With a soft sigh, I gently ran my hand over the scalded skin on my upper arm. To my annoyance, I could not think of any better alternative so far to improve my position in the house. This time I would willingly use the abuses of the past to feign mistreatment for the first time.
However, since the accused servants had actually bullied and mistreated me at a young age, regardless of what life I was talking about, I had no guilty conscience. Quite the opposite.
They were just as much involved in my mothers death. Again.
For this reason, I would make sure that all the servants in charge of me were removed at once, at least from my part of the estate. Morgiana would surely find a way to use the affected servants elsewhere in the estate, but I didn't care at the moment.
The resentment was deep, but I had to set my priorities clearly. Therefore, the first thing to do was to stop Morgiana's surveillance and also give her reputation a crack. After all, the slightest doubts are enough for rumors to gather in the estate and, inevitably, the capital.
I could imagine how bad my current reputation is. For weeks already, I had to be the gossip of everyone from the lower class to the upper class.
A mentally retarded, unimpressive and shameful girl, who, to make matters worse, was also uneducated and tarnished the name of Battenberg in every way.
If only they knew that the Battenbergs themselves did everything humanly possible to live up to their name. Perverse, glorifying violence, and fake like no one else.
"How could you not hate them even at the end, Mother?", I murmured softly, scowling.
I really didn't understand.
How could you have no resentment towards your own, biological family, who sold you to a nobleman from another country?
Fully aware that she was being bullied and belittled simply because of her origins?
Stripped of all her titles and accomplishments and just accepting it?
How could Mother endure her husband's open infidelity and the disgrace that came with it?
The humiliation?
Ironically, she was accused of infidelity by said husband, of all people. Long before that, she was also abused.
How could she live with that?
Why had she endured it?
And more importantly:
Why did she have to experience all this in the first place?
No one was free from sin. No one was perfect. I knew that. But my mother had been some of the few people I had to think about for a long, incredibly long time to say anything negative at all.
She was through and through a woman of integrity and pride that I could only admire and imitate. Even now, I found that although I was basically like her, I was likewise the exact opposite.
"The sillier, malicious version of her."
A shallow laugh escaped me at the thought before it was replaced by a smile, but one that disappeared just as quickly.
I have never become what my mother imagined and wished for me. I have turned into a vicious, wicked and spiteful person.
"I guess blood really doesn't lie.", I murmured softly. Once again the corners of my mouth inevitably pulled themselves upwards. I was indeed my father's daughter.