Chapter 29
The Fall and the Follow-Through
R eturning home from the teahouse, Tam’s steps stalled in front of the courtyard doors of the guest house as he remembered the awkward state of his relationship with Eli.
Gods, what the hell do I say to her? “Sorry I’m acting like a hormonal child rather than a respectable employer”? Do I just come out and tell her the reason I’m being an arsehat and refusing to sleep in the same bed? No. Godsdammit, no. “Hey, Eli, remember how you were worried about misunderstanding me? Well, there isn’t a misunderstanding. You’re fantastic. And I’m having the best time of my life being here in Zinfera with you.”
Tam rubbed his eyes. “When… did I become such a twit?”
“Mr. Voll! Mr. Voll! Heeey, Mr. Voll!”
Before he even turned toward the slurred shout sounding from the darkness down the street, Tam knew that Bong and Jeong were approaching.
He waited until they were beside him before asking, “Did you find Lord Guk?”
“We did!” Bong said with a grin. “He is very well known at three particular brothels. We introduced ourselves and got invited to his party. It’s in three days, at his home here in Junya,”
“ Mr. Voll! ” Jeong burst out unexpectedly.
Tam stared at Jeong who, thanks to the lit torches by the front doors, he could see was alternately closing his eyes as he struggled to see only one of Tam.
“Yes?”
“When’s the first incident supposed to be?” Jeong managed in a loud whisper.
Tam pursed his mouth and turned to Bong, but Bong looked like he was asleep on his feet, so instead Tam opened the front doors. He could have this conversation when the Ryu brothers were a little less soused.
But when the trio of men took stock of the courtyard, they saw before them Eli, Haewon, and two older Zinferan women they’d never met. Eli wore a white top with a dark-emerald skirt. A shawl was draped around her shoulders despite the balmy temperature of the night.
One of the unknown women gently elbowed Eli in the back.
Tam, frozen in confusion, watched Eli’s uncomfortable expression and her inability to meet his eyes.
“You all are home late. And… you missed dinner.”
Tam blinked. Then he glanced at the other women present, then back at Eli, who looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
“Luca… missed you at bedtime.”
A loud hiccup sounded from Jeong. “Mr. Voooooll! How could you?” he slurred indignantly.
Tam’s lips flattened as he fought against a sigh.
“Yeah! Mr. Voll! Luca… is a growing… boy!” Bong added from his position at Tam’s side—an only temporary position, since he proceeded to faint face down. Tam stared at Bong’s back long enough to ensure he was breathing and then returned his attention to Eli. At least the unhelpful interruptions from the Ryu men had bought him enough time to get the gist of what was happening.
The two women must be neighbors who had shown up nosily wanting to meet him, and they’d insisted on staying until he was home. No doubt they’d repeatedly told Eli how furious she should be with a no-good husband who kept his loving wife and son waiting.
The solution to this awkward situation came to Tam a little too readily (he couldn’t quite fault the logic… though he would later admit it may have been biased). Crossing the courtyard to Eli, he reached out and gently grasped her hands, ducking his head closer to her. That same heart-stopping smell hit him—citrus and some other floral he couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“I’m sorry I’m late. You know how I get while studying, and then I happened to have tea with a kind lord who was curious about what had me so busy. I bought you some of the tea we had… Would you like to go inside and have some now?”
Eli had looked utterly mortified when Tam initially grasped her hands, but at the mention of tea he saw a glint of interest.
“Pardon me, Ms. Haewon and…?” Tam looked pointedly at the neighbor women. The one wearing a rose-colored shawl had her hand to her chest, while the other, who wore a royal-blue shawl, still scowled in his direction. Tam wasn’t surprised when she cleared her throat pointedly.
This managed to snap Eli out of her trance. She turned to Jeong. “You are drunk, go inside and stop making a scene.”
That much at least sounded natural coming from her, but then she stared back up at Tam and he damn near had to kiss her.
“These are our neighbors, Lu and Sosa.”
Tam nodded politely to the two women. Blue-shawled Sosa raised an eyebrow at him, while pink-wearing Lu watched him dazedly.
“It is lovely to meet you both. But if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to go inside with my wife and maybe check on our son.”
“You don’t look like a scholar,” Lu blurted suddenly.
Tam tilted his head as he started to realize just what the older woman was getting at.
“Looks aren’t everything,” Sosa scoffed. “He shows up late and tells his wife she should know how he is and to just put up with it! How is that right? Don’t you agree, Haewon?”
