The Guidebook for Villainesses

“Divorce me. That’s the most husbandlike thing you can do now.”

The air in the study turned sharp like broken glass. The secretary spoke to Lara—who tried to get inside and protect her mother—in a calm voice.

“It is all right.”

“Pardon?”

“Milady, just go back to your room and pack your things.”

He gently stretched out one arm and pushed Lara on the shoulder. He was telling Lara to go back downstairs.

Lara looked at her mother’s secretary full of doubt.

“Trust Lady Isadora.”

His words were very strange. His tone seemed blunt like her mother, but he sounded friendly. He was a stranger whom she felt awkward around but was reassured with him.

“Mother…”

“Just get your important things. Then, I will go downstairs with Lady Isadora soon.”

Oh, I see.

Lara realized why he can be so calm and relaxed. He had faith in her mother, he believed and followed her, he respected and was loyal to her. He thinks that Isadora can stand up to the Marquess of Bailey. On the contrary, he looked at Lara as if she were a child. Although she was already an adult, he was still being careful with her, as if she was an adolescent girl.

Lara could no longer listen to the conversation in the study. She did not know whether it was because her father lowered his voice or because the two were not saying anything.

She trusts her mother.

Her father could never be a match for her mother. That was a fact that even Lara knew.

“Milady, let’s go.”

Lara was pushed back by Konny and returned to her room. While Konny was packing her things, Lara sat on the sofa and ate the warm soup.

She felt weird.

It felt like she was floating in the air.

On the first day she went back to the past, Lara remembered what she had unknowingly brought up in her mother’s carriage.

“Get a divorce from father.”

Her mother made no response whatsoever. She did not say whether she would get a divorce or not. She just stared at Lara as if she was trying to find out the real intention from Lara’s words. Lara wondered why her mother would not get a divorce in her past life, but now, she wondered why her mother suddenly wanted to get a divorce.

The answer was simple.

Because Lara told her to do so.

Something hot rose in her chest.

In her previous life, Lara’s mother did not divorce the Marquess of Bailey until the day Lara died. They hated and ignored each other, but they did not get a divorce. Lara realized that it was because of her.

“She was afraid I would be angry and resent her… That’s why she did not do it.”

“Pardon? Milady, did you say something to me?”

“Nothing.”

Lara shook her head and got up.

There was still more than half of the soup left, but she stopped eating because she had lost her appetite. If she had a chance to meet the past herself, she wanted to slap her in the face until she came to her senses.

“I am so glad Her Ladyship came. I did not expect that she would come here as soon as I told her that milady wanted to leave this manor.”

“Konny, what exactly did you tell mother?”

“I told her that not only did The Marquess hit and starved you but that he also confined you.”

“You didn’t tell her about the reason father did that?”

“She already knew about that.”

Konny smiled with a bright face.

“She already knew that the slave’s name is Demian and that milady had bought him with 2 gold.”

Lara immediately closed her mouth.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The air in the carriage was hot.

Before she left, Lara did not know how hot it was because it was still in the morning. But once she had packed up and got on the carriage, the air outside became hot. Wearing the red dress that she wore on her first day after going back to the past, along with a hat with a brim, she sat across from her mother.

Meanwhile, Konny—looking nervous—got into the second carriage with Isadora’s secretary. Because Lara said how she wanted to take Konny, the brave maid followed her master and got to change her workplace.

In the gently wobbling carriage, Lara’s mother, Isadora burst into laughter.

“2 gold, huh?”

“Pardon?”

Isadora asked a question and Lara asked her back. She did not understand the meaning of the question her mother asked.

2 gold.

Lara, who was agonizing over what it had meant for a while, recalled Demian’s face and hurriedly opened her mouth again.

“Mother, about that…”

“It’s okay.”

Isadora did not listen to Lara’s excuse. In fact, she did not have any intention to scold her. She asked her daughter what she was most curious about when she heard the news.

“I heard he was such a shabby slave that no one bid on him, but you were the only one who showed interest in him. Moreover, just in a day, he showed up looking so charming that it was as if he was a different person entirely.”

Not only that, he even blew away his opponent with a single kick.

“How did you know about his value?”

Isadora was most curious about that.

The Lara whom she knew was someone who had never been to such a place and had no interest in such people. But one day, she had suddenly changed like a different person. She told Isadora to divorce her father, went to the arena, recognized a slave—whom no one knew of his value—and bought him dirt cheap with her pocket money. Moreover, she even got beaten up by her father while standing up to him. Isadora heard that she did not shed a tear at all.

She was the same now.

