All Chapters of After My Sister Stole My Wedding, I Died Before the Next One: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The next day, I returned to the estate to pack my things.The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and found Lydia sitting at my vanity. She was wearing the ivory dressing gown Helena had saved for me, and around her neck hung my pearl necklace, the one only to be given to the eldest daughter before her marriage. Two maids were shoving my clothes into old trunks, and the portrait of me at sixteen had already been taken down from the wall."Evelyn's back." Lydia smiled at her reflection. "I hear you're finally being shipped off. This room would only sit empty. Mother said it's mine now, so I can do whatever I want with it."I told the maids to stop. I walked up behind Lydia and reached for the clasp of the necklace.Lydia's expression changed. She grabbed my wrist. "What are you doing?""Taking back what's mine.""Mother already gave it to me.""My necklace. No one has the right to give it away for me."I unclasped the necklace from her neck. The pearls were slick with powder from her s

I was unconscious for the entire night. When I woke, thick bandages were wound around my forehead. Edmund, Helena, Adrian, and Constable Thomas Merrick were all in the room. Lydia sat at Helena's side, her right hand wrapped in gauze, crying and shaking."She tricked me into the records room." Lydia clutched Helena's sleeve. "She hated me for stealing the wedding. She wanted to burn me alive. Mother, look at my hand. It hurts so much..."Helena's first instinct was to check Lydia's injury. The doctor had already said it was only a minor burn, but her eyes still reddened with distress."She started the fire." I braced myself against the bed frame and sat up. "She was never pregnant. The pharmacy receipts and the doctor's receipt were in that room. She knocked over the kerosene lamp to burn the evidence.""Those herbs were prescribed by my doctor for my health!" Lydia shot back. "She can't even read a prescription, so she makes up lies because she's jealous.""Then why did you hit me wit

The prison gates closed behind me, and three locks slid into place one after another.Edmund arranged everything in front of me with Warden Samuel Briggs: a private cell, clean bedding, daily bandage changes, nothing to be skipped. Helena sent two large crates containing food, blankets, medicine, and the navy blue wedding gown. Adrian handed the brooch he had given me on his sixteenth birthday to the guard and said I should wear it on the wedding day.Helena gripped the iron bars and would not let go. "Just two nights. You survived the workhouse as a child. This can't be worse than that. Once you reach Northsea, I'll visit often."She did not know that the workhouse was not some misfortune that fell from the sky. Edmund had chosen that path himself. And she did not know that years later, they had put me in another cage.But my first meal inside was a bowl of cold water and half a piece of moldy black bread.Nell Carter, one of the guards, told me Edmund had washed his hands of me, that

I woke up inside the northbound carriage. Through the window stretched vast snow-covered plains. The wheels ground over frozen road, clacking steadily.A man sat across from me. He wore a plain black military uniform with no adornment. His cane rested against his leg. His left leg moved stiffly, but his spine stayed perfectly straight.Leon Winterbourne. The first time I had ever laid eyes on the man I was supposed to marry."Miss Evelyn." He set aside the papers in his hand. "You're awake."Hearing that name, my chest gave a sharp twist. Leon noticed but did not press. He simply rephrased. "What would you like to be called?"I froze. From the church to the prison, everyone had been telling me what to do: give up the wedding, hand over the necklace, confess to the arson, wait for them to come. Not one person had asked me what I wanted to be called."Viola," I said. It was the name of a small purple flower that used to grow in my mother's old garden. It was tiny and easy to miss, but it

The Hastings family searched for me for nearly three months without finding a trace. The prison said the body had already been buried in the public cemetery under epidemic orders and could not be returned. After three months, all they could do was hold a funeral with no body.Lydia appeared before the guests wearing the navy blue wedding gown Helena had prepared for me. The waist had been cut open and resewn to accommodate a pregnant belly. Adrian's brooch was pinned to the collar, and my pearl necklace hung around her neck.She rubbed her barely showing belly, crying as she proposed starting a charity fund in my name. She suggested my dowry, my maternal trust, and the estate's revenue all be transferred in, with herself and her unborn child listed as beneficiaries.She also had my portrait removed from the viewing room, claiming, "My sister never liked the spotlight." The moment the portrait was carried away, she hung her own pregnancy portrait in its place. The entire funeral looked