TMC 13
CHAPTER :13
12. Shoes as a Gift?
That evening.
It was after dinner.
Just as Adrian had said, a doctor dressed in pure white visited Stella’s bedroom.
The doctor, who entered with a bright, lively smile, had her long hair in a braid and was dressed in elegant, ladylike attire.
Above all, the doctor was so young and beautiful that it was hard to believe she was a physician.
“I am Leah Dautort, the Castillo family’s personal physician. I’m here to examine you, my lady.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“It is an honor to meet you. I heard your feet have been giving you trouble. May I take a look?”
After a brief hesitation, Stella took a deep breath and nodded.
Showing her feet to someone was incredibly uncomfortable, but she couldn’t refuse the doctor.
Leah carefully examined the soles of her feet, where the glass shards had been embedded, and spoke.
“This must have hurt quite a bit.”
*Did it? I don’t remember at all.*
At that time, her only thought had been to escape if she wanted to live.
Perhaps that was why she hadn’t even felt the pain.
Since arriving here, she had been too surrounded by happiness to feel any pain.
Leah gently pressed on the wounds on Stella’s feet and then placed the foot on her knee.
“Can you try moving it?”
“Like this?”
“Yes, back and forth too. You’re doing wonderful.”
Leah praised her for something so simple.
The way Leah spoke, as if coaxing a young child, made Stella’s face turn red.
“The wounds have healed nicely, and since you have no trouble moving them, it shouldn’t interfere with your daily life. However…”
Leah placed her hand on the tip of Stella’s big toe and looked at her with a serious expression.
Tense, Stella’s hands began to sweat.
“Walking long distances will be difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
This was unexpected.
Stella parted her lips, staring at Leah in response to her blunt words.
“I heard from Lord Castillo. He said once your legs heal, you plan to leave this place and go out into the wider world. But it will still be hard for you to travel such a long distance. Even if it looks healed on the outside, walking for a long time might cause it to throb with pain.”
In truth, because she hadn’t walked much, there was no way to confirm whether walking was uncomfortable or not.
Since she felt no pain, she had simply assumed she was completely healed.
“Until when?”
Stella’s voice rose slightly.
Leah gently set Stella’s foot down and spoke.
“I can’t say for certain, but perhaps until Lady Bronte’s heart is ready?”
First she said it would be hard to move around for a long time, and now she was saying she could walk when she felt like it.
What a complete quack.
It was only natural that doubt crept into Stella’s eyes as she looked at Leah.
“Oh my! Hearing me say that makes me sound like a total quack, doesn’t it? But I truly mean it when I say the mind is what’s important. If you walk with an uneasy heart, even a perfectly healthy body is bound to suffer.”
Leah swept her hair to the side and flashed a professional, business-like smile.
“I’ve been talking too much, haven’t I?”
“No. It’s not that.”
Stella belatedly understood what Leah was trying to convey and shook her hands frantically.
Leah was telling her she could hide her foot’s recovery if she wanted to.
On the other hand, Stella couldn’t understand why Leah was showing her such kindness.
*Has she also met me before, just like him?*
Stella asked Leah cautiously.
“Have we by any chance met before?”
Leah paused for a split second, then smiled brightly and shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why?”
*Why are you being so considerate of my situation?*
Stella swallowed the rest of her question and stared at Leah.
Leah smiled as if it were nothing and began to pack her bag.
“It was natural for you to wonder, wasn’t it?”
Stella couldn’t deny it.
The goodwill shown by Adrian, a virtual stranger, was already more than she deserved.
Yet here was Leah, also showing her kindness by telling her to walk only when she felt like it.
“A doctor must look after a patient’s mind as well as their body. Before I am the Castillo family physician, I am a doctor. I couldn’t ignore the anxious, trembling look in Lady Bronte’s eyes.”
“Ah!”
Stella’s eyes widened.
Only now did she fully understand Leah’s words.
Caring not just for the body, but for the mind.
It was exactly the kind of thing a true doctor would say.
Leah smiled warmly at Stella, who seemed to understand her intentions, and picked up her bag—which was larger than her own torso—and stood up.
“Well then, could you tell Lord Castillo that I was busy and had to leave first?”
