Yet, he had not leaned far enough forward for her to be able to see his face, only his hands, his forearms, and his legs.
Holding her breath in case he somehow heard her through the wall, she watched as he dipped a quill into the ink, brought the darkened, sharpened tip to the paper… and scratched out her name with such a violent flourish that tiny beads of ink splattered across the vacant bottom of the page.
You think you can erase me?The thought crashed through her mind as violently as the scrape of his quill across her name.
Before she knew what she was doing, before she could stop herself, she had flung open that narrow servants’ door and marched out into the room. The man stood sharply and brought his mask down onto his face before she could glimpse it, though he did not seem to flinch or start at her abrupt arrival, turning toward her as if it were perfectly normal for furious women to emerge from solid walls.
A thousand barbed words attempted to leap from her tongue, but the sight of him had tied it into knots.
Rather, theheightof him had. He had not seemed quite so tall before.
Of course he did not! He was sitting!Her livid mind was still trying to push her fury onward and out of her mouth, fighting against the constriction in her throat and the tangle of her tongue.
He towered above her, broad-shouldered and magnificent, his figure like that of the fearsome knights in her favorite stories: strong, muscular, capable, honed for battle. True, he waswearing the fine garments of a gentleman, rather than a suit of armor, but it did not take much for her imagination to flit between one and the other. After all, his garments were alittletoo tight for his frame, allowing her that luxury.
A lion…
Her gaze lifted to his beautiful mask, where a bronze, feline face gave way to golden leaves, impeccably crafted, that moved in different directions to create the mane, two pointed ears hidden among it. Rather than blend into golden locks, the mane flowed seamlessly into the black waves of the man’s own hair, the stark contrast pleasing to Teresa’s eye, who liked it when things went against expectation.
The ‘face’ of the mask stopped just below his nose, though two golden fangs pointed downward. It should have appeared menacing, but one look at the striking, dark eyes that peered out at her, and she forgot to be afraid, her breath stolen away by their glittering beauty.
Yes, hair and eyes as dark as the ink he just struck through your name!Her mind kicked her soundly out of her admiring trance, severing the restraints around her tongue.
“J-Just who d-do you think you are?” she stuttered, jabbing him in the chest with a shaky finger… and almost breaking that finger against hard muscle. “What great authority are you to be…judgingladies as if we were… p-pigs at a summer fair? T-Tail not curly enough, snout too long, ears too floppy—no reward for you. It is… it is… it is appalling, frankly!”
The man’s dark eyes, their color indiscernible in the low light of the room, continued to glitter like freshly polished jewels. His mouth remained in a grim line, unaffected by her words or the press of her accusatory finger on his sternum.
“And who areyouto eavesdrop?” he said in a cold voice that sent her nerves into a jittering frenzy. “Who are you to involve yourself in the private endeavors of a gentleman?”
“I was not eavesdropping!” she countered, her own voice trembling. “I was…”
How on earth do I explain this?
“Be gone from my sight,” he growled, though he did not avert his gaze, those intense eyes seeming to bore into Teresa’s soul.
“You are not my captain,” she retorted, blushing as a vision of this man and her beloved Captain Frostheart clashed together in her mind. “You… do not get to order me around.”
His lip curled. “I am not a captain, but I assure you, I outrank you. Do as you are told, and I shall say nothing of the fact that you have been hiding in the walls.”
“I wasnothiding! And I was not eavesdropping,” she insisted in frustration. “Hearing you, seeing this despicable thing you are doing, was an accident. But I am not sorry that I saw it. I am not sorry that I can… chastise you.”
A frosty smirk appeared on his lips. “Chastise me? Is that what this is supposed to be—a telling off?”
“Well…” She floundered for the right words, surprised that she had already said so much.
“Well?” he prompted, when she did not continue.
“Yes. Yes, it is a telling off,” she said, rallying. “I suspect you are the very sort of gentleman who is in dire need of a chiding. And if no one else will do it, I suppose it must be me.”
He remained unmoved. “Tell me, what sort of gentleman am I?”
“A… very rude one,” she retorted.
“You do not know me.”
“I have seen and heard enough to…”
Peering up at him, that vision of him as Captain Frostheart refusing to leave her mind, Teresa’s mind flitted back to Beatrice’s mischievous advice. She could not remember the exact words, just the essence:Kiss a man and get it out of your mind, see if reality is better than daydreams.
