Previously
Cordelia explains that her family's true relic is known as the Mermaid's Tail and claims she will receive it as her mother's inheritance in one year, concealing her terminal condition. As Noah drives her toward the mermaid statue, their car is rear-ended by an imperial royal bearing the title Secreta.
Cordelia watched him cautiously before speaking up in a tentative voice.
“Are you all right?”
“I believe that should be my line,”
he murmured, resting his forearms against the steering wheel.
“Are you unhurt? From what I can tell, you don’t seem injured anywhere.”
“Yes. Thanks to you. Truly, thank you.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
His spoken words carried the textbook gentleness and courtly etiquette of an aristocratic gentleman, but his gaze remained fixed straight ahead until he finally started the engine and turned to her. Meeting her anxious eyes, he let out a short, airy chuckle.
“Your eyes get even bigger when you’re frightened.”
‘She looked just like this back then, too.’
Turning away from Cordelia’s wide-eyed stare, Noah brushed a hand back through his hair. “Miss Cordelia, I apologize for changing our plans, but…”
“Would it be all right if we visited the mermaid statue another time? I’m hardly in the mood for wandering about just now.”
“Oh, of course! After such an accident, you should go straight home and rest!”
As Cordelia nodded in a frantic, flustered flurry like a cornered little animal, Noah let out a soft breath.
“It is quite strange. It isn’t as if I possess a conscience, nor am I a gentle creature by nature, yet whenever I look at you, Miss Cordelia, how should I put it… I often find myself bothered. It nags at me too much to simply ignore. Is this what the world refers to as a conscience, I wonder?”
“A conscience?”
“It feels as though my hands reach out unprompted, exactly like looking at a mangy little puppy whimpering in the cold. Peculiar, isn’t it? I despise most beasts. Well, they smell, after all.”
Cordelia stared blankly at his unsparing, rambling monologue as he smoothly steered through the turn, then quietly hitched her sleeve to her nose and sniffed. ‘Does he mean that I smell?’ Without sparing her a glance, he spoke.
“Those are my mother’s clothes.”
“Ah! I—I’m so sorry. I’ll wash them before—”
“Did I ask you to? I’m simply telling you.”
“Right…”
Uncertain what he expected from her, she studied his profile for a moment before scraping together what little social grace she possessed.
“It must be a precious garment. Thank you for lending it to me.”
“If you’re so thankful, what will you give me in return?”
“…Is there something you need?”
Glancing sideways at her pale face, which practically screamed, ‘You already said you’d take my eyes, my hair, and my heirloom, so what else could you possibly want?’ Noah covered his mouth and burst into a fit of chuckles. It was no performative courtesy; it was genuine, irrepressible amusement. The tense sharpness that had clung to his features melted away into soft ease.
“You look at me as if I’m a wicked villain. Did I demand repayment?”
“You are my creditor, after all.”
“What? Ahaha!”
At her meek murmur, Noah slapped the steering wheel in a roar of laughter. She had no idea what was so funny. She was a debtor, and he was undeniably a loan shark. Was it amusing because he was on the side collecting?
Lacking the courage to argue her case out loud, the timid girl merely pouted. The sun had dipped toward the western horizon, and its gentle, sulfur-gold dusk brushed against her rounded, flushed cheek. The evening glow settled across pearl-hued locks and mysterious, sea-colored eyes.
‘She truly is a sight worth admiring.’
Noah Tudor had a weakness for beautiful things. It was why Cordelia Marguerite pleased him all the more. Her quiet grumbling to herself, her cautious glances, the hearty way she ate, and the stubborn grit she mustered when pushed into a corner—he liked every bit of it.
Keeping her by his side for a year or so would hardly be a dreadful prospect.
After all, he had plenty of time.
Noah dropped her off, turned the car around, and disappeared down the lane. He had claimed he was in no mood to wander, but it seemed an urgent matter had simply called him away.
Just as she accepted this and stepped inside the manor, an unfamiliar young gentleman—who introduced himself as House Tudor’s physician—arrived at her room, announcing he had come to conduct an immediate examination.
“I was told you were involved in an accident.”
“Please take a deep breath.”
Following his instructions, she inhaled deeply against the cold bell of the stethoscope while he nodded and jotted notes onto a paper. Cordelia glanced nervously at his movements, a needless flutter of anxiety rising in her chest. She had a chronic condition, so worrying was second nature, though in truth there was nothing to fear from a doctor.
