She Thought She Took My Place as the Duchess… But She Only Inherited My Nightmare

Chapter 10

Ashamed to admit the truth, Lettuce hid everything.

When ladies at court asked about the bruise near her jaw, she smiled. “I bumped into a door.” A week later, another mark appeared. “I slipped while walking down the stairs.” Soon she stopped wearing gowns with open necklines. High collars became part of every outfit. Long sleeves covered the bruises on her arms. Powder concealed the discoloration beneath her eyes.

Without realizing it, she had become exactly what Theodosia used to be — a woman the kingdom envied, and no one truly knew.

A year passed. To the outside world, Lettuce was living the dream every noble woman desired. She attended royal banquets in magnificent gowns. She rode beside Ambrose during public ceremonies. People bowed as she passed through the capital. Women admired her jewels. Young ladies whispered that she had become the most fortunate duchess in the kingdom.

No one knew the truth.

Every morning she spent nearly an hour covering bruises before facing the world. Every evening she wondered what small mistake would provoke Ambrose next. Sometimes it was because dinner arrived a few minutes late. Sometimes because she greeted the wrong guest first. Other times there was no reason at all.

She finally understood something that haunted her every waking moment.

Ambrose had never needed a reason. He simply needed someone weaker than himself.

One rainy afternoon, after another violent argument, Lettuce stood before the mirror inside her dressing room. A swollen bruise stretched beneath her left eye. Her lower lip was split.

As she stared at her own reflection, another face appeared in her memory.

Theodosia.

She remembered the forced smiles. The quiet sadness. The strange pity in Theodosia’s eyes on the day she left Blackwood Estate. Then those unforgettable words echoed inside her mind once again.

Take good care of him.

For the first time, she understood that they had never been spoken with jealousy.

They had been spoken with compassion.

That realization broke her completely. She sank to the floor of her beautiful dressing room, in her beautiful gown, in her beautiful cage, and she wept the way Theodosia had wept in her parents’ cottage — great, heaving sobs for everything she had traded away to stand exactly where the woman she had betrayed once stood.

The following morning, disguised beneath a plain cloak and traveling without the estate carriage, Lettuce secretly left Blackwood Estate.

After asking several merchants for directions, she finally arrived at a modest but elegant embroidery shop in the capital. Its windows displayed exquisite gowns and handcrafted lace admired throughout the kingdom. She hesitated before entering.

A young assistant welcomed her politely. “May I help you, my lady?”

“I’m here to see the owner.”

Moments later, Theodosia appeared.

She looked different. Healthier. Confident. Peaceful. She wore a simple grey dress and a silver pin, and she carried herself with a stillness Lettuce had never seen in her before — the stillness of a woman who no longer flinched at footsteps.

For several long seconds, neither woman spoke.

Lettuce expected anger. She expected accusations. She expected the bitter satisfaction of a woman who had been proven right.

Instead, Theodosia smiled gently.

“You’ve come a long way.”

She led Lettuce into a private sitting room without another word. She poured tea into two porcelain cups. They sat together in silence, the quiet heavier than any conversation.

Finally, Lettuce began to cry.

“I thought I had won,” she said, her voice shaking. “I thought you were jealous.”

She lowered her head. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Theodosia looked at her with quiet understanding. Then she asked one simple question.

“Would you have believed me?”

Lettuce opened her mouth. Closed it. The truth rose up from somewhere deeper than pride.

“No. I wouldn’t have.”

Silence filled the room.

Lettuce searched her own heart and found the answer waiting there, cold and familiar. She remembered how desperately she had wanted the title, the estate, Ambrose. She remembered convincing herself that her friend simply wasn’t good enough for such a powerful man.

Slowly, she shook her head.

“No.”

That single word carried more regret than a thousand apologies.

Theodosia reached across the table and gently held her hand.

“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I stopped hating you the day I walked away from that estate.”

Fresh tears rolled down Lettuce’s cheeks. And then Theodosia leaned forward, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“If you truly want to be free, I know how it’s done,” she said. “But you will have to leave everything behind. The title. The jewels. The gowns. The name everyone envies. Everything.”

Lettuce stared at her.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The first thin light of afternoon broke through the clouds and fell across the table between them, across the two teacups, across the hands of the woman who had once been betrayed and the woman who had betrayed her.

“I know what you’re asking,” Lettuce whispered.

“Do you have the courage to answer it?”