Previously
When Dorea reveals she kept Cordelia's fallen medicine pouch and mocks her, Cordelia snaps, striking Dorea with a locket until she bleeds. Lady Shallow dismisses Dorea's hysterical accusations as absurd, leaving Cordelia alone to contemplate her mother's portrait and the legendary mermaid island realm of Calypso.
The moment she opened her eyes, a horrifying sight filled her vision. A hulking man was pinning her down. The foul stench distinct to Maurice made nausea surge in her throat. Knowing who it was turned her stomach even worse.
In the end, her shameless cousin had sought her out.
“No! Stop!”
“Hey! Hey! You’re gonna die anyway!”
Cordelia froze as Maurice clamped a hand over her mouth and snarled. He began wheedling in a low voice while Cordelia trembled violently.
“Mother said your time’s almost up, that you’ll drop dead soon. Wouldn’t it be nice for both of us to have some fun before you go? Huh? It’s not like you need to save it after getting dumped, do you?”
The sickening grin on his face sent chills down her spine. Her hands frantically groped across the bed. Maurice rambled on without stopping.
“They said they’re handing you over to the loan sharks soon anyway. You’ll be put through all sorts of hell there, so let me take the first turn. Wouldn’t that be better for you?”
Hah, hah. If things go well, I might even marry you. It’s not like a remarriage is terrible for me, so don’t go thinking you owe me anything….
Maurice, babbling his nonsense, shrieked and tumbled over. He shook his stinging head only to take another heavy blow. When he realized the stuffed, hefty thing striking him was a teddy bear, he was dumbfounded, but his jaw dropped completely when an expressionless Cordelia hoisted an angel statuette high above her head.
Cold moonlight washed over half her face, making her look like an exquisite, man-eating sea witch.
Then, her plush lips parted, and she spoke.
“Drop dead.”
The heavy object cut through the air with a swoosh.
Thud, crack. After the wet sound of flesh bursting, silence descended, broken only by intermittent groans. With a dull clatter, the bloodstained angel statuette dropped to the floor.
Cordelia calmed her ragged breathing and clutched the teddy bear, Jeje, in her trembling hands. More than the near-assault, the realization that she had attacked a person with a clear, conscious mind made her heart pound wildly. And how did she feel about it? Well, honestly….
It did not feel bad.
It felt almost liberating, as though an impulse pent up for years had finally been unleashed. Finding an odd twitch at her lips, she touched them to find the corners curling upward against bare white teeth. She was smiling. Lightly wiping away the flecks of blood splattered across her cheek, she nudged Maurice’s twitching body with the tip of her foot. Thick blood continued to spread across the floor, yet she felt hardly any fear.
Was it because the bastard was still breathing? Because it seemed unlikely he would die? No. Not that.
If what they said was true, well.
What was there to be afraid of when she was going to die soon anyway? If the worst came to pass, she could simply drop dead right on schedule.
She blinked slowly.
Of course, the trembling had not completely subsided. Yet she had never once felt so liberated in all her life. She harbored no regrets. Frankly, she suspected she would have felt the exact same even if the piece of trash had died.
‘Ah. But ending up in prison or facing the gallows on account of a son of a bitch like that would be a bit too unfair.’
Not the attempted murder, but that singular prospect suddenly terrified her.
‘What if my end turns out wretched and utterly dragged through the gutter? What if it’s so steeped in misery that my life looks worthless and pathetic, as if it were ordained that way from the moment I was born?’
What if she ended up validating her own tragic life?
Her maternal grandfather, who had been gruff but genuinely concerned for his granddaughter’s future, and her mother, who had loved her and brought her into this world—their affection and worth would also be reduced to worthless filth on her account.
Even if no one else acknowledged it, she wanted to look back upon herself and ensure that the end of her life was not wretched.
She wished it would not be made entirely of sorrow. She wished to experience at least a tiny bit of happiness, delight, beauty, wonder, praise, and joy.
‘I don’t want to die miserable.’
The moment she recognized the burning longing in her chest—one she had not even known existed—Cordelia was like a woman possessed, dragging an old bag from the corner and frantically cramming whatever she could find inside.
