“My lady! Look at yourself. This is what happens when you move so suddenly.”
Lucy cried out, hurriedly checking on her mistress. But Penelope had no room in her mind to care about her disheveled appearance.
“The Iris, what happened to the Iris, which was scheduled to depart on September 1st?”
By all accounts, Penelope should be on the Iris right now. So why had she woken up in the bedroom of her mansion?
“Did I collapse and miss the ship because of that?”
“No, my lady. Actually, even if you hadn’t collapsed, you wouldn’t have been able to board. The Iris’s departure was canceled shortly after you fell unconscious.”
“The ship didn’t sail?”
Penelope’s eyes widened to their limit, stunned beyond belief.
The disaster that marked the beginning of her misfortune — the departure of the passenger ship — never occurred.
This must have been the moment when her fate changed.
“No one knows the exact reason why, but the ship’s owner, Duke Gunner, suddenly ordered the cancellation of the departure. The whole city was thrown into an uproar over it.”
The Iris had been promoted worldwide as a luxury liner without equal. Cancelling a trip intended for celebrities and influential figures, both domestic and international, would not only be a financial disaster, but also damage the company’s public image.
So why had Duke Gunner given such an order all of a sudden?
Penelope didn’t know, but it was thanks to this that her life had been spared.
She had come back to the same date—but the world around her had changed entirely.
“What on earth happened to me?”
“My lady! Where are you going? Please, I’m begging you, don’t run like that!”
Lucy pleaded desperately, but Penelope snatched the newspaper and dashed toward the violin practice room at the far end of the first floor. She slammed the door shut behind her, leaned against the wall, and began frantically flipping through the pages, searching for any clue.
[Duke Gunner in Crisis! Can the Iris Set Sail Again? The Iris, which should have departed on September 1st, remains docked at the harbor to this day. Investors suspect issues within Duke Gunner’s business empire—Gunner Trading, Gunner Shipping, and affiliated companies—and are demanding their money back…]
Even a month later, what Lucy had mentioned remained the talk of the town.
‘The Iris didn’t depart, so I never boarded it.’
That meant she hadn’t been murdered aboard the ship.
The past had changed, and now she was alive to see this day.
Just as Penelope sank deep into thought—
“What? Penelope’s awake?”
A shrill voice sliced through the silence.
Penelope instinctively locked the door.
“Really? Are you saying my wife has really regained consciousness? Is she in the bedroom right now?”
Penelope’s sharp ears caught the excited voice of Ned and Lucy’s quieter explanation in the background.
Thud, thud.
As Ned stomped noisily up the stairs, Penelope turned the doorknob she had been clutching tightly.
“My lady!”
Lucy called out with a bright face.
“His Lordship is heading to the bedroom. I didn’t tell him you were down here since I thought you might need time to freshen up—so go surprise him!”
With a delighted smile, Lucy reached out to tidy Penelope’s hair.
“While you were unconscious, the Count kept bringing guests to the house, but he didn’t even look in on you. I thought he didn’t care at all, but now I see how happy he is, I suppose he must have been really worried.”
Anticipating the reason for Lucy’s excitement, Penelope quickly concealed the disapproving expression that was beginning to form on her face.
Before she boarded the Iris, her relationship with Ned had already hit rock bottom.
He was away more often than he was home, and Penelope had become increasingly depressed waiting for him.
Knowing how much Penelope relied on her husband, Lucy suffered alongside her during those painful days.
If Penelope were still unaware of the truth, she would probably be putting on make-up now in the hope of looking pretty for Ned.
But now, Penelope knew the truth about who Ned really was.
“Lucy, that’s enough.”
When she pushed away the hand adjusting her shawl, Lucy blinked up at her in surprise.
“There’s something I need to check, and I think it’ll be better to go as I am—looking a mess.”
Penelope clenched her fists instead of adjusting her clothes.
If God had heard her final plea and granted her a new life, then this was her chance for revenge.
“What do you mean by that, my lady?”
“You’ll understand soon enough. But first—Lucy, do you remember the day you first came to our house?”
