To My Dear Uncle

As a tutor, she had once been obliged to study — lessons demanded it. But the childless Marquis was dead, the servants who bled his coffers had all been cast out, and the money that remained was now enough to live on comfortably for the rest of her days. The circumstances, in short, had changed.

For Kasika, whose routine for as long as the world had kept turning had been to eat when she woke, shut herself in the study with a romance novel, sit aimlessly in the garden when the weather was fine, and sleep when night fell, no way out of this contract presented itself.

Insisting she had never signed it would accomplish nothing without proof. Even crying forgery would require evidence to back the claim. And to swear she had never been in contact with the house of Elperts — well. She had sent a letter of condolence when her grandfather died.

It would have read something along those lines.

And that promise of service could very easily be interpreted as an offer to take on his debts.

Kasika found herself picturing Noah Lambroise again. Sand-champagne hair, a lovely face. What color had his eyes been? She couldn't remember. She had certainly been close enough to see them, but who bothered to learn the color of someone else's eyes?

It wasn't as if they were hers.

Even the "pretty face" was less an observation than a habit — something she'd simply carried over from the memories of her childhood, and accepted on faith.

But still. To become the mistress of that little boy, all because of a debt.

What a humiliation.

"Then again, wouldn't a younger one be better?"

Lydia said. She was combing out Kasika's hair. It would only tangle again the moment she slept, but long hair grew unmanageable if it wasn't brushed often, and Lydia adored brushing it — she'd declared once that she loved the rich volume of Kasika's wavy brunette locks.

Lydia had first come to work at Lamplis at sixteen, and in what felt like no time at all she had become a woman of twenty-five. Lucy frowned on how close the two of them had grown, but Kasika thought of Lydia almost as a younger sister. More of one, in any case, than that Cesare Elperts II — who was technically her uncle, so "sister" hardly fit the man.

That said, thinking of her as a sister didn't mean hierarchy simply vanished. When Lydia occasionally overstepped, Kasika let it slide in silence. Occasionally. Truly only occasionally. Even that, it seemed, sat poorly with Lucy.

"What's so good about young?"

"The late Marquis was nearly fifty or older, wasn't he? Compared to him, the Viscount Lambroise wins hands down — even if he is only a viscount for now."

"Even if he's not a viscount…" Kasika began. "Sons of counts receive viscountcies anyway. Some of them are meant to help run the family affairs… no. Never mind. You're right, a young man is better."

It was problem enough not to know an old man's bed. High society — she had never experienced it herself, but wasn't it practically called a kingdom of beasts? Sloth, melancholy, debauchery, extravagance, wrath, ennui and betrayal. Everything she'd ever heard about society amounted to nothing more than those words, mixed together and arranged prettily on a plate.

A terrifying world, for someone this pure to walk into.

"Still, he's far too young."

"He's twenty-four or twenty-five, isn't he? About my age."

Huh? Was that how it worked? Coming from Lydia's mouth, the number somehow didn't make Noah feel any younger. But the image of the ten-year-old still clung to Kasika. So to her, he remained simply "young." In truth, she remembered nothing.

"You've done your duty as a wife, my lady — you deserve to enjoy yourself now. And I'd like to meet some of the servants who'll be coming with me."

"Who would come along?"

"Wouldn't the Viscount Lambroise come here himself?"

"As if."

Kasika replied. Of course it wasn't strange, in principle, for a mistress to spend a holiday with her lover — but that was when it was an actual holiday. She knew perfectly well that Noah wasn't coming to find her because he longed to savor this life in the mountains.

"If I'm to be kept as a mistress, I'd have to be in the capital."

"The capital?"

Lydia's face lit up.

"Then that's even better! It's been almost ten years since I've been! You'll take me with you, won't you?"

…

She hadn't even agreed to accept him as her lover yet.

At some point, the face of Viscount Noah Lambroise had blurred in Kasika's memory, replaced by the child Noah. His face had gone fuzzy — and it wasn't, admittedly, an easily forgotten face, but he had always lain outside her attention. Instead, it was the figure of 2.8 million gold that surfaced with perfect clarity.

Ten-year-old Noah Lambroise, demanding 2.8 million gold.

