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.

that this handsome knight would one day massacre their

“Ruby?”

again. This time his long

eerie azure eyes, I shifted my gaze to Enzo who was frowning discontentedly, and then to Lady Julia and my father beside

I can at least be of some service to

curled his lips into a rare gentle smile and pressed them up

as always, our sweet little angel,” he

I really wanted to

attend to than throwing up. After all, the handsome knight of the South was out to

***

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,

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

“Ugh!”

throwing up silently that I didn’t need to worry about being caught by the maids,

call it nowadays, an eating disorder. Before I became Rudbeckia de Borgia—I mean before I died—I was an adopted daughter of an upper-class family in Spain. I guess you could say I

Peninsula’ where I was born. Like my adoptive siblings, I attended a prestigious private school in Madrid and

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

sophisticated, welcoming

my adoptive parents had a separate lover, and my second brother, who was a rising tennis star, was publicly exposed for his promiscuous private life and drug addiction. The only one in my adoptive family who would sometimes treat me nicely was my older sister, and she committed suicide

bit of shame to my family or offended them in the slightest, there was hell to pay. And when

first I thought I was just hallucinating before l passed away. But when I looked in the mirror,

me a few days to realize that I’d become Rudbeckia de Borgia, a character in the fantasy novel Sodom and the Holy Grail I used to read

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

name ‘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 as for lucky me, I was reincarnated as

Rudbeckia, was destined to die, and to die no less than at the hands of my future

brother, in an attempt to gain even more political influence, were hellbent on marrying off Rudbeckia, and after three unsuccessful engagements and another last minute cancellation, she ended up being married off to Izek van

as noble and austere as Izek would lose his mind and decide to murder his wife’s entire family

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

sister, it seems like Izek just got