A False Salvation For Lady

Chapter 4

4. You Haven’t Lost Anything

Cordelia couldn’t even begin to guess how long she had been crying. The pink diamond ring still lay discarded on the floor, and she sat curled up in the corner of the room, still in her wrinkled outing dress.

She felt like a lost child.

Everything in this house felt suffocating. It was a newlywed home, furnished with the latest designs from across two continents and decorated with ornaments from the most luxurious department store in the East.

Just yesterday, it had felt beautiful and precious—now, in the blink of an eye, it had all become a façade, a hollow illusion.

Even the inanimate objects seemed to mock her. Cordelia couldn’t bring herself to sit on a chair or the bed. So ever since she returned, she chose instead to slump on the cold floor.

“…What am I supposed to do?”

After crying her voice out, what escaped her now was a hoarse, bitter laugh.

From childhood until now, she had only ever been taught how to be a proper lady and a respected mistress of the house.

To treat tenants and servants with dignity. To maintain grace and elegance in any situation.

But no one had ever taught her how to act when betrayed by the man she loved.

Even if such lessons existed, she doubted she could remain rational enough to apply them in reality.

If only she could run away from reality. If only she could fall asleep and wake up to find everything changed.

But Cordelia had already tasted hardship, struggling alone after her family’s fall from grace.

It was a time she never wanted to experience again—one that had left her not only with shame but also one hard-earned lesson.

That lesson was this: when you stop thinking in the face of despair, it only makes things worse.

“Haa…”

So, once the tears stopped flowing, Cordelia took a deep breath and began to think about what came next. Her heart still felt like it was being torn apart, but her mind was turning—her body and soul felt completely out of sync.

“So what happens now? Even if I know everything, would Lucas still try to maintain this marriage?”

Logically, it didn’t seem possible to go back to the way things were. Her fluttering heart whenever she saw him, all her efforts to be a good wife—every bit of it had been so thoroughly denied.

And yet… she didn’t think her husband would want a divorce.

“He married me because I was a noblewoman. So he probably wouldn’t want to let go that easily.”

But could she be the one to demand a divorce? All she had was suspicion—just something she overheard. Even without legal knowledge, she could guess that wouldn’t be enough.

Even if she did have evidence, the chances of success were absurdly low.

“Could I even find a lawyer good enough to go up against the Duke family?”

She couldn’t be sure of that either, and if things went wrong, she might be the one to suffer a brutal backlash. They could charge her with defamation or disrespect, demand astronomical alimony, and turn her into a debtor for life…

“Horrible.”

Cordelia shivered like she had caught a cold. Nightmarish memories resurfaced—debt collectors with bloodshot eyes tearing apart the Hastings estate, seizing cherished heirlooms as if they were loot.

“This one too! Take it!”

“Lady Hastings, hands off! Your mother’s keepsakes? Sorry, everything has to be auctioned off!”

“Haven’t paid this month’s interest yet? Ha. Why not reconsider now? Someone like you—salon owners would pay a fortune for your company.”

As Cordelia found herself unconsciously reliving those times, she clamped both hands over her mouth. No—if she wasn’t careful, her long-dormant panic attacks would return.

“Ah… I really hated those days.”

She never wanted to fall into that kind of life again. But she had no way of predicting what would happen next—or how her husband would respond.

So all she could do was wait and make a careful decision based on his next move.

Until then, Cordelia could only pray—desperately—that all of this was just a lie.

Lucas returned that evening.

As if nothing had happened in the bright light of day, he entered the dining room with a cheerful expression, just like always.

“Good evening, my dear.”

“Welcome home, Lucas.”

“I must say, I’m impressed. After that kind of conversation, you’re holding up quite well.”

“…”

Cordelia gazed at Lucas silently. Her husband had always had a smooth and easy manner of speaking, but those words—those particular words—stabbed straight through her heart.

It was true—she had worked hard to reduce the swelling in her eyes and dressed herself more meticulously than usual to avoid any sign of weakness. To Cordelia, it was no different than putting on armor before stepping onto a battlefield.

