Sweet Romance13 min read
The Missing Medicine and the Divorce Brush
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I cough until the room spins.
"Cordelia, you shouldn't push yourself," Grace says, lowering my sleeve and pressing a cup of warm broth to my lips.
"I'll be fine," I answer, but my voice is thin as paper. "Tell me straight—where has he been?"
Grace bites her lip, glancing toward the corridor as if Chance might appear from the shadows and hear the word "he." She steadies herself and says, "My lady… the lord of Chance House—Chance—left for the western road some nights ago. He did not return until just now."
I cough again. "And my grandmother's medicine?"
Grace's hands tremble. "My lady, the lord—he ordered that the supply meant for your grandmother be sent to Isabella's rooms. The house physician said the medicine helped Isabella's night terrors. They took it all."
The cup clicks against the saucer. My world tilts.
"Bring me my coat," I say. "I will confront him."
"Lady—" Grace begins, but her voice dies when I rise and stand, fragile as a reed in wind, yet determined as any soldier.
When I come to Chance's hall the guards hesitate at my approach.
"Lady Cordelia," the chief guard says, frowning. "The lord's chambers are closed."
"Then open them," I say. "Or step aside."
The guard flinches. "It is not proper—"
"Oh, has propriety moved to keep me out of my husband's place?" I cut him off. "When did a wife become a stranger in her own home?"
He bows and backs away. The corridor smells different as I enter his room—perfume that is not mine, cushions arranged as if for two, two brushes side by side, two sets of the same utensils, each slightly different: his broader, hers slender. A fox fur thrown across the small divan. A book open where a child's hand might have rested. Everything screams a new intimacy.
I run my finger over the slender brush and the larger one. Once we had shared tools, laughed when I broke his finest inkstone, and he painted my face with ink until I looked like a clumsy fool. "Don't cry," he had teased. "I have punished you." And then he had pulled me close.
Now, there is a tiny brush that would fit a girl's hand—
"I thought you would not come to see me again," I say when Chance finally returns to the hall, dust on his hem, exhaustion under his eyes. He looks at me and, for a second, perhaps remembers the years when his brow smoothed for me.
"Cordelia," he says. "You look ill."
"Isabella has your favor," I say bluntly. "She has your rooms, your scent, your fox fur. My grandmother's medicine is in her chest. Tell me why."
His jaw tightens. "The physician claimed the brown pills ease her attacks. She—"
"Your command sent every dose," I say. "Every last one."
Chance looks away. "I did what I thought right for someone you once called your daughter."
"Someone I never birthed took the remedy intended to save my grandmother's life?" I whisper, the words uneven. "You knew we could not buy that remedy. You knew it was yours to give. Why didn't you tell me?"
He reaches for my wrist, but I pull back. "Cordelia—"
"Don't 'Cordelia' me," I say. "Explain why you gave her my grandmother's medicine."
Chance tries to smooth it, but his voice flattens. "The physician explained—"
"Then tell me he lied," I say, looking him in the eyes. "Tell me you did not knowingly choose Isabella over the woman who raised me."
"I did not—" His hand misses mine and lands on the table. "Cordelia, I ordered it because—"
"Because you wished her to live," I finish, "and because some part of you loved her more."
He flinches as if struck. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" I laugh, bitter. "What of fairness to Helga? What of fairness to me? She took the pills, Chance. She died a month later, with no more medicine to keep her breathing."
Chance goes pale. He looks at me with something like horror playing across his features. "I did not—"
"You did," I say. "You did, and now sign this." I push a paper toward him: a written plea to be freed, a divorce letter I drafted and left with the candlelight still smoldering at its corner. "If you loved me, you'd tell me the truth. If you loved her, you'd have said it to my face. But you didn't. You've chosen a child over the woman who raised me."
He stands, retreats, fingers clenching. "Cordelia, you cannot—"
"Watch me."
He leaves that night. He goes with Isabella. He leaves our house like a man slamming a door one last time.
*
I am not a woman who collapses before life. I am a daughter, a granddaughter, a woman with lines of duty printed into the bones of me. Yet when Helga took the last breath and my cough turned into something deeper and rougher, when I could no longer stop the dizzy spells, I felt empty as a broken jar.
Half a month later, he returned. He stood before me like a man who had ridden through storms, shaking rain from his hair.
"Cordelia," he said softly. "I return with news. I will make amends."
His words were too late. I held the divorce paper in my lap.
"Chance," I said, "sign here."
"How can you—" His voice broke. "What will the house say?"
"What will the house say if I rot here like a thing discarded?" I asked. "What will the house say if they see me groveling? No. I have asked the family's elders. They have consented. I will not be made less for having left."
"I will not let you," he said.
