1.
Once again, Irene Rios had no answer.
It wasn’t a matter of timing. She simply didn’t know if money was the ultimate goal or if there was something more meaningful to strive for, and Irene never offered definitive answers to things she didn’t understand.
That was a basic requirement for any scholar of science.
“What is it?”
Sir Miguel Flich abruptly narrowed his eyes.
“Are you taking his side just because you’re his disciple?”
Standing in the center of the room, Sir Miguel Flich spread his arms like a stage actor. His dramatic voice boomed against the walls.
“Don’t forget, young friend, that true medicine isn’t found in a stuffy ivory tower, but out in the field. It’s obvious what Professor Figueras teaches his students. He feeds them the delusion that he alone carries the weight of the Kingdom of Divoa’s medicine on his shoulders. But mark my words. True medicine exists outside the Royal Medical College, not within it! Professor Figueras is nothing more than a windbag who has memorized a few books!”
The angrier Sir Miguel Flich became, the more he resembled an ocean sunfish. Setting everything else aside, if one recalled that the nickname for an ocean sunfish was the “jellyfish killer,” his reasons for hating Professor Figueras made perfect sense.
“Why no answer? Does that mean you disagree with me?”
The ocean sunfish approached, his plump cheeks wobbling. Irene continued shelving her books, her tone dry.
“I do not know whether medicine exists inside the college or outside. I am not a physician who treats people.”
“Hmm. Not a physician?”
Sir Miguel Flich rested both hands on his stomach, his expression sour.
“Not a physician who treats people? Are you saying Grand Duke Cassis is not a human being? What a rude…”
Stopping himself, Sir Miguel Flich leaned in, whispering in a cunning tone.
“Or is being the personal physician just a pretense? Have you come here for another reason entirely?”
Unlike Irene, who had no interest in Sir Miguel Flich, Sir Miguel Flich was obsessed with Irene.
When Duke Diego Cassis announced he was hiring a new personal physician, Sir Miguel Flich had been beside himself with anxiety. Whether it was due to an inferiority complex or not, the remark felt like a direct attack on his own competence.
Besides, wasn’t comparing internal medicine and surgery an absurdity?
And yet, the person brought in as a surgeon was Irene Rios. Just as he’d feared, her first impression was poor. She was too young to be his rival, and she seemed somehow disorganized.
But he couldn’t afford to be careless. He had been the sole physician to Duke Diego Cassis, but now that he had been relegated to senior physician, he had to protect his position and gain the upper hand.
Moreover, he had ambitions. Next year would mark ten full years of service as a royal physician. With that tenure, he deserved at least a noble title, or at the very least, a knighthood.
And then, like a bolt from the blue, a new physician had appeared.
Sir Miguel Flich was on high alert, terrified his position would be stolen. Squinting his eyes, he asked with a sneer.
“Did you, perhaps, spend the night with the Grand Duke?”
Spend the night?
Irene paused, trying to decipher his implication.
What did it mean to spend the night together? Did it mean he had made her dissect a corpse until the small hours to verify her skills?
Or, perhaps—since noble galas lasted until dawn—maybe he was asking if she had accompanied him to a late-night event.
If the latter, the answer was no. If the former, it was ambiguous. It hadn’t been the entire night, but Duke Diego Cassis had indeed watched her cut open and stitch up a cadaver.
“……”
Whatever he interpreted Irene’s silence to be, contempt flickered in Sir Miguel Flich’s eyes. It was as if he were mocking her with a, “I thought as much.”
“One can’t just become the physician for Grand Duke Cassis. At the very least, it should be someone with my level of skill. And yet, a fledgling who just graduated, and a woman at that. I worried for nothing.”
His scrutinizing gaze scanned Irene from head to toe. Unconcealed derision shimmered in his eyes.
“But I just can’t understand it. Perhaps he’s grown tired of scandals with beautiful women. His taste is really…”
“What is wrong with my taste?”
Startled by the voice that cut through the room from behind him, Sir Miguel Flich flinched. He turned around slowly to find Duke Diego Cassis entering the office and awkwardly pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Grand Duke Cassis…”
Duke Diego Cassis looked at him with a gentle smile. Cold sweat immediately beaded on Sir Miguel Flich’s bulging face.
“What were you two talking about so interestingly, Sir Miguel Flich?”
Sir Miguel Flich backed away, inch by inch.
“I was giving the new physician some advice as a senior. Since there are many things one must keep in mind as the Grand Duke’s physician.”
“Your concern for your junior is truly commendable, Sir Miguel Flich.”
“Not at all, Grand Duke Cassis. If you’ll excuse me.”
