The phrase “like the ground has fallen out beneath you” was no longer just a metaphor. Cordelia stood frozen in place, unable even to open the door, completely stunned.

‘No… this can’t be.’

‘My husband… bankrupted my family? And then proposed to me?’

“Ha… hhk.”

Cordelia clutched her chest in a panic.

Back when she was eighteen, still engaged to the duke she’d been badly injured after falling down a hill during a late-night stroll.

That year, she could hardly remember getting out of bed, bedridden for so long. Thankfully, the wounds left no scars and her appearance remained intact, but ever since, whenever she was emotionally shaken, her consciousness would blur and her breathing would become erratic.

‘No, pull yourself together.’

She had never told Lucas about this condition. She didn’t want the man she loved to suspect her of having some sort of mental illness. She couldn’t collapse in a place like this.

But as she tried to step back, she ended up slamming hard into the hallway wall with a loud thud. The raucous laughter behind the door fell silent in an instant. And before she could turn and flee, the door swung open roughly.

William Seymour stood there, his face flushed red with rage, and with a pistol in his hand, which came as a shock. Cordelia almost crossed herself and invoked a God she rarely thought of.

“I said no one should be loitering around at this hour—! Wait… uh, Mrs. Duquesne?”

The men inside immediately changed their expressions. They had been scowling, thinking it was just a subordinate who had slipped up. But when they saw Cordelia standing there, their faces paled in disbelief.

One by one, they began to awkwardly scratch their necks or open and close their mouths without saying anything, glancing between Cordelia and Lucas.

But her husband didn’t even look surprised. He simply raised one eyebrow and, unfazed by the flustered men, casually waved a hand at them before walking leisurely toward her.

“Get back to work, all of you. Enough with the noise.”

“R-Right.”

At Lucas’s sharp command, William hastily closed the door, his earlier hostility vanishing instantly.

Once the hallway had fallen deathly silent, leaving only the couple behind, Lucas took Cordelia’s hand and guided her toward the exit.

She couldn’t begin to process what had just happened. But as they reached the door and she finally looked up at her husband’s face, he looked… disturbingly calm.

“It’s surprising to see you here, my lady. What brings you to a place like this, all alone?”

“The truth is… I heard something strange from Miss Vanderbilt.”

“Were you and Louisa that close? Close enough to spy on where your husband might be?”

“That’s not—”

“Disappointing. So you don’t trust your husband.”

When Lucas let out a soft, mocking scoff, Cordelia looked up at him with wide eyes. Her eyes were already beginning to sting, gradually growing hot—but she could not allow herself to break.

Not once in her twenty-four years had she ever done so. She had been raised as the sole daughter of the Hastings family, educated under strict discipline.

“Yes. It was wrong of me not to trust you. But what about what I heard in that room earlier?”

‘Tell me it was a lie. At the very least, say it was all a joke. Tell me it was a kind of New Continent humor I just didn’t understand.’

“That part about you intentionally dragging my family into the mine investment…”

“……”

“You know what happened to them, don’t you? My mother died! Our acquaintances went bankrupt too—do you have any idea how many people…!”

So many people in her homeland, the Empire on the Old Continent, had been affected. When the renowned House of Hastings led the way in investing, everyone followed suit, pouring in vast sums.

They were desperate not to become relics of a bygone era and were fighting to stay relevant. Because of that terrible failure, countless families were ruined. They were nobles, yes, but this was their final stand before they were reduced to fossils of the past.

Consequently, the House of Hastings had become public enemies in the Empire. This was also the reason why Cordelia could not rely on anyone’s help after her family’s downfall, and had been forced to endure years of hardship.

“It was a lie, right, Lucas? Just a coincidence… the investment, this office, all of it.”

She wanted her husband to reassure her. If he did, Cordelia would forget everything she heard back in that office. Even the ridicule his subordinates had exchanged about her.

At that moment, Lucas slowly swept a hand through his hair. There was no sign of panic on his face, but however faint, the look of annoyance was unmistakable.

“Haah… sh*t. What a damn headache.”

“Lucas…?”

“You were going to find out eventually anyway.”

With a sigh thick with irritation, Lucas let out a faint smile, as if indulging the whining of a child.

“Where should I start? First, yes—it’s true I deliberately involved your family.”

“……!”

“But the final decision to invest? That was made entirely by your late mother and the board of your house. No one told them to pour in everything they had.”

“But still… you didn’t have to destroy the entire family. You did it all just to marry me, didn’t you?”

“Exactly. A noble lineage—something we don’t have here in the New Continent. You know how badly the old men crave that sort of thing, don’t you?”

