The Empress' Descent

Chapter 2 - The House of the Viscount

I watched the woman pacing restlessly across the sitting room, occasionally disturbing the spills of golden sunlight entering through the window cracks. I had been reading a particularly good book, paired with a nice cup of warm tea when she had burst in.

I decided I could not tolerate her passing in front of me, off and about. It made me lose my focus.

I set down the book onto my lap, returned the teacup to its saucer and sighed.

"Mother, will you ever stop? A marriage proposal will not magically appear out of thin air if you fret around like that. Calm down and sit."

I'd become accustomed to calling her my mother. Though the reason why my soul came to this body after I died remained a mystery for me, I'd managed to come by and willed myself to get used to all this newness. Of course, it was quite tricky learning the habits of a twenty-year-old dead girl. But like I said, I managed.

I was not the Empress anymore-that was for sure. Now, I am simply just a daughter of a noble family. Much to my great misfortune, this house was on the brink of ruin.

The aristocratic family of Lorraine had lost nearly all its fortune thanks to the head of the family himself, Viscount Lorraine. Due to his gambling addiction, he had accumulated piles of debt. As an act of desperation, he invested in shady business deals and loans.

Well, what would you expect?

He got scammed and was swindled out of his own money. Pretty dumb if you ask me.

And the solution my new parents had thought of was the most typical decision every noble house resorts to when they find themselves at the edge of the cliff of destruction.

Marriage.

They thought they could save themselves and the family if they wedded off their only daughter to some random lord. But with the sorry-looking zeroes in the dowry they could offer, the gentlemen frowned and would shy away at any given opportunity, choosing instead to discard their pretense at politeness and formality.

Lady Lorraine, the lady of the house or should I say mother, was now facing me. She glowered at me, hands planted on her hips. "What did you just say? No daughter raises her voice at me like that!"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I lifted my gaze to meet hers, filled with the unyielding fire befitting of a ruler.

It was not as though I hated this present life. In fact, I have been nothing but grateful to be given this second one. But this woman made me think otherwise.

Viscountess Lorraine had made no effort to think of another way to solve our current problem. She'd been acting like a normal noblewoman. Attending social gatherings and parties as if the servants in her house weren't slowly leaving.

It took some convincing and kind words from me to make a few stay. Even though I wasn't certain, I promised them that my family would find a way out of this. That last month's pay will surely come. And the month before that.

"You are not actually worried about me, the family, or the house. You're concerned with what the other ladies will say about you, what with the condition we are in right now. But that's assuming they haven't talked behind your back yet." I smiled sweetly. "So sit down, Mother. You are disrupting my reading."

"Y-you! What... you!"

I almost laughed. "At a loss for words, Mother?"

She was fuming, already red as apples. "Clarisse Lorraine, you and your preposterous mouth! You ought to learn respect, young woman-"

"What does respect have to do with you?"

"Why, you insolent brat! This is exactly why no one wants you. Why girls your age avoid you. And why boys refuse to court you. You are one of the reasons why we are in this mess! If you'd have been much kinder and sweeter, you would have caught yourself a husband by now!"