"I will not be made less by you," I repeated. "You have given away the last of Helga's medicine. You have given away what kept her alive. You have shown your heart."
He glared, and then, in a movement that shocked everyone, he slapped me. The sound was like a bell in the quiet room.
"You dare—" he hissed. "You dare to—"
"Sign," I said. My hands did not tremble. "Do it now."
He picked up the pen like a condemned man. His face was set.
When he signed the paper, the room seemed to hold its breath. He left in a flurry of motion, with Isabella at his side.
I left the house not long after. Grace and I packed a small trunk. I took what belonged to me, little as it was: a tea bowl, the ink-brush he had hurt me with years ago and now used for his child's lessons, a folded gown. I also took the divorce letter, which I tucked into my bodice like a talisman.
I moved to one of my estates—quiet, green, set against hills where wild herbs grew. There I tended the garden. I arranged fox fur on a chair for the cat, though it reminded me of his perfumed room, and every so often I would set the inkstone to grind and watch the black pool ring out.
*
Months passed—no, I cannot say that. I will not use that phrase as the story sweeps forward. Instead, I will remember the day the knock came and a young student fell at my gate, half-delirious.
He was pale and ragged, muttering about robbed coin and broken boots. His name was Santiago Berry. He had a stubborn honesty in his face that I could not ignore.
"Please," he said when I offered him a bowl of broth. "I will repay you. I will repay you in any way I can."
"You can repay me by eating," I told him. "And by staying alive."
He laughed then, a small, honest sound, and we kept to our odd routine as his strength returned. He would sweep the yard, fetch wood, and read aloud under the elm while I stitched.
"You will become someone important," I told him once as he studied under the old lamp.
"If I may, I will do my best," he said. "I will repay you one day."
When he left, he did so with promises. I watched him go rather like one watches a gull leave shore—wishing him safe but not certain he would return.
Then the posting came—the palace examinations. He left to seek his fate.
I did not expect to see him again until maybe talk thinned in the market. But fate has funny ways.
On the day he returned, it was with a guard of men and banners. He wore silk the color of dusk and wore an air of impossible calm.
"Cordelia Bryant," he declared with a smile when he saw me in the garden, "I did not expect to find you still here."
"Expectations are dangerous things," I said. "And who are you to stand before me like a prince?"
He laughed. "I stand as Santiago Berry, of the palace. I stand as a man who owes you his life. Will you accept a debt repaid?"
There were gasps in the background. I watched his face and saw not a fancy prince but the same young man who once borrowed bread.
"Marry me," he said simply.
"Marry you?" I echoed, and then I asked, practical as ever, "Who will keep your promise? You belong to someone great."
"I belong to myself," he said. "And to you, if you will have me."
My palm rubbed the paper in my bodice. I had left Chance, taken my life back piece by piece, and found small joys in waking mornings, the smell of tea, the even swing of work. Yet here was a man who wanted to take me into a life I had never dared to imagine.
"Will you promise something first?" I asked. "Will you promise never to have me as one of many? I have seen the life with many hearts—each jealous, each slighted. It nearly killed me."
Santiago's hand covered mine. "I swear my life on my word and my seal," he said. "You will be my only wife."
He produced a sheet with an oath and pressed his private mark. He spoke of honor that day like a man who meant every letter.
I agreed. "Then I will marry you," I said. "On one condition."
"Name it," he told me.
"No other voices between us. If you love anyone else—"
"I will lose you," he said. "I prefer losing a kingdom to losing you."
We married in a small ceremony. There were only a few, but the men who came were tall and honest, and their faces were contented.
Yet a story such as mine is not done by vows alone.
Chance—stubborn, wrong-bent Chance—arrived at our courtyard the day before the big wedding. He came in clothing both fine and frayed at the seam—like a man who had chosen some things well and others badly. He looked at me like a man who might plead.
"I can still have you back," he said. "Say you'll return and I'll undo this. I will undo the oath. I will—"
"Chance," I said, civil and cold, "you gave Helga's medicine to Isabella Roux. You made a choice. You made a choice that killed Helga."
He smiled then, a thin thing like paper flame. "You were bitter then. You spoke of a thing and I—"
"You lied," I said.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. The color left his face.
"That is a bold accusation," he said at last. "Do you have proof?"
"Do you want the truth?" I asked, and I could see him falter at last. "You did not act alone. Your physician made the purchases. The ledger is in the house. I have Grace as witness. The serving girls know. Do you not remember how you commanded every vial to be taken to Isabella? Or has your memory grown as thin as the paper you signed with?"
He took a step forward. "Cordelia—"
"Step no closer," I snapped.
The whole courtyard seemed to bend toward us. A dozen men stood at a distance, some farmhands, some guests drawn by the commotion. Jade Wallin, Chance's proposed bride, had also come—proud, chin raised. She watched like a hawk.
