A False Salvation For Lady

Chapter 2

2. The Worst Wedding Anniversary

The feeling that the ground might give way beneath her wasn’t just a figure of speech. Cordelia stood there in a daze, unable to even reach for the doorknob.

“This… can’t be real.”

My husband… ruined my family…? And then proposed to me afterward?

“Ha—Hah…”

Cordelia hastily clutched her chest.

Back when she was eighteen—the fiancée of a duke—she had suffered a terrible accident after falling down a hill during a nighttime walk. That year, she had spent so much time bedridden, she could barely recall standing upright.

Thankfully, no scars had remained, and she appeared fine on the outside, but ever since then, emotional shocks could trigger dizziness and shortness of breath—a lingering, private ailment.

No. Get a hold of yourself.

She had never told Lucas about this flaw. She couldn’t bear for the man she loved to think she might be mentally unstable. She couldn’t collapse here, of all places.

But as she tried to step back, her heel hit the hallway wall with a loud thud.

The loud chatter from beyond the door instantly died.

And before Cordelia could turn and flee, the door flung open violently.

William Seymour stood there, his face twisted in anger—and even worse, he had a pistol in hand.

Cordelia nearly crossed herself and muttered the name of a god she hardly ever prayed to.

“I said no one should be wandering around at this—wait, what—Lady Duquesne?!”

The expressions of the men inside changed in an instant. They had all assumed a subordinate had made some mistake and were frowning—until they saw who was standing in the hallway. Then their faces turned pale. They all glanced between Cordelia and Lucas, awkwardly scratching the backs of their necks or silently mouthing words they couldn’t quite say.

But her husband didn’t look the least bit flustered. He simply raised one eyebrow.

Casually waving a hand to quiet his panicked subordinates, he strode toward Cordelia with a calm, easy grace.

“Get back to work, everyone. Enough commotion.”

“Y-Yes, sir…”

At Lucas’s curt command, William quickly closed the door. As the hallway fell into a deathly silence, only the two of them remained. Lucas took Cordelia’s hand and began walking toward the exit.

She couldn’t make sense of the situation, not in her mind, not in her heart—and yet, when they reached the exit and she looked up at her husband, his face was chillingly calm.

“Fancy seeing you here, my dear. What brings you to a place like this, all alone?”

“Well… I heard something strange from Miss Vanderbilt.”

“You and Louisa are that close? Close enough that you’d sneak around spying on your husband?”

“I—”

“Disappointing. So you don’t trust me after all?”

Lucas let out a dry laugh, and Cordelia stared up at him with wide eyes. Her vision was beginning to sting, heat blooming at the corners, but she would not break down.

She had never allowed herself to—not once in all her twenty-four years. Not as the only daughter of the Earl of Hastings, not with how strictly she’d been raised.

“You’re right. I was wrong not to trust you. But… what about what I heard in that room just now?”

Please, tell me it was a lie. Say it was all a joke. Say it’s some strange New Continent humor I just don’t understand.

“You said you deliberately involved my family in that coal mine investment.”

“…”

“You know what happened to them, don’t you? My mother died, others went bankrupt—so many people suffered because of that!”

So many people in her homeland—the Empire in the Old Continent—had been harmed.

They had seen the prestigious Hastings family take the lead and invested heavily without hesitation.

These were nobles, yes—but ones making their final desperate bids to stay afloat in a changing world. That catastrophic failure had destroyed countless noble houses.

Thanks to that, the Hastings family had become a public disgrace in the Empire. That was why Cordelia, after her family’s collapse, had to live through those years without help—even from old friends.

“Tell me it’s not true, Lucas. That it was all coincidence—that incident, and this office too.”

She wanted her husband to reassure her. If he did, Cordelia could forget everything she had heard in that office—the dreadful words, the mockery from his subordinates.

At that moment, Lucas slowly ran a hand through his hair. His face showed no sign of urgency, but a faint trace of irritation flickered across his features.

“…Ha. Shit. What a nuisance.”

“Lucas?”

“You were going to find out eventually.”

With a sigh full of annoyance, Lucas gave a slight, indifferent smile, as if humoring a child’s whining.

“Where should I begin? First off—yes, I did deliberately involve your family.”

“…!”

“But the decision to invest was entirely up to your late mother and the family’s board. No one told them to invest everything they had.”

“B-But… there was no reason to bankrupt the count’s house. You did it just so you could marry me, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. A noble background like yours—something we don’t have in the New Continent. You know how obsessed the old man is with that kind of thing, don’t you?”

