* * *

“This apple tart, aren’t you going to eat it?”

“Eat first.”

Belviana lifted the book in her hands slightly. Ellen shrugged once, then cut a large slice of the round tart and piled it overflowing onto her plate. She leaned back in her chair in a comfortable position. The crackling sounded unusually loud. Belviana tried to be nonchalant, trying to remain calm.

“What’s in it, cinnamon?”

“Yes. And lemon.”

“Oh, my God. This is so good.”

Ellen cleared her teacup and saucer in a flash, then yawned softly. She jerked her head up a few times, then slammed her head down on the table in the same position she’d been sitting, and passed out. Her breathing was ragged, as if she’d been swallowed up by a deep sleep.

Belviana placed the book on the bed and cautiously approached Ellen, waving her hand in front of her eyes. She was halfway through her sleeping pill-laced apple tart and wouldn’t wake up for another five hours. Belviana quickly tossed the leather bag and lantern into the laundry basket and covered it with the bed sheet.

She hiked up the hem of her skirt and buckled a belt with a small scabbard around her thighs, slipping a dagger between them. As the cold metal blade touched her thigh, the realization began to sink in. She took a deep breath and cautiously opened the door. Quickly, she took the nearest staircase and descended into the second-floor hallway.

The knight was the only one in the half-lit hallway, and the maids and servants had already returned to their quarters. Belviana took a short, deep breath. This was the only way to get to the west wing, short of going outside the manor. She took another deep breath and crossed in front of the knights with an effortlessly nonchalant stride.

“Where are you going?”

Belviana spun around, trying to stay calm. Fortunately, there was no hint of suspicion in the knight’s voice; it sounded like duty. She bit her lip tightly once, then slowly opened it.

“I, I’m just on my way to hang up the laundry, I’ve been so busy today that I forgot to…….”

Her voice was trembling badly. The knight standing next to her tilted his head toward her and peeked into the basket. Her heart was beating fast. Beneath the crumpled sheet was a bag and a lantern. The knight gave her a quick glance and moved out of the way. He didn’t seem to feel the need to reach inside the basket. The knight who had first spoken to Belviana added in a softer voice.

“The bell will be ringing soon, but before then, you must hurry back to your room.”

She nodded stiffly a couple of times. She jerked her head once and quickly crossed the hallway, which was strictly off-limits between two and five a.m., except to those on duty. As soon as she rounded the corner and thought she was out of sight of the knights, she broke into a run. With their acute hearing, even if they heard her running, they would most likely assume she was in a hurry to get back to her quarters. Even though she knew it in her head, she felt like someone was going to call her name behind her back at any moment.

She hurried down the west hallway. As soon as she crossed the trail of debris that hadn’t been completely cleared away, a quiet corridor appeared. She walked, careful not to leave a careless handprint somewhere. The long-neglected staircase creaked with each step. Moonlight was pouring in from the windows, so it wasn’t hard to find her way around even without a lantern.

Belviana finally stood in front of her old room. She fumbled for the doorknob and, after a few futile attempts, managed to get the key in the door. Contrary to her expectations of rust, the lock opened smoothly.

She pushed through the heavy wooden door. She could faintly hear bells ringing somewhere in the distance. It was dawn.

The room was darker than the hallway because all the curtains were drawn. She waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness, then reached into the laundry basket and pulled out a lantern. After several tries, she finally managed to light it. The light was weak, barely enough to see a few steps ahead.

Clutching her bag and the lantern, she crossed the room without much caution. The room was unchanged from eight years ago. Familiar objects lay in familiar places, in familiar ways. Even the comforter seemed to be in the same shape she had last disturbed it. Belviana slid her bag under the bed first, then followed. Running her fingertips along the small grooved floor, a secret compartment appeared. She inserted the key into the lock and turned it.

As soon as she opened it, the light from the lantern spilled out in a brilliant array of colors. Inside the half-open suitcase were all sorts of luxuries. Large sapphires, emeralds, opals, pearls, and other trinkets……. There were even three dresses with diamonds in every seam of lace.

She hastily swept the items into her leather bag, like someone who had just seen an oasis at the end of a long day. As soon as it was full, she shoved it into her underwear and front pockets, clutching it with both hands. Despite her greed, there were still gold buttons in the bag that she hadn’t yet removed from her clothes.

