Chapter 34 Kas takes his dinner alone. #2
“I never expected to see you again, Nes. I had no idea who you were or where you lived. It came as a huge shock when you turned up at Kirce. I didn’t bring it up because I was embarrassed, and there was never a good time before we got to Rohilavol ourselves.
Once we were there, once I had the opportunity to travel with you and spend time with you, alone, that first time I saw you was, honestly, the furthest thing from my mind.
Mainly. It was front and center while you were renaming your magic to azhelekezhi, but then we got distracted by the crowd and Isahn.
And again, it was all I could think about when you wore the dress. ”
She studied him, unblinking. “Why didn’t you bring it up then?”
“Because I didn’t want to ruin things. I hoped . . . to kiss you.”
“Only kiss?”
“Only kiss. I had to manage my expectations.”
Her lips pressed together in a quivering line as she repressed a smile.
“My initial infatuation with you is gone. It’s— Oh, no don’t look at me like that! It’s shifted. It’s changed. It’s been replaced and overwritten by far more ardent feelings, m’ekina.”
“Oh.”
He focused on the swirl of his red wine in its fragile glass. That final confession had been difficult on his nerves.
Nes shoved a bite of potato into her mouth.
I guess that means I should keep talking.
Kas took a moment to shovel down a few bites of food and have another sip of his drink before he continued, “With the clothes, I’ve explained before, but I’m not sure I did a bang-up job.
It was horribly selfish of me to present you with a wardrobe and not consider how it might make you feel, or the implications of a lavish gift, regardless of my intent.
I understand now. Please, know it was nothing more than a gift.
Beautiful things for a beautiful woman. No strings attached.
I saw you had very few dresses, and I knew you deserved more.
I have the means, so I bought them. It was a . . . lust-driven rational decision.”
She attempted to glower at him over her drink, but the transparent crystal did nothing to hide the smile that flashed on her face.
Gaining confidence, Kas took another few bites of food, then went on, “Nesrina, I don’t have expectations with you, but I have hopes.
And all I’ve ever hoped for is a relationship—no ties to my gifts, no ties to your father, to your position as tutor, to anything except you, as you. It’s a hope. A wish.”
She sighed. “And the clothing is the only thing you’ve secretly given me?”
He coughed.
“What else?”
“It’s not so much things I’ve given you, but”—he paused for a breath—“things I’ve done.”
She dropped her knife, her brows lifting to the ceiling.
He could see his chest rising and falling in his peripheral vision. Palms growing clammy around his fork, Kas forced himself to continue, “At the symposium—the first one—I may have done something . . .”
Nes eyed him in consternation.
“There was a young man—”
“Tavid.”
“Nithim, yes. I may have seen him pawing at you on the balcony, and I may have hit him with a gust of wind.”
Picking up her knife to point it at him she hissed, “That is far beyond the pale.”
Her glare lacked the intensity he’d expected, which bolstered him greatly. “I’m terribly sorry. I was completely out of line.”
“You were.” She sliced a piece of steak and chewed pensively while he took a moment to breathe and sip his wine.
“Were you horribly put out?” he asked.
It took her a moment to reply, and when she did it was a quiet, “No . . .”
He smirked.
She pointed her knife at him again. “Not really. But Kas! That was too much. What else have you done? Because the way you’re fidgeting your glass tells me you’re not finished with confessions.”
He relocated his palms to his lap. “I’m not. Um . . . this year, at the Elk but this time it wasn’t directed at him—not overtly, at least.
“I know. Nes, if it helps, you must realize that I recognize how grossly I overstepped with Tavid and Rihan.”
That brought her attention back to his face, which he both liked and hated, as her piercing green stare kicked his heart into an impossibly quick rhythm.
He went on, “I’m an adult and need to act like one.
But more importantly, you are too. You know your own mind and are capable of making your own decisions.
I don’t know what I was thinking—because I wasn’t.
I panicked and acted foolishly—both times.
” He finished with a whoosh of breath as he stared at an unfinished potato.
“I can understand that.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s not the same as sending men away, but I seem to have a habit of climbing up on furniture when I panic.”
His nervous fingers had made their way back to the stem of his glass, so Kas lifted it. “Cheers, to panicking and acting like fools?”
“Oh, so you think I’m foolish?”
“I didn’t—”
She cut him off by clinking her glass against his, and her lilting laughter soothed his anxious soul.
Good gods, he had no idea what he was doing. All was going well until he told her, “I won’t take back what I said about wanting to protect you. In fact, I refuse.”
Her brows went up as she set down her fork.
That hadn’t come out quite how he intended, but he muddled on, “I can’t take it back, not in good conscience anyway. Because it’s true.”
She opened her mouth.
He held up a finger. “I don’t mean it in an ownership way, I mean in a partnership way . . . watching out for one another, caring for one another, protecting each other.”
She closed her mouth and blinked.
“Will you consider having me?”
He aged fifty years waiting for her response. It was as if she was intentionally torturing him by cutting a bite of steak, popping it in her mouth, and chewing for far, far too long.
“I need to think about it.”
It was his turn to sigh. You tried, Kas.
“It’s— You don’t understand. You’re a duke and I’m a tutor.
” She peered out the window into the rising night.
“Father always drilled into my head, over and over and over again, that I should make a good match ‘within my social class.’ He was harsh at times. ‘Touched by a severe lack of morality,’” she echoed her father’s words.
“‘Cruelty that runs bone deep.’ He thought poorly of the aristocracy. But . . . he wasn’t often wrong, you know? ”
Whatever happened with the late queen certainly colored the man’s opinion.
Kas’s chest ached beneath the weight of the secret he was keeping from her.
It had grown heavier over the past days in light of their arguments regarding his lies.
Add another one to the pile. Though, Nesrina parroting Hothan’s beliefs on nobility shed light on their other issues, the ones Kas hadn’t caused himself.
“Gods, and here I thought I was friends with your dad,” he said lightly.
Nesrina scoffed, laughter coloring the edges of her voice.
“Do you not know about my grandparents?”
“Why would I know about them?” Her attention was back on him. He liked that.
“You’re studious, knowledgeable on history. I guess I assumed you’d have read up on the kingdom’s nobility.”
“Yes, Kas, because it’s normal for plebeians like me to study the family trees of aristocracy.”
He threw his hands up in defeat and pushed back his chair, chuckling as he stood and drifted over to his bar. “Gods, Nesrina. Must you make everything so difficult?”
She exhaled loudly.
When Kas returned, he held two tumblers of deep amber whiskey. One for himself, and one for her. She accepted hers carefully, and he was sure she was avoiding his touch. He took it as a good sign: He affected her.
Kas retook his seat and swirled the whiskey in his glass for a long while. “You really have no idea, do you?”
She pierced him with a glare.
He threw up his empty hand in surrender. “All right, all right. How fun, I get to become the teacher.” Kas grinned, and she rolled her eyes. “Let me tell you a tale.”
“Get on with it already!”
He chortled. “Many years ago, there was a young man, Cafer, the son of a baker from the quaint seaside town of Kashuvol—”
“I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
He leveled her with an exaggerated glare.