A Painting of the Villainess as a Young Lady

“I don’t want to do it for the sake of refining my craft. I don’t need a teacher either. Just giving me the necessary tools and materials is enough for me. 

“……”

The duke did not answer back, but Violet knew that his reaction itself seemed to be a confirmation.

It was such an easy request that it’s entirely possible to be allowed. Violet, again, judged how the duke would respond.

Even if she added up her age in her previous life to her current life, she was still younger than the duke, and she still couldn’t guess what was on his mind.

Saying that she wanted to paint was more of an impulse on her part. Even if it was just the slightest whim, she wanted to continue her completely erased previous life.

No. Rather, she just needed an escape. That’s why she chose what she used to do in her previous life.

Nothing more, nothing less.

As the duke’s hands had been busy with organizing his documents, they stopped moving for a moment. Violet’s business with him had already been dealt with yet she still hadn’t gone back, so he commented on it.

“…Do you care for me?”

“Of course I do.”

There were ripples in the calm lakes that were her eyes. Violet bit her lips slightly and held her breath.

Not once did the duke scold her here, even though she barged in so suddenly and made ridiculous demands.

He just allowed it all. He didn’t even question anything.

Ah, this, too, must be easy.

For a parent’s attitude towards his child, he treated her so emptily. Looking at the insincere duke once more, Violet asked again.

“…Father, do you consider me as your child?”

It was a question she had never asked, not once in her life—a question that Violet could ask only because she was no longer the duke’s daughter.

In spite of it all, her voice trembled still.

I wonder, have you ever felt any love for me at all?

Her purple irises quivered constantly as though they were lakes where ripples had broken out, and the duke looked straight into those eyes. He answered calmly.

“Not once– there was never a time that you were not my daughter.”

“……”

A business-like tone, through and through. It was too much for her.

She shouldn’t stay here any longer. She would unravel. She didn’t want to show any weaknesses, and yet her tears threatened to trickle down.

Managing to hold back those tears by biting the inside of her cheek, the girl smiled. It was a smile that looked as if it was about to fall apart at any given time, fragile through and through.

This, too, must be easy.

Violet S. Everett clawed her way through a dog-like life and became a wicked woman—for what?

“If it’s like that, then I’m relieved. I thought that there’s not one single person by my side.”

I thought for sure that you, too, would hate me. However, Violet swallowed back these words and instead smiled and said something else.

“Then, as your daughter, I would like to ask for one favor, Father.”

As he heard that it was not a request made from a ducal princess to the duke, but from a daughter to her father, he looked up from the documents he had been reading through.

And as Violet’s next words left her lips, he had no choice but to doubt his own ears.

“—Please imprison me.”

* * *

Naturally, Violet’s request to be imprisoned was rejected. She was easily granted permission to be stripped of her obligation to marry, yet the request to be imprisoned was adamantly refused. 

There were various reasons. She needed to rest because she was still unwell, he said. If the eldest daughter of a ducal household were to be imprisoned like that, then Everett’s dignity would be in shambles.

At the arguments presented against her request, she scoffed. Violet S. Everett was already notorious for being a heinous woman with rumors filling the streets—what kind of dignity was there left to be tarnished?

In the meantime, many doctors came and went to check up on her. If, by chance, an evil spirit had also attached itself to her, a priest also came by to visit her. A priest’s house call could only be done through paying a costly sum.

As expected, living a life with a ton of money to burn was quite different. Laying down and staring at the ceiling, Violet laughed.

While her condition improved, Violet went to the duke again and asked him to confine her to a remote place.

And without even asking her why she kept requesting the same thing, the duke refused every time. Still, since she was so persistent, he was forced to grant it.

Violet had committed so many atrocities that no one questioned the duke’s official order to imprison her.

Mikhail, the eldest son, knew about the duke and Violet’s back and forth during this time. He ran wild and noisily asked just what was going on. But that was all.

Ten days after Violet S. Everett had fallen into the lake, all her social activities came to a halt. Bringing with her only one small luggage bag, she was soon confined to an old, dilapidated annex far away from the main mansion.