---
*"Has any spy in history confessed their profession by saying 'yes, I am a spy'?"*
"No..."
Of course not. If such obvious tells existed, the entire profession of espionage would have collapsed centuries ago.
Marin trudged toward the nearest wall like a dog that had been scolded one too many times. When she reached it, she pressed her forehead against the cold stone with a dull *thunk*.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving myself a moment of repentance."
"...Pardon?"
Something shifted in the Duke's breathing—a slight catch, barely perceptible. But Marin was too lost in self-recrimination to notice.
"You're absolutely right, Your Grace. What spy would ever admit to being a spy? They'd deny it until their dying breath." She kept her forehead planted firmly against the wall, her words slightly muffled. "I need time to reflect on my own stupidity."
Silence answered her.
Marin remained motionless, her mind racing through possibilities.
*I need to prove myself through actions, not words. But how? What could possibly convince him I'm not a threat?*
Perhaps she could share useful information from the novel's plot? Warn him about future dangers? But that raised its own problems. The Duke had enemies *everywhere*—enemies she knew about in disturbing detail.
The Emperor's faction despised him for his independence. The aristocratic coalition resented his refusal to join their schemes. Rather than aligning with either power, Duke Vines stood proudly apart, beholden to no one.
Such neutrality bred hatred on all sides.
While the Duke remained in his full power, the jealousy and espionage attempts had invariably failed. His heightened senses, his formidable reputation, his loyal shadow guards—they'd formed an impenetrable defense.
But now, weakened by injury and confined to his darkened study, that defense had cracked. Spies from every faction had infiltrated the household en masse, each seeking to exploit this rare moment of vulnerability.
*This is why Olive couldn't explain anything to me yesterday. Why he hesitated to share the Duke's condition. Trust is a luxury they can't afford.*
And here she was—a stranger with a fabricated identity, demanding to be let in.
*I have to prove I'm not one of them. If suspicion falls on me, there's only one path forward: execution.*
The thought sent ice through her veins.
---
Gerald listened to the peculiar sounds emanating from across his study.
*Thunk.*
Her forehead against the wall.
Silence.
Then nothing—no movement, no fidgeting, no nervous shifting. Just... stillness.
*Time for repentance?*
Something cracked in his carefully maintained composure. Not quite amusement, but something adjacent to it—an unfamiliar sensation he couldn't immediately name.
Was she genuinely repenting? Standing there with her forehead pressed to stone like a child in the corner?
His attention shifted to the rhythm of her heart. When she'd first burst into the study, it had been hammering wildly—a frantic percussion that had grated against his heightened hearing. But now it beat steadily, almost calmly.
*What manner of creature is this?*
She feared him—that much was obvious. Her pulse spiked whenever he spoke, her breath caught when he moved, her entire body radiated the unmistakable tension of prey in a predator's presence.
And yet...
And yet she didn't *act* afraid.
The contradiction nagged at him. Unpredictability was dangerous. Like monsters, whose movements couldn't be anticipated, whose attacks came from unexpected angles. Wariness coiled in his chest.
*Marin Schwentz. Daughter of Viscount Schwentz.*
Kay's report had been thorough, as always. A carriage accident three years ago had claimed both the family patriarch and the eldest son. The estate had crumbled into debt. The title was functionally worthless. The girl now lived in a decrepit cottage, caring for her bedridden mother with whatever meager funds she could scrape together.
Her social debut had never occurred. Marriage prospects had evaporated along with her dowry. She'd worked various odd jobs under a false identity—sometimes disguised as a man, sometimes not—moving from position to position before anyone could look too closely.
Not the profile of a spy. Not secretive enough, not connected enough, not *careful* enough.
But if she wasn't a spy, why had she sought him out? Purely for money?
Even if espionage wasn't her goal, she'd still lied about her status. That alone warranted punishment. Dismissal at minimum. Worse, if he chose to make an example of her.