The color drained even more from Cordelia’s face. The “old man” Lucas referred to was none other than her father-in-law. A wealthy commoner, he had been overjoyed when a daughter of the Hastings family married into his house—as if she had brought the radiance of an angel with her.

It was the only dowry she could offer, and while it had stung, she had found solace in it…

“Lucas… but why me?”

“Hm?”

“There were other women from noble families… even ones who had fallen like I had…”

At that, Lucas smiled as he always did. Still handsome, still graceful—but this time, he looked more like a devil who delighted in the torment of others.

“Because you were the most pitiful.”

“…What?”

“Plus, you were once called the ‘Hadrian Rose,’ weren’t you? When investing, you always want to buy at the lowest price.”

“…!”

“I’m quite grateful to your ex-fiancé, you know. Thanks to him, I got the best deal.”

At the mention of her past, Cordelia bit down on her lip.

Back in the Empire, she had once been engaged to none other than Duke Clement Berkeley, the highest-ranking noble. Until her family fell and the engagement was called off.

She was too stunned to say anything. And Lucas, still smiling, looked like he hadn’t a care in the world.

“I’ll make sure the people inside keep quiet. No matter what you hear, don’t ever think of coming back here again.”

He casually turned on his heel, but before fully turning away, he looked at Cordelia one last time and gave a faint smile.

“By the way, I’m impressed, wife. Not a single tear, even in this situation. Truly, you are a remarkable person.”

“……”

“I’m glad I proposed to you.”

After that, Lucas turned his back on his helpless wife and walked back to the conference room where he had just come from.

Cordelia didn’t know how long she had stood there in a daze. But at some point, she snapped back to reality and found herself leaving the office building.

As soon as she stepped outside, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the air, followed by what sounded like someone’s dying scream.

“Ah…!”

Her entire body froze, as if her muscles had turned to stone. Should she go back inside and check? It didn’t sound like Lucas’s voice, but what should she do?

But he had told her not to come in… In a panic, Cordelia frantically hailed a taxi.

“Ugh, huff.”

Was that just a hallucination? No, she had seen William holding a gun. No matter how much it was for business, oh, my God…

“Ah, ahh.”

Cordelia couldn’t even sigh aloud in the taxi. She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle the sound.

Her first wedding anniversary, which she had hoped would be perfect, had turned into a nightmare in an instant.

After some time, Cordelia finally arrived at her home in the affluent “Millionaire Row” in the eastern part of town. She barely managed to hold back the dizziness threatening to make her vomit, and the servants rushed to greet her.

“Madam, are you alright?”

“……!”

Cordelia’s face instantly drained of color as she met the eyes of the servants. The well-dressed staff members all seemed to be concerned about her, but… did they know that Lucas had been deceiving her? Were they laughing at her behind her back? Were they complicit in this criminal behavior?

Over the past year, what had they really thought behind their polite greetings? What were they hiding under their masks?

Her mind felt like a muddied swamp, completely chaotic. But Cordelia steadfastly smiled, as if she were still the dignified mistress of the house.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry, everyone. I’m just tired and plan to rest, so there’s no need to bring me any drinks.”

“Yes, madam.”

Cordelia pretended as if nothing had happened and gracefully ascended the beautiful central staircase, heading toward her bedroom. Suddenly, she remembered how happy she had been the first time she arrived here.

While most mansions on ‘Millionaire Row’ were lavish chateau-style buildings, her newlywed home was uniquely designed with a solemn, almost religious feel, making it stand out among the others.

Cordelia recognized it as a style from her homeland at a glance. Even the flowers in the garden seemed to be native to her homeland, and she had thought it was all a thoughtful gesture from her husband, intended to comfort his homesick bride.

‘But was it care, or mockery?’

Where had the sincerity ended, and where had the deception begun? No, could there have been even a single ounce of sincerity from the beginning?

Lucas seemed to show a sense of relief, as if he had been holding back his true feelings all this time. Had he been pretending to accommodate her all along?

From the very beginning, when they first met?

“Ha…”

Cordelia collapsed onto the floor of the bedroom, overwhelmed. But the memories of the time she had spent with her husband in this room made her feel like she was suffocating.

Moreover, the moment when she and her husband had first met kept replaying in her mind, slowly spinning in her thoughts like a carousel.

It was when she was still in her homeland, the Hardrian Empire on the Old Continent. Her family had fallen into ruin, and just as she was about to fall into despair, Lucas had appeared as her savior.