*Knock, knock.*
Right on cue, a knock sounded.
Intuiting that the person at the door was Adrian, Leah grimaced, looking as if she had just encountered someone she desperately wanted to avoid.
“So much for slipping away quietly.”
With a click, the bedroom door opened.
Unlike before, Adrian, who had come to see her in comfortable casual wear, was holding a small box in his hands.
“Were you talking behind my back?”
“Of course not.”
Leah lightly denied it and winked at Stella.
Adrian turned a sharp, askance gaze toward Leah.
His look chided her, as if to say he had sent her in to treat a patient, only for her to end up gossiping and socializing with Stella instead.
“How is Lady Bronte’s condition?”
“It will be difficult for her to walk long distances. However, the wounds are fully healed, so there’s no need to apply medicine anymore. She just needs to be careful for a while.”
Leah, cutting off Adrian’s words mid-sentence, tactfully concealed the parts Stella was worried about, while still framing things so that Stella could walk whenever she wished.
At that, Adrian set the box he was holding down on the nightstand and stepped closer to Stella.
“I’m glad to hear you’re recovering.”
“Oh, what is that?”
“It’s none of the physician’s business.”
The bickering between the two of them felt quite familiar.
Rather than employer and employee, they treated each other with casual, comfortable ease.
Stella looked back and forth between them, wondering if they shared some other personal connection.
Meanwhile, Adrian took a pair of blue shoes from the box and placed them neatly in front of Stella.
“A gift to celebrate your recovery.”
“They’re shoes.”
“Yes.”
Adrian smiled.
Leah picked up one of the shoes.
“What kind of man gives shoes as a gi—”
Shaking her head as she spoke, Leah quickly shut her mouth under Adrian’s fierce glare.
Instead, she used her eyes to convey, *How can someone be so foolish?* as she looked down at the shoes on the floor.
“I intended to give them to you once your feet were fully healed, but it seems that will take a little more time.”
“…”
“Will you accept them?”
Stella quietly stared down at the shoes on the floor.
Even at a glance, they were beautiful, expensive-looking shoes.
The deep blue shoes, adorned with a purple ribbon at the back, possessed an extraordinary elegance.
But somehow, receiving the shoes made her feel like she had to leave, so she couldn’t easily bring herself to reach out for them.
“I prepared them with the hope that every path you tread from now on will shine brightly.”
After he said all that, how could she possibly refuse?
Stella nodded to Jenna, who was standing quietly nearby.
Jenna took the shoes and placed them neatly on the shelf.
“Thank you.”
“What is there to thank him for?!”
Leah blurted out.
Both Stella and Adrian turned their heads toward Leah.
Despite their stares, Leah blurted out exactly what was on her mind.
“Giving a woman shoes as a gift… it’s like a farewell! That’s so cold-hearted!”
“Leah Dautort.”
“Ah—yes!”
“If you’re done with your job, leave.”
Pouting, Leah voiced her grumbles, yet she obediently turned around and walked out.
As the sound of the closing door rang out, Adrian shook his head and looked at Stella.
“The physician can be quite loud.”
Leah was certainly talkative, but it was obvious just from the look in Adrian’s eyes that he trusted her.
For a split second, her chest throbbed.
The sudden sensation felt unfamiliar.
*What did they call this kind of emotion?*
* * *
The Emperor was unable to regain consciousness.
A somber atmosphere hung over the imperial palace at the news that no one knew when the Emperor would awaken.
The Empress, too, was in a foul mood due to the situation.
Prince Valery, whom she had given birth to, was still a mere child. If the Emperor passed away, Theo would become the next Emperor unless something extraordinary happened.
Though she had laid most of the groundwork behind the scenes, time was running terribly short, and the Empress’s patience was wearing thin.
*I must finish this before winter arrives.*
Just as she was barely managing to steady her mind, a half-naked woman walked in.
The Empress let out a hollow laugh at the sight of the foolish woman who had entered the Emperor’s chambers to play her little tricks.
The bedroom was thick with a pungent, nose-stinging scent.
The woman gasped in sheer terror upon realizing the Empress was there, throwing herself flat on the floor.
“Y-Your Imperial Majesty.”