*If only it weren't for that voice.*
He'd assumed her reading voice was the anomaly—some particular cadence or frequency that slipped beneath his heightened defenses. But her ordinary speech proved equally tolerable. When she addressed him, her words emerged quiet and low, soft as velvet against his abused ears.
It changed nothing.
And yet it changed everything.
"How long do you intend to stand there?"
"Until the assistant returns."
*Stubborn creature.*
"Come here."
"But the assistant hasn't arrived yet—"
"When Olive returns with the reports, do you plan to read them with your face pressed to the wall?"
A pause. Then, cautiously:
"...No. I'm coming."
Her footsteps approached—so light they barely registered against the carpet. Gerald found himself paying attention to the sound, or rather the near-absence of it. How thin was she, exactly? Even Kay, trained from childhood to move in silence, made more noise than this slip of a girl.
She stopped at a careful distance, maintaining space between them.
The scent reached him next.
Something warm and golden, like sunlight filtered through autumn leaves. Clean and dry, without the cloying perfumes noblewomen favored or the harsh lye soap of common servants. He hadn't smelled anything quite like it in a long time.
"It's difficult to see in here. Perhaps I could stay at this distance—"
He moved before she finished speaking.
His hand shot out, closing around her wrist, and he pulled her toward him with a sharp tug. The motion was instinctive, born from years of combat training and a predator's need to *know*.
"Mmph—!"
She caught herself mid-scream, her free hand flying up to cover her mouth. The sound died before it could escape, muffled against her palm.
Her heart exploded into frantic rhythm. He could hear each beat pounding against her ribs, could feel the pulse hammering beneath his fingers where they encircled her wrist.
*Afraid. Terrified, even.*
And yet she hadn't screamed.
"Why?"
"...Wha?" The word came out garbled through her covered hand.
"I asked why you didn't scream."
---
Marin's thoughts scattered like startled birds.
*Why didn't I scream? Is that a trick question? Am I supposed to have screamed? Would screaming have been better or worse?*
The Duke's grip on her wrist was firm but not painful—the casual hold of someone who could crush her bones without effort but had chosen not to. For now.
Being pulled against him had eliminated the safe distance she'd maintained. She could make out his features now, even in the gloom. The black silk ribbon concealing his eyes. The midnight hair falling across his forehead. The blade-sharp line of his nose. Lips full and perfectly shaped, the color of rose petals.
*Devastatingly handsome,* some distant part of her brain observed. *Even in darkness. Especially in darkness.*
The perfect protagonist for a romantic fantasy.
But was he *sane*?
The novel—*The Western Duke's Bluebird Doesn't Cry*—had been written from the protagonist's perspective. First person, intimate, filtered through his own perceptions. She'd assumed his harsh treatment of enemies and tender devotion to the heroine represented normal behavior.
But what if the protagonist simply didn't *know* he was unstable?
What if he was gentle only with his beloved, and *actually mad* with everyone else?
For Marin, who had built her entire survival strategy on deceiving this man, such a possibility was catastrophic.
"I asked a question."
His voice dropped to something low and dangerous—a predator's growl, warning that patience was finite.
*Answer him. Now. And whatever you do, don't ask if he's crazy.*
"If I screamed," she said carefully, "it would have been loud."
"A natural reaction when one is frightened."
"Your Grace understands my meaning, surely?"
Her eyes fluttered nervously, searching his obscured face for any hint of his thoughts.
*Please don't be insane. Please be testing me. Please—*
"Doesn't it strike you as suspicious?" His grip on her wrist tightened fractionally. "That you failed to do what would be natural?"
Understanding bloomed.
*A test. It was a test.*
Relief threatened to buckle her knees.
"Your Grace, you do not... that is to say, you experience certain challenges with visual perception."
She chose her words with extreme care, dancing around the word *blind* as though it might detonate on contact.
Silence.
She pressed forward.
"I reasoned that you might be sensitive to sound. Screaming seemed... inadvisable."