The housekeeper didn’t answer, for which Tam was grateful. He moved around Eli to face the two neighbors, slipping his hands atop her shoulders. “While I appreciate you commenting on my shortcomings,” he said a mite dryly, “I will ask that you please leave the premises for the evening. It’s late, and I would like to hear from my wife herself about her day. Good evening.” Tam slid his hands from Eli’s shoulders and once again grasped her hand, leading her into the house, not wanting to look back at her as he led her down the hall to their room.
Only when they were safely behind the closed door did he let go of her hand and place some distance between them.
“I apologize for the untoward touching,” he said swiftly, not quite able to meet her eyes.
“It’s fine, my lord. As I said before, I understand what our jobs are. Touching is inevitable.”
Tam decided not to drag out the conversation. “I take it those neighbors are the local gossips?”
Eli sighed, and at last the future duke felt it safe to look up. “They are. Annoying but informative. Apparently, Lord Guk’s wife is adamant that Junya should become a capital again. Even though she isn’t here, she is in constant communication with the household staff.”
Tam blinked. “That is incredibly useful information. Thank you.”
Eli cleared her throat. “You mentioned having tea with a lord. Was it Kim?”
Tam nodded. “It was, and he invited both you and me to his teahouse. I figured you wouldn’t mind,” he added with a grin.
Fidgeting, Eli busied her hands by starting to untie her white top. “I don’t. But I care about more than just tea, you know— Oh. I’m sorry, my lord.” She had just noticed that Tam had turned around so that his back was to her as she undressed.
“Eli, I have to ask, but… just as you aren’t certain how I could father a child, I am equally clueless how you did not reveal you were a woman for so long given that you keep casually undressing in front of me .”
There was a beat of silence. Tam had no idea if his words had upset his assistant. But then he heard it.
The gentle, whimsical laugh.
Before he could stop himself, he turned around and saw her smiling. Her eyes were closed, her teeth flashed… She seemed to glow…
That was when he knew.
Somehow, someway, he had gone and wound up in love.
Despite all his reasonings and best efforts.
He’d fallen for his assistant.
Completely.
◆◆◆
Tam sat at the breakfast table the following morning, sipping his coffee and avoiding looking in Eli’s direction while Haewon set the table.
He had managed to escape sleeping in the same bed with Eli, again by giving a barely coherent excuse that he’d sleep in the sitting room so that their housekeeper Haewon and the local gossips would think Eli had given him an earful for his tardiness. Of course, this was to ensure no one thought he was disrespectful of his wife, or that she was a pushover.
But he doubted he’d be able to keep avoiding sharing a bed with her for long.
A stack of papers appeared in front of him, forcing his mind back to the present. Morning light warmed the dining room with a hazy gold hue as street sounds and birdsong drifted in through the open sliding door.
“What’s this?” Tam asked, looking over the papers, his eyebrows twitching toward a frown.
“The information on the tutors I looked into for Luca,” Eli retorted in clipped tones that prompted Tam to spare a glance in her direction.
She didn’t look at him.
Tam lifted his face toward Haewon, but the woman didn’t let on a thing as she finished setting down the teapot.
So after she left the room, he took the opportunity to lean closer to Eli.
“Are you pretending to be angry with me because of yesterday…? Or are you actually angry with me?”
“I’m not angry, my lord,” Eli bit out, her eyes flying up to his face a little too sharply.
Tam leaned back in surprise.
All I did yesterday after making her laugh was go sleep out here… Did I do something else…?
The future duke was opening his mouth to ask more questions when in stumbled Jeong, clutching his head and moaning. “I should have said no to the sweet wine… Never say yes to the sweet wine,” he muttered.
“Where’s Bong?” Tam wondered aloud, though he suspected the eldest Ryu brother was still unconscious.
“He’s outside meditating,” Jeong answered in a manner far grumpier than anything Tam had ever heard from him. “In three days we have the party at Lord Guk’s residence, which is the perfect place for the kind of… event… you were thinking of.” Gesturing to Eli, he added, “Bong will take you shopping for a dress.”
“I can take her,” Tam volunteered a little too quickly. “It’ll be better for us to be seen together.”
Jeong was too hungover to even bother teasing him.
“I can go on my own, my lord. I—” Eli’s firm insistence was interrupted by Luca entering the room, still yawning. Then he spotted Tam and brightened. “Morning, Dad!” he called in sunny greeting.
Tam smiled back at him. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”
“I slept alright. It’s a bit hard because it’s a new place and… it’s weird having a room all to myself.”
Tam perked up. This was exactly the excuse he needed to sleep in a different room than Eli!