I turned to the chief steward and said, "Bring the ledger."
He came, looking as if he had swallowed ice. He placed the book on the low table between us and tapped the page where the name appeared.
There it was: the purchase, the dosages, the orders to remove the supply.
Chance's face drained of blood. He sputtered. "That cannot be—"
"It is written in your hand," Grace said from the side, voice even, "and you left the seal on the page, my lord."
He laughed then, a brittle sound. "No one will believe this slander."
"Watch them," I said. "Call your guests. Call Jade. Let them hear it here."
"Are you mad?" Chance snapped. "You will ruin me."
"Or you will reveal yourself," I said. "Which is it?"
People crowded in then—messengers, village watchers, the maid of the neighboring lord, and sullen carriers. They formed a ring, and I asked them in a voice that would not break, "Did you see the medicine leave? Did you see it taken from Helga's chest?"
One by one, voices rose. "Yes." "We loaded the chest." "I saw them send it." "It went to Isabella's rooms." The chorus grew.
Jade's lips trembled. "Chance, is this true?" she demanded. "You told me—"
He turned to her. His face was a mask. "This is slander," he said. "They lie to bind me."
"Are they lying?" I asked. "Why would they bind a man who could buy ten such chests?"
He looked like a man sinking under water. "Cordelia—"
"Shut up," I said.
"Shut up?" He laughed, but the laugh had no joy. It was a laugh of a man watching his terrible jest unravel. "You throw a ledger at me and call it truth."
"Do you want witnesses?" I asked. "Do you want your name cleared or stained? Speak truth now or forever hold your shame."
He staggered back. For the first time he did not seem in control. His smugness cracked into fear.
"You're making a scene," Jade said, voice small.
"I am making a scene," I said. "A scene people will remember."
Chance's mouth opened, then closed. He tried a different tack. "You wrong me," he shouted, then caught himself and lowered his voice. "I loved Helga in my way—"
"You loved Isabella," I cut in. "Lied with your absence."
He tried to deny. "No—"
"Do you deny you ordered the physician to buy up the supply?" I pressed. "Do you deny that you took Helga's rest for Isabella's night terrors? Do you deny causing Helga's death?"
He swayed. "I did what I thought would help my ward."
"You thought you would help your ward by stealing life's measure from a woman who raised me?"
He crumpled then. He said at last, small as a caged thing, "I—I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" I laughed, a flat sound.
"You will not help her now," I said. "You cannot say that now and expect that life returns."
"I will do anything," he whispered. His eyes were bright as broken glass. They flashed with the stages I had promised I would see: first the old arrogance, then surprise as the ledger showed his name, then denial, then the cracking, then begging.
"Beg," I said. "Beg them."
"Please," he said, voice raw. "Please, Jade—please, Cordelia—" He reached for me, and his hand shook.
The crowd inhaled. Some whispered. The chief steward looked away. Jade's face was a mask of hurt and disgust. Grace stood like a blade beside me, silent.
"He took them," Grace said plainly. "He gave the supply away. Helga died."
An old washerwoman, who had once cared for Helga and knew the warm lumps of the pills, spat onto the ground. "He killed her with his choices."
"Is this the confession you wanted?" he asked, staring at the ground.
"It is not confession, Chance," I said. "It is evidence. Your conscience confessed itself, but the ledger sealed it."
He dropped to his knees then, in plain view of all. His hands clawed at the dust.
"Please—" he begged in a voice that sounded like nothing noble. "Please forgive me. I can give you anything. I can—"
"You can give me no more of Helga," I said. "You can give me no more of the nights she was awake with me, reading old stories and teaching me to sow thyme. You can only kneel and show everyone what you are."
Around us, people reacted. Some gasped. Some laughed bitterly. A few covered their mouths. Someone took out a scrap of paper and began to write, their pen fury-swift. Others made signs, crossing themselves as if to erase him.
"Get up," Jade said at last, terrible and small. "You are not worth this ground."
He did not move at first. Then he crawled forward, reached for my feet, and the crowd surged with a hum like wind through reeds.
"Look at him," a neighbor said. "He raised a child and forgot his vows."
"Watch him fall," said another.
He begged for forgiveness, and he begged for reprieve. Grace stepped forward, and for a moment I thought she might strike him. Instead she looked him in the eye and said, "You made your choice."
He sobbed, then, loud and uncontrolled. He clutched the hem of my gown like a drowning man clings to a plank. "Forgive me," he pleaded. "Forgive me."
The crowd's eyes hardened. No one moved to help him. The shame gathered like rain.
A woman near the steeple took out her loom and began to weave quietly, her hands shaking. A child pointed and asked her mother, "Is he a bad man?"
"Yes," the mother said. "He is."
