“We’ll be matching, won’t we, Lucas?” I asked.
I couldn’t possibly bite him back. I raised my face and noticed him frozen there, his mouth open and eyes wide. I snapped back to my senses, pushed his hand back toward him, and turned away.
“Ah, I suppose…that was a bit too bold of me,” I said, covering my face.
There were a few moments of silence before Lucas let out a hearty laugh.
“Heh! I didn’t think you’d do it back to me!”
“Please forget it,” I pleaded.
“You were cool as a knight. Even if I were a woman, I would’ve fallen for you.”
“Forget it, Lucas.”
“No way. I never, ever will.”
“My goodness…”
In high spirits, my husband brought me close, removed the glove on my left hand, and gave a flurry of kisses on my finger.
“Wait, Lucas… They can see us from the window…” I murmured.
“We’re not doing anything that we need to hide. Unless…you want me to.”
“U-Um…”
“You’re prepared, aren’t you? My most beloved person in the world.”
He mischievously narrowed his eyes, rendering me incapable of responding. In a flash, he closed the curtains. I let him have his way with me because he seemed to be enjoying this moment so much.
✦ ✦ ✦
🌻 🌻 🌻
KIKI restlessly waited for the return of her master and mistress. When she finally heard the carriage enter the gates, she flew out of the door to greet them. Leikzig, who was sitting next to the coachman, gracefully leaped down.
“Leik!” Kiki cried. “How are Lady Iris and Lord Lucas?!”
The silver-haired butler placed a finger over his lips, signaling the maid to be silent. “Shhh. I don’t think they’ll be out for a while. We should leave them be.”
“They’re both safe, aren’t they?”
Leik smiled and winked at an anxious Kiki. “They’re totally safe and excited, and we’re totally troubled by their antics,” he said.
“T-Totally troubled?”
“Please prepare the baths, a change of clothes, and their meals.”
“All right! I’ll be off!”
Kiki energetically rushed back inside the manor. Leik and the coachman silently exchanged a glance and a forced smile.
✦ ✦ ✦
🌻 🌻 🌻
ONCE I had cleaned myself in the bath, the Royal Police and the third prince visited our manor. I thought I should greet them, but Lucas wouldn’t let me appear in front of the guests. He would have none of it as he pushed me into the bedroom and kissed my forehead.
“You don’t need to force yourself to come out,” Lucas said. “You just got kidnapped, you know. Leik and I will handle this, so you should act spoiled and eat something sweet. Relax.”
While I was tempted to protest, my tense nerves had eased up, and the exhaustion and fear had arrived quite a while after the fact. I took him up on his kind offer and rested. Within a few seconds, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, it was early the next morning. Lucas was sleeping beside me, and I was in his arms. I later heard the guests had stayed well into the late hours of the night. He likely knew that if I went out, I would get stuck in a lengthy discussion.
A week later, when the dust had settled on the incident, Lucas and Leik told me everything that had occurred. Lucas and I sat on the sofa of the newly renovated office, and Leik served us. Ray and Toggio, who had been with me when we were attacked, were in the room as well. I’d caused them much worry, too.
According to Lucas and Leik, once that fated party was over, the butler had been busily acting alone in the royal capital to encourage those in the first prince’s faction to reach out to him. As they’d expected, one of Leik’s former colleagues had approached Leik to get him to betray his master. And so, the butler pretended to do just that while communicating with his other former compatriots who acted under the faction of the first prince. They were all successfully converted to Lucas’s side. In any case, the third prince and Lucas expected Mikhail to escape prison sooner or later.
“And if he was gonna escape, I wanted to crush him before he laid low and became difficult to catch. I used Leik and the other dogs to lure Mikhail out and put an end to all this, but…” Lucas trailed off, furrowing his brows as he munched on a scone.
Mikhail’s behavior was unexpected. After he fled from prison, he acted erratically all alone, trying to redeem himself, and suddenly attacked my carriage.
Leik poured me another cup of tea and added, “The day you were attacked, my lady, I was observing Mikhail’s movements. When he learned that your carriage would pass by his base, he immediately prepared to attack you.”
“Seemed like it was a close call,” Lucas said.
“Indeed. I only had two courses of action. The first was to enter my lady’s carriage as her ally and evade the attack entirely. However, Mikhail would notice and pin me as a traitor. My connection with the other dogs would be severed as well. I wanted to definitively end Mikhail and decrease the power of the first prince. For that…”
“You entered my carriage as my enemy,” I finished.
When faced with Mikhail’s plan, Leik immediately fought off all the dogs still in the first prince’s faction. The ones by Mikhail’s side were the dogs that had betrayed His Highness. With that in mind, they secured the premises of the base and chose to abduct me. I was already familiar with the rest of this story.
“I’m so thankful that you chose to believe me back then, my lady,” Leik said.
“When I asked if the street was really safe, you stated that it was and that you wouldn’t lie,” I replied. “I trust you, of course.”
“Ah, how wonderful, my lady!”
Ray and Toggio glared at Leik.
“I was really frightened, you know!” Ray wailed.
“Sure, I can agree to this now that I’ve heard your reasons, but it gave me such a scare,” Toggio agreed.
“Now, now. And besides, the two of you calmly requested aid from my lord and His Highness. That was a huge help,” Leik replied.
“Well, I’ve heard the Royal Police couldn’t be trusted,” Toggio said with his chest puffed out.
I glanced at him before I turned to Lucas, chewing away on his scone. “Did you have Kiki take a day off because there was a chance that she’d face Mikhail?” I asked.
“Yep, that’s right,” Lucas said, his brows furrowed as he finished his pastry and licked the crumbs off his fingers. “I didn’t know where spies were lurking, so Leik and I continued to act like we parted ways. I know I dragged Ray and Toggio into this and made you go through a terrifying experience, Iris…”
“No apologizing, Lucas,” I said.
My kind husband blinked several times.
“I was with Leik, so I had nothing to fear. And since speaking with my former fiancé, I think I can properly part ways with my past,” I reasoned. “I think this was for the best.”
Ray and Toggio nodded in agreement.
“As a maid of House Stock, I’m quite used to rowdy affairs,” Ray said.
“Yep,” Toggio added. “When you picked me up from the streets, you—”
“Ah! Ahem! Ahem! Let’s stop that, yeah? Don’t talk about the past in front of Iris,” Lucas said, cutting Toggio off. Then he began laughing so hard his shoulders shook with his mirth. “Good grief, my wife and servants are all very impressive people.”
Happiness filled Lucas’s face as he used his chin to gesture to the table. “You guys should take a seat too. Have a bite. These are all traditional aristocratic tea snacks of the royal capital. Lee recently learned how to make these.”
Before I knew it, the drawing room turned into a calm tea party. Lucas and I exchanged glances and smiled.
“Let’s go home to Solalitika,” he said.
“Let’s,” I replied.
I would part ways with my life in the royal capital until the next aristocratic congress session.