But this wasn’t how she wanted to face the man she loved. Still, if she showed any weakness, she’d only become prey. In the world of beasts—and in high society—the law of the jungle reigned supreme.

Show your flesh once, and they’ll tear it apart with a smile on their face.

So Cordelia swallowed the overwhelming urge to collapse and stared straight at Lucas.

“What are you planning to do now, Lucas?”

“Planning to do?”

“I know you deliberately destroyed my family. So—are you planning to get rid of me too?”

“Hmmm.”

While Lucas considered his response, Cordelia squared her shoulders and sharpened her gaze on purpose.

She needed to know what he was thinking—but at the same time, she didn’t want to know. Their anniversary had already been more than enough of a nightmare.

And just as she feared, Lucas responded with a hint of cynicism curling at his lips.

“If you were hoping for a divorce, I’m afraid that’s unfortunate, my dear. I have no intention of letting you go.”

“What… You deceived me like this, and you seriously think we can have a normal marriage?”

“And why couldn’t we?”

“Lucas!”

Cordelia’s voice rose instinctively in disbelief, but Lucas merely shrugged one shoulder with ease.

“Yes, I used underhanded tricks to marry someone as noble as you. But I never held a gun to your family’s head or told them to squander all their wealth.”

“…Didn’t your friend just say earlier that you set the whole thing up to drive us into a corner?”

“But business and gambling aren’t sports. There’s no rule that says you have to play fair.”

Lucas still looked at her with an air of composure, and when Cordelia stared at him in stunned disbelief, he offered a charming smile.

“Think about it, my dear. You haven’t really lost anything.”

“What…?”

“You escaped a life where you would’ve been the old lecher’s second wife, and now you still get to live comfortably.”

As if to remind her of their surroundings, Lucas swept his open palm through the air. The dining room gleamed with electric light and silver tableware, straight out of a luxurious catalog.

But Cordelia could only inhale sharply in disbelief. What other husband would so blatantly deceive his wife like this?

“But it’s all a lie.”

“Does that matter?”

“How can it not matter?”

Cordelia stared at him, truly bewildered.

Even if business wasn’t a sport—setting people up to fail, deceiving her, and yet acting like it was nothing at all—she felt like she’d fallen into a bizarre, faraway land where nothing made sense anymore.

Even if her understanding of the world was limited, wasn’t spreading slanderous rumors about a competitor a crime?

“The gunshot I heard on my way out earlier…”

“You didn’t really need to know that, but this time—no, he didn’t die.”

“…”

The more she heard, the dizzier she felt. Cordelia couldn’t help but feel foolish, yet she was forced to ask a desperate question.

“Lucas… were you always like this?”

“Yes. This is the kind of person I’ve always been. You’ll have to live with it.”

Lucas let out a slow sigh, as if already bored with the conversation.

“Unfortunately, everything’s out in the open now… but nothing’s going to change, my dear.”

“…”

“We’ll go on living like this, have a child when the time feels right. Sure, we’ll start to annoy each other—but we’ll bear it, just like every other couple does.”

If someone she hated from the start had been this cruel, she could’ve just scoffed and brushed it off.

But because she loved him, the devastation and disappointment were all the more unbearable. Whether he knew that or not, Lucas smiled casually.

“Oh, right—happy anniversary, my dear. I left a pearl necklace in your room. I thought it would suit you.”

“…”

“Meeting you might be the greatest stroke of luck in my life.”

At his mocking, deceitful words, Cordelia’s lips trembled faintly.

Luck, he called it.

To her, meeting him had been salvation.

The words “I love you”—which she had meant to say for the first time on their anniversary—crumbled like a dry leaf in her mouth. Her mouth went dry, and when she swallowed, it felt like the bitterness pierced straight down into her heart.

Disappointment, betrayal, and pain burned hotly inside her chest. And amid that aching swell of emotion, a chilling realization suddenly flashed through her mind.

“Just now, he said we’d have a child when the time is right…?”