Chapter 56: Of Midnight Snacks and Misplaced Assumptions
Chapter 55: Of Midnight Snacks and Misplaced Assumptions
Lyria’s POV
I turned slowly.
Gray eyes met mine from across the kitchen.
They were familiar in the worst possible way—sharp and pale, framed by a face I had once trusted more than I had trusted almost anyone. He stood near the far counter with the easy, unhurried posture of a man entirely comfortable in whatever space he chose to occupy.
He was frowning at first.
Then, quite suddenly, he smiled.
It was the same smile he gave me when we had been friends—or rather, when I thought we had been friends. A smile that had at that point seemed to make my heart flutter. But after the knowledge that I had only been used by him, it fell flat.
I was almost certain of the fact that he thought the smile would make me once more melt in his presence. Well...he couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
I rolled my eyes internally, wondering what rotten luck I had to run into him here.
"Lyria."
The name fell from his lips with a warmth that did not reach his eyes. Or perhaps it did, and I had simply lost the ability to see it there.
"What brings you to the kitchens at this hour?" he asked pleasantly. "Have you come to steal?"
The words landed with that particular lightness he had always used when he wished a cruelty to pass for a joke.
"Marquess Hale," another voice said, "why would you say something like that?"
I recognized it immediately.
It was not a voice I had any particular reason to welcome. Our first encounter had not been what one might describe as cordial. He had looked at me as though I were someone who had wandered into the wrong room and presumed to have opinions about it.
Baron Redwick stepped forward from the shadows near the hearth, coming to stand beside the Marquess. He held a mug loosely in one hand, steam curling upward from its surface in a thin, idle ribbon. His green eyes moved from the Marquess to me and back again, the line of his mouth pulling into a slight frown.
"It is... you," he said softly.
Compared to the way Corvin spoke, familiar with me, I quite preferred the Baron’s voice. If Corvin heard him, he didn’t say anything.
His gray gaze remained on me, still smiling and still waiting.
I dropped into a polite bow, lowering my gaze as my hands folded neatly in front of me. "Baron Redwick," I murmured, voice steady though my heart stuttered slightly at seeing him.
Then I straightened slightly and turned my attention to Marquess Hale. "Marquess Hale," I said, bowing again.
There was a beat of silence, and then he scoffed.
It was a small sound—the kind of sound a man made when he wished to express displeasure without committing fully to the expression of it...though he failed at that.
"Did you see the Baron before you saw me?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and tilting his head in mild annoyance. "I am a Marquess, Lyria. Surely one should acknowledge me first."
I kept my head bowed.
"Forgive me, Marquess Hale," I said carefully, my words coming measured and slow, the way they did when I was concentrating. "I offer my sincerest apologies. However, I must confess that the mask I wear does, upon occasion, obscure my vision somewhat."
I paused only briefly.
"And, as opposed to your noble features, the Baron’s are... striking from a distance. I did not intend discourtesy, I assure you," I said to him.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Corvin’s eyes twitched in visible irritation, but Baron Redwick merely took a quiet sip from his mug, hiding the small smile that played at the corners of his lips.
Corvin’s frown deepened. He leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice, though still audible in the quiet kitchen. "And what, pray, is a girl like you doing in the kitchens at this hour? I suspect... stealing?"
His voice had not lost its pleasantness. It rarely did. That had always been one of the more dangerous things about him.
Baron Redwick set his mug down upon the counter with a soft, precise click.
"Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, "she was just hungry."
He glanced toward me briefly before returning his attention to the mug in his hand.
"As I was," he added. "The refreshments provided at this evening’s ball were, I find, not entirely sufficient to sustain one through the night."
He lifted the mug again.
"It seems a reasonable enough explanation."
The Marquess turned his head toward the Baron with an expression of mild patience.
"Do not presume to know Lyria, Baron Redwick. You do not," he told him.
It was quite funny how Corvin assumed that he knew me when, like Baron Redwick here, he had the faintest idea who I was.
The kitchen was quiet for a moment.
I was aware of the cook standing near the far range, head bent studiously over whatever task had brought him here at this hour, performing with admirable dedication the art of appearing not to listen. Beside him stood another figure I took to be a valet of some kind, similarly engaged in his own private pretense of indifference.
I stepped forward slightly, lowering my head again in a formal bow. I clasped my hands neatly before me, and when I spoke, I made certain my words came out clean and even, without a single stutter to soften them.
"With all due respect, Marquess Hale," I said, careful to speak each word distinctly, "you do not know me either. It seems you assumed knowledge where none exists."
The tension hung briefly in the air between us, a delicate balance of authority, curiosity, and restrained amusement. I could feel the muscles in both men tense subtly, though the Baron’s posture remained poised, almost serene, while the Marquess’s body exuded restrained energy, ready to react, yet tethered by civility, and it was quite obvious to me the Marquess was mad with anger.