Belviana barely crumpled one garment into the already overstuffed bag and closed the door behind her. She was already way behind schedule. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been down here, but it was safe to leave the mansion, at least until the second bell rang. At the back gate of the rose garden, the carriage she had summoned was waiting. Belviana crawled out from under her cramped bed. She checked the fit of her clothes to make sure the jewelry she’d shoved into her pockets and underwear didn’t bulge out too much, and gripped her bag tightly.

“Belviana.”

The voice was a blow from out of nowhere, and she was so startled that she sucked in a dry breath. Her heart stopped dead in her throat, and she gasped for air as quickly as if someone had grabbed her by the throat. It was, she dared not mishear, Aiden’s voice. The lantern she held allowed him to see her clearly, but to Belviana, it was pitch black except for the handful of feet the lantern reached. She held the lantern high in the direction she thought Aiden’s voice had come from. Still in the unlit darkness, he spoke again.

“I knew you would come here.”

Bitter certainty and clear amusement. The emotion in his voice was almost too much to handle. She dropped the lantern so the light wouldn’t shine on her face and took a few steps back toward the far corner of the room. Belviana managed to spit out a few words, because Aiden wasn’t in a state of mind that would allow her to fool him with a straight face.

“I’m, I’m not, I mean, I’m not……”

She heard him chuckle briefly, as if in amusement, followed by the sound of someone getting up from the couch in the darkness. With her vision limited, herhearing became extremely acute. The clunky footsteps were getting closer and closer. It was so dark outside the radius of the light that to Belviana’s eyes, it seemed as if Aiden appeared out of nowhere as he took a step into the light.

He took the lantern from her hand and increased the glow of the wick a little more. For the first time, Belviana could see Aiden’s face properly. The man’s face, half-shadowed by the light, was different from the young man she had left behind eight years ago. A finely calculated nobility, as if he had been a noble since birth.

She wasn’t sure if she would have recognized him as Aiden at a glance if they had met on the street, not under these circumstances, but on their way to and from work. In her memory, he had died at nineteen, and that was a small consolation. Maybe Aiden was looking at her for reassurance. Belviana gathered her courage once more.

“Really, I’m not the person you’re looking for, I’m just someone who was asked to do a favor…….”

Belviana stumbled backwards to avoid the oncoming Aiden and nearly tripped over a table. She managed to regain her footing, but the tilted table shattered with a loud crash as dry potted plants, mirrors, and jewelry boxes tumbled to the floor. A round jewelry box bounced a few times in a sparkling trajectory before shattering in the darkness. It looked just like me. She desperately tried to take a few more steps back across the table, but was blocked by the bed. The nape of her neck rose as if she’d found a place to die.

“You’ve been a bad liar for a long time.”

He said, smiling a little. His razor-sharp face cracked for a moment and took on a familiar glow. It was enough to bring her back to the Aiden she knew. That momentary lapse in her defenses was a flashpoint. While she froze, Aiden stepped over the wreckage of the table and came closer. It wasn’t until he grabbed her wrist that she came to her senses and bowed her head angrily.

“I really, really didn’t…….”

“If you’re going to say that, maybe I should shove some proof in your face.”

“…….”

“Your body would be the proof anyway.”

He reached out and touched the ribbon at the front of Belviana’s dress, that touch, his long fingers moving in the darkness. The slightest touch of the ribbon brought back memories of old nights, nineteen different nights spent with him. She gasped a little. The apron fell with a heavy thud as Aiden gently tugged the ribbon down. The jewelry she’d hidden in her pocket scattered to the dark floor.

As she stooped to pick them up, Aiden’s grip on her arm tightened, his long fingers sliding straight down between the breastbones of her disheveled maid’s dress. Slowly, he tugged at the tufts of handkerchief she’d tucked into the front of her bosom to hide the curve of her jewelry. The jingling of jewels and lace through the garment scratched her nipples fiercely with each movement of the handkerchief. It was like having a burning bullseye resting on your chest.

As her breathing quickened, Aiden’s smile deepened a little more, and for the first time, Belviana realized that he could look so erotic and still be beautiful. That a man his age, no longer a young man, could still be beautiful. In fact, they were closer to thirty now. She swallowed a giddy breath as he snatched the handkerchief out of her hand with a deliberately slow tug. With the handkerchief, now completely out of her dress, he swept the jewelry to the floor, sweeping it clean on his tiptoes. He handled them as casually as if they were insignificant pebbles.

“The more you deny it here, the worse off you’ll be.”