However, Jeong clapped a hand on Luca’s shoulder as the boy sat down beside him and said, “You can bunk with Bong and myself. He usually can’t sleep anyway, so I’m often alone in the room while he sits outside or reads elsewhere.”
Luca nodded, looking more than a little disappointed, as though he, too, had hoped Tam would be sleeping in his room.
“As I was saying, my lord, I can go alone—”
Eli was cut off yet again by the return of Haewon, who placed a plate in front of Luca before quietly leaving.
“You need to stop calling me ‘my lord,’” Tam whispered seriously. “Just call me Joe. That’s what I’m going to tell people once we get on a first-name basis. ‘Tam’ is too notable a name given my mixed heritage.”
“Actually, you should use a pet name, like ‘dear’ or ‘love’ or ‘my everything,’” Jeong contributed without his usual buoyancy as he reached for the rice on the table.
Eli’s mouth remained screwed shut, but Tam could see by the way her jaw moved that she was angry as hell. And so when she stood up from the low table abruptly and stalked out of the dining room, it didn’t take him long to follow.
Concerned about what was going on with Eli, he almost failed to see Jeong shoot Luca a knowing smile before he left.
Having no idea what he should do, Tam caught up to Eli just before she reached their room. Regardless, he tapped her on her shoulder and made her swing around so quickly that it caught him off guard.
She stared at him expectantly, her head tilted, and her nostrils flaring ever so slightly.
“Why’re you angry…?” Tam managed.
“I’m not angry, my lord, I—”
“Stop.” Tam waved a hand, expertly controlling his expression. “And I said to stop calling me ‘my lord.’ I said it back in Daxaria, too, come to think of it.”
Tam noted the way her right hand fidgeted, then gripped her burgundy skirt.
“Is it because Jeong took the teasing too far…? You seemed upset before he got there, so was it something I did?”
“No!” Eli exclaimed, though her volume had risen, which told Tam he was onto something.
“So I have done something…? Was it because I forgot to give you the tea I said I bought? I have it just in the other room if you—”
Eli turned and started storming off again, but Tam grasped her arm.
“Eli, you know I’m sinfully awkward. I’m not going to know unless you tell me.”
“Nothing. Is. Wrong. You are just being irritating!”
Eli tried to leave again, but this time Tam took three ground eating steps and shot an arm out in front of her. He happened to be quite close to her as he was doing this…
“Yes. I am irritating. And I am terrible at pretending you are not a woman. I’ve apologized and I’ve stayed away from you to try to be more considerate and distant so I make fewer errors. Is there anything else I can be doing for you?”
Eli leaned back against the wooden panel behind her, her face not all that far from Tam’s hand. Her cheeks were pink and she couldn’t seem to lift her eyes.
Tam felt himself starting a losing battle.
“Eli, please? Can you look at me and tell me what I did?” Tam’s voice had quieted, and he had to struggle to keep from moving any closer to her.
“You didn’t sleep beside me. And you’re avoiding me, and you’re just… You’re not… You just…” she stammered as she became more and more frustrated.
Her words sent a mind-numbing rush through Tam. His self-resolve was crumbling.
“You want me to sleep beside you?” His voice was hoarse.
Eli’s fidgeting worsened and she licked her lips while seemingly trying to figure out how to explain what she meant. Tam knew she was blissfully unaware that she was destroying any hope of coherent thought from her employer. “I just… I’ve actually been sleeping well with you beside me, and I… I have never slept well. Not since I was a child, and I don’t know why. I hate that I trust you. I don’t trust you, I mean, but I-I-I find you reasonable, and—”
Tam lowered his face to hers, and at last she lifted her eyes to his. Then they widened in surprise and a small breath left her mouth.
“Eli… Do you know why I might not be sleeping beside you anymore?” While Tam kept his tone patient, the tension in his body betrayed him.
“You… you don’t find me appealing like that, and you don’t want me—”
Tam kissed her.
His hand flexed against the wall, while his other found her waist as he relished the heady sensation of kissing the particular, grumpy woman he’d fallen for. Surprisingly, despite the staggering power of Tam’s emotions, his magic was silent.
He pressed into her. He could feel her hands gripping the bottom of his tunic and found himself thinking how near their room was, when she made a small sound.
He broke off the kiss, his breath rough as he stared down into her eyes. His arm, still braced beside her, quivered.
“Eli, I need you to tell me to stop or keep going, but whichever it is, have mercy and say it quickly.”
She swallowed, and her lips parted, but no sound came out, and Tam decided then and there the woman was a bloody master of torture.
But he waited… He waited and hoped to the Gods he hadn’t gone and just made a terrible arse of himself.