After a hurried greeting, Sir Miguel Flich bolted out of the room. He bumped his shoulder against Javier, who was standing in the doorway, and let out a grunt.
Though Javier didn’t even flinch, Sir Miguel Flich disappeared in a hurry, clutching his shoulder with a grimace.
“Slow as a snail usually, but quick as a flash at times like this.”
Muttering to himself, Duke Diego Cassis stared at Irene with a thin smile. She was already placing the final book on the shelf.
She seemed completely indifferent to the misunderstanding she had just planted in Sir Miguel Flich’s mind. Duke Diego Cassis playfully raised one eyebrow.
“Why didn’t you tell Sir Miguel Flich that we’ve never spent the night together?”
Perhaps Irene was more sophisticated than she looked. She didn’t hesitate to use Duke Diego Cassis’s authority to handle the territorialism.
Just as interest swirled in Duke Diego Cassis’s eyes, Irene turned toward him. She kept her face expressionless, but he did not miss the flash of awkwardness that crossed her features.
“I didn’t know the exact meaning of the phrase. Whether it meant dissecting a corpse or attending a gala. I knew it had to be one of the two, but truthfully, I’m not very good at interpreting the intentions of others.”
However, contrary to her words, there was a faint pride in Irene’s voice. She felt she had grown quite a bit. If it had been the old her, she would have struggled even to narrow down Sir Miguel Flich’s intentions to two possibilities.
“Hmm?”
For a moment, the smile was erased from Duke Diego Cassis’s face. He looked caught off guard.
Irene continued, her expression grave.
“Besides, we have spent a night together at very close range, haven’t we?”
“We have?”
Duke Diego Cassis asked, clearly surprised. Despite his reputation as a rake, he wasn’t so reckless as to spend the night with a woman and forget it.
He had never lost his memory to alcohol, either. From the start, he had avoided drink for fear of leaving behind a bloodline through a one-night mistake.
But had he spent a night with Irene? When on earth?
Just as Duke Diego Cassis’s eyes flickered, Irene nodded calmly.
“Inside the steam train on the way here. We had a wall between us, but we were in very close proximity. I could even hear you tossing and turning.”
“……Is that so?”
“I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know which one you were asking about. Sir Miguel Flich seems to have a habit of not making his questions clear.”
Duke Diego Cassis’s eyes narrowed bit by bit. Then, a pleasant smile spread across them.
Irene hadn’t sensed Sir Miguel Flich’s malicious intent at all, nor had she realized he was mocking her.
Sir Miguel Flich had wasted his energy for nothing. The subject of his ridicule hadn’t even been affected.
Letting out a soft laugh, Duke Diego Cassis whispered in a gentle tone.
“Sir Miguel Flich does have a devious side.”
A devious side?
Irene looked at him with an unreadable expression. Duke Diego Cassis’s smile deepened.
“Next time someone asks you that question, just answer no. Because, customarily, ‘spending the night’ implies a sexual liaison between a man and a woman.”
A sexual liaison…
“Ah, my choice of words wasn’t clear. The liaison I speak of does not mean state affairs. I mean a physical union.”
A physical union…
The shocking term swirled in Irene’s head. Duke Diego Cassis swallowed his laughter and turned toward the bookshelf.
His eyes, which were scanning the spines of the books indifferently, suddenly clouded with doubt. Propping his chin on one hand, he asked in a contemplative voice.
“They aren’t organized by title, nor are they sorted by internal medicine or surgery. They aren’t sorted by body part or publisher, either. What exactly is your standard for organizing these books?”
Sexual liaison. Physical union.
“Irene?”
Finally jolted from her thoughts, Irene took off her dusty gloves.
Sexual liaison. Physical union.
The words still echoed in her mind. Irene shook her head to clear the thought and put on a fresh pair of gloves.
Only then did she offer a delayed answer.
“Size and color.”
“Size and color?”
“It’s more pleasing to the eye when the sizes and colors are uniform.”
“…….”
Once again, Duke Diego Cassis was left speechless. It was an organization method he had never encountered in his life. Stunned into silence, he turned his body completely toward Irene.
“If you stack books in such a haphazard way, won’t it be difficult to find the one you need later?”
“Why would it be?”
Irene asked with an innocent expression, as if she didn’t know what he meant. Duke Diego Cassis pointed at the shelf, his confusion evident.
“Wouldn’t it save unnecessary time to group similar topics together or arrange them by title?”
“I know where the books are, so what does that have to do with anything?”
Irene still looked as if she didn’t understand his point, and Duke Diego Cassis could not understand hers.
Staring at Irene with a suspicious look, Duke Diego Cassis blurted out a title.
“Canonical Medicine.”