Lara found it difficult to deal with her mother, but she was not afraid of her. She was able to face her mother confidently, but gently at the same time. The reason for her late answer was not because she did not know how to answer it, but because she was carefully choosing what to say.

Lara had such a cold and firm gaze.

In Isadora’s view, it was the eyes of a successful person who rose through the ups and downs of life. It was also a way for the person with pain to cover up their wounds.

“Lara.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Lara blinked her eyes slowly. Shadows cast over her scarlet eyes, making them as red as the sun. Isadora waited patiently. No one is going to disturb them while they’re in the carriage, anyway.

Lara’s worries deepened.

She was wondering from where to where should she tell her mother. She did not want to lie to her. But she also did not want to tell her mother that she went back to the past. The worst thing she didn’t want to do was to tell her mother what she had experienced in her previous life.

Lara, who was silent, made her decision and opened her mouth.

“I used to admire the Prince.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Now I know you’re right. Prince Sidhar is a man who can do anything to get the throne.”

“Lara?”

“Father is also the same. He’s willing to give anything to the Prince as long as he can get the dukedom. He will trick people into believing that I’m the nicest daughter in the world and drag me to the Prince. He will cut off my will, freedom, and desire, and wrap me up like a doll.”

“Lara.”

“That is my reason. I was going to be the lewdest woman of the century and make him give up on me. If I become a troublemaker that anyone will bad-mouth, he won’t give me to the Prince, and he’ll also try to break up ties with me.”

Isadora listened carefully to Lara.

“I’m going to get away from father. I will do it thoroughly so that he will never use me to satisfy his greed again.”

“Do you really need to be a notorious troublemaker to do that?”

“I can’t fight him with a sword and it’s too late to build my power to fight him back. As far as I can tell, this is the quickest and simplest move.”

Lara did not want to run away.

She was not in the wrong, so she did not want to live in hiding.

“Okay.”

Isadora said

“…Pardon?”

“I understand now.”

Lara lifted her head and looked at Isadora.

Her mother was smiling. Looking at Lara with a light smile, she blinked her scarlet eyes that looked just like hers.

“So you’re saying that you weren’t really in love with that 2 gold slave, right?”

“Huh? Of course.”

“It doesn’t matter what other people think, as long as you’re confident and have someone who believes in you.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Lara.”

Isadora was wearing a bright gray jacket and a red skirt, it was oversized and falls into the casual category of clothes. Isadora took her wallet out of the pocket of her zipped skirt and pulled out some checks.

It was 2,000 gold.

“Take this.”

“Huh? Mother, this is too much.”

“You left almost all of your stuff behind. You will need new clothes and shoes. And you will need money if you want to go here and there. You already know how high the prices in the capital are, right?”

She knew. Even a flower sold on the street is expensive in the high-end shopping district, city center, and entertainment district where the nobles gathered around.

“Because I’m a mother, I don’t agree with your ways. There’s no way I can stay calm when my daughter is being bad-mouthed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But I know you have a plan.”

How can this be?

Lara, the one who made the trouble, was more surprised than her mother who came to deal with that same trouble.

That’s it? Let alone get a scolding, she did not even nag at me. I thought that she would at least say something like ‘don’t do that ever again in the future ’.

After noticing Lara’s feelings which were filled with doubt, Isadora said.

“Don’t be scared over the small stuff. You’re an adult, you’re already at an age where it’s perfectly fine to kiss a man. So what if he’s a slave?”

Isadora snorted. She told Lara that even though everyone was hushing up about it, there should be at least hundreds of women in the capital who enjoyed that kind of lifestyle.

“Are you serious?”

“My first kiss was with a bartender, I was fifteen then.”

Lara was awestruck.

“If I try to control your every move, what makes me different from your father?”

Isadora was speaking calmly, but Lara found a subtle smile hanging over her mother’s lips.

“Lara.”

“Yes.”

“Cherish yourself. If you do that, I wouldn’t object to any rumors that you make.”

“…Thank you.”

At that moment, Lara thought of how much of a relief it was that she went back to the past.

And without any warning, Lara’s tears came out of nowhere. The tears never came out when she was hit by her father, or when she found out that she was back in the past. But when she was with her mother, the tears rose to the point that it was difficult to hold it in.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Isadora watched the tearful Lara without saying a word.

“I’m sorry…about everything.”

“What are you sorry about?”

I’m so glad I went back in time and got to talk to my mother like this.

It’s a relief to know that my mother didn’t give up on me and left me alone, that she was actually watching over me from afar.

Lara buried her face in her lap and burst into tears, weeping quietly in fear that the sound might leak out of the carriage.

Isadora put her hand gently over Lara’s head.