The colour drained further from Cordelia’s face.

The ‘old man’ that Lucas had referred to was none other than her father-in-law. A self-made magnate of humble origins, he had been overjoyed when his son married into the Count’s family — as if she had descended with a halo.

It had been a bitter comfort to her, knowing that it was the only dowry she could bring with her.

“…Lucas. But why me?”

“Hm?”

“There were other daughters of high nobility besides me. Other women who had also… fallen.”

At that moment, her husband gave the same smile he always did. Still as handsome as ever—but now, it looked like the sneer of a devil who delighted in cruelty.

“Why was it you, of all people?” Simple. You were the most pitiful and the cheapest.”

“…What?”

“Not to mention, weren’t you once called the ‘Hadrian Rose’? If you’re going to invest, better to buy at rock-bottom value.”

“…!”

“I’m grateful to your former fiancé, actually. Thanks to him, I gained the most.”

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

She had once been the fiancée of Duke Clement Berkeley, the most prominent nobleman in the Empire, until her family went bankrupt and he broke off the engagement.

Staggered, she couldn’t speak a word. And still, Lucas only smiled.

“I’ll make sure to silence the idiots inside. No matter what you heard, don’t ever think of stepping back into this place.”

He turned as if nothing had happened. But just before he fully walked away, he glanced back at Cordelia’s face with a mocking smile.

“Still… you really are something, my lady. Not a single tear in a moment like this. Truly noble of you.”

“……”

“I’m glad I proposed to you.”

With that, Lucas turned his back on his frozen wife and walked back into the meeting room he had come from.

Cordelia didn’t know how long she stood there, completely still. But at some point, she found herself stumbling out of the office building, as if in a daze.

And the moment she stepped outside a gunshot rang out. Along with what sounded like someone’s final, agonized scream.

“Ah…!”

Her whole body froze, as though every muscle had turned to stone.

Should she go back in and check?

‘That didn’t sound like Lucas’s voice—but what if…?’

But he told her not to come back in—no matter what. Gripped by fear, Cordelia jumped into the first taxi she could find.

“Hah… haah…”

Was that just a hallucination?

No. She had seen it. She saw the pistol in William’s hand.

Even if it was all for the sake of business.

Oh God, what on earth…

“Ah… ahh.”

Cordelia couldn’t even cry out in despair inside the taxi. She simply clamped both hands over her mouth. The first wedding anniversary she had so desperately wanted to be perfect had crumbled into a nightmare in an instant.

***

Some time later, Cordelia finally arrived at her home in Millionaire Row, an affluent district in the East.
She barely managed to hold back the nausea twisting in her stomach as the house staff rushed out to greet her.

“My lady, are you all right?”

“……!”

The moment she met their eyes, the last trace of color drained from her face. They all looked concerned, dressed neatly in their uniforms, each expression seemingly filled with worry—
But…

‘Had they known all along that Lucas had been deceiving her?’
‘Had they been laughing behind her back this entire time?’
‘Were they involved in his crimes, too?’

What had they all really been thinking beneath those polite greetings she’d received over the past year?

Her mind was a swamp of confusion, thoughts tangled like roots in mud. But Cordelia forced herself to smile—gracefully, like the composed mistress of the house she was supposed to be.

“It’s nothing. Please don’t worry. I’m just tired, so there’s no need to bring me anything to drink.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Acting as if nothing had happened, Cordelia climbed the beautiful central staircase and made her way to the bedroom. Suddenly, she remembered how happy she had been when she first arrived.

Most of the mansions on Millionaire Row were built in a lavish château style. But her newlywed home stood out with its sombre, heavy design, almost resembling an old religious sanctuary. Cordelia immediately recognised it as the architecture of her homeland.

Even the wildflowers in the garden were native to the Empire. She believed it was all a gesture of affection from her husband, who had arranged it all to comfort his homesick bride.

‘But was it not consideration, but mockery instead?’
‘How much of it was genuine, and where did the deceit begin?’

No—was there ever anything genuine to begin with?

Lucas had looked utterly relieved, as if he had finally let out something he’d been bottling up. If that were the case, had he only been playing the part all this time? Since the very beginning?

“Haah…”

Only when she was finally alone in the bedroom did Cordelia collapse to the floor. Even then, memories of her time with Lucas overwhelmed her, suffocating her.

Then a carousel of memories began to spin slowly through her mind: The moment they first met.

It had been back in her homeland, the Hadrian Empire on the Old Continent. Just before her family fell into ruin and she was about to descend into hell, Lucas had appeared like a saviour.