Chapter 73: The Cute Curious Wolf
Chapter 72: The Cute Curious Wolf
Lyria’s POV
I did not move.
The knock had settled into the air and then faded, and I stood with my back pressed against the gatehouse wall, saying nothing and hoping, with the particular desperate optimism of someone who knew their hope was entirely unreasonable, that silence would somehow resolve the situation.
It did not.
"I know you are in there," the Duke said pleasantly.
I said nothing.
"You were listening," he continued, with the same unhurried ease. "Which is, I will grant you, entirely understandable given the circumstances. We did stop directly outside your window."
Still nothing from me.
"You may come out," he said. "There is no cause for alarm."
I pressed my lips together.
I weighed my options with the rapid, practical efficiency of someone who did not have a great deal of time to be impractical.
The options were not numerous.
I could stay silent and hope he would eventually lose interest and walk away. This seemed unlikely. He had the quality of someone who did not lose interest in things until he had resolved them to his own satisfaction, and he had been standing outside a gatehouse for what felt like a considerable amount of time already without any sign of diminishing patience.
I could come out. This would require facing both him and Lucian while knowing that I had been listening to a private conversation about things I had not fully understood but had very clearly not been meant to hear. And there was also the fact that I would be at risk of being seen by the other nobles present in the courtyard, even though the gatehouse was at a blind spot.
Or.
I could try something else.
I cleared my throat.
Then, with a care and deliberateness that I had not applied to anything else this afternoon, I made my voice lower. Deeper. It was the same voice I had used on Earl Hawthorne and Duke Thorncrest.
"I—I am a-afraid," I said carefully, "that you have me m-mistaken for s-someone else."
There was a pause.
Then the Duke laughed, and I couldn’t help the way my body reacted to the sound.
"I would know that scent," he said, when the laugh had subsided into something more conversational, "anywhere."
I frowned at that. What scent? The Duke wasn’t the first to speak of it, and I was genuinely surprised by what he meant because I could perceive nothing. I have no wolf, after all. So what scent was he speaking of?
"And Lucian here," the Duke continued, "is similarly acquainted."
I heard Lucian make a sound that was not quite a sigh and not quite a warning, and was somewhere between the two.
"This is a bad idea," Lucian said, and his voice was directed at the Duke rather than at me. "You are being reckless. If she is found here—"
"Then she will be found here," the Duke said pleasantly. "She has been here the entire afternoon, Lucian. That particular situation existed independently of my acknowledgment of it."
"This will put Lyria in trouble," Lucian said.
The words were quiet.
I stood in the gatehouse and listened to Lucian argue for my protection from directly outside the window and found that I could not quite arrange my thoughts about this in any orderly fashion.
"The cute curious wolf has a name," the Duke said, as though this were a relevant contribution to the conversation Lucian was attempting to have.
I stiffened.
"I—I am not," I said, in my deep fake voice, "a c-curious wolf."
"No?"
"No. I was simply—here. By happenstance."
"By happenstance," the Duke repeated.
"Yes."
"In a forgotten gatehouse."
"Yes."
"At the edge of the South Courtyard."
"Yes."
"During a formal royal competition."
I said nothing.
"For several hours," he added.
"I—it is a comfortable gatehouse," I said.
Lucian made the sound again. This time it was closer to a sigh.
"See, Lyria..."
"M-my name is I—Iria," I said, interrupting him.
The Duke paused after that. Never was it known that anyone who interrupted someone of high standing like the Duke lived to see the next day. I swallowed, wondering what would happen when I heard the Duke chuckle.
"Iria," the Duke said with a chuckle. "That is very close to Lyria. Did you just come up with that on the spot?"
"No... that is my name."
The Duke shook his head. "The curious wolf is a liar."
And despite everything—despite the cold stone floor and the smell of mold and the five hours and the aching back and the extremely unfortunate situation I was currently in—I heard something from Lucian’s direction.
It was a small laugh. Even he found this whole situation amusing. Goodness take me.
"Curious wolf, why don’t you come out of your hiding place?" the Duke asked.
"That’s a bad idea, Valenridge."
"I’m sure I was quite direct when I told you to call me by my given name, no?" the Duke asked Lucian lazily.
Lucian sighed. "Evander," he gritted out. "As I was saying, it is not quite advisable for her to step out."
"Why?" the Duke asked. "Why can’t you step out, curious wolf?"
But before I could respond, Lucian spoke up.
"The Queen will frown on it, and it is better she does what the Queen says than land herself in trouble."
"I can speak for myself," I told Lucian sharply.
The Duke made a small sound.
"It appears," he said, "that the voice has abandoned its post."
I cleared my throat.
"I b-beg your par—"
"You need not," the Duke said. He sounded genuinely entertained. "I find I prefer the real one."
I said nothing, quite taken aback by his words.
"But rather than land you in trouble, I have a penchant for fair play, after all. For once, I agree with Lucian here. I’d rather not get you in trouble, but I would love to have a conversation with you... preferably without Lucian present," the Duke said.
There was this teasing in his words, so I wasn’t quite sure he was honest.
Lucian growled at that.
"Oh, feral wolf," the Duke said with humour. "Calm down."
