His red eyes curved at their corners.
At the same moment, her body left the ground.
Caught off-balance, she flailed in midair like a dropped kite.
“Wait — hold on! Just a moment! I’m going to fall!”
“You won’t.”
Without giving her body any time to tip further, Kael caught her in one smooth motion, lifting her as though she weighed nothing at all — the way one might scoop up a small child — and pressed her against the wall.
The alternative, she thought dimly, was hitting the floor headfirst and either dying or suffering a concussion. Survival instinct took over. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her arms locked around his neck.
“There you go.”
“What do you mean, ‘there I go’ — put me down!”
How was he this strong?
What did this man eat?
His arms were wrapped around her waist with the unhurried sureness of a constrictor.
She twisted and writhed, trying to work herself free, but his grip was absolute. Against a man like this, her small resistance was less than nothing — the desperate thrashings of a very small, very outmatched creature.
“Down! I said ‘down’!”
Still clinging to him like a cicada, she pounded on his back with everything she had. She had been convinced she was hitting quite hard — but based on his reaction, she might as well have been patting him.
“You’ll hurt your hand.”
He offered this advice in a tone of complete indifference.
“You can’t just — someone pays a visit to your bedroom for a moment and you immediately — what is this?!”
“You’re not just someone.”
‘He really has a comeback for everything.’
“And — and my back is against the wall and it ‘hurts’!”
She pressed her face into an expression of maximum pitifulness.
‘A person can’t refuse a tearful face’, the saying went.
“Ah. Sorry.”
She had expected him to come to his senses and set her down.
She should not have said anything.
Kael simply tightened his hold, walked directly to the center of the bedroom with her still attached to him, and deposited her onto the bed.
“Wait — where are we going, just now?”
“The bed.”
Her voice was shaking. His was not.
‘This man.’
She wasn’t asking because she didn’t know the answer.
“That’s not what I was asking! Put me down! ‘Put me down’!”
“No.”
The refusal was delivered in a voice that left no room for discussion. Low, unhurried, fractionally rougher than usual. That was a danger signal if she had ever heard one.
She twisted and strained against him with everything she had — and accomplished nothing.
She tried hitting him with real intent.
Her fists encountered what felt like solid rock.
In fact, she was the problem.
The exertion of fighting a grown adult man had apparently drained her in very short order. The strength went out of her all at once, leaving her draped over him like a wet cloth.
“Haaah…”
“I told you to stay still. Look at you, already exhausted.”
‘Thud.’
Kael set her down on the bed — not quite gently enough to be called gentle.
“Isn’t this what you came to my bedroom for?”
His eyes curved in a way that, somehow, managed to suggest something entirely different from simple amusement.
“No — this really, truly is a ‘misunderstanding’—”
“You said you missed me. You said so yourself.”
No matter how vigorously she protested, it was clear the words weren’t reaching him.
Well. Fair enough.
She had, in fact, barged into his bedroom uninvited. He had seen her eyes linger where they had no business lingering, through the gap in his robe. Claiming misunderstanding under those circumstances was difficult even to herself.
And she was the one who had come to his bedroom of her own free will.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
In that instant, Emily’s face surfaced — clear and distinct — along with something she had said.
‘”Invade the Duke’s personal space.”‘
‘Emily. You said this was certain. What is this?’
She directed the silent accusation inward with considerable feeling.
This had, if anything, provoked Kael further.
‘”Somewhere he frequents regularly — his study, perhaps.”‘
Emily had not specified the bedroom. She knew that.
But why, of all places, did he have to be in the bedroom?
Perhaps one last attempt at looking pathetic might work. It was worth trying.
“Kael…”
She looked up at him with the most plaintive expression she could manage and said his name.
Something shifted in his red eyes — a brief, subtle tremor, and the unfocused quality that had been there a moment ago sharpened into clarity.
‘Just let me off this once. Please.’
She held his gaze, openly hopeful.
Kael reached down and, with a quick, impatient motion, stripped off his robe.
* * *
Several hours later, she had been thoroughly dealt with.
When she came back to herself she was still on his bed, and the sun was high and white in the window outside. Somehow she was clean — her body soft and warm — and dressed in a silk shift she did not remember putting on. Kael, having confirmed she was awake, proceeded to spoon-feed her the meal his maids had brought as though she were convalescing from an illness. She sat propped against the headboard, limp and unkempt, and ate whatever he offered her in a daze.
After that she fell back asleep, and when she next opened her eyes she was inside his carriage, lying with her head in his lap.
By the time they arrived at the Florence estate, the evening had long since settled in. She had no coherent memory of how her day had passed. What she remembered clearly was being at his mercy in that bed — and after that, only fragments, pieced together in no particular order.
She struck his chest with what remained of her energy.
“You’re absolutely awful.”
“Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He said this with a face devoid of expression, ruffled her hair once with casual thoroughness, and left.
It had been revenge. She was certain of it — she had caught the corner of his mouth lifting as he turned away.
Having been subjected to this creative form of retribution, she went straight to Emily and reported everything.
Emily listened with her usual composure.
“Miss. Don’t you think it’s time to give up?”
“It’s genuinely not fair. My entire day is just — gone.”
“Though you really didn’t have to go to the bedroom…”
“I ran into Hugo right when I arrived, you know. And he didn’t actually try to stop me. So I honestly thought it would be fine.”
If only Hugo had said, more firmly, ‘I’m afraid the bedroom isn’t permitted’ — and sent her somewhere reasonable instead, like the study or the sitting room.
After a moment, Emily spoke with measured care.
“The thing is, Miss — as far as the Duke is concerned, you’re his prospective fiancée at this point. Which puts his aide in rather a delicate position when it comes to turning you away.”
“That may be so, but — I thought that showing up at his bedroom would at least make him tell me to stop bothering him and leave.”
“Have you considered giving up? The rumors about him are what they are, but he does seem to treat you differently. Given that you’re still in one piece.”
“…How would I know that he wouldn’t change once we were married.”
She said it flatly.
Emily simply didn’t know enough to say otherwise.
‘I can’t let myself be dragged into that house. It isn’t just Kael — his entire family frightens me.’
Her parents and Jacqueline would be arriving in a week. Whatever she was going to do, it needed to be done before this situation grew any larger.
Time was running out. A rising anxiety was beginning to follow her everywhere she went, like something breathing down her neck.
“There must be some approach that would genuinely horrify him. Something more definitive.”
“Something that would make him genuinely horrified.”
Emily, who had been gazing quietly at nothing, suddenly snapped her fingers.
“Oh. I’ve just thought of one, actually. Something that would horrify almost anyone.”
“Really? What is it?”
“Miss — have you ever heard of third-person speech?”
* * *
