There was truly no avoiding it any longer. She needed to say something firm.
“When I said I wanted us to get to know each other, I meant closing the ’emotional’ distance between us — learning about each other’s inner lives. You said yourself that you wanted to court me.”
Every part of her wanted to push herself out of his arms and stand up that very instant. But her body refused to cooperate. Her legs in particular had gone completely useless.
If she tried to rise on sheer stubbornness, she would crumple like a paper doll and make an embarrassing spectacle of herself.
‘I’m a complete wreck, and he looks perfectly fine. How infuriating.’
She pressed on regardless, keeping her voice clear and deliberate.
This was genuine courage on her part.
“Of course — kissing is something that can happen between people who are courting. Even so. In the ‘sitting room’, of all places, carrying on like that without a second thought — if my parents were to find out, Kael, it would leave a terrible impression. So going forward, please refrain from that sort of behavi—”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
He cut across her mid-sentence, his voice carrying the kind of absolute certainty that made her want to throw something.
‘What is he so confident about?’
‘It’s genuinely maddening.’
“Why not?!”
“Because their precious daughter stripped me bare and took everything I had to offer.”
“…!”
“And then slipped away as though nothing had happened.”
“…”
“I doubt they’d have much to say to me about a kiss.”
She went quiet.
Because he was right, infuriatingly enough. She was hardly in a position to argue.
‘…But was he really telling the truth about it being his first time? He was far too accomplished for that.’
Was it possible this was all a manipulation? Some fabricated story about contracts and firsts, designed to keep her too intimidated to make a sound?
She shifted and turned to face him properly, extricating herself from his hold.
“I have a question.”
Kael, who had been watching her with calm, steady eyes, gave a small nod.
“Honestly — you’ve kissed people before, haven’t you? I wasn’t your first, was I?”
His brow creased.
“What?”
“I don’t have much to compare it to, since you’re my only experience — but they say people who’ve kissed before are generally rather better at it.”
He let out a short, disbelieving laugh and ran a hand through his hair.
“That’s what you wanted to ask me.”
“…Yes.”
“Ha. To think I’ve been taken in by someone like you.”
“What do you mean, ‘taken in’ — to be fair, we both took from each other. It’s not as though I forced anything upon you—”
But he only shook his head, as though the whole line of reasoning was beneath him.
‘So is that a yes or a no on the kissing? Honestly, he kisses like someone who’s done it several hundred times.’
She had no personal experience to speak of, but she had gathered a great deal secondhand — particularly from Kate, who had once described inexperienced kissers in terms graphic enough to make Ivelina wince for weeks afterward. Apparently the less practiced sort left one’s chin damp.
But this man. From beginning to end, a single kiss from him had been sufficient to unhinge her completely. And even the way he had drawn back at the end — clean, unhurried, precise — was not the work of a novice.
‘He has to be lying. He’s clearly had no experience in bed, but in every other respect he’s clearly an absolute expert who—’
“It’s true.”
“Sorry? What’s true?”
“That you were my first.”
“Come off it.” She gave him a look that said ‘please stop joking.’
First? Absolutely not.
“Why would I tell a pointless lie like that?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense. First kisses are supposed to be awkward. Everyone says so.”
She grumbled the words half under her breath.
Kael straightened from where he had been reclining against the sofa back. The shift brought them face to face, nearly as close as they had been a short while ago.
“Then I suppose I was born with a talent for it.”
She should never have brought it up.
Kael kissed her again.
* * *
‘”Once we’re married, I think I should keep you locked in the bedroom.”‘
‘”I find it rather disagreeable — having other people see you.”‘
‘”One good squeeze and that would probably snap. Your wrist.”‘
The most shocking things he had said stayed with her in perfect clarity.
None of it was ordinary. He genuinely thought in ways that were entirely foreign to her own perfectly conventional mind.
‘He’s frightening. I need to get dumped as quickly as possible.’
Wait — now that she thought about it, hadn’t he come today to say something? He had mentioned having something to tell her. And then they had spent the entire time kissing, and then he had left.
‘At this rate there won’t be anything left of me.’
“Though, Miss.”
“Mm?”
“Is it that you don’t like the Duke? The more I think about it, he doesn’t seem like such a bad hand to be dealt. And the more you see of him, the more decent he seems.”
Emily tilted her head and asked the question in her usual measured tone.
Ivelina nodded, as if conceding the point had some merit.
“He’s extraordinarily handsome, has a wonderful physique, and he’s wealthy, powerful, and well-respected to boot — not a single quality missing, and his skin and constitution are remarkable. But.”
“Yes.”
“There are moments when he’s genuinely terrifying, and every time that happens, I’m reminded of the distance between us — it makes me uncomfortable. Shouldn’t marriage be with someone you feel at ease with? And the rumors about him still worry me considerably.”
“I see. Though I suppose your argument does have its logic.”
Emily nodded with her customary composure. Then she added:
“In that case, you absolutely must come back from tomorrow’s tea time with some useful intelligence.”
“Exactly! No matter what — I’ll get it out of her!”
* * *
As she had mentioned before, she didn’t have many friends.
Her conservative parents had never been particularly enthusiastic about her attending social events. The usual purpose of such things was to scout out potential matches and expand one’s connections — but since she had been betrothed at a young age, they saw little reason for her to go at all.
As a result, the handful of friends she still kept in contact with were all girls she had known from the Academy. They had all made their debuts around the same time, which gave them a natural common ground.
They got together for tea irregularly. The topics of conversation were, broadly speaking, varied — and also not varied in the slightest.
To summarize:
1. The eligible young lord who lived in the neighboring townhouse.
2. The eligible young lord first encountered at a ball.
3. The eligible young lord currently being seen.
4. The eligible young lord currently being pined over from afar.
5. The eligible young lord who happened to be an older brother’s friend.
That covered most of it. The majority of these stories belonged to Kate.
Technically they called it a tea gathering, but in practice it had always been just a group of friends. In the early days they had talked as freely as they had at the Academy. After their debuts, however, they had agreed to adopt the more refined manner of speech befitting young ladies of rank.
Which made it all the more unexpected when the first thing she heard upon arriving at today’s venue was a string of very unladylike language.
“Ugh — ‘that bastard’. I hope he dies the most painful death imaginable.”
She had come to seek advice from Kate, widely acknowledged as the group’s authority on romantic matters — only to find Kate herself in tears.
Arriving last, she quickly took the only empty seat. Dorothy and Camilla were already busily consoling Kate from either side.
“Kate? What happened? Why are you crying?”
“She got dumped.”
“Ah.”
Dorothy patted Kate’s back and answered the question helpfully.
“Men are all exactly the same. You’re good to them and they don’t even have the grace to be grateful! The nerve, the absolute ‘nerve’—”
Kate continued to weep with theatrical abandon, her vocabulary growing more colorful by the moment.
Ivelina wanted to ask why she’d been broken up with but thought better of pressing a fresh wound.
“I really wasn’t asking for much.”
Before long, Kate launched into the story of her own accord.
* * *
