“I — I absolutely did not! Not even a little!”
“And yet.” His voice was low, almost to himself. “Why do I find myself caring about the wellbeing of a man who was supposed to be your fiancé?”
Silence.
“Irritating.”
Kael clicked his tongue.
Still — it wasn’t as though Edwin had committed some capital offense worthy of a death sentence. He had, yes, betrayed her trust and let his lower half lead him wherever it pleased. Infidelity was a wretched thing.
But in a world where married men kept mistresses and carried on affairs without so much as a furrowed brow from polite society, having Edwin killed over it seemed… excessive. And besides — she had known Edwin for ten years, one way or another.
“It’s — it’s not like that. Like I said before, he was my father’s friend’s son before he was ever my fiancé.”
Edwin was a terrible man and an even worse fiancé, yes. All of that was absolutely true.
But she wanted this to end quietly. A clean, civil annulment. There were too many people caught in between.
“So — so I would like to resolve this as gracefully as I can, on my own terms. I don’t want Father’s position to be made difficult because of me.”
A brief silence settled over the room.
Kael dipped his head slowly, as if he had finally decided to accept this.
“I understand.”
Trying her best not to look flustered, she was still carefully watching his expression when Kael straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the sofa.
His legs were impossibly long.
She had to tilt her head back so far that her neck ached before she could finally meet his gaze.
“Then I’ll make time. Soon.”
“I beg your pardon? Time for what?”
She tilted her head, puzzled by the sudden remark — and then he bent at the waist, bringing his face close to hers. Dangerously close. The kind of distance where the slightest movement would bring their noses into contact.
Startled, she jerked backward.
“You’re — you’re too close — !”
Unfortunately, the back of the sofa stopped her short. There was nowhere left to retreat.
He didn’t care. If anything, he only drew nearer, and the warm, woody scent that clung to Kael deepened around her. Heat rushed to her face. A strange, fluttering ache stirred low in her stomach.
Those red eyes held hers with an unwavering, almost relentless gaze — and she dropped her own gaze, unable to bear it. Kael reached out and, with the tip of one long, thick-knuckled index finger, tapped her lightly on the nose.
“Time to get to know each other. Isn’t that what you said you wanted?”
* * *
The frightening man had gone home.
That frightening man was going to be her husband. In the span of a single day, she had somehow acquired a man she was promised to marry.
And not just any man — within hours of declaring her engagement broken, mere hours, she had a ‘new’ man to marry.
“Haa…”
All the tension she’d held through every moment of being alone with Kael drained out of her body at once. She slumped forward and pressed her face against the table, turning it side to side like a half-melted lump of slime.
“Huu…”
“Miss. Keep that up and you’ll go straight through the floor.”
Emily’s voice drifted over from across the room, where she was quietly straightening the bed linens.
Emily had not pressed her for details about what had passed between her and Kael. The reason for that became clear once they were back in her room — she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and the face that looked back at her had gone white as a sheet. Emily had taken one look at her and apparently pieced together the rest: that something had gone very wrong between her and Kael, or that she had made some grave, irreversible mistake.
“As I suspected — something happened with Duke Hardeion, didn’t it?”
Emily settled into the chair across the table and asked the question gently.
‘Right. There’s no hiding it any longer.’
Emily was, after all, her oldest friend — more like an older sister, really. If not Emily, then who else in the world could she possibly tell?
She told her everything.
“So that’s what happened.”
Emily was twenty-two, two years older than her. She was calm and clear-headed in all things, not easily shaken by circumstance or emotion. She never panicked, never let herself be swayed by gossip, and kept other people’s secrets as naturally as breathing. She wasn’t even frightened of insects. Ghosts either, apparently — though she didn’t believe in them to begin with.
That was why she had always been so fond of Emily. She was simply admirable.
Her parents had told her she’d taken to Emily from a very young age, following her around like a shadow. She had a biological younger sibling — Jacqueline — but they had never been close. There was always a strange, awkward distance between them.