"This is troubling."

"What's so troubling about it? Just go."

Lydia set down the comb. The long, long brushing was finally over.

Truthfully, Kasika missed the capital too.

Living out in the provinces with nothing at all to do left her feeling as though she were squandering her days. She couldn't afford to adorn herself anymore, but there had been a time when Kasika had feasted her eyes on every fashion the capital had to offer.

Did she want to see it again? Of course she did.

She wanted to see the galleries, the museums, the countless objects brought in from foreign lands. What fashions were in vogue now? Did ladies still favor enormous bustles? And hats? Was everyone still puffing their hair sky-high? They surely weren't still dusting it with powder — were they? For Kasika, whose hair was nearly black, that particular custom had been the one she despised most.

The capital.

She wanted to go. She wanted to go, and yet—

she wasn't sure she was allowed to.

Still breathing, and back again.

Kasika regarded Noah's smiling face with a cold stare.

"Have you given the matter some thought?"

He might at least have granted her a generous stretch of time to think. But instead of voicing that thought, Kasika simply lifted her glass.

"Will you have a drink? It's Bevelen wine. It was a gift, some time ago now, but I stored it in the cellar and it's aged beautifully — all the better for it."

Noah's gaze slid to the filled glass. But he did not drink so much as a sip. Instead, with a look that said such pointless niceties were wasted on him, he said, "Give me your decision, my lady."

…

He seemed in a hurry.

She had expected him to send a letter and ask after her answer; instead, only days later, Noah was calling at the villa again. Apparently he had not returned to the capital at all, but had been staying in a nearby city.

"I have given it some thought," Kasika said.

A mistress, in the end, was also a woman who moved with you through society.

"There's a problem. If I'm to be a mistress who doesn't drag your good name through the mud, the cost of maintaining appearances would be considerable — as you can see, my circumstances are hardly favorable."

"So it would appear. But don't trouble yourself on that account. All you need do, my lady, is arrive."

He's not planning to load more debt onto me, is he? With his standing, women with far better terms than hers must be lining up by the dozen — so why come all this way to a remote countryside? The psychology of the overflowing-rich was beyond her. Could he have some other design in mind? Don't be absurd — did he covet this land? It bordered the frontier, but geographically it wasn't bad land.

But surely — surely he wouldn't storm in like a brigand on a provincial widow, with all that vast fortune at his back.

Kasika fixed Noah with a look of open suspicion. Noah absorbed it without so much as blinking. A little, she thought, insufferable.

"And if I refuse?"

Kasika asked. Among society women, wantonness was worn like a virtue. Spending nights with more men, gathering gossip from every quarter, walking the tightrope — drifting here and there on the brink of scandal, scattering sparks of it behind her.

"Refusal is not something I've considered."

To be wanton, she would first have to lose her innocence.

Nearly ten years of marriage had passed, and Kasika still held what a wife was supposed to have surrendered. It couldn't be helped. The blame lay with a husband who had died the moment they met. Not truly a fault — but in her present circumstances, it was. He might at least have sown a few wild oats first.

"And if I begin considering it now?"

"I doubt anything about it would end well for you, my lady."

"Then I suppose I've no choice but to consent."

…Do I really have to sell myself to someone just to be rid of my maidenhead?

Would he even manage to keep his mouth shut properly?

No — if he's alive, silencing him won't work. Then do I have to kill him?

And if so, what an affliction that man would be.

"My lady?"

Should I pick someone already close to death? It would be her first time, after all — no, an old man was out of the question. If her first kiss was going to be with an ancient, fine, but anything beyond that…

"My lady."

How vexing. How vexing.

She had never intended to live out her days in chaste widowhood. If, someday, someone she liked came along — or even if not, if there was pleasure to be had — then the day she lost her innocence would come eventually. She'd simply never imagined she'd be contemplating flinging it away this fast, to anyone at all, in this manner.

"Lady Lamplis."

Handsome, ideally. But the silencing worries me. Should I really kill him?

"Teacher."

"Huh?"

It was a title both foreign and familiar. In another life, it was the word she had heard from him more than any other. Kasika responded before she even realized it — then froze, startled at herself, an awkward expression settling over her face.