The novel had contained several scenes where excessive noise visibly irritated the Duke. She'd noted them at the time, thinking them mere character quirks. Now she understood they were symptoms of something far more serious.
"Astute observation."
"I thank Your Grace for the compliment."
Marin dipped her head in acknowledgment, waiting for whatever came next.
*He's not mad. Just cautious. I can work with cautious.*
"One more question."
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"Are you a spy?"
"No."
The denial emerged without hesitation. Marin allowed herself a small exhale of relief—
"Did you just *sigh* in my presence?"
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
The word *dare* wasn't spoken, but it hung in the air between them, implied and threatening.
"No, Your Grace." Marin shook her head firmly. "Absolutely not."
"You sighed."
"I did not." She straightened her spine, squaring her shoulders with a confidence she didn't entirely feel. "What Your Grace observed was merely a deep exhalation. There is a difference."
"Is there."
"Certainly. A sigh implies dissatisfaction or weariness. An exhalation is simply the natural function of breathing. I was breathing. As one does."
*What am I doing? Why am I arguing with the Duke? What is wrong with me?*
The Duke said nothing.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly—a flicker of displeasure, or perhaps surprise—but he didn't pursue the point.
Marin exhaled again, internally this time.
*I won. Sort of. Maybe.*
But another problem remained.
Her wrist was still locked in the Duke's grip.
The test appeared to be over. Shouldn't he release her? How long did he intend to hold on? Was she supposed to *ask* to be freed, or would that be presumptuous?
She was formulating an appropriately respectful request when movement caught her eye.
A thin sliver of light—impossibly bright after so much darkness—filtered through a gap in the heavy curtains. The beam stretched across the study like a glowing ribbon, shifting as clouds moved beyond the sealed windows.
Marin's gaze followed it automatically.
The light traveled across the Duke's profile as he turned his head. For one crystalline instant, his features were illuminated in stark detail.
And she saw.
*Blood.*
Dried blood, crusted along the shell of his ear. Trailing down his jaw in a rust-colored track. Already beginning to flake where it had congealed against his pale skin.
The sight hit her like a physical blow.
"Your Grace—!"
Her free hand flew to her mouth, covering the gasp that escaped.
"What?"
"B-blood." The word emerged strangled. "You're bleeding."
"Was bleeding." He corrected her with perfect indifference, as though discussing a minor inconvenience rather than visible injury. "Past tense."
"You need treatment immediately!"
Marin's concern erupted before propriety could restrain it. She tried to step toward the door, intending to summon a physician, to fetch Olive, to do *something*—
Her wrist remained firmly imprisoned.
She tugged instinctively. The Duke's grip didn't budge.
"Your Grace, please—the wound—"
"Has already stopped bleeding."
"That doesn't mean—"
"The physician has been summoned. Olive will ensure it."
His tone carried finality, brooking no further argument.
Marin subsided, though her eyes kept darting to the bloodstains marring his otherwise perfect features. The injury appeared to be centered on his ear—or rather, *in* his ear. What could possibly have caused such a wound?
*The letter opener.*
The memory surfaced unbidden. She'd noticed a slender silver blade on his desk yesterday, its edge glinting in the candlelight. If he'd used it on himself...
*Why would anyone do that?*
But even as the question formed, pieces began clicking into place. His extreme sensitivity to sound. The way servants spoke in whispers around him. The black curtains sealing out not just light but *everything*.
If his hearing had become unbearable—if every sound was agony—might he have sought relief through the most direct means available?
The thought was horrifying.
And it made her even more determined to speak softly, to move quietly, to be as unobtrusive as humanly possible in his presence.
"Your Grace," she said, modulating her voice to barely above a whisper. "I apologize for my earlier outburst. In the hallway. I should have been more considerate."
"You should have been quieter," he agreed. But something in his tone had shifted—less cold, perhaps. Or simply tired.
"It won't happen again."
"See that it doesn't."
He released her wrist.
---