Once in her childhood, she had harbored dreams of traveling the world, endlessly imagining herself packing up and leaving. Before her mother passed away, that had been merely a child’s fancy; afterward, it had become a desperate refuge to escape reality.
As though that fantasy had finally come true, she quickly gathered everything she needed with an eerie composure that surprised even herself: the travel funds she had guarded by starving herself just to put toward her wedding with Jonathan, a world map, a thick overcoat, leather boots, the remaining medicine pouch, whatever mementos of her mother that could fetch money… and Jeje.
Pressing firmly down on the teddy bear’s heavy belly to make sure, Cordelia finished packing her bags in the blink of an eye.
After a final sweep of the familiar room, she pushed the bedroom door open with a trembling hand.
Like a prisoner determined to break out of jail after prolonged captivity, her chest swelled with a strange yearning. Even she did not know how high that fledgling hot-air balloon of an ambition would rise.
Even if she were to end up like the hero who coveted the sun only to plummet back to earth, she could not stop now that the flame was lit.
For that was all she had left now.
The moment the door creaked open and she took her first step outside, a gasp escaped her. Pausing mid-stride, Cordelia turned halfway around and spat right in the face of her unconscious cousin, Maurice.
With her spirits lifted considerably, she stepped out into the world.
***
A certain jest circulated among high society in Katysha.
If you wish to see the luckiest man of this era, look no further than Noah Tudor.
Being born the second son of the House of Tudor, undisputed as the greatest family in the empire, was already a blessing from God. Yet his record—graduating at the top of the Imperial Military Academy, holding the record for most victories in the Imperial Polo Club, being appointed the youngest naval officer, and receiving the Royal Glory Medal as its youngest recipient after quelling a colonial uprising in his very first year of commission—owed entirely to his brilliant mind and unmatched mastery of both letters and arms.
On top of that, upon officially retiring from the military, he founded Raven Bank, raking in vast fortunes with his sharp investment sense. His keen aesthetic eye as an art collector, inherited from his mother, also drove everyone in the art world mad with desire to form a connection with him. This man, so accomplished he sounded practically unreal, was still in the prime of his youth.
Those who laid eyes on the much-rumored man for the first time unfailingly marveled at him. It was because of his striking face. Having inherited a lineage of sheer beauties from his mother—hailed as the Lily of Dufault—and his father, a man as handsome as the mythical moon god, he possessed a magical beauty potent enough to set anyone’s heart racing.
Yet those who met Noah Tudor in person were always appalled right after their marvel.
There were several reasons for it, but it usually happened the moment he opened his mouth or took action. What they felt was always the same.
‘How can someone be so utterly ill-mannered?’
Among the stories surrounding him, the most famous was the appraisal offered by Empress Agnes, Noah Tudor’s maternal cousin.
“God sculpted every part of him, but the Devil supplied his soul.”
No one could fathom what he lacked to possess such a foul temper. Even the parents who doted on him dearly did not know.
Had he suffered some traumatic incident in his childhood? Had his busy caregivers failed to provide enough affection?
Not in the least. His parents, the late Marquis Garcia and his wife, Lady Anais, were a picture-perfect pair of lovers and a devoted couple who put family and children above all else.
As their youngest, blessed with an angelic countenance, Noah had grown up smothered with excessive love from his older brother—born a mere five minutes ahead of him—as well as his parents and extended relatives, a state of affairs that continued well into his adulthood.
His family and friends sometimes wondered in all seriousness whether he had turned out this way because they had spoiled him rotten on account of that overly pretty face.
Had he suffered a deep wound from a personal relationship, perhaps with a woman?
Emphatically, no. In all his life, he had never received anything rough or sharp like an emotional scar from others; if anything, he was the one dishing them out.
Thanks to a flawless exterior that belied his true nature, he had been wildly popular since his youth—though most ran for their lives once they saw his true colors—and perhaps owing to his father’s strict upbringing, his romantic conduct had remained fastidiously clean.
The only possible conclusion, therefore, was that he was simply born rotten from the start.
And so people often lamented, saying he was a man who possessed everything except that one vital thing.
Be that as it may, Noah Tudor was far too busy doing whatever he pleased.
The thing he had been obsessed with from childhood to this very day was….
“We’re short two gold coins.”