Jacqueline had lived a completely different life from hers, for no reason other than having been born a boy. He’d never had a curfew. He attended social engagements as freely as he liked and pursued romance without anyone raising an eyebrow.
Meanwhile, she had actually seen her curfew ‘pulled earlier’ after coming of age — because a lady, she was told, must carry herself with propriety.
‘Don’t compare yourself to Jacqueline. Your situations are entirely different. Maintaining a good reputation is simply what a lady ought to do.’
She had even been barred from attending social events unless she went as Edwin’s partner, with her father’s explicit permission.
‘Isn’t it better to go with a male escort? Mingling with all sorts of men on your own only leads to trouble. One wrong step and a scandal will follow you.’
A ‘protector’. What a word.
The man who had escorted her — her supposed protector and partner — had left her standing alone while he rolled around with a woman in the garden with his trousers around his ankles.
‘Honestly. Who was protecting whom?’
In any case — with a nominal fiancé attached to her name, romance had never been more than a distant dream. And since her parents always sent the carriage before sundown, she had never managed to form any real friendships among the noble ladies of society. The only young women she stayed in contact with were her former classmates from the academy.
In this suffocating, conservative household, Emily was the one — the only one — she could speak to without restraint. A steadfast older sister of a friend…
“This is quite a serious situation. But if you made a marriage promise and ‘took’ the Duke while you were at it, shouldn’t you take responsibility?”
“That was because of the wine — “
“And for that matter. Why on earth did you leave five silver coins behind? A pittance like that.”
That stung.
Those coins had been saved in secret, away from her parents’ knowledge, to buy Emily a birthday present…
But if she said so now, her grand plan to surprise Emily with a gift would be entirely ruined — and so she said nothing.
“I thought the room might be expensive…”
“Still. Sneaking out and leaving your bedmate alone in the middle of the night is frankly abominable behavior, Miss.”
“I was caught off guard… and I couldn’t remember anything. But doesn’t demanding ‘marriage’ over something like that seem like a bit much?”
“You said it was his first time, didn’t you? There are men who dream of marrying their first, you know. It does happen.”
“It was ‘my’ first time too! Either way, I absolutely cannot marry this man. Honestly, I don’t even remember signing any contract.”
“Which is precisely why he made sure to get it in writing, I imagine.”
She fell quiet, stung into silence.
“Why is it that you don’t want to marry him?”
“…I’m — I’m scared of him.”
“Of the Duke?”
“Yes. What am I going to do? Mother and Father will be back in two weeks, and Jacqueline with them.”
“Given what’s happened, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to avoid the marriage. The Hardeion Duchy wields enormous influence. Disposing of one young lady would be nothing to them.”
“…D-disposing?”
“You know the rumors — about the bodies stacked in the cellar of that estate. And as you’re well aware, it isn’t just the Duke himself. The previous Duke and Duchess were said to have quite the ‘temperament’ as well.”
She knew. She likely knew it better than Emily did.
The late Duchess had bathed in the blood of young maidservants. The late Duke’s hobby had been taxidermy.
“He’s certainly the sort of person who makes a reliable ally — but an absolutely terrifying enemy.”
“Emily! This is no time for you to be so calm about it! I might actually end up ‘marrying’ this man!”
“What would you like to do, Miss?”
“I want to undo the marriage. I’ve bought myself some time for now…”
“How?”
“I told him I’d never once been in love — that it would be a shame to go straight into marriage having never experienced it. So he gave me two months.”
“Well. Then he’s suggesting you court first.”
“Y-yes, but it was the only excuse he didn’t swat away. Everything else I tried, he deflected. It was a last resort…”
It was rather quick thinking, all things considered, for how flustered she had been.
“Then why not simply tell him the truth? That you have no romantic feelings for him and don’t wish to marry. That it was nothing more than one foolish night.”
“I — I had the feeling that if I said it like that, he wouldn’t just let it go.”
“Then let’s set honesty aside for the moment. There is another way.”
“What is it?”
* * *
