyes. At first I didn’t understand what it meant, so I just laughed along with the rest of the kids in my class. I thought that my eyes were round like everyone else’s, so I had no idea that he

welcoming facade of my adoptive family, there was

The only one in my adoptive family who would sometimes treat me nicely was my older

to play the role of a smart, cheerful, and obedient daughter, since if I ever brought the smallest bit of shame to my family or offended them in the slightest, there was hell to pay. And when I

looked in the mirror,

I’d become Rudbeckia de Borgia, a character in the fantasy novel Sodom and the Holy Grail I used to read as

in the Ressanaince Era and revolved around the tale of a vile, corrupt pope who abused his power to subjugate others. It was a story about the countries of the North and the clergy bravely rising up and banding together to overthrow the wicked pope, his family, and the entirety of the house

‘Sodom’ in the title referred to the people of the northern Romagna region of Italy, and ‘Holy Grail’ was a metaphor for the holy site of the Vatican City. And

no

Rudbeckia, and after three unsuccessful engagements and

someone as noble and austere as Izek would lose his mind and decide to murder his wife’s entire family after only being married for six months, it was

him lose his mind, it was hatred—hatred of Rudbeckia, who’d poisoned his little sister. Cesare had miscalculated the

think about it though, more than being mad about Rudbeckia killing his little sister, it seems like Izek just