“Of course! How could I ever forget the day I received your grace, my lady? It was snowing heavily, and you slipped those beautiful fur mittens onto my hands, then invited me to play house with you. I still remember the scent of the tea you served—and even the pattern on the teacup.”
Lucy’s eyes shimmered with tears at the memory, as if just recalling that day overwhelmed her with emotion.
“My Lucy has always been the same.”
Penelope murmured. After confirming that her bond with Lucy and her memories were still intact, she made her way to the bedroom where Ned was.
This was the last chance she would give him.
If anything in her life had changed, it was possible that those around her had changed too.
However, judging by Lucy’s reactions and everything else she had seen, aside from averting her death and the Iris’s departure, nothing seemed different.
If Ned had somehow changed—or if their past together had been rewritten—then maybe, just maybe, they were still a loving couple.
In that case, Penelope might not be cast aside. She might still be able to protect the idea of ‘family’.
‘But even if the Ned standing before me now claims to love me… after everything I’ve endured and come back from, could I ever treat him the same again?’
With that tangled storm of emotions in her heart, Penelope arrived at the bedroom.
“Penelope! I heard you woke up!”
Ned welcomed her with arms wide open. It was, unmistakably, the gesture of someone glad to see her.
‘So it really was all just a nightmare. There’s no way Ned would do something so horrible to my parents, let alone try to kill me.’
His cheerful, seemingly innocent face made Penelope waver—just for a moment, she felt a flicker of hope.
“You just woke up today, and you’re already up and about?”
“Ah, yes. I’m awake, but still not feeling very well…”
“In that case, you’ll be able to attend the couples’ gathering. Hurry and get dressed.”
“A gathering?”
“You know the senators’ event we were supposed to attend on the Iris, right? Since the ship didn’t sail, they decided to hold it at the Upper Town club instead.”
Penelope’s lips slowly began to curve downward.
“They said they’d only let in couples, so I almost couldn’t go because of you. But then, like magic, you woke up right on time. I really am a lucky man.”
Ned said, whistling cheerfully. A wave of emptiness washed over Penelope.
Not only had her husband not asked if she was all right after waking from a month-long coma, he didn’t even seem concerned.
There wasn’t a trace of concern on his face.
He hadn’t changed — he was still the same piece of trash.
“So what you’re saying is that the only reason I matter right now is because of your business?”
“That’s right. If you understand, then hurry up. You look more like a patient than a proper woman right now, so it’s going to take some work to fix you up. Do we have a tuxedo ready? I’ll wear the dark grey one that was tailored last week. Penelope, wear the yellow dress – it matches my tie. We don’t have much time, so let’s sort out our outfits.”
Still in high spirits, Ned reached out to take her hand and lead her to the dressing room.
In that instant, Penelope saw an overlapping image of the same hand pushing her off the balcony and into the sea.
“Don’t touch me!”
Penelope finally said the words she had repeated over and over in her mind as she sank into the water.
“Are you crazy? What kind of wife talks to her husband like that?”
Ned’s expression twisted with fury.
“Even now, you don’t ask if I’m in pain or if I’m all right.”
“You’ve been lying around for a whole month. Time to pull your weight and do your duty as a wife.”
This wasn’t the past, and yet the situation felt tediously familiar. Her husband ignoring her feelings, fixated only on his own desires—
“To win over investors and get this new record business off the ground, I need you. So stop faking it and act like a proper wife.”
‘Faking it. A proper wife.’
Everything he said was meant to pin the blame for his failures onto Penelope.
“I’ll let it slide this time since we’re in a hurry. But if anything goes wrong because of you, just know the whole business will collapse—and it’ll be your fault.”
‘Let it slide.’
It was the absurdly inappropriate word that finally made Penelope aware of her surroundings.
To Ned, she was nothing more than a vault.
She was a means to an end: a tool to be used to drain her vast inheritance, obtain a noble title and gain the connections he needed for his business.
“What do I have to do with your business?”
“Penelope, did you really just say that to me?”
“I said I’m not going.”
Penelope finally began to express the anger she had buried for so long.
The truth that had been locked away in her heart for three years.
A scream that had been building for three long years.