A/N: Hello Everyone, Ottie here. I'm sorry I haven't updated like I usually plan on Sunday lately. Stuff has been quite complicated due to the extreme weather we have had and my grandmother's health issues. But, I promise to have an update each week. I hope you've enjoyed reading so far.

The past few months have been a blur.  I haven’t seen Julian or Phillipe much. With Julian, I can only figure he’s banned from my nursery which serves him right. Philipe… she heard that he’s a knight for the royal order. He probably had better things to do than watch a baby.

I did do something interesting. I flipped for the first time today.

“Good job my lady!” Even Nanny (who I learned is named Simone) praised me! I wonder how Elise felt if was what Elise felt when she took her first steps.

Thinking of Elise reminded me of my first life.

What a miserable life it was. 

I had been a pawn, no more than a means to an end. I was married off to my brother at thirteen–thirteen. Not yet a woman, still a girl. I was still childish, hoping to fall in love with someone who’d rescue me from that house…but it never happened. I was a useless girl with no other prospects. My brother was the heir and I was his toy.

Lucien.

By God, he was such a filthy brute. Arrogant, cold. He was the heir and was raised with so much self-importance that it was a detriment to others. 

Rotten bastard…

Aside from the Duke’s family and the royal family, the Marquess family where right behind them in terms of influence and power. Perhaps that’s why no one blinked an eye when they consanguineously married. Brother was the product of the Marquess and his second cousin’s arranged marriage.

My sister’s marriage to the crown prince had been an exception since it brought power with it.

Everyone outside of the family’s branches was filth. The few times illegitimate children were born, they were killed. I would’ve lived a normal if my father never found me useful enough to keep alive.

For my sister, Vivienne. The saintly one. The chosen one. Except of course, “her holiness” requires a vessel to sustain it—and that vessel was me. I was like a well, that everyone took a dip in until I dried up for good. After that, I was nothing. Nothing but a means to an end. 

Ah, I didn’t realize I was holding my breath. Her tiny fist clutches the downy blanket in my cradle. My chest ached. 

But things are different this time. I’ll go to a family after the Duchess figures out what to do with me.

That life was over.

But…still, I couldn’t help thinking about Elise. My little girl. My daughter. My baby.

She was the only life I had in that life. And I’d never see her again. Even if this life was the same as my first, Elise wouldn’t come back again because no one can replace her. I wish that she’s never born again, because I don’t think I deserve to be her mother again.

I failed her.

I had been so busy living as the marquess’s wife and entrusted her to the care of nannies and servants when she turned three. I was so stuck to her when she was a baby...I had become less cautious. I thought—no, hoped, they would watch her. Keep her safe. She’s a child, even animals protect strangers’ young.

But they hadn’t.