The Curse of the Mermaid was an incurable illness of unknown origin.
Following the initial onset marked by violent hemorrhaging, stress provoked agonizing seizures and coughing fits of blood, yet through every medical examination, the victim withered away silently without a trace of organic cause. It was a baseless malady that not even the greatest physicians or legendary remedies under heaven could mend; naturally, no matter how exhaustive the examination, no diagnostic finding would ever appear.
Even her mother had reached the brink of death without a single doctor detecting any organ failure or naming a disease. On paper, she had appeared entirely healthy, completely normal. Because of that, her father had insisted her mother was feigning illness, accusing her of staging a childish performance for attention out of sheer idleness.
‘If only it really had been an act. Then her agony would not have been real.’
“My examination reveals no abnormalities whatsoever. You are quite healthy.”
It was just as she expected.
Even so, Cordelia let out a quiet breath of relief. Noah Tudor only needed to claim what he sought from her in the end, so the thought had crossed her mind that she might simply confess the truth. And yet…
‘Promise me. You must never speak of our illness to anyone. Do you hear me?’
‘What a pack of swindlers! Were you trying to foist such a sickly child onto our noble house? Shameless wretches!’
‘You worthless wench! Why did you hide that you were sick, eh? Do you have any idea how utterly disgraced we are because of you?!’
‘Damn it all, has the marriage fallen through now? Is that it?! My one and only lifeline turned out to be rotten to the core!’
Cordelia could not bear even the smallest ripple of grief her wretched misfortune might stir up again. She possessed neither the strength nor any reason to endure it.
She wished only to exist quietly until her breath slipped away.
“However, both your lungs and heartbeat sound somewhat faint. Have you had a delicate heart since childhood, my lady?”
At the physician’s inquiry, Cordelia gave a small nod. Even before the curse manifested, she had never been particularly robust. Weak lungs ran in her family, and growing up deprived of proper meals had left her digestion fragile. Once the disease took root, her already feeble heart seemed to deteriorate further.
“For now, there are no grave concerns. Breathe fresh air and take light walks. Wholesome nourishment and sound sleep are paramount. You must also keep stress to a minimum.”
It was predictable advice, yet Cordelia nodded earnestly before pausing.
Come to think of it, her condition had been unusually splendid of late.
It was not as though the coughing spells and nosebleeds had vanished entirely, but their frequency had dropped considerably. And that was without increasing her dosage.
‘Could it be because my body is at peace?’
If that were the case, she owed a debt of gratitude to the peculiar creditor who had brought her here. Since Noah was absent, Cordelia bowed her head instead to the physician packing his medical bag.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Not at all. As I mentioned earlier, I am Jacques Perrot. My family has served as personal physicians to House Tudor for generations. Please, speak comfortably with me.”
He proudly explained that his lineage had served House Tudor since the days of his great-great-grandmother’s father, adding that he had been raised alongside Lord Isaac and Lord Noah almost like a brother.
Cordelia admired his noble profession, but she felt a deeper envy for the enduring pride and heritage he carried forward for his family. Having once studied herbs and nurtured a fleeting dream of becoming a physician herself, she felt an instinctive warmth toward him.
“Ah, Lord Perrot. Would you happen to know of an apothecary nearby where one might purchase mermaid herb—that is to say, Clamancia?”
“Clamancia? But isn’t that a poisonous herb? Whatever would you need that for…?”
Noticing Lord Perrot’s puzzled look, Cordelia offered her practiced excuse.
“If you steep the herb in milk and drink it as a tea, it brings restful sleep. My family’s constitution has always taken well to it, so I make a habit of keeping it on hand.”
“Is that so? I had no idea. You are remarkably well-versed in herbal lore.”
Seeing his genuine wonder and praise, Cordelia managed an awkward smile.
Her medicine was running dangerously low. Because she could never disclose her affliction to another soul and had no physician capable of treating her, she had to compound her own remedies. Just as she had always done.
‘My body felt better for a time, so I tried halving the pills, but if another fit strikes out of nowhere, it could be fatal.’
The violent seizure two nights ago had surely occurred because her dosage had fallen short. Rattled by the episode, she had returned to taking full pills, and watching her meager supply dwindle had filled her with quiet dread. In that light, Lord Jacques Perrot’s sudden arrival and offer of aid felt like a ray of dawn.
When he gladly promised to introduce her to an apothecary and secure her most urgent necessities, she breathed a sigh of profound relief, thanking him again and again.