The Empress looked down, scanning the woman from head to toe.
With her beautiful figure, the woman was certainly alluring.
“Why are you so startled?”
When the Empress lifted the woman’s chin, she looked back at her with a face on the verge of tears.
“I-I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty. I did not know you were here.”
Was the Emperor’s bedroom a place where one could wander in and out at will just because the Empress was absent?
It was so absurd she couldn’t help but laugh.
However, seeing that the woman’s efforts were somewhat admirable, she thought it might not be a bad idea to give her one chance.
“If you can restore His Majesty’s health with that pretty body of yours, there would be nothing to apologize for, would there?”
“Ugh… Your Majesty.”
“Go ahead and do what you came here to do.”
The Empress shoved the woman toward the Emperor.
After that, though the woman trembled under the Empress’s watchful gaze, she struggled to arouse the man.
But the member the woman so desperately sought to rouse only hung limp and lifeless.
“Did I not tell you to revive His Majesty?”
“I-I…”
“When you entered this place with that pretty face of yours, was it not to revive His Majesty?”
The Empress, Natalie, stroked the half-naked woman’s pretty face, then dug her fingernails hard into her cheek.
The woman’s eyes trembled incessantly like a leaf in the wind.
“P-Please spare me.”
“My dear, even if His Majesty were conscious, he wouldn’t care for a novice like you. His tastes are higher than you think.”
The Empress grabbed the woman’s chin and squeezed her slender neck with her hand.
“*Choke, cough.*”
“Who sent you?”
The reflection of the Empress in the woman’s eyes grew larger.
As the suffocating pain continued, the woman’s eyes turned bloodshot.
“No, don’t say a word. The moment you speak, I will snap this neck so you never see the light of day again.”
The Empress released the woman’s neck.
Terrified, the woman clutched her neck, unable to even think of running away.
The Empress looked down at her with sheer contempt.
“If you want to live, shouldn’t you run?”
“Ugh…”
“This is your last chance.”
“S-Someone, please help me.”
The woman cast pleading glances at the surrounding maids, and then scrambled on her hands and knees to crawl out.
The Empress leaned back on the sofa as if nothing had happened and commanded the attendant she had brought from her homeland.
“Follow her. Find out who she goes to, and massacre her entire family.”
Once the attendant departed, Duke Vermois, who had been watching the scene unfold, approached.
“Did someone try to steal His Majesty’s seed again?”
The Empress turned her head toward him.
And nonchalantly, she took out a cigar and lit it.
As the gray smoke drifted upward, Duke Vermois pressed his lips to hers and said:
“What is the point of coveting something so useless? Even if she were lucky enough to conceive, the child would never see the light of day anyway.”
He was busy devouring her lips without hesitation, even with the Emperor lying right beside them.
Despite her heavy breathing, the Empress remained composed, prompting the Duke to pull away first.
“More importantly, I hear the young Duke Castillo gave Lady Bronte a pair of shoes as a gift.”
“Shoes as a gift?”
A spark of life returned to the Empress’s eyes.
“Doesn’t it seem like he’s trying to break the promise?”
The Empress, who showed little emotion even during the most primal acts, underwent a change in her eyes whenever the young Duke Castillo was mentioned.
As if anxious that his position might be stolen, Duke Vermois wrapped his arms around the Empress’s waist and pressed his body against hers.
“Does it look that way to you?”
The Empress looked down on him arrogantly.
She frowned at the Duke’s actions, which showed not a shred of consideration for her feelings.
Unaware of this, he continued to grope and fondle her body.
This was exactly why she hated partnering with fools.
Natalie gently tilted his chin up.
“No, it is to bind her even more securely. If you were to leave the fence you thought was safest…”
“…And then?”
“…And then find yourself in mortal danger?”
“You would never dare think of leaving that fence again. Ha, the young Duke Castillo is far more meticulous than I thought.”
The Empress stroked the Duke’s lips and smiled sweetly.
Intoxicated by this, the Duke eagerly began to ravage her body.
She cast a single glance toward the bedridden Emperor and closed her eyes indifferently.
For a split second, the Emperor’s lips twitched, but they were drowned out by the sounds of the passionate lovemaking and vanished into nothingness.
