Living in a Rewrite of My Own Book World

Chapter 7- The Rewrite in which I Foil a Poisoning Plot

Things did not go as planned when we arrived in the Capital. To be fair, my expectations were based off of the book plot. In the story, the protagonist met a lot of resistance among the nobility, who were jealous of her favored status with the prince. Katrina of course, worked furiously behind the scenes to make friends with anyone who disliked Autumn and fan the flames as much as possible. This meant it was my time to shine, when I could masquerade as the worthless antagonist side character while protecting sweet little Autumn from anyone who would go against her.

At least, that's how it was supposed to happen.

Everything went wrong right from the start. I had prepared extensively for our arrival. We were to act out the scene from the book, where Katrina tripped Autumn on her way out of the carriage. Autumn would be unhurt but embarrassed, while Katrina would be securely placed within the "anti-Autumn" faction. She and I had spent forever planning, down to padding her knees underneath her gown so she wouldn't be hurt. We even practiced a few times at home. As our carriage pulled in front of the castle, we both grinned at each other in anticipation. A crowd had gathered to greet the Prince's fiancé. But just as Autumn had opened the door, stepping out and I was reaching out to push her...

"KATRINA!"

Hearing my name called out by a familiar voice, I hesitated just a moment too long. Autumn stepped out safely onto the pathway just as my momentum tipped me over the edge.

THUMP!

I hit the ground face first. As I laid there in shock, trying to figure out what went wrong, the culprit caught up to me.

"Katrina! Are you okay?" James knelt down beside me, reaching out to help me back to my feet.

"Umm, I'm fine. Thanks." I gently tried to pull my hand from his grasp, feeling slightly put out when he instead tucked it into the crook of his arm and shot me a bright grin.

What the heck happened to the stoic, restrained character he used to be?! I described him as "someone who rarely smiles" right? So what's with the casual touching and the thousand-watt grin?

Seemingly unaware or possible just unconcerned with my distress, James led me away by the hand towards the castle, speaking excitedly.

"So I developed a new variation of the communication spell, I've been looking forward to being able to test it out."

As he pulled me along I caught a glimpse of the faces on the crowd. Anger. Disbelief. Jealousy. The Duke Harrington casually chatting with a lady's maid. I was done for. I sighed as we moved, crying a bit on the inside. These were the people I was supposed to win over! Now in one fell swoop I had been alienated from all the allies I was supposed to be making.

This isn't how the book is supposed to go!

Since then I found myself ostracized by noblewomen and servants alike. Words like "upstart," "aims above her station" and "ugly" were often muttered around me. Fortunately my tormentors were obviously still stuck at a middle school level: my belongings were hidden, dirty water was poured onto my bed, I was tripped frequently while out in public. This kind of petty resistance I could easily ignore with a smile. For once I was grateful that I had written Katrina to be the ringleader of tormentors, it seems without someone to focus them, the noblewomen's spiteful games were pretty weak.

The Duke did not make it any easier, however. From calling me by my first name, to continuing his inexplicable new habit of casual contact, to simply appearing wherever Autumn and I happened to be, his constant presence created troublesome rumors. With each rumor I made even more enemies that would spill ink on my skirt or put worms in my shoes.