That was the moment, long and terrible, the public punishment I had promised myself. Not a secret arrest, not a quiet retreat—no. I wanted him to stand stripped before what he had done.
"You have been found wanting," I told him. "Not by me only. By them. By the ledger. By Helga. By the silence you left me in."
He could not look up. "I—"
"Beg for not just forgiveness," I said. "Confess to them. Tell them you would take Helga back if you could. Tell them why you made Isabella higher than her."
He lifted his face like a man hoping to see the sun, and the crowd listened.
"I thought," he said, ragged, "that Isabella might be all I had. I thought if I saved her, I could keep something. I was weak. I—"
"Too late," Jade said. "You are found out."
His last face was one I will not forget: the shift from contempt to panic, from denial to frantic pleading, then the collapse as the public turned away.
They took this to heart. Men who once bowed to him looked at him now as if at a dying dog. The servants muttered. The neighbors shook their heads. Someone spat.
The liar had been laid bare, and the laying took more from him than any sword. He remained on his knees until the sun lowered and the Ox lanterns were lit.
*
After that day, Chance's name circled like a bad wind. He had once been a man of stature; now he walked with a limp of shame.
Santiago married me soon after. He kissed me in the moonlight the night before we took our vows.
"I will not be like him," he promised. "I will sweep away any shadow."
"I know," I said, and when he brushed my hair back I felt something I had not felt in years: complete warmth.
We had small things that made my heart flip—at dawn he would take my cloak; he would draw a shawl over my shoulders when I read under the elm. Once, when I shivered, he took his own scarf and folded it into my lap. "I hate seeing you cold," he said.
Another time, I found him at my loom, his head bent over a rough pattern. "What are you doing?" I asked.
He looked up, eyes soft. "Fixing the corner you always catch. So you will not curse the loom."
He laughed softly and sighed, and when he kissed the inside of my wrist I felt the room narrow to just him and me. "You still look at the ink-stained brush sometimes," he observed.
"Old habits," I said. "Old tools."
"Then we will make new tools," he said, promise as simple as bread.
We married under quiet oaks with only neighbors and a few friends. The elders spoke of oaths and honesty. He looked at me like a man who had found harbor.
Life after the courtyard spectacle was not all triumph. Chance kept his place in town and rumors swirled like autumn leaves. Some men brought petitions to him, then left, ashamed. He tried to apologize again and again, but I answered only once, and only so he would not die with the lie still in his mouth.
"You were given a choice," I told him quietly one evening. "You chose. You own the choice. Live with it."
He mouthed something unformed, and I left him to it.
Santiago and I built a small house on my estate and filled it with small things: a proper inkstone on the table, two brushes in a jar—one larger, one slender. We kept Helga's small cloth in a drawer, folded and safe. Sometimes I would stroke it and think of the woman who taught me to sew and to speak against anger.
Isabella? She married later to a household guard who had once tended the stables. She was given a place that fit a girl whose life had been remade by another's grief. She came to see me once and placed a small bowl on my table.
"Cordelia," she said, eyes red. "I never wanted this. I thought—"
"You were a child," I told her. "You have to live your life and you may love or not. The blame belonged to those who supposed their small loves were worth a life."
She nodded and left with tears that were neither triumph nor ruin, but the soft rain of someone learning to bear.
Once, years later, Chance sought me out again. He came with hands trembling and a face grown old by worry.
"Have you forgiven me?" he asked.
"I have accepted," I said. "Forgiveness is a large river; acceptance is a bridge."
He fell at my feet again. But this time his begging was tired. I offered him no tears. I offered only a hand to help him up.
"Go," I said. "Live your life. Mend what you can wherever you are allowed. That is your penance."
He walked away without looking back.
Now, when I sit by the window and grind the ink for Santiago's letters, I think of the fox fur on the divan in Chance's old room. I think of the two brushes—one bigger, one smaller—and how they came to mean more than ink. I think of Helga's small hands, of Grace's steady face, of Santiago's oath pressed with his seal.
The ink dries slowly on the page. I pick up the slender brush and make a small mark—nothing fancy—a single stroke that is both a slash and a stitch.
"That is the last line of the ledger," I tell myself. "That is where the story was written and where it ended."
Santiago returns from the study and slides his arm around my shoulders.
"I wrote you something," he says, "but I fear my letters will never match your patience."
He kisses my temple. "You keep our little fox fur on the small chair," he murmurs. "You keep the ink brush."
"I do," I say. "Some things are reminders, not prisons."
He smiles. "Then we will add to the stack. More brushes. A new fox, perhaps. A life with clean ink."
I lay my hand on the brush, then on his. "We will write it well," I say.
Outside the window, the elm casts long shadows over the yard. Inside, the ink is black and steady as a promise.
The End
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