Reborn: A Maid's Vengeance

A woman whose family had fallen on hard times was taken in by the household that ran the court's music office. She later rose to become the emperor's noble consort, and she repaid the family by having their house set on fire. The people who had sheltered her died in it. Gail East was the daughter of that house. In her first life she went into the palace as a maid, with no family behind her, meaning to kill the consort. She failed and was put to death in an ugly way. The only person who dealt with her body afterward was a eunuch she had run into a few times, a cold man who held a great deal of power inside the palace. He saw that she was buried properly. Then Gail is reborn with her memory of all of it. She wants a different route this time. The masters of the palace treat servants as something less than human, and the eunuch is despised by them in the same way, so she goes to him and they begin working together to unsettle the people at the top. He is in practice the second most powerful man in the palace, and he carries a secret of his own from years back, one that touches the throne. With his help Gail